La Fantasma
They called me La Fantasma, and for a good reason, too. It is the Spanish word for “ghost,” a word that describes me very well. In terms of Federal Intelligence, Mexico has little, and I’ve always known how to bend that to my will. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been marked as wounded, missing, or dead by the authorities. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been listed under every crime organization and gang in Ciudad Juárez - little does anyone know that I lead one of my own.

Now, Ciudad Juárez is quite the city. During the day, the city is a phenomenon. Despite everyone’s doubts, it grows rapidly in population, faster than most other cities all over the globe. Some of the buildings are huge and fancy, while others are ancient and grandiose; the diversity of cultures in the city making it look even more prosperous.

But prosperity was merely a facade. What looked as pretty as a postcard during the day had many secrets to hide during the night. As soon as the sun set, everyone’s doors locked. The curtains were closed, the lights were shut off, and the pistols were put underneath the pillows, for that was the only way that the people of Ciudad Juárez could sleep comfortably, confident that they’d wake up the next morning. The city was veiled in darkness as the citizens disassociated themselves from the people on the prowl in the night.

In the night, the streets of Ciudad Juárez would become a game; a hunt, and not many would come back alive as they worked to smuggle and intercept the Packages headed towards El Paso - where all of the real money was. Ciudad Juárez is often said to be the most violent place in the world where there is no war. But the Mexican Drug War isn’t some sort of metaphor, and it most certainly not something of a joke or something to take lightly. It is something very, very real.

And my organization was preparing for themselves for another heist, and I was preparing alongside them. Night after night, the rich men of Ciudad Juárez take off their suits and ties and put on their leather jackets and face paint, and put down their expensive champagne glasses in exchange for assault rifles, myself included. I’ve never taken the time to know my neighbors, knowing that most of them were drug lords that would eventually die at each other’s hands in the battlefield.

Now, when I use the term “drug lords,” don’t get the indication that I use them at all. That would actually be the last thing that I would do, simply because it’s a stupid decision, especially right before a nightly purge. You can always tell who got high before a battle because you’ll see them dead on the sides of the streets, their red eyes indicating that they had died long before their lives were actually claimed. I only sell the drugs because it fills my pocketbook - something that my brother, Lorenzo always taught me: you can always make money off of other people’s stupidity. I find loads of profit from other people wanting lose their minds - if they’re going to fall for addiction, I’m the one who’s going to be benefitted in the end. Yes, it’s immoral, but there’s no way I’m going to live like I did while growing up again.

I grew up while Ciudad Juárez was still a decently sized town across the river from El Paso. It didn’t show up very largely on many maps, and it didn’t make headlines across the world from day to day. The wealth gap wasn’t as big, either, mostly because the Drug War was something very small and insignificant at the time - no one expected it to grow to something as big as it did. I was an orphan, travelling the country with my brother. Although we could have gone to an orphanage, my brother made us nomadic because he didn’t want the chance of being separated from me, and when he turned eighteen, he didn’t accept any form of welfare, saying that there could be strings attached. I always admired Lorenzo because he had always kept an eye for me. He had also founded what my portion of the Ciudad Juárez Cartel had used to be. “Los Niños de Fuego” was what we used to be called, and unlike the name suggests, we didn’t exactly burn down any buildings. The worst that we would do was maybe spray paint something on a trash can - one of our own, not someone else’s. No, what Los Niños were about was going to parks and places like that and hanging out for the sake of keeping Lorenzo and I happy and sane altogether. How then, did it become a member of one of the most brutal crime organizations in all of Ciudad Juárez? The same reason as any other part of it - it was forced into it by all of the things that were happening around it as Ciudad Juárez fell into the hole that it is in today. There are only a few members Los Niños that are still alive today, I guess you could say that it had turned into a greedy organization just like the rest of them, and I guess you could say that it was made that way by me, but you’d be wrong. This is the only way to survive in Ciudad Juárez now. There is no alternative.

We released ourselves into the night, a small task force driving a Jeep in order to attract authorities, and a few footsoldiers off to engage other Cartels, with a small group of people with the actual package, being lead by me. The cold of the night gripped our bodies as we dispatched ourselves; a mixture of chills from temperature, anxiety and fear spread goosebumps around our bodies.

We were following the usual route, which involved a lot of scaling buildings and hopping rooftops for me - something that I’ve had to do ever since my time with Lorenzo. It always had struck me as odd how I grew up as a nomad, and had become a millionaire as an adult. Such success stories are often classified as miracles, works of God. I don’t think mine would fall under that category. I don’t even think that my story is even one of success. Success isn’t always in the form of a paycheck - it’s how you’ve managed to define yourself. I may have one of the largest paychecks in all of Mexico - but there aren’t many people in the world who have more blood on their hands than I do.

