On the distance

Monterrey, March 2010

Through life, people tend to focus on what’s near them. They move forward without noticing the crude reality that surrounds them, as if they were horses with blinders following whatever direction the carriage pulls them toward. I was no different. My life drifted without major worries or real problems, deaf to the noise that filled the news and social media. My concerns were trivial; chasing girls at the club, getting drunk at some frat party. I thought that was life; simple, harmless, endless. But reality creeps closer without sound; it waits until it’s too obvious to ignore. Deep down, though, you always know it’s there.

It was late, and the afterparty wasn’t good enough. My throat was dry, the booze was running out, and the pretty brunette I’d spent the whole night talking to wouldn’t give me more than a kiss. Disappointing, but fair. The yuppie friend hosting the afterparty bored me, and it was time to call it a night. My car was parked a few blocks away, and to my drunk self, the idea of walking didn’t seem so bad.

The sky was still dark as I left the apartment complex. The main street was silent, except for a few distant dog barks and the faint rustle of leaves touched by the dawn’s first breeze. I walked without thinking, without caring. My consciousness drifted, blurred by alcohol and fatigue, and for a brief moment, that numbness silenced the questions that usually haunted me who I was, what I was doing questions that never had clear answers anyway.

A block later, I saw it: a black Jeep with tinted windows parked in front of an old abandoned building. Two men stood by it, smoking. Something about them felt wrong. I looked away and kept walking; a fool pretending not to notice.

One of them turned.

“Hey, man, come here and help us with something!” he shouted.

He wore an oversized white shirt, baggy black pants, Jordans, and a Yankees cap straight out of a cliché, but clichés exist for a reason.

“Sorry, man, I’m in a hurry,” I replied, quickening my pace.

He started walking toward me, saying something else, but I didn’t wait to listen I ran.

Two blocks ahead, I saw a police checkpoint. Salvation, or so I thought. I ran harder, my mind sobering with the rush of adrenaline. For an instant, I believed it was over. Then the Jeep roared beside me, tires screeching, cutting me off. The same guy stepped out, shouting:

“I told you to come here, motherfucker!”

He didn’t show a gun or a knife, but I didn’t need to see one to know what came next. I turned and ran again.

All the violence I had heard about the kidnappings, the killings, the disappearances suddenly took shape. It was no longer a story told by someone else. It was here, breathing down my neck. I waved frantically at the road, begging for someone to stop. A taxi did. I jumped in and told the driver to head toward the university; campus security was nearby. For a moment, I thought I’d made it.

Then the Jeep pulled alongside us. Through the window, one of the men yelled at the driver:

“Stop if you don’t want trouble! We just want that bastard!”

Without hesitation, the driver stopped. He didn’t look at me and just unlocked the doors.

“Please, man,” I begged. “The police station’s close. Just drive.”

He met my eyes in the rearview mirror. There was sorrow there, but also fear.

“Sorry, mate. I can’t risk any trouble.”

The men stepped out of the Jeep, moving toward us. My heart pounded, and I knew if they got me, it wouldn’t end well. Fear sharpened my will. I threw the door open, slamming it against one of them, and ran. Ahead, I saw the guard post of an apartment building. A man stood outside, smoking.

“Let me in! Call the police! it’s an emergency!” I screamed.

He hesitated but opened the gate. I rushed inside, slamming it shut as the men yelled, trying to convince him I was a thief. But the guard wasn’t stupid. He looked at me once and knew enough.

He called the police. The men left after a while.

Later, I learned the Jeep was found days after—riddled with bullet holes, floating near the river. Apparently, a bigger fish had swallowed them whole.

For weeks, I couldn’t walk alone without watching my back. The world felt thinner, more fragile. That night stripped away the illusion that life was normal, that danger was something distant, belonging to headlines and strangers. I understood then that ignorance isn’t peace; it’s blindness.

Things could have been worse. They weren’t. I ran with luck… luck that many others in Monterrey didn’t have in those years the years of the war on drugs.