I had never seen such hatred in the eyes of any person. The teacher struck me, cruelly, and prophesied my dark future, insisting she knew what would happen to me someday. She told me the devil would come for me. From that day on I was afraid. New nightmares haunted my dreams. Nevertheless, something childish inside me knew it was impossible for that prophesy to really be fulfilled, because in my house we prayed everyday, and every Sunday without fail I went to church. I was technically God’s friend, and supposedly, as a consequence, on his team. I knew many prayers by heart. These thoughts calmed me. But still, the words of that awful teacher continued to torture me. At church I often felt that the saints placed at the building’s lateral wings, those with a fixed and intrusive stare, constantly condemned me with their looks. It got to the point where, for fear, I hid during the Holy Week processions when the statues were taken out and marched around town. I don’t know why, but at that point in my life I concluded that if I was not God’s friend, then maybe He was a friend to no one. But I knew one thing: it was impossible that God could be on that teacher’s side. As soon as I finished the school year, I left that damn school.
And then the inevitable happened: I ran into the devil. I looked death in the eyes. A terrible fight took place between two men with machetes around the corner from my house. The sound of metal against metal echoed in my brain. Blood was splattered everywhere. My heart pounded like mad. I felt a mixture of fear and pleasure: fear of the future and the pleasure of morbid curiosity. Ultimately, the fight reached the only place it never should have—my sanctuary, the ice cream parlor. One of the men tripped and fell to the ground, and there he was murdered by the other, his jugular cut. Blood gushed out. Surprisingly I didn’t run; everything happened in slow motion. The blood fascinated me and I was hypnotized. My senses seemed to sharpen. Its red color was beautiful, brilliant, clean. It was life. It was God. It was the devil. I waited until the victim died and the killer ran away, and then I came out to look at the dead man. I knew I would never fear death again. At that point, I knew that I could pass through the graveyard of my childhood without fear of its ghostly shadows.
I slowly walked home. I was not the same. I had undergone a new baptism at my ice cream parlor sanctuary and I had lost my innocence. I was born again to a new world, unimagined, unsuspected. From that day on, I unconsciously sought out violence. I wanted to find it in front of me and jump at it. I became a rebel, a fighter. I was quarrelsome and aggressive. I wanted to be bad, a true bandit. I began to carry a little dagger, and I stole things from shops and from my own home. Nothing mattered anymore; after all, God wouldn’t help me, even if I prayed with the rosary for every single prayer I knew. He wouldn’t help me. Just as my evil teacher had foreseen, I was headed for hell.
Time went by until one day I realized that my future was with the military. I decided the most important person in Itagüí, a national army colonel, fell in battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the nearby mountains. When he died, his body was taken into town, and his wake took place in his own living room. I was one of the privileged few allowed into the residence.
In the living room, four candles framed an imposing yet beautiful brown coffin. It was covered with my country’s tricolor flag, and above it a saber was placed with the officer’s laureate hat. There I learned that to be a military man in this country was to be somebody important. Some ugly old ladies were weeping. Other women prayed with reverential respect, as if in the presence of a saint. All recounted the innumerable military achievements of the deceased colonel. The place smelled of glory and greatness. Afterwards, the funeral procession solemnly passed through the streets to the local cemetery. Mourners, gossipers, important towns-people, and many military men joined the procession. At his open grave, an army trumpeter played a beautiful tune to say a final farewell to the colonel. It sounded like the trumpet was crying. At that moment, my fascination for military life was born. I felt the same spiritual attraction as I did the day I saw my first dead body.
The violence generated by political clashes increased in my town, and, naturally, I become more aggressive. At the age of twelve I witnessed my second violent encounter: on my way to school, two men aboard a Lambretta motorcycle shot at a police officer transporting money from El Ley, a local department store. The officer died and one of the attackers was wounded, but in the end the bandits made away with the cash. Only later did I realize that I had witnessed my destiny. Later when I joined the Medellín Cartel as Pablo Escobar’s lieutenant, he told me of his early days in crime, specifically of a time he was accompanied by a man named Pabón.Together they assaulted a policeman for a day’s worth of sales money from El Ley department store in my hometown. That day Pablo had the wounded attacker. I, an innocent child, had unknowingly watched my future master. However, Pablo Escobar had few good memories of the region, because there he had also been captured with a heavy cocaine cargo.
The mafia continually upset daily life in Itagüí, but at the same time it gave birth to dreams of adventure and risk in many youngsters. Soon the machete and knife fights were history; firearms entered the scene and further captivated our young minds. We would talk and dream of one day having our own guns. Around that time I began to hear street talk of kidnappers in our midst. They were desperately sought by the authorities. One day, at a pawnshop around the corner from where I lived, a civil security organization known as the CAES (Anti Extortion and Kidnapping Command) machine-gunned everyone in the shop. Five were killed. The men claimed they had been after a band of kidnappers, but the victims were allowed no testimony, only a big pool of blood. I had witnessed my first massacre by the State.
I was studying at the Rosary School in my area when businessman and benefactor Diego Echavarria Misas, the wealthiest man in the region, was kidnapped. He had helped my school with supplies, donated Itagüí’s public library, and also had a charity famous for its generosity at church. Teachers pounded his kindness into our lessons with such vehemence that it bordered on idolatry.
And suddenly my school’s spirit darkened: once more death had plucked the protagonist from our midst. The kidnappers had murdered the town’s benefactor. We all went to the burial feeling deeply moved. Some of my schoolmates wept. The school band solemnly played music resonating with sorrow.
Meanwhile, my father prospered in his business and bought a house in downtown Medellín. This took us out of Itagüí and to a new district settled by upper-middle class citizens held up as “Colombia’s Success.” I moved again into another world, this time surrounded by people that were calm and reserved. I began to study at the Ferrini School near the district. It was a nice time, free of violent influences. But I still deeply admired the military life. Without any difficulty I entered the Naval Academy in Barranquilla. In the promotional brochures the school looked very beautiful, but in reality the grounds were anything but; nowhere in sight were the large boats or cruise ships by the Atlantic. The school felt like a stifling oven and I struggled to find something to identify with. Apathetic, I finally requested dismissal, which cost me the mockery of my neighbors and a nickname that hasn’t left me since. It was given to me by Diana, the daughter of a lumberjack. As soon as she saw me back from the academy, she looked up and said, “Popeye the sailor is back.”
I tried again to fight for my military ideal, and applied to the National Police Academy. I entered as an aspiring cadet at the General Santander School. I dreamt of one day receiving the same honors as the colonel of my childhood; however, my happiness there was shortlived. Even in the green uniform, which I wore with pride, enthusiasm, and innocent illusions of greatness, an ensign named Hernan Dario Gallo revealed to me the institution’s corruption . The police who defended their regimes often received gifts from the mafia and the politicians.
I came to a conclusion—if the military was all about money, I’d better go look somewhere else for my ideals. I wanted so badly to be good, but destiny seemed determined not to let me. That two-faced institution deeply discouraged me. With my lesson well learned, I left the National Police Academy disillusioned. I knew that even policemen had a price; oddly enough, this bit of knowledge would later save my life on numerous