Nina did not want to pose with the tiger, but as the animal was the circus’s greatest attraction and people had come for miles around to see it, she felt she could not refuse when her turn came.
It all went down just before the Fourth of July the year I turned ten. All week long my siblings and I had been too scared to ask Mamá and Papá whether we would have as many fireworks as we did the year before.
Tía Consuelo, with her big mouth and big earrings and eighties perm, sits me down at the kitchen table and says, “I don’t want you to work for that puto.” By puto, she means Johnny González, owner of Speedy G Car Wash on San Mateo.
Me llamo Walter Gomez, I'm a Policia National Bolivariano. I'm the guy you see holding the shield while those come mierdas of the opposition pretend to demonstrate but throw rocks, Molotov cocktails at us.
