For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

“Let’s make Luiza Antônia a saint,” Sonia Elena told the archbishop. “It’s what the people want. You know her miracles. The timing is now. If we don’t do it now, somebody else will make it their cause and we’ll be left out. This is good for me and you.”

“And you think I haven’t thought of it?” said Gattinelli.

“I know EMLU has worked against you and blocked it.”

“He refuses to endorse canonization of a Black woman.”

“But you and I know that this is the way to go,” Sonia Elena said. “It’d be a win-win for you and me … it’ll boost the Church’s popularity … help you fend off Evangelists wooing your followers and …”

Gattinelli said, “and it’ll help you secure the voters’ trust … show them, proof to them, that you understand them … that you’re La Negra del pueblo and not a condescending snob from la crème de la crème.”

“Let’s act,” Sonia Elena said and nodded. “Get the Vatican people and their Devil’s Advocates here and let’s get it all started.”

“Sonia Elena, my child…”

“I’m not your child.”

“I’m the archbishop … you said you want us to be archbishop and mayor, well, this is how I talk as the archbishop…”

They locked eyes in silence for a short moment, like pistoleros measuring each other in a Wild West duel.

“My child, the Church is no different than the government, the banks or any other kind of enterprise … in all those cases you need connections, you need to play the game of politics and you can’t show up empty handed, you need money to make money … sainthood and saint making is a business … you need money to make a saint, lots of money.”

Federico got into lecture mode – reminding Sonia Elena of their university days when they would teach each other stuff – and told her how there were more than ten thousand saints in the world; ten thousand! In the beginning, saints, in a sense, were first elected by popular vote in the form of believers visiting the tombs of people they thought to be holy. Local priests – salesmen of the faith, Sonia Elena thought – declared those well-visited dead as saints. It was a way for the priests to create role models and promote their regions as pilgrim destinations. That would increase donations and boost the priests’ economic power and influence. After a few hundred years of that, the Church realized it wanted more control and took over the business of deciding who got to be saint, making up requirements like how to confirm the veracity of miracles performed by a sainthood candidate. In the end, increasing power, Federico explained, was the ultimate goal of sainthood. That’s why saint making was a game of politics and money, just like in any other facet of society.

As in all games, there were rules to be followed – that is until they decided not to follow them anymore. Like when Pope Benedict XVI made an exception and scrapped the rule requiring that a person must be dead for at least five years before they can start a canonization process. When the beloved conservative Pope John Paul II died, popular opinion, the vox populi, demanded an immediate start of his canonization. Pope Benedict XVI, also a conservative, ran with it. Years later, when the more liberal Pope Francisco took the oath, he made sure to canonize his own liberal role model, John XXIII.

“Sainthood, my child, is as political and strategic as anything else,” Federico told Sonia Elena.

Sure, becoming a saint had become much easier these days, Federico explained. That was courtesy of the precedent set by Pope John Paul II in the 1980s. He had fast-tracked the whole process to allow for more everyday folks from all corners of the world to become role models of the faith, a move that would help grow the number of believers in new regions – new markets, Sonia Elena thought – like Africa and Asia. Pope John Paul II – having removed the requirement of having so-called Devil’s Advocates whose role was to find arguments against a candidate’s canonization – managed to declare more saints than all the popes before him.

In a way, Pope John Paul II had popularized sainthood, Federico explained. Still, getting someone to be declared a saint continued to be expensive business and could only be achieved with support of big pockets. There is the official costs for researching the candidate’s life, documenting and paying fees for theology consultants.

“All that may amount to your whole watch collection and then some,” Federico said.

“One million dollars, that’s your price?” Sonia Elena said stopping herself from shouting fuck you and asking him about the price tag on the large episcopal ring he was wearing in one hand and rubbing with a finger from the other, caressing it nonstop as if it were a cute chihuahua. It was a too large band of massive gold decorated with an ostentatious purple amethyst. So much for Church’s humility, Sonia Elena thought.

“No, my child, I don’t have a price tag,” he said. “I’m a servant of God and don’t care about money.”

“Let’s cut this gentleman talk and talk like what we really are,” Sonia Elena said.

“Well, I’m the archbishop and I don’t know about these things but if you go talk to the people who know, they – not I – will tell you that the true price tag on sainthood, including petty costs and under-the-table expenses, may be much higher than one million dollars … and they – not I – will also tell you that it will cost even more if you want the process to go faster. It works just like everything else.”

“I don’t have the money but what I do have is a story linking you to Chango Trujillo,” Sonia Elena said, recurring to plan B. “La Calle is working on a scoop that’s going to put a big stain on your reputation. I can stop them from publishing it.”

“That’s kind of you,” he said, exaggerating a fake smile to accentuate his ironic tone. “But I don’t need your help. Don’t forget who I work for. The Church is by far the most trusted institution in Lationoamérica. There’s a reason why others before La Calle haven’t published anything … you need me, the Church, more than I need you. Don’t come here trying to blackmail God. I think we can work together but don’t come here emptyhanded, offering nothing more than threats.”

“I don’t have the muscle to back you up right now, but I’ll get it,” Sonia Elena said, feeling like a little girl that’d just been berated by her father.

“You need to pay upfront … I can’t start this sainthood process and risk my reputation … I can’t team up with you and risk becoming an enemy of the State … I’m not that kind of priest … from what I can see in the way things have been going for you lately, you might be gone in a year’s time … I intend to be here for much longer than that … you see, it’s not only about you having money to pay now … it’s about ensuring that you’re a worthy partner with access to much more than a meager million dollars.”

“I’ll find a way,” Sonia Elena said, unconvincingly. “Be ready.”

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Sonia Elena found the priest taking off his white-and-gold chasuble, the so-called mantle of Cristo. He inserted a wooden hanger through the glorified poncho’s neck and then placed it on a hook on the wall. Padre Federico Gattinelli, Archbishop of Ocumo, sat down behind his desk and leaned back on his chair. He motioned her to take a seat but Sonia Elena stayed on her feet, taking advantage of the opportunity to look down on him.

“How’s Pedrito?” he said, breaking the awkward silence without removing the tension in the air.

“I’m not here to chit chat.”

“Last time I saw him, he was convincing his hungover professor that he had handed in his final thesis the night before when the two of them had gone out drinking,” Federico said, his words coming out through something that may have been a smile, an expression of arrogance mixed with nervousness. “I know for a fact that Pedrito didn’t write a thesis but he told the professor that he had indeed handed him a manila envelope containing all the two hundred and fourteen pages he had typed on an old Olivetti machine … I remember those details … Pedro taught me that details matter … the professor had gotten so drunk the night before that he had no choice but to accept Pedrito’s theory that he must have dropped the envelope at the bar or lost it on his way home … so he just took Pedro’s word for it and passed him … that’s how your husband graduated. Did he ever tell you that?”

He hadn’t but, hearing the story now, Sonia Elena knew instinctively that it was true.

“I guess, you’re not the only sinner with big secrets,” Sonia Elena said.

Federico contracted his lips and brought his eyes together, magnifying the wrinkles on his forehead. All signs of a smile, if there ever was one, disappeared. His arrogance and nervousness turned into something that looked more like fear and regret. At least that’s what Sonia Elena made of it. His reaction surprised her. For a moment she got the impression he was genuinely sorry.

He said, “I deeply regr…” but Sonia Elena cut him off.

“I didn’t come here for revenge or to find some form of settlement,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve confessed, prayed some Ave Marías and Dios has forgiven you. That’s more than you’ll ever get from me...”

Gattinelli wanted to explain – to confess – the burden he had carried for decades since that night, that short moment when he lost control over his animal instincts. If only Sonia Elena would let him tell her about how he had sought absolution by supporting victims of rape – an ever-growing cohort in this country where a woman or girl was violated almost every ten minutes. Gattinelli wanted to say he had done so much and that he even founded the Catholic Center for Victims of Sexual Assault offering shelter, rehabilitation and a twenty-four-hour crisis phone line. He had risked so much to start up and run the center despite opposition from the establishment. Neither the government nor the Church liked the center because its existence represented such a conspicuous admission of a category of crime – sin – whose pervasiveness in Ocumo society they would rather ignore. But Gattinelli had negotiated a quid pro quo deal with EMLU. Gattinelli helped EMLU keep his secret – his reputation – and the president supported Gattinelli’s sexual assault center. Gattinelli had done so much and gotten so little credit for it. Yes, the community appreciated the archbishop’s devotion to helping women, but Sonia Elena, the woman he most wanted to mollify, gave him no recognition. Could she once and for all forgive him, free him of this burden?

“I…” Gattinelli tried again to say something but Sonia Elena didn’t give him the chance, raising both hands to breast height with palms facing forward in the universal sign for “stop.”

“I’m here on official business,” she said containing her fury. She sensed that Gattinelli wanted to apologize and feared that would free him of his guilt. That was a gift she didn’t want to give him. What she actually wanted to do was to grab the iron crucifix on his desk and beat him with it. She wanted to scream and call the attention of the people still in the church so they would hear the truth about their revered priest. But, nah, she knew that women had nothing to win by acting that way; that was the case in life but even more in politics, that popularity game with different rules for men and women. In that game, a male politician that fights back with fists and shouts is admired for his courage and disposition to take action. But a female politician acting in the same way is regarded as a mad hysterical loca. A female politician must always maintain her composure, her tone of voice … and her smile, always keep smiling. Knowing that, Sonia Elena used every fiber in her body to contain her feelings and focus on the task at hand. She was here, swallowing her pride, because she had to. It was what she must do to in order to win the election, to reach Power, change the world, and, yes, fill her pockets, why shouldn’t she?

“I’m the mayor of Ocumo and you’re the archbishop,” Sonia Elena said and smiled. “It’s time we work together, for the city, the people, the nation.”

“What do you want?” the priest said. Arrogance, nervousness, fear, regret. It was all gone … for now.

“Luiza Antônia.”

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Next >> Historia Universal: Salesmen of the Faith (COMING SOON!!!)

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

Ocumo: A Latin American Novel gives a take on the region’s complexities through the perspectives of a diverse group of characters, including an up-and-coming politician, a Black live-in maid, an anti-establishment entrepreneur and an ex-prostitute turned news reporter. It’s a highly relevant and timely story in light of the U.S.’s renewed interventionist policies and the emergence of a new generation of charismatic Latin American leaders, from Mexico and all the way down to Argentina.

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Sonia Elena and Federico had met the night before their final philosophy exam. The following day, Sonia Elena had told Pedro to never deal with Federico again but refused to say why. “We had an irreversible philosophical clash,” it’s all she said. Pedrito knew not to pry for more and his loyalty to Sonia Elena was total. In his mind, he assumed she and Federico had parted ways after some kind of academic betrayal. He had heard about such grievances among elite students before. Pedro could not imagine anything other than that, and even less what actually happened.

That night, Sonia Elena remembered now sitting in church, she and Federico had drunk too much rum. They sat shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen table, their books spread open in front of them, when suddenly Federico leaned his head towards her and kissed her lips. It caught her by surprise and, above all, made her burst out in laughter. She thought it was hilarious. Who would have thought that this quiet, aspiring priest would make a move on her, a wannabe guerrillera? She laughed louder and couldn’t stop herself even as she saw in his expression how she was hurting his pride, piercing his honor, making him furious. His white face turned into orange papaya flesh and the blood vessels in his eyes dilated, giving him the red gaze of El Diablo. She laughed until he lost control and jumped her, wrestling her to the ground. He grabbed her wrists and pressed them against the tiles with one hand and used the other to draw down her pants. He then pulled down his own and pushed his knees between her legs, forcing her to spread them. He tried to thrust himself into her by the force of his hips but failed a few times. She moaned in pain but didn’t scream. He rolled her around leaving her naked cheeks facing up, and pressing down her face and stomach against the floor. She still refused to scream; didn’t say “No;” didn’t yell “Stop” – she was too proud for that. At first, she fought in silence but had no chance to break lose – he was almost twice her weight. She was immobilized as he used all of his heavy body to hold her down. She had her hands up, like a suspect held by the police against the wall, only they were lying horizontally. Accepting defeat, she gave in and stopped trying to break free. With the same force as before, now from behind, he finally entered her body. Once inside her, he banged his hips frantically.

He finished in no time, woke up from his rage trance and jumped to his feet as if surprised about what he had just done and wanted to distance himself from it.

“Sorry,” he said, standing up, looking down; Sonia Elena at his feet, still lying down on the kitchen floor like a victim, a boxer defeated by knockout.

The crime was a stain in Sonia Elena’s image of herself. How could she, an Amazon warrior, let herself get raped by such a soft white boy? She carried that burden, in silence, all by herself. No one could have ever guessed she was a victim. In everyone’s eyes she was a tough, mean, communist feminista.

Sonia Elena had hoped she would never again see Federico, and he probably felt the same about her, especially as he later on pursued a career in the Church. They both had become public figures, and were forced to witness each other’s ascent in the hierarchies of their respective fields – she in the politics of government, he in the politics of the Church. Still, up until now, they had made sure to avoid attending the same events at the same time, a feat that obviated the need for any unwanted, potentially awkward and definitely dreadful exchange of words.

That was about to change now during mass as Sonia Elena rose to her feet, imitating the rest of the congregation. She had sat on the bench lost in her thoughts without actually hearing a word said by the priest. Now, standing up, she became aware of the interaction between orator and audience.

“May the Lord be with you,” Padre Federico Gattinelli said.

“And with your spirit,” the congregation answered in unison.

It was the first time Sonia Elena had been to mass as an adult and the ceremony had lightened her mood in a surprising way. She was unmoved by its spirituality but found strength in knowing she wasn’t one of these sheep being duped by the fox standing at the altar. “Pinche pendejos,” she told herself and let the thought of Román’s voice uttering the insult put a subtle smile on her face.

“The blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit …” the priest said. “… Descend upon you.”

“Amén,” the congregation responded.

“You may go in peace.”

“Let us give thanks to God.”

The priest locked eyes with Sonia Elena for a moment. He then turned around and disappeared through a side of the wall that you couldn’t tell was a door until it opened. He went in and closed the door behind him. Sonia Elena followed him and, without knocking, opened the door and walked in.

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Next >> Historia Universal: Quid Pro Quo

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others.

It was Holy Thursday and she arrived in the middle of mass, purposely late, unannounced. To make sure he saw her, Sonia Elena walked from the back of the aisle all the way to the front. On her way to taking a seat in the first row, she looked up in awe – she would never admit that’s what she felt – and admired the large altarpiece painting elevated on the wall behind the priest. It was a copy of Peter Paul Rubens’s “Assumption of The Virgin Mary” – one of many of the Flemish master’s works copied by highly-skilled but underappreciated Latin American artists in the seventeenth century. Rubens never did cross El Atlántico but colonizers sent multiple prints of his and his peers’ works to the New World so they could be reproduced as paintings, stained-glass windows and sculptures in order to help the Europeans, the former Narcos of the world, sell their product: Christianity.

Sonia Elena had hoped the surprise appearance would throw the priest off and give her the upper hand. It worked, momentarily. Her entrance made Padre Gattinelli lose his rhythm, forgetting for a too short moment, what he was telling the congregation, something about Jesús going to the Mount of Olives to pray. It was the first time that they – Sonia Elena and Federico – made eye contact in almost thirty years, the first time since that night at her place, back when they were both Universidad Central’s top two philosophy students.

Now in church sitting on the bench, Sonia Elena kept her cool, her face revealing no emotion, her eyes locked on him, showing him nothing other than an assertion of her presence. Inside, though, Sonia Elena was chagrined. Scenes from that dreadful night played in her head like a movie. She remembered, as if it was yesterday, the stench of cheap Ron Cortez that they were sharing. She could smell it even though she had not touched dark rum since. They were sitting at her kitchen table, quizzing each other, explaining, arguing and counterarguing. They were intellectual equals, the only ones with the capacity to challenge each other academically. That’s the only reason why they met in the first place. Outside philosophy studies, they were two tangent lines moving parallel to each other until, occasionally, they would veer to converge around their ambition to excel in school.

Federico grew up in Ocumo but was born in Northwestern Italy. North, he would emphasize, as opposed to the lesser South with places like Sicilia, Calabria and Napoli that gave Italians a bad name. His parents, he had told her, came from well-respected, historied families in Genoa. In contrast, Sonia Elena was a one-hundred-percent criolla, offspring of generation after generation of interracial and intersocial copulating and breeding. Her family had an even longer history … historia universal, she would remind him, always with a sly smile.

He was a conservative Roman Catholic. She was an atheist, a communist, a feminist. He was quiet and of formal manners – would even lisp when pronouncing the S and Z in words to sound like a Spaniard speaking Castilian, supposedly proper Spanish. She was loud, flirtatious, social. He was tall, neither overweight nor muscular, but massive. She was short and curvaceous. He was plain, white as talc. She was exotic, with thick, bright red-as-blood lipstick enhancing the sensuality of her bronze-colored skin.

You could have never put them together, yet they recognized that their study partnership made them better. Night after night, they would spend hours drinking rum, reading, writing, talking philosophy. Their bond grew and strengthened, semester after semester, and by senior year they were actually friends that hung out outside their studying. Federico even started coming out to parties and interacting with people that he would have never met if it weren’t for Sonia Elena. It was through her that he became friends with Pedro – her lover as she called him then. That was a huge upgrade to Federico’s social life and status.

Pedrito, ten years older and an eternal university student, knew everyone and everyone knew him. He was the connector, the magnet. At parties, guys surrounded him, eager to hear him tell the funniest stories. And girls would break with etiquette to ask him (beg him!) for a dance to their favorite song of salsa, merengue, cumbia or whatever Latin American sound playing on the dance floor. Chubby men are known to be the smoothest dancers and Pedrito was el más sabroso of them all.

El Gordo, like he did with so many of Sonia Elena’s acquaintances, adopted Federico and took him to all kinds of social events: Communist fiestas, student union assemblies with subsidized breakfast, Folklore Festival by the Association of Indigenous Students, the School of Agronomy’s annual dance and the Engineering College’s Christmas banquet. Pedro, a law student, wasn’t formally a member of any organization, but he had full access to all events and activities. The perks he enjoyed were the quid pro quo rewards from previous social deeds – so many of the student leaders owed their ascent to Pedro introducing them to the right people, at the right parties, just like he did with Federico.

He was also a favorite among the university staff. Professors loved Pedro’s company and dependability. Pedrito would never decline a professor’s invitation to play a set of tennis, grab something to eat or just go out for a drink. No matter the hour or day of the week, Pedro would tag along and give the professor at turn the entertainment he – it was always a male – yearned. Pedro would tell them about the latest student gossip and the juicy tattler coming out from the staff at other faculties. He would also tell his own tales describing how wily solutions saved him from difficult situations. And he would make the professors feel heard. He would show interest, listen, ask questions, prowl for new information.

And yet, despite all his cunning, Pedro had never come close to the thought of what actually happened between Sonia Elena and Federico.

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Next >> Historia Universal: The Red Gaze of El Diablo

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Román glanced at the photograph and then put it back on the table on top of the birth certificate. He turned around and again took a few steps away from the desk.

“The cards are literally on the table,” Maru told herself, proud of her dramaturgic mastery, struggling to hold back a smile of self-satisfaction.

Román and Don Umberto seemed to have entered a sort of trance. Their gaze froze, eyes not blinking for what seemed like an eternity, looking away at nothing, lost into an imaginary distance.

… Silence …

Suddenly, Román took out his phone and Maru, watching him from behind, could guess by the position of his arms that he was holding it with both hands, typing with his thumbs for a long half a minute. He then turned around and gave the phone one last tap with one finger, a motion that told Maru he had just pressed the green button to send a text. After putting the phone back in his pocket, Román walked towards Maru and Don Umberto. He leaned forward, locked eyes with the table and placed both hands on it, pressing down as if to keep it from lifting above the ground. Maru looked at him expectantly. She couldn’t tell exactly what it was or how it happened but she felt something had changed in the past few seconds, in that silence between Román jumping up and coming back to the table. The mood had shifted, turning her excitement and confidence into wariness.

“It’s a killer story …” Román said.

“But?” Maru said.

“But we can’t publish it like that.”

Maru turned to Don Umberto for a second and then looked up again, her body language demanding Román see her eye to eye.

“What do you mean ‘not like that’? … How can we publish it?”

“We need to leave the Church out of it.”

“Out of it? … Gattinelli is part of it, front and center!” Maru said. “Umberto, tell him! The street deserves to know the whole truth.”

… Silence …

Maru turned to Román and then back to Don Umberto.

“Román’s right, Maru,” Don Umberto said. “We can’t touch the priest. We can’t make so many enemies.”

“What?”

“It’s a great scoop, a huge one,” Román said. “But we can’t tell the whole story … only part of it. We can’t tell the whole truth.”

“A partial truth is the same as lying! … This is all bullshit. I’m not reporting this story partially when I have the whole truth … don’t back out now! What happened to going for the jugular?”

“This story is too big, if we piss off the Church we’re going to lose it all,” Don Umberto said. “It’s one of life’s greatest wisdoms; You can go along with the Church or alone without the Church, but never, never, never, nunca, nunca, nunca against the Church.”

“I’d expected this bullshit from Román but not from you, Umberto,” Maru said. “Never thought you’d let money stop you, scare you off and keep you from reporting on the word on the street, sticking it to the man … I guess you too are the man now … not a journalist anymore … you’re a capitalist.”

“Maru, we’re bleeding money here,” Román said. “I don’t even know if we’re going to have enough cash to pay everyone’s salaries by the end of the month. EMLU has turned the banks against us. We can’t add the Church to our list of powerful enemies … we can’t pick a fight with todo el mundo, all at the same time, not now. Don’t be a pinche pendeja!”

“Fuck you, Román!” Maru said, pushing the swivel chair back with her butt and sending it rolling across the floor as she jumped to her feet and pointed her finger at her boss. “You came in here to our house with a speech about transparency, speaking truth to power and making a difference. We were going to bring the truth to light, stop corruption and finally bring democracy to the people. You’re a man of principle, you said. Big words. All air. All bullshit! The pinche pendejo here is you!”

“We need Gattinelli on our side,” Román said.

“You need him to get to Power,” Maru said, going back and forth pointing at Román and Don Umberto. “You’re going to pact with the Devil so you and Sonia Elena can grab The Power … Power, money is what matters to you, not the truth, not democracy, not the people on the street.”

Just as furious and disappointed, Maru was also embarrassed by the thought that she would have to go back to Josefa Trujillo and tell her source they weren’t going to publish the story. After all her promises and emotional interviews, La Calle wanted only part of the story and Maru couldn’t accept that so she wouldn’t report any of it. Not telling the whole story would betray her journalistic integrity, Maru’s most precious possession. She would have to explain that to Josefa and apologize for not delivering what she had promised her. Now she had become another disappointment in Josefa’s life, another person that deceived the poor woman and didn’t live up to her word.

“You’re just like everyone else … you call them jokers, farceurs, comedians,” Maru said. “You two are no better than anyone else … jokers, farceurs, comedians, that’s what you two are.”

She went for the door and, just before walking through it, turned around to face Román and Don Umberto one last time.

“You’re a couple of pussies too,” she said, grabbed her crotch with one hand and pointed at the men with the other. “I got bigger balls than you two combined. Fuck you!”

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Next >> Historia Universal: Holy Thursday

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Right after hanging up, Don Umberto looked down to the newspaper on his lap – not La Calle – and flipped through it probing the competition’s coverage of the day’s stories. Maru put Butts back on the shelf and stood by without saying a word, waiting for Román also to hang up. She wanted to break the news to them, get the go-ahead and start writing the story ASAP. She also wanted to leave their office faster than immediately and get away from the two AC units blasting cold air at maximum power to make the room feel like Antártica. Román had installed the air conditioners to make visitors uncomfortably cold if they overdid their stay; it gave people an effective incentive to keep it short, get to the point and don’t waste his time.

Maru could tell Román was on a call with the mayor because he said “you” and “your” when referring to Sonia Elena Ortega’s numbers in the latest, not-yet-published opinion poll.

“You have no choice,” Román said into the phone. “Your numbers are at the bottom of Lake Atitlán.”

He finally hung up. Now that both men were quiet, Román became aware of the distant music coming from the street. He turned around, giving his back to Maru, and looked up to the world map hanging on the wall. The music coming from the picket line out front sounded just like a party. They were playing MC Daçinho’s funk remix “Uma Explosão Sensual:”

… Look at her rump

shaking like a bomb

This funk party is

a sensual explosion

She’s dynamite

Funk is her detonator …

Sounding something like this:

“Jokers, farceurs, comedians,” Román mumbled. “Pinche pendejos!”

At least that’s what Maru thought he had said before turning around again to face her and show all the gloom in his eyes.

“What’s the word on the street?” Román said with fake enthusiasm.

Don Umberto made eye contact with Maru, a look that said “he’s one of us now.” Maru smirked and blushed – glowed was more like it – not as a response, but from excitement for what she was about to tell them. The big news that would lift up their spirits. In the car, on her way here, she had rehearsed how to pitch the story without showing emotion, without getting over excited like she would often do when talking about a scoop. She hated herself for that and didn’t want to look so amateurish again, so girlish, especially in front of the two men of men that her bosses were. Let the story, by itself, prompt the cheering and boasting. Let the men jump with excitement while she stayed cool. She was going to be professional. That’s what she told herself time and again. Be professional. Be cool. And yet, here she stood like a novice poker player failing to hold a blank expression, her face revealing for el mundo entero that she was holding the Ace, the King, the Queen, the Jack and the Ten, all Spades, a royal flush, the strongest hand in a game of Texas Hold’em.

“I got a story,” she said, screamed almost. Coño! Keep your cool, Maru, keep, your, cool. “Big one … it’s about Chango.”

“Chango isn’t a story anymore,” Don Umberto said.

The answer fueled Maru’s confidence. She felt it made her look smarter. It proved that she was a step ahead of them. She had moved on and seen something they weren’t even thinking about. It confirmed she was about to blow their minds with this bomb of a scoop.

“I know who’s protecting him … I can prove it.”

The men, who until now had been half listening, distracted with random thoughts and leafing through papers aimlessly, dropped everything else and put their full focus on La Calle’s star reporter, Don Umberto’s gringa from Charlie’s Angels. They both walked over to the conference table – the one where all the editors gather around twice a day to discuss the day’s coverage – sat down and prompted Maru to take a seat. Maru gave them the details of the story. Keep it cool, Maru, keep it cool. She told them about how it all started with a somewhat random encounter with a woman at Juan’s Bodega. Afterwards, she had interviewed her several times, sometimes even meeting at the woman’s home. There she had shown Maru a handful of legal documents proving she was telling the truth. Maru, as discreetly as possible, had been able to follow up with all the sources necessary to confirm the story. Her reporting was thorough and the story was as solid as any big scoop could ever be. It was huge, involving players from across all sectors of society, even the Church.

Commanding the men’s full attention, Maru reached in one of her pockets on her vest and pulled out a piece of paper folded down to the size of a postcard. She unfolded it and placed it on the table, padding it and ironing it with her hands a few times to keep it flat. Don Umberto picked it up and put on his reading glasses to discover he was looking at a copy of Chango’s birth certificate. Román took a peek from the side and saw the names in bold letters.

“Chinga,” Román said, stood up briskly, clapped his hands once with excitement, and took a few steps away from the table. “The Pinche pendejo!”

“Incredible job,” Don Umberto said. “Killer story.”

… Silence …

Maru reached into another pocket on her vest and pulled out an old photograph.

“That’s Chango with his family and loved ones,” Maru said, pointing at the boy on the picture. “He was a ten-year-old angel then, a child of God … that’s how my source described him.”

Don Umberto picked up the photograph to get it within his glasses’ field of view.

“Caramba!” he said before handing it to Román who was still standing up. “Recognize them?”

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

Ocumo: A Latin American Novel gives a take on the region’s complexities through the perspectives of a diverse group of characters, including an up-and-coming politician, a Black live-in maid, an anti-establishment entrepreneur and an ex-prostitute turned news reporter. It’s a highly relevant and timely story in light of the U.S.’s renewed interventionist policies and the emergence of a new generation of charismatic Latin American leaders, from Mexico and all the way down to Argentina.

For Chapter 1: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

“Valencia motherfucker!!!”

“Valencia cabrón!!!”

“Árabe corrupto!!!”

“Take Sonia Elena’s Cartier - Give bikes to kids!!!”

“Tucán’s Workers Demand Justice!!!”

“Valencia desgraçado!!!”

“Valencia motherfucker!!!”

The cries and signs on the picket line lacked a cohesive, consolidated message, making it impossible to understand what the labor strike was about other than just attacking Román Valencia, the number one ally of Sonia Elena Ortega. The protests that for weeks had kept so many of Mercado Tucán stores closed, had now expanded to block La Calle’s main entrance. “Valencia motherfucker!” was the most common of the cries and shouting the insult had evolved into a game where one person, unprompted and in a seemingly spontaneous manner, would call out “Valencia!!!” and the mob would finish the phrase in the loudest unison, “Motherfucker!!!”

On the side by the picket line, a worker interviewed by a TV reporter from El Heraldo complained that the unscrupulous capitalista Román Valencia was a miserable owner and boss because he refused to buy bicycles for the kids of Mercado Tucán employees. Valencia was so wealthy, the worker told the reporter, that he would give out a car every year – the man was referring to the main prize in Mercado Tucán’s Christmas lottery, a marketing stunt that Román loved because it helped boost sales and also made a difference in the wallets of the few lucky winners.

“Money is nothing to him,” the worker said into the microphone. “If he has enough to give out a car, why can’t he give bicycles to our poor kids?”

The reporter wrapped up the interview while the cameraman panned ninety degrees to show people on the picket line holding signs, shouting and chanting. The camera also caught not so few of the strikers walking around sipping cerveza as if they were at