In Monterrey We’re All Becoming Just Numbers — Or Targets

By Wuicho Vargas

For the grill to burn just right, the night has to unfold — along with the beer, the friends, the conversations, everything, it all has to be all there. My friend — let’s just call him 1, since we mexicanos are turning into numbers, little by little — was grilling and chilling at 2’s house.  3 and 4 were also there, as always, talking about the musical impact certain old and new bands have on the actual scene in Monterrey.

1 is a musician to the core, someone who enjoys the ravaging sounds of the magnificence found inside the guitar’s soul. He is a guitar teacher and a prominent musician.  Every string, every chord, every solo that he plays becomes an extension of his own soul into the mortal world.  This is 1’s story, something he told me once.

1 was at 2’s house, along with 3 and 4. Everyone was grilling and talking on the front porch of 2’s house. The air was filled with conversations that mixed and twisted with the smoke of their cigarettes. It was as if their combined good vibes had acquired a tangible texture, one that you could physically touch and see.  The good vibes of pure, sane friendship reinforces their bond and solidifies their union.  The ritual we all form an active vital part of; turning friends into brothers.

Later something interrupts the ritual. A truck filled with militants wearing black ski masks and packing heavy artillery parked outside 2’s house.  Quickly, the truck emptied, its horrifying contents flooding and intoxicating the good-vibe filled sanctuary.  Pallid, fearful silence violently struck the numbers — my friends — and quickly became their most horrifying sickness and only shield of protection.

The only words that could be heard were insults, death threats, and horrible, direct instruction on how to stay alive. “Get inside the house!” one of them shouted.  The numbers rushed inside the house and quickly positioned themselves face-down in the living room.  The shouting did not stop. Suddenly 2’s house became dislocated from the entire block of houses that, along with his home, seemed to be kidnapped and taken somewhere abandoned and lonely.  No one in the block interceded.  The numbers and 2’s house were being held prisoner.

2’s mother, with all the shouting, woke up and went into the living room where everything was happening.  She was promptly shouted at, and was told to lie down on the floor face-down.  Insults filled with vicious, poisoned intentions took over the atmosphere, and the numbers’ brains were quickly elaborating horrible outcomes and bloody metaphors.

The militants stampeded on with their black wave of vicious havoc taking everything in sight — computers, laptops, and musical equipment — anything with material value.  No life was lost, no one was hurt physically when it was all over.  After rampaging inside 2’s house and taking it apart into pieces they shouted out their last commands.  “Stay face-down!  Those who attempt to take a look at us will be shot!” The words became swords that playfully roamed around the numbers’ necks.  Swords that could easily be deadly at their owners’ command.

After several minutes of crude, brutal silence and mental devastation they lay, face-down.  Waiting, just waiting. They were gone, physically gone, but their presence and vicious physical manifestation had branded the numbers’ existence forever.

Wuicho Vargas is a writer who lives in McAllen, Texas.