Ciudad Juárez, México. El Paso del Norte, as the Spanish originally referred to it, has been a gateway through the southern Rocky Mountains for centuries. The first wood bridge crossing the Rio Grande in the 18th century handled local commerce, general foot traffic and the Spanish slave trade. [Spanish soldiers in uniform and local trader carrying a satchel of corn on his burro crossing the bridge.] It wasn't until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, establishing the border between the United States and México, that Ciudad Juárez and El Paso Norte would gain new importance.
Ever since there has been a border, there has been someone guarding it and for as long as there have been guards, there have been ways to get around them. Today, in our time, some cross the barren desert, risking dehydration. Others stow away inside refrigerated cargo trucks, suffering the threat of deep freeze. Many cross legally, with valid documentation, never to return to their homeland. What is it that drives them to risk their very lives? Are they simply reaching for a better future? No... that's not it. They're fleeing from the bloodbath they call, "home." [A small family staring into your eyes with a deep look of desperation, helplessness and death on their faces.]
In the last 20 years, Ciudad Juárez has become a center for drug and human trafficking, resulting in over 1,000 unsolved murders of women alone. [Body of a women by the roadside, clothes torn, suggesting rape before death.] Justice does not live here. Then again, Justice is not alive, it doesn't impose itself upon others. Justice is enforced and today more than ever, it needs an enforcer.
Gloria was never known for strict enforcement of rules, nor did she always abide them. The town knew her as "Chiquita," for her physical size. She had good rapport with her neighbors, was friendly to her customers and has always been good to her family. She was admired by many in her neighborhood. They never would have expected that she would be their savior.
A little shop on the corner of the main street, filled with gift bags, piñatas and wrapping paper stands out against the bleak gray cement and poor window dressings of the other businesses. [Quaint shop with colorful metallic pink, yellow, green, white and red decorations in the windows.] Since the death of her father in a police raid of a local cantina 5 years ago, Gloria and her mother had come to own this little shop, earning just enough to make ends meet. Unmarried and uninterested in romance, Gloria focuses on her mother, her remaining family. Though the death of her father struck her with great force, she has kept her frustration, depression and rage bottled up, brewing and fermenting, as not to affect her mother's health. She had to be responsible; all they have is each other.
On a usual business day, with few purchasing customers and the frequent window shopper, a sound was heard not far off. The wailing of police sirens as the cars tear through the streets, further destroying the already dilapidated roads, is a common occurrence here. But today would be different for Gloria. It was obvious the police vehicles were approaching their location, causing general interest and concern of those on the street and in the shops. The sound was now close enough to make out several separate vehicles, all approaching together. Sure enough, two police cars and one mid-sized pickup truck, filled with masked officers and armed with bullet-proof vests and assault rifles, roared down the narrow street at almost uncontrollable speed. Had they the need to abruptly stop for pedestrians or cross traffic, they would have no ability to do so. They flew by the business just as fast as they had arrived and the sound of sirens was no longer approaching, but receding and eventually faded away. The excitement was over; some other poor neighborhood would feel the force of law enforcement today.
Business continued as normal for a moment, until the sound of sirens once again awakened the monotonous lull. The sound was approaching from the opposite direction, the direction in which the previous party had fled. "They must be coming back this way," Gloria said to her mother. As the caravan approached, Gloria could see the panic and frantic running of people on the street, outside of her shop. The people gained momentum, flying into any open door or behind any vehicle or large object they could find. The police were within sight and in front of them was a large black SUV, with two men hanging out of the front passenger and driver side back window, firing at the police. With the sound of police sirens were machine gun fire and the screams of nearby pedestrians. Bullets from the assailant's machine guns rip through car doors and windshields of adjacent vehicles as they blindly fire at pursuing officers from their windows, embedding themselves in the thighs, abdomen, chest and brains of the innocent passengers. Police gunfire, aimed directly down the street, is hitting storefront windows, parked vehicles and pedestrians. In a desperate instant, Gloria runs for her mother to help her into cover, but she is too late. As she dashed across the small store lobby to her mother sitting near the window, she felt the impact of the lead slug as it shattered the glass window, passed completely through her right shoulder, continued on its path and finally came to rest in the eye of a pink donkey piñata. The impact knocked Gloria to the floor, momentarily stunned. As she fell to the floor she could see her mother turn her head, as if captured with a high speed camera to look at her daughter for the last time. Once the turn was complete, a bullet entered the back of her head. The vision of Gloria lying bloody on the floor was the last image imprinted on her mother’s retina before she left this life.
The whole parade flew by and what seemed like an eternity, passed in a matter of moments. The news later reported that the vehicle was finally arrested by police not more than two blocks down the same avenue, both gunmen and the driver slaughtered in their seats. Six other innocent bystanders, dead.
As Gloria recovered, she walked over to her mother lying dead, face down on the floor. In utter shock, Gloria could not help to recall the body of her father and how he met a similar end. She imagined them lying together there, almost as if Fate had brought them together through the same grotesque process. She replayed the incident over in her head once more: one minute her mother was happily gazing out the window, enjoying the lives and activities of their small community. The next, she was a statistic in México’s crime wave.
Gloria did not pick up her mother to hold her or stroke her hair, for fear of further mutilating the poor woman’s head. Instead, she sat their on the floor, blood poring down her arm from her wound, with her hand on her mother’s back, staring at the breathless body. As others rushed into the store to assist Gloria and provide mediocre medical attention, Gloria’s eyes stayed; her body motionless, her mind never more fervent. Had any of the persons attending Gloria seen into her soul at that moment, they would have taken flight. A deep rage was brewing inside the small woman. She had nothing left, nobody to care after and nobody to care for her. Her home was falling apart all around her and the rate of the crumbling was accelerating. She had made her mind that there was no need to escape from Juárez; Juárez needed to escape from her.
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