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126 Malverde   Mom and Dad just got back from a trip to Mexico. They went because Abuelita’s not doing too good. It turns out she has dementia. It also turns out that, drumroll please, my cousin Miguelito works for the head of a Guadalajara drug cartel. He was so cracked out that he didn’t use a condom when he started getting jiggy with the jefe’s youngest daughter, and that fool got her pregnant. The Jezebel in question is barely a year past her quinceañera, brunette, and, given what her father does for a living, tastes like a dewy coca bush. When he found out about the baby, Miguelito proposed. Mom says his mom, Tía Ofelia, talks like this was a doomed but noble gesture. Girl, please, that choice was so not motivated by chivalry. Tsk-pssssh, as if he had a choice. And doomed he is. Very doomed. So many people want to kill Miguelito, not that that makes him special or anything; being an assassin’s target comes with the territory he snorted his way into, and this is stressful for Mom. Here’s why: Those who execute my cousin’s death warrant are going to strike when a vulnerable window reveals itself. Let’s say this occurs on a warm Saturday night, after Mass, when Miguelito and his young bride stop by his parents’ house so they can visit with their brand new granddaughter. Like a boa constrictor lying in wait, picture the fortified SUV that’s been idling on the street all afternoon. Time to pounce, and it comes crashing through the tall 127 gate surrounding the pretty villa, skidding to a halt feet from my aunt and uncle’s front door. Men with guns pour out of the vehicle. The abuelos stop admiring the baby’s newest tooth or the baby’s curly hair or the baby’s tiny fingernails and look up. There’s not even time for Tía and Tío’s faces to contort with horror and then freeze into ugly masks. Miguelito reaches for his gun, the front door flies off its hinges, and the executioners invade the living room, which is very tastefully decorated. These cowboys don’t have silencers, they’re that brash, and Pow! A slug in Miguelito’s head. Pow! Slugs for anyone with eyeballs and a memory. Tía. Tío. Maybe my prima Marta and her boyfriend or my prima Fiona and her husband. The servants, Paco, Chema. The dog, Yudi. A miniature pinscher. Very yippy. Collateral damage. Mom worries about her sister winding up dead on the floor. It’s not a far-fetched possibility. I’ve considered it and there’s something else, too, something I wouldn’t ever tell Mom. I enjoy being related to a narcotraficante! Narcotraficante! Sexy. The word is sexy. Debonair. Gallant. When you say it, it’s like saying Pancho Villa! Nothing matches the title in English; all we have is drug dealer, and there’s a style, a narco look, that Miguelito’s got down pat. Because of its mastery, I had a jump on Mom; mi primo narcotra ficante has been in my thoughts for two years now, ever since I saw him on New Year’s Eve the last time I visited Guadalajara. We were sitting at the dining room table having dinner. Tía Ofelia had uncorked the champagne early. She was pouring it with hours to go till the toast and the twelve grapes you eat at the stroke of midnight while you wish for good health and to win the lottery and stuff like that. I kept trying to eat my grapes early because they looked so good, but Mom kept smacking my hand away from the fancy flute glass they were sitting in. Miguelito smiled as I rubbed my smarting hand. He sat across from me, his expensive cologne bridging the divide between us. He was much quieter than I remembered him. Not playful or silly at all anymore. In fact, about him hung this James Dean aura, a dark, sad prettiness. He politely laughed at Dad’s jokes and smoked cigarettes using Tía’s exact same nicotine-addicted mannerisms, and after finishing his tequila, he rose and kissed us all goodbye, abandoning me to my parents and drunk aunt and uncle. They were making so much noise I didn’t hear Miguelito leave out the front door. When I looked up from...

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