And that’s another thing I never understood. Has the market for drugs really gotten to the point that human lives are to be cost in order to deliver them? In one of our first heists, when I was still a footsoldier, I was about to deliver a package with Lorenzo and a few other footsoldiers when the Border Patrol caught us and began to fire at us. We were all fine, except for Lorenzo, who took a shot to the heart and died instantly. I remember seeing his eyes, the same eyes who looked deeply into mine for my entire life. The eyes that would look at me while Lorenzo taught me, while Lorenzo helped me, while Lorenzo told me that there was nothing on the Earth that was more important to him than me were now glazed over and lifeless in Lorenzo’s motionless body, surrounded by a growing pool of blood. Was it worth it? Are the Americans who drain their pocketbooks buying this crap too blind to see how it gets to them, or has the fence that they put in their backyard blocked their vision too much?

“I suppose not...” I said to myself, looking down from the building that I stood on top of, at the barricade of American soldiers and tanks waiting for me. It was at the point of the mission where the Jeep would already have attracted the police and the footsoldiers would have already engaged a different Cartel who was trying to beat us to the delivery in battle - the only help that I had were the small group of people helping me, Ricardo, Tobias and Juan, three of my best footsoldiers.We stayed close to the shadows as we leapt from building to building - our silhouettes disguised by the night.

Malnutrition did have some perks sometimes, I suppose. I can climb a building faster than any American could, and certainly get around faster, too. Really, the U.S. Military was just another gang in the Drug War - it really wasn’t much more than that anymore, which is why I didn’t feel that it was an obstacle to go around them. But there was something that could beat my physical attributes any day - American technology.

I heard one of the soldiers say something in English, which I couldn’t understand. But the fact that he was wearing Night Vision Goggles and and pointing in our general direction gave me a very good clue as to what it was that he said: “There’s some smugglers on that building!”

“Run!” I said as the Americans pointed their guns at us and began to fire. A bullet hit Juan in the chest and killed him, which didn’t phase me at all. I had seen death so many times that I had an inhuman lack of compassion about it.

Ricardo, Tobias and I slid down the other side of the building and began running down the streets faster than our legs had ever carried us before. We were in town square, and if we ran fast enough, we could leave the American soldiers in the dust.

But all hope was dashed as the old, foreclosed buildings behind us began to explode and burst into flames after being shot by the tanks. American Marines began to pour out from the flaming buildings, preparing to fire at us. There was nowhere to hide in the town square. We had been caught in our own trap.

“FIRE!” I heard an American man say, and I heard the loud thunder of bullets from behind us. I felt a sharp pain in my back, and saw a bullet emerge from my chest, landing in the street in front of me. My arms and legs stopped functioning, and my body lunged forward, my face skidding against the asphalt roads and my clothes being ripped to shreds, being dyed red by the blood pouring out of my chest and my back.

I could feel blood collecting in my throat and an inability to breathe - the bullet must have torn straight through a lung. Ricardo was struck down as he tried to run away, and Tobias turned around for one brief second to look back, and was greeted by a bullet to the heart - Hell had claimed two souls before finally acquiring mine. The coldness of death had replaced that of what fear had given me, and I could feel the subzero conditions ensnaring me - far worse than what it had been before. I had nothing to fear anymore - my destiny was certain. However, it would be so much more painful to finally be greeted by it.

In front of me stood the Juárez Cathedral, standing tall and proud with it’s holiness and divine beauty. “God, Jesus, Virgin Mary and all other saints out there.” I wheezed with my dying breaths. “Please forgive me of my wrongdoings, for I know that I have lived a life of evil, but there was no alternative choice for me...”

My vision became red as it began to fail, and my throat had filled with blood to the point that I had to cough up a spurt of it. An American soldier looked back at me and my wallowing as his regiment began to advance and find the other gangs. He held up his gun at me, and all I saw was burst of light coming out of it - I didn’t even hear the bullet that had finally claimed my life; that had finally put me out of my misery.
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The next morning, the lights of Ciudad Juárez turned on as everyone got ready for their day in their boomtown city - rejoicing that it was no longer a battleground, for the moment. The portion of the Juárez Cartel that I lead would have a new leader before the day ended, and he will have bought my house, which was listed as a foreclosure. Killing me really hadn’t given the effect that the authorities had hoped for, in fact, if anything, it would be quite the opposite. Everyone would have a distraught feeling of pity within their hearts; a silent mourning, knowing that La Fantasma was now truly living up to his name.