They buried me alive because I didn’t pay. I always thought that was very silly. So he didn’t get his money. Why did he have to bury me? It wasn’t like he even needed it. He had so much of it that it’s just hard to grasp why he went and did me in like that. He had three mansions. The one in England was pretty old and it had a name that ended in shire or ford or something like that. It was pretty in red brick and white windows and looked very European and made of chocolate. He also had another one in Miami that was white and all glass and was on an island where only Rolls-Royces and McLarens were parked—real good shit.

But I didn’t pay and he went and buried me. He had been in the business so long now that I guess it’s just what came naturally. He said it was an honor and that no one grabbed him by the balls like that, and I was like, “I ain’t grabbin’ ya by the balls, boss, sheesh, deal just went bad and cops got the drugs.” But he didn’t listen and he just said it was an honor. I just think it was habit and power and the fact that he wouldn’t know how to deal with a little bit of mercy after this long sending people to the ocean all cut up or beheading and hanging them on bridges. And of course, I was part of the violence. I killed people left and right as well, following his orders, yes, as I said to myself at the beginning, following his orders until I ended up liking the way the warmth of the blood felt when you stabbed them and you popped an artery or a heavy organ and it felt like what my granma said was the warm spirit pouring out of the innards through the wounds and the blood. And never once did I think it was gonna happen to me. Now was I gonna die shot or something? Yeah. We all in the business know that. But I didn’t see myself kicking up at that board and the sound of the rocks and earth falling on my box, each load more muffled than the last, and the voices of the snickering men not even saying something about me, not even saying I was such a goddamn son of a bitch, but talking about the tits of some woman or the horsepower of some fancy car.

I really liked the boss, too. He was this short man. Kinda stodgy. Not really a man’s man. More like a boy’s boy, which is why I think he was so cruel. Because he had that boyish cruelty like when a kid is squishing bugs for fun, for no reason. He didn’t wear any fancy shit either. Just a t-shirt and jeans and sneakers. Never told you he was better than you because if he thought you were, chances were you were gonna die. But I liked him all the same. He was like one of those people that were living life at the edge, you know? Just at the blade’s end where the wages aren’t paid in money but in lives. His business wasn’t really the drugs. It was people. How to make that fella do that, move that product, kill that bastard without anyone getting caught or without them getting any ideas.

I remember moving like 100 tons in an airplane once from San Salvador. We were going to Miami. I had one hundred thousand in cash, too. And as I was flying that plane over the gulf all I kept thinking about was what if I just go away with this shit. What if I just fuckin’ fly? Literally. How could he find me? I’d just go over to Norway or some shit like that. Yeah. Sweden. Heard the people there are pretty. Though the weather’s cold. I like the meatballs, too. I could go over there and find myself a nice Swedish girl and live off the product. Plus I had the cash which would be good for the first year of rent, if not a nice cottage or something.

But who was I kidding? The boss had people all over the world. Just the other day we gunned down someone in Frankfurt. Had the police all flustered for a week. Then another guy of ours got knifed right through the nose in Dublin, which was actually quite funny because they all thought it was their own Irish gangs so they were off our trail for a while. The boss was laughing hard at that one. “What did they think we were peddling? Pirated movies?” he said and he laughed. So no. That would have been suicide. The boss always knew. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I thought about flying off with the product, just for the sake of it.

But I ain’t no hero. You ain’t gonna hear anything unexpected outta me. I did my deliveries and got paid like the common folk. I was just a worker.

My Mama did always ask me why I had so much money. And I did make enough to have a blitzy life. She was this tiny little thing you can’t help but love. She was a health nut that liked to drink liquid broccoli and spinach so she was as thin as a twig but she was old and her skin hung from every bone on her body. I’d always get her fancy shit like blouses and handbags and she would always like them, but she nagged me about how I could afford it when I didn’t go to college and all my friends were just gamblers and people that you’d never invite over for lunch. She never said anything though, and I guess that she must have known, as they always seem to do.

Man, this is going to hit her hard. I guess that’s what will hurt the most for her. I do wonder who will tell her.  “Mrs. Fiore,” they’ll say, and she’ll interrupt them saying, “Oh, I’m not Mrs. Fiore, I never married, dear. It’s just miss.” “Oh, Miss. Fiore, I just came by to tell you your son is dead.” I bet she’ll plop down to the floor. Maybe she’ll faint, and she’ll get that sickness of the heart which feels like when you’re floating in a vacuum. Vertigo. She’ll get vertigo. She’ll hear the words and then she won’t believe them. Instead, she’ll think of a blank, unrelated moment for a second, something random, an impression, like the taste of the tangerine we had on Bayside when she ended up eating a bit of the rind which was very bitter. But then as the memory fades it’ll sink in, and she’ll drop, and I bet a little of the wisdom, which is only a mother’s, will come to her and make her think that she knew all along her kid was some sorta jerkoff who went around with the wrong people doing who knows what with who knows who, and that all this time she had been cooking plantains and rice and carne asada for a mobster. And God help her if they tell her how I died. Oh God, she will know and that will kill her. She’ll find out through the papers or the news. They’ll say it was a gang thing, as they always do, and they’ll just say he was buried alive. And she’ll get to thinking about me in the wooden box and she won’t be able to deal with it and she’ll die that very night just thinking of her only son’s hunger or lack of air in the wooden box and she’ll die hating the one who did this and herself a little bit for not knowing how to stop it, not knowing it even happened. And she won’t be there when they excavate me. That’d be too much. She’ll be at home sitting depressed on her sofa looking outside, not eating, hanging to life perhaps only by frail breathing. They’ll pull me out of the dirt and I’ll be black and swollen and stinking of hell’s ass like the rot. The coroner will say yep that’s what it was and the boss will also see the news and maybe not even nod or smile at the TV or newspaper but sigh and then feel a little proud of himself.

And who knows what other people will know I died. I didn’t have that many friends. For some people it will take time to find out that I died, which is strange because it means they are going to keep on living, doing whatever it is that gets them through while I died all the same though they would never know it. Whoever said that hippie shit—that we are one, that all Earth is one or whatever—was wrong as hell, because I’m gonna die and no one is going to feel the hurt like when you smash your balls and somehow you feel it in the stomach and you puke. Not even my Mama who’s gonna find out her kid died from the police or some fella from the gang. But who knows? What else can you think as you lie in your casket dead awake, not even before hunger has set in or the need for air? I’m still good. Though I wish I had some water. I’d kill again for some water.

Oh, and I never told Mama about Maria. She would have liked to know I had Maria. She wasn’t just a screw, though that’s how it started. She was this teacher I met at a bar once. She was so tidy and neat. She was poor like all teachers but she wanted to flirt a little by getting herself a little tipsy. She got a cocktail. A Long Island iced tea. Even her drunkenness was tidy and neat. She had that way of clutching her purse or the glass of cheap red wine which told you that she was poor. Afraid to lose her things, perhaps. She came from Venezuela because of the politics there, and she was a biologist but here she had to be a high school teacher. She worked in some little school up in the Overtown area, and she said she enjoyed it because the kids were rowdy and tough but they liked the learning if you kept their attention on you long enough. She’d take bottles and fill them with gases which she’d light on fire for them and they’d be thrilled at the green flames coming outta nowhere. I asked her if she needed a better place to stay in Downtown but she always said no. She liked the walk by those sun-bleached bungalows with the old black men sitting on their broken porches waiting for God knows what. And the buildings of Downtown with their helipads and rooftop bars shining down like another world.

I think she liked me because I came in and got drinks for her and her friends. I guess they were teachers too because they had that look of awareness in their eyes and when they spoke you could hear a little bit of authority. They sounded sure of themselves, the way teachers sound even when they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about but which they have to affect or they’d lose the students’ trust. “Oh, so you’re a businessman?” they said. “Yes, I’m an importer.” And then they nodded or made some faces like they knew what I did, and then they said, “Very tough times because of those rising interest rates,” which I knew nothing about. I just agreed with them, nodded my head and smiled and only stared at Maria who said nothing and stared back. But again very tidily.

My Mama always said I needed someone in my life and I guess she woulda liked Maria. I woulda gone to my Mama and been like, “Hey, Ma, look. This is Maria. She teaches science. Whaddaya think, eh? See, I know good people.” And my Mama woulda said, “Oh Charlie. I know you know good people. You’re my son. I know I taught you better.” And she’d slap my face lightly the way her thin bony hands did whenever she’d wanna kiss me but couldn’t because she’d think I wouldn’t like it so she’d just pat my cheeks like she was burping a baby. “I know, but I know you don’t think I’m doing good out there, Ma.” “I never thought that,” she’d say. And Maria would also like her. I told her she should do the green fire thing for my Mama. She’d love it.

I guess I never really told Maria the truth either. Well… I guess she’ll also find out from the papers. Poor girl. I wish I wasn’t dying. If only for her and my Mama. I wish I wasn’t dying… I don’t mind it that much. Only the thirst. I’m off to see whatever’s next. But not my Ma and Maria. They’re gonna stay behind. That’s right. Death is only felt by the living. It’s so hot in here and I’m getting a headache. I feel like I’ve sweated out all the liquid in my body. Ma, a glass of water… Like when I got the fever… and it was 9 PM and you put a wet towel on me and an image of ice came to me. Drops from the wet towel sliding behind my ears and my neck. And I got chills… I’m getting warm chills now… My head throbs. And Maria. It hurts less than she knows. She’ll find someone else. I’m sure she loved me only slightly. If at all. She liked me enough. She’ll get someone else. She’ll have a nice life. Hopefully, she didn’t love me enough. Maybe I loved her and I didn’t know. Jesus. What if I did. No. I can’t have. She said at the end, when I left her in her little house, that she was something but I couldn’t hear and then they bagged me up and I knew who it was… The two of them… The two… that went around doing the cleaning. But I remember Maria who said something towards the end about love. But I didn’t understand. What was it? I was in a hurry and she said something about love… Do you love me? Was that it? I love you… No… I don’t remember. I remember the smell of the bag and the taste of the gag. The sedative. Ma said I had to be careful. Shoulda been more careful because now I can’t remember what it was… what it was…

– Julian Santiago Munoz

Author’s Note: I remember that the idea for this story came as I was leaving work. I thought about the things a person would think in their last moments of life if they had been buried alive. I wanted to write a story that would reflect a deeply personal voice, without it necessarily becoming a caricature. The voice became that of a mafia grunt because I was also fascinated by the act as done by another person. It couldn’t be an accident. Would they think about love? I wondered.