Don Pedro
“Hi Marco, Got any tobacco?”
“Hi Juan, here, I have some spare. Come and sit down here by me Marco.”
“Thanks. What are you doing here on your own?”
“Just dreaming of the good times Juan. You must do that yourself when you come down to the quay. I see you glance up at the hill and smile. Yes, those were the good times and we are only left now with dreams and that rusty old crane there as the reminder of the incident.”
“What did the papers say about him? Do you remember Marco? The ones the Padre brought and read to us.”
“Oh, I remember clearly, as if it was yesterday. After all I was responsible for the change.”
“They said that Don Pedro was a minor drug baron up Caracasway and he had upset the bigger ones and they had denounced him to the Narcs police.”
“That’s right Marco. I remember but the Narcs couldn’t prove anything. The thing is Don Pedro saw the writing on the wall and scarpered quick. Told everybody he was retiring from the drug business and disappeared. That’s what Padre read out that day.”
“Must have been ten years ago to this day when Don Pedro arrived, in a small motorboat, just over there. I was mending my nets at the time. Came up and talked to the others and pointed at the hill behind the swamp.”
“I remember the second time he came in a larger boat with more men. I remember him giving out cigarettes and giving everybody mosquito nets and asking if anybody objected if he came and lived up there on the hill.”
“No one objected Marco. There was nothing on the hill for us and he did say he would give a good price for our spare fish.”
“Juan, I also remember him saying that he expected a cool breeze up there and that it would be a nice place to build a house.”
“He went to a lot of trouble. I remember the day the big dredger came. I was repairing my boat at the time. It dredged out a big channel and flung all the mud into the swamp. Do you remember the kids swarming in the mud for eels and crabs that had been thrown up?”
“All I remember was the hard work we did in levelling out the mud in the swamp. But he paid well and most of us bought our outboards for our boats that year. Mine is still working though most of the others can’t afford the fuel or the spare parts to run them now.”
“When the ship came with the building materials and the men, we were well paid for the fish and crabs we caught to feed them.”
“Don Pedro used to come down with his two bodyguards and talk to us.”
“He was a real gentleman. We didn’t know that he was a drug baron then, did we.”
“Paulo asked him why his men carried guns all the time and I remember him slowly explaining to Paulo that Paulo and all us men carried machetes all the time. He explained that in Caracas everyone carried a gun as normal. He also said that in time his people might carry machetes too, like us locals.”
“He built a huge villa up there. Look, it’s almost overgrown now.”
“Marco, he built three villas each one bigger then the other. He explained that his wife thought that in the first, the rooms were too small so he had to please his wife and build a bigger extension.”
“Did you ever see his wife, Juan? Padre read out that she was a former beauty queen. Maria used to see her and said she really was a beauty.”
“She must have had a hold on him because the next thing he tells us is that she doesn’t like the extension and has a third even bigger villa built.”
“At least it kept us busy fishing and supplying the workers with fresh fish. Maria said they loved our soft crabs, couldn’t get enough of them.”
“At least they kept to themselves and didn’t bother us. The other villas weren’t wasted were they?”
“No, the other men and families lived there and worked for him. “
“They cleared the ground and planted fruit trees and tobacco. They say that his beauty queen rolled his cigars for him personally on her gorgeous thigh. I always wished he would offer me one.”
“Dream on Marco. Would you have offered around cigars made like that?”
“He then built a large workshop. He told us that he needed to make a living to feed his family and friends up there and set up business.”
“He started shipping in logs from upriver. Then it was sacks of coffee and cocoa beans. That’s when he enlarged this quay and brought in the old steam crane.”
“It was about that time he spoke to us about the fishing and told us to widen our area so as to not over fish the local area. He gave us radios so that we could let him know if there were any strangers about.”
“He knew nothing about the fishing. The fish come in on the tide but he did give us free fuel so we obliged. He wanted us to root out any spies and the Narc Police.”
“Yes, I know that but he explained things so convincingly and he was good to us. What about all that sheet roofing he gave us? Said it was an over order for the workshop.”
“Yes, but he still owes us all money don’t forget. His man used to keep records in his book of all our payments for fish and labour. In return he would buy things for us in town as we wanted them. It was a good arrangement and he was fair but the book’s gone and he still owes us!”
“Forget about it. We will never get that back now. Just think of the good times we had and how we had everything we needed. Even his physician used to cure our people with no charge and pulled teeth too. Now you have to spend a week travelling to town and pay a fortune to have a tooth seen to.”
“Do you remember the day he invited us all up to see around his workshop and gave us food and drink. Quite a party it was.”
“I just remember that the place was so huge and so clean, not a speck of sawdust anywhere and all the machinery sparkling.”
“All I remember was the huge fridges against one wall. Told us they were there to cool his melons.”
“The Narc Police must have caught onto him pretty smartish because they paid him lots of visits but found nothing.”
“He was crafty though. Planted wild cannabis here and there. Told us that it always came up where the ground had been disturbed. We knew better but the sniffer dogs couldn’t detect anything once they ran through a clump of that.”
“I mix a bit of that with my tobacco now but not too much.”
“Do you remember he used to send a jeep down for the Narcs when they arrived by boat. Always told them he was in the exclusive timber trade and exported logs to his brother in Portugal, in Europe.”
“That’s what we told the Narcs when they questioned us. Just a man trading in timber, coffee beans and cocoa from upriver.”
“We hadn’t seen anything else and no one had any suspicions at that time. Why would they.”
“It all ended one day when the ship from Europe came in and we were going to load it up with the timber logs.”
“The Narcs arrived at the same time and delayed us. They searched the ship and inspected the logs on the quayside and saw nothing.”
“You were working the old crane that day Marco.”
“Don’t remind me Juan.”
“Tell us again what happened that day. You never tire of telling the story. Go on Marco.”
“Well Juan, as you know I was working the crane that day. When the Narcs said we could begin loading. I hooked up the first bundle of logs and swung them over the hold, waiting for them to stop swinging so that I could lower them. Don’t forget I was nervous and annoyed with the delay, with all those Narcs swinging their guns around and my foot slipped off the brake. The logs dropped and crashed down on the side of the ship and shattered open. They split neatly into two, down their length and out spilled lots of small white bags.”
“That was the end of all our dreams Marco.”
