Oh, the humanity!

David’s real name was Deiby Soler. He looked smaller than I remembered him, enclosed on the casket. His mother wasn’t as desolated as his brother was. I searched my archive, and I had no photos of him, although I am anally positive about having one.

The service was humble and small as the casket. There was a pastor bitching about life after death. About judgment day (he asked all of us if we died at that moment, would we go to heaven? I had my doubts about the deceased and myself).

When we die, what gives other people the right to speak for us? The pastor kumbayaed his way into the hearts of family members, playing a dreadful guitar tune. Nothing like the reggueton that use to warm Deiby’s heart.

Another concern was Deiby’s brother: Andrés. He kept weeping over his brother’s face, kissing the glass that kept the attending members from touching the cold body. Andrés kept making crosses with his fingers, sealing silent pacts with the departed. When he raised his face, I saw that his left eye was missing – remember the mess with the police? Turns out, he was stabbed in the eye. Andrés is only 16.

Deiby died at 22, from a single stab to the heart. He tried to fight off the attack, so he bared a scar on his wrist. He was playing soccer, but was last seen begging for help on the streets of Yomasa, his neighborhood on the heights.

Deiby was buried at three in the afternoon last Friday, the 17^th. The cemetery he was buried on was brand new, but still, all the vaults were already taken. Most of the graves were fresh. Those that had a tombstone marked a sinister countdown to the end of July. There were times when I saw two stones with the same date of death.

The crypt keeper shoved the casket on the vault, and bricked it. Pum! Another oone in the hole, he said. I imagined how he would get home, and bitch about how all these kids give him extra work.

Andrés wrote Deiby`s name and his crypt number with a rose on the fresh cement. He then wrote Deiby’s street moniker – Meshudo – on gothic type. Then he wrote the moniker Deiby gave him – Rata – And something I could not make out.

I then joined a few of our common friends, and we went to a truckers bar to have some Aguardiente, and listen to murder ballads, Corridos norteños, and all kinds of depressing music. We poured a few for the lost hommie. I commented on the fact that one of the owner’s of the restaurant I used to tend tables at approached me and thanked me for being there, like it was their gig, or like Deiby was a precious part of their little emporium. I didn’t show any feelings whatsoever.

A stab to the heart. Is that poetic or what? He was incarcerated, he was boss of his gang, he went astray from the pack, he was a lousy speller (like me), had a foul mouth, and was full of attitude, yet he could interact with anybody willing. He would go to preposterous lengths to defend friendship. My kind of guy.