The downward spiral that was my life came to an abrupt halt just after Christmas, when I checked myself into a clinic that specialized in drug and alcohol treatment back in Mexico. I had an epiphany after a series of unfortunate events that came to a climax when my four-year-old daughter told me that if I drank too much beer, I would become a ranchero—I’m pretty sure she meant to say borracho.

A friend drove me out to the treatment center where I was scheduled to spend the next thirty-five days, and as we slowly bounced down the dirt road beside the railroad tracks that led to the walled-in, converted horse-ranch, I asked him if he would mind driving by a tiendita for one last cerveza. He said okay, but two hours and three trips to the tiendita later, he finally kicked me out of the car. I reluctantly said goodbye, pushed back my Panama hat and began walking toward the massive, iron portal that I assumed was the only way in or out. I was about to knock, when the door cracked open and a tired-looking man in a security guard’s outfit mumbled something to the effect of, “I was wondering when you’d have the balls to get out of the car and come in.”

But this story isn’t about me—it’s about a man that I met upon entering the treatment center: a tall, mustachioed forty-year-old with a commanding presence and a twinkle in his eye. For some reason, Chuca, short for Jesús Carlos, he took an interest in me, and over the next several weeks, I became his confidant, as if he recognized the reporter within, and desperately wanted to share his story with someone who would one day share it with the rest of the world. He sat me down almost every night and explained to me in detail how he became the man he was today.

My first glimpse into Chuca’s soul occurred during a session with Santiago, an effeminate thirty-year-old counselor. The group therapy room was carpeted, had thick gym mats on the floor, and pillows were strewn everywhere. Santiago sat in the lotus position in the center of the gym mats beside Chuca, who lay face-up, arms at his sides, eyes closed. I followed the other patients’ lead as they formed a circle around the therapist and his patient, close enough to touch them.

Santiago placed his hands on his Chuca’s head and began speaking in a soft monotone, in an apparent effort to hypnotize him. After a few minutes, Santiago began to ask Chuca questions, to which the latter dreamily replied. The therapist outlined a scenario in which Chuca was at his hacienda with his family and friends. It was his son’s birthday party, and they were celebrating, as most affluent Mexicans do, with a full-blown party.

Santiago began asking Chuca questions to set the mood. How was Chuca feeling at the time? Loco. Had he been drinking? Yes. Santiago then asked if he had been doing any drugs, at which point Chuca jerked so violently that I jumped back, startled. “Perico,” Chuca admitted. “Un chingo de perico.”

I knew that the literal translation for perico was a little bird, but in this context, it was slang for cocaine. “Y cómo te sentías?” Santiago asked, laying his hands on Chuca’s chest. Again Chuca jerked violently, and again Santiago spoke to him, reassuringly, apparently calming him down. Then suddenly Chuca arched his back and let out a feral howl, and began squirming with such intensity that Santiago couldn’t hold him down all by himself, and the rest of us moved-in to help subdue the wildly thrashing subject.

“I was angry,” he moaned, eyes still closed, struggling against the pressure of a dozen pairs of hands holding him down. “And what did you do?” Santiago asked, and again Chuca let out a disheartening howl, struggling against us. Santiago actually climbed on top of Chuca’s chest, reinforcing his patient’s helplessness. “What did you do?”

“I grabbed my pistola and went out into the garden—” He hesitated, his breathing labored. “And then what happened?” the therapist insisted.

Chuca wailed as he struggled against the weight of those of us who were holding him down. “I shot him!” Chuca sobbed. “His head exploded like a watermelon!”

“Who did you shoot?” Santiago insisted. “Mi sobrino…” Chuca’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Why did you shoot your nephew?”

Chuca suddenly bucked with inhuman strength, knocking several of us aside, as he screamed, “It was an accident! It was an accident! He was only six-years-old!”

All at once, the fight went out of him, and Chuca surrendered to his sadness. Tears ran down his cheeks and drops formed and glistened in his moustache. Santiago nodded, and everybody began letting go of Chuca and moving back. He curled up into a fetal position, sobbing, and Santiago motioned to the rest of us to leave them alone.

I was no stranger to therapy, but this was by far the worst drunk-o-logue that I had ever heard, and for Chuca, it was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Chuca” was a drug dealer—a major player—who was the head of his own cartel. A natural-born leader, he had in a sense taken over the treatment center and made sure things were being run in a way that he was comfortable with. That’s not to say he was a bad influence—on the contrary. There is no doubt in my mind that Chuca had every intention to get sober, to stay sober and to help anyone else he could in any way he could. But he was accustomed to a certain role and an uncontested power associated with it, and even the majority of those who worked at the center tended to

During my stay there, he brought in his cousin, Rodrigo, a cartel triggerman, and Tadeo, his nephew, and up-and-coming family member. I can’t say for sure whether either one of them actually wanted to be there or if they were just following the jefe’s orders. But I can say that by reaching out to them, Chuca gave them a reprieve from the insanity that defined their lives.

And then there was Claudio, Chuca’s younger brother, who had found sobriety—and Jesus Christ—a couple years before after a dozen federales riddled his body with bullets during a shoot-out on a Sinaloa highway. He may not have lost his life, but he did lose the use of his legs, and now, he was wheelchair-bound born-again who would come to visit every week, and preach to those of us who had yet to be saved. Claudio’s miraculous transformation had obviously inspired Chuca to follow the same path that led to the steel portals of the treatment center.

As with so many other Mexicans involved in the drug trade, it was a family affair, the family business. They were simple farmers, and their crop was divided between marijuana and opium poppies. Neither Chuca nor any of his many brothers and sisters had any education other than what they learned growing up in the hills of rural Sinaloa, and although they knew what they produced was illegal, they also understood that their marijuana crop brought in more money than tomatoes, and instead of living in abject poverty like so many of their neighbors, they were actually able to afford some of life’s smaller indulgences such as beds for each of the children, a television, a pickup truck and, of course, alcohol.

Because his father was an alcoholic and a gambler, he would disappear for weeks at a time, and Chuca’s eldest brother, Manuel, had taken charge of the family. Although only twenty-three years old, Manuel had a good head for business, and had found a way to make the most of their humble existence. Unfortunately, as acting head of the family, his position—and arrogance—led to his demise when a neighboring farmer found out that Manuel had seduced his daughter. Like something out of a movie, the girl’s father and brother approached Manuel and two of his younger brothers while they were sipping beers outside a tiendita. After a brief argument, the farmer unsheathed his machete and attacked Manuel, fatally wounding him. A shootout ensued, and the only one left standing was the youngest of Chuca’s older brothers; Chuca, around seven-years-old at the time, witnessed the entire exchange from the doorway of the little store.

After the murders of his two oldest brothers, the family fell on hard times. Although his father returned long enough to bury his two sons and to weave a fabric of false promises, urgent business called him back to the city. Over the next couple of years, he returned to the farm less and less frequently until his visits stopped altogether. A heated argument during a card game ended when the man he accused of cheating shot Chuca’s father right between the eyes. With no one left to run the farm—and six surviving children between the ages of three and 17 years, Chuca’s mother decided to move to the city where those who were old enough could look for work, and where she could count on the support of her own family.

There was one thing that Chuca wanted more than anything else from this new life, and that was to go to school. He wanted be normal and to be with other children, but more than anything else, Chuca wanted to learn. He was a very intelligent child, but with a complete lack of formal education, Chuca was basically illiterate when he started school at ten-years-old. He was tall for his age, and his awkward stature along with his primitive academic level made Chuca the victim of cruel and incessant teasing by the other kids at school.

One group of kids in particular would torture him more than all the others. They called him a farm-boy and made fun of the fact that he wore huaraches instead of regular shoes. They would follow him after school and call him names and push him around; but one day they pushed too hard. Chuca had brought a knife to school that day, and as the oldest and largest of his tormentors physically assaulted him, Chuca turned around and thrust the knife into the older boy’s stomach. For good measure, he thrust again—and then one more time. When the other two boys realized what was happening, they took-off running; Chuca wiped-off the knife on his victim’s shirt and casually walked away.

Chuca didn’t have a lot more to say about his childhood, but he did have plenty of stories about getting involved in the drug trade, his rise to power and the insanity that eventually led him to the treatment center. Shootouts with soldiers and rival cartel members seemed to happen on a regular basis, but it was the threat posed by his internal demons that brought about an epiphany. He was driving with his family across the country one night while totally strung-out on coke. He began arguing with his wife, and decided to show her who was boss by stepping on the gas pedal and taking his car as fast as he possibly could, with no consideration whatsoever for the safety of those on board. Only when his wife and children began screaming and crying hysterically did he slow down, and it wasn’t until a few days later—when he finally came down from the high—that he realized the possible consequences of his actions, and checked himself into rehab.

Chuca was scheduled to leave the center about a week before me, and during our last “interview,” I asked him what he was going to do when he got out. “What do you mean?”
he asked. “Well, now that you’re sober, I assume you’ll be changing your line of work…”

Chuca snickered, shaking his head. “I’ll be doing the same thing I was doing before I came in here.”

“But, why would you do that?” I asked. “You’re off drugs, you’re obviously aware of the damage is does to other people—”

“You don’t understand, Pedro.” He cut me off. “I’m in this business for life. If I were to just stop, people would think that I was weak or that I had been compromised in some way.”

“And?” His expression became somber. “And…someone would kill me—and probably my family.”

“You have money—you could move somewhere else—to another country.”

“If I were to stop doing what I do, someone else would immediately take my place—someone less organized and more violent. I’m part of the machine; they need me.”

I could feel my head slowly nodding, although I was thinking, “No, no, no…”

A couple of weeks after I got out of treatment, my cell phone rang and I found myself talking to Chuca. He had decided to host a sort of graduation party for all those he had known in rehab at “one” of his houses. The enormous, multi-leveled estate sprawled down the side of a bluff and was surrounded by lavish, tropical gardens, a beautiful swimming pool, and decks and patios with spectacular views of the hills. I recognized several faces—some belonging to Chuca’s family and others belonging to my companions from rehab. But when I asked about Chuca, his wife told me that he was driving in from Mexico City, and may or may not arrive in time to see us.

After a catered lunch by the pool, I heard a rumor that Chuca had arrived, after all. I looked toward the house, and sure enough, walking past the floor-to-ceiling windows, I recognized the profile of my friend as he greeted his family. And because I was pretty much sick of being there already, I decided to beat everybody else to the punch, and go in and say, “Hola.”

Chuca was friendly and enthusiastic as ever, although I did note him a bit preoccupied—I guess I would have been too, if I were in his shoes. But we gave each other a hug, exchanged pleasantries and promised to call each other in the near future. I thanked him and his wife for everything, made an excuse to leave, and headed for the exit.

As I closed the door behind me, I already knew that I would never see Chuca again, and despite the excitement and intrigue of the realm of the King of Culiacán, I was truly grateful to return to my own simple, quiet life where my greatest concern was just making sure I didn’t take that next drink.

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