Saint Dismas

Carlito held one end of the rope, Omar the other.

- Jared Lemus

The three of us wore orange vests to seem official. Sebastian, our lookout, hid behind some bushes. Here comes one!” I picked up my shovel and dug out some of the dirt wed dumped in one of the potholes covering the road. Omar held up a gloved hand, signaling for the car to slow down and stop. hings had gotten more difficult for us recently, with the news warning of false checkpoints, where men dressed in military or police uniforms stopped vehicles under the pretense of government-sanctioned searches, forced all the passengers out of the car, and then drove off to have the car scrapped or sold.

There was talk of rapes and beatings when the passengers failed to comply, and sometimes those things did happen. But we weren't like that-we wouldn't have known what to do with a car if we had managed to steal one.

We wanted drivers who were willing to spend money to get dirt off their car but not smart enough to keep us from looking inside. A car with fully tinted windows meant someone who might have more money on him, but we risked bullets getting lodged in our throats. Non tinted meant less money, but also that we'd be alive to spend it. The best was a clean car with a fishbowl windshield- someone who had money but was stupid.

Sebastián had just flagged a silver Toyota with a cracked mirror. The car wasn't only dirty but had tints. The worst combination: a driver who was broke and dangerous. We'd warned Sebastián about this before, but he was still a kid, barely 13. He'd be shaking with nerves and excitement, holding the tip of his dick through his pants to keep from pissing himself, and the moment he saw a car, he'd call out to us, not bothering to notice what shape it was in.