THE STORY OF A SAFE-HOUSE.  Screenplay created by Male Survivors of Sexual Violence.

 

Rags and Bones.

 

Now we see: four young brothers in a Mexican compound.

 

The brothers will be sold separately to American families.

Whatever a family is.

In this case, the word family is used as obfuscation. It’s entirely possible that there could be people at different places in the food chain who actually believed a family was a madre and a padre, and maybe some hermanos, and the familia would be waiting for their child to arrive with new shoes, and new haircuts, and a new future that did not include soldiers in the village, narcotraficantes, and the dead bodies of their biological parents in the village dump.

 

Everything would be perfect.

 

Everyone took their pieces of the pie.

 

Establishing shot. We see a jeep leaving Mexican Customs, and driving through Jarez. Moving quite fast on the highway, we see green highway signs of Federal 45 and Avenue Vicente Guerrero. We are headed south. We see Federal firing Squads executing women and children under highway bridges.

 

Dissolve to long line of Mexicans getting their yellow wristbands. A boy breaks away from the line. He is shot.

 

Dissolve to the hills of Chihuahua. We see a blue jeep pull into a bus station.

Split screen: Tal greet Adolfo wearing straw cowboy hat getting off a bus. On ther other screen we see Adolfo putting his one bag in the back of the jeep. The jeep pulls away.

Tal turned around. Adolfo is sitting in the back.

“So you’re the famous Adolfo.”

“I lived with Tim for ten years. Most of that was in Key West. I have asked Tim to not write about me. I may as well be talking to the wall. Hablando con la pared.”

“So what is Adolfo doing in the jeep,” Mary asked.

If you are my therapist, you have to know EVERYFUCKINGBODY who sits in the jeep and I am obligated to submit lists of names so all the writers could write about it.

“He’s on one of the lists I gave you. But I want to know about Eavan and Kilian. Fuck Adolfo.”

“Adolfo was a great fuck. I liked the cowboy hat.”

“How’s Mary,” Adolfo asked.”

“Fine.”

“Still making lists.”

“They’re getting longer and longer.”

“I see you don’t have yellow wristbands.”

Tal turned around again. “Mary says we’ll get into trouble.”

Adolfo ignores this.

“Tim says you’re quite a marksman.”

“New rifle. It’s broken down in the bag. Does he still live out of one bag.”

“One bag is it.”

“Does Ignacio know we’re coming,” Adolfo asked me.

“I called him.”

“How’s Kastaneda.”

“Fine. He has some mushrooms I want to try.”

“Don’t let him go out into the desert, Tal. He dangerous on drugs.”

Tal rolls us a joint. I open the car window and play with the desert air blowing into the jeep.

Tal opens three cans of Tecate.

“Like I’m his minder or that he listens. Tim doesn’t even listen to his own voices. Ignacio is an old trick,” Tal said. Like no one knew this. “I am not Tim’s mother.”

I looked over at Tal. “Ignacio runs the cartel now. He doesn’t have time to trick. He does have the money, however.”

“I don’t know how you could take his money for just listening.”

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Adolfo said. “Why are you fucking around with these cartel types.”

Push in on close up of my eyes rolling toward the sky.

“I have something to say,” Mary complained.

“What does all of this have to do with literature,” Vivian asked.

“I’m speaking,” Mary said. “Not you.”

“But I’m the literature voice, and I see no literature going on. Just these stupid videos. Videos are not literature.”

“And I am the voice of reason, Karlos claimed.”

“I need a joint,” Mary said. And some gin.”

“All we have are these mushrooms and tequila.” Vivian was disappointed.”

“Well, if that’s all we have. I’ll bet Ignacio has real drugs.” Mary was curious. “I’ll bet he sells them.”

Duh.

“Ignacio lived in a compound outside of Durango. We see the big iron gate open, and the jeep drives in.”

Fade to black.

EXT: Sunset. Tim and Karlos Kastaneda are sitting on a rock in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert. The cartel hacienda is in the immediate distance. We see guards and dogs.”

“It’s always fucking guards and dogs,” Karlos said. “Do you know any people who don’t live in armed compounds.”

“I know you.”

“Your brain is an armed compound, Tim.”

“Anton says I am unstable.”

We see Karlos rolling a joint on the rock they are sitting on. He sprinkles dried mushrooms into the joint he rolls.

Tim removes a bottle of Tequila from a backpack which was on the ground.

Karlos and Tim inhale deeply and drink from the bottle they share.

“So, you three are going to kill this guy who’s trafficking in boys.”

“We all have to go sometime. One shot to the head. Pure and simple.”

“Where is all of this coming down.”

“Ignacio says Chiapas.”

“What’s up with Ignacio.”

“He buys my journals.”

“Show me the money.”

Tim unzips the backpack. It is filled with American Hundred dollar bills.

“Now, that is what I call another reality.”

“Ignacio still loves me. He runs the drug cartel.”

“Do I look stupid to you,” Karlos asked.

“He really hates El Monstruo”

“Who’s El Monstruo.”

“The guy who runs the Sinaloan cartel in Chiapas. The one who trafficks kids.”

“Ignacio would sex traffic kids if he could get away with it.”

“Probably. But then I would have to kill him, and I need him to buy my journals.”

“He’s wanted,” Karlos noted

“We are all wanted. Especially you. How dare you write about Indians.”

“Get over it.”

“I’ve been over it a long time.”

“You singlehandedly ruined publishing forever. Even I can’t get published.”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t frigging care. When the mountains out there turn pink, does that mean the drugs are kicking in.”

“It’s sunset,” Tim.

Sometimes, I have to be reminded. Sometimes, I have to be reminded I so often have been sitting in beauty.

 

Or. Simply surrounded by friends.

I would say by the people who love me. But I’m difficult.

Take no prisoners.

The future is not unclear.

I know what is going to happen because I am the one telling the story.

I have not sucked you in. But, as is my way, I have sucked myself in.

The gig with Mary Scriver is complex.

She is no fool. And she is no dummy.

In fact, we have to start at A to get to B.

“What does that mean,” she asked.

“I would like an answer to that as well,” Karlos said.

“She evolves. She grows. At the end, she does a tremendous and magnificent thing.”

“What tremendous and magnificent thing,” Mary asked.

“My lips are sealed.”

“Your lips have never been sealed.” Karlos was high again. “Loose lips sink ships.”

I shrugged. I was in the Chihuahuan Desert with Mary Scriver and Karlos Kastaneda. WTF.

“We have a long way to go. This road trip is not over yet. There are things to see, things to do, discoveries to be made, a disease to survive, tequila to drink, loves to put to tests, voices to talk to, and deserts to come to know.

There were four little boys in Chiapas. I would think about that tomorrow.

When the sun sets over the Chihuahuan hills, the desert becomes alive with predators such as Mexican wolves. The Mexican wolf is small. About the size of an American coyote. If the animal were any bigger, the desert could not support him.

I talk to wolves. I talk to coyotes. I talk to dogs.

I will run with wolves, too, if the peyote is decent.

“I am going to run with the wolves,” I said. “It’s been too long since I’ve been here.”

“Is that why you’re naked,” Mary wondered. I had removed my clothes.

Snakes,” Mary warned.

“The snakes are our friends,” Karlos said.

Mary gave him her best dubious look.

“Peyote just makes me pee,” she said. “I guess shamans never pee.”

“I never pee,” Karlos claimed. “It’s so inconvenient.”

“The last time I looked, you had a long way to go before you become a shaman.”

I have no idea what a shaman is.

To run with wolves is to truly be alive. This formless ruin of oblivion will one day end it even as it makes all beauty bleed. Whose red and white nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on. It is the desert that is the cruelest she alive. If you will leave these drowning graces to the grave, and leave the world not a single copy.

 

 

 

CONTINUED AT: PART NINE