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               The television set cast an uncomfortable cyan pall over the cement walls and the cheap, mercado-bought sofa I lounged on. Joaquin The Telecaster spoke grimly: "Y hoy en el Distrito Federal se encontraron en una hielera las cabezas de los tres policias desaparecidos el cuatro de mayo. La hielera fue allada en frente de un complejo de oficinas y...."
               I shuddered. The violence was escalating to new heights. Three severed heads, found in an icebox at the door of government offices in Mexico City... What next? I could see the blood-soaked, melting ice. Their wide eyes, staring up blankly. Their bloated faces. Their hair waving back and forth in the water like beds of tiny seaweed with little waves that come from opening an ice chest.
               And I recalled, in my mind's eye, the photos of an emaciated and blindfolded Diego Fernández de Cevallos  that were sent to his family. They had asked for ransom and a discontinuation of press coverage, and the press had complied. So no one knew if he had been recovered.
               I also remembered the footage of the fourteen-year-old boy being brutally murdered under a bridge. And the story of the children and mother that were slaughtered in their own family car because they got caught in crossfire on the road. The phone calls from my own Tia Lupe, telling me how many of my childhood friends from San Antonio had died that month. God damn all the heartless beasts that butchered innocents without a second thought. It used to be for the sake of money, but they don't awfully care anymore.
               A narco is never hard to spot. They drive around the center of town in brazen monster trucks that blare songs that say that "los gringos son el mejor mercado" – the  gringos are the best market. They decorate themselves with gold chains and trinkets and they worship stone skeletons. My mother's friend's son is one. I've met him. But I know I won't ever, ever report one of them. Because if I do – if anyone does – they and their family are as sure to live as a pig in a slaughterhouse.

Description
               The television set cast an uncomfortable cyan pall over the cement walls and the cheap, mercado-bought sofa I lounged on. Joaquin The Telecaster spoke grimly: "Y hoy en el Distrito Federal se encontraron en una hielera las cabezas de los tres policias desaparecidos el cuatro de mayo. La hielera fue allada en frente de un complejo de oficinas y...."
               I shuddered. The violence was escalating to new heights. Three severed heads, found in an icebox at the door of government offices in Mexico City... What next? I could see the blood-soaked, melting ice. Their wide eyes, staring up blankly. Their bloated faces. Their hair waving back and forth in the water like beds of tiny seaweed with little waves that come from opening an ice chest.
               And I recalled, in my mind's eye, the photos of an emaciated and blindfolded Diego Fernández de Cevallos  that were sent to his family. They had asked for ransom and a discontinuation of press coverage, and the press had complied. So no one knew if he had been recovered.
               I also remembered the footage of the fourteen-year-old boy being brutally murdered under a bridge. And the story of the children and mother that were slaughtered in their own family car because they got caught in crossfire on the road. The phone calls from my own Tia Lupe, telling me how many of my childhood friends from San Antonio had died that month. God damn all the heartless beasts that butchered innocents without a second thought. It used to be for the sake of money, but they don't awfully care anymore.
               A narco is never hard to spot. They drive around the center of town in brazen monster trucks that blare songs that say that "los gringos son el mejor mercado" – the  gringos are the best market. They decorate themselves with gold chains and trinkets and they worship stone skeletons. My mother's friend's son is one. I've met him. But I know I won't ever, ever report one of them. Because if I do – if anyone does – they and their family are as sure to live as a pig in a slaughterhouse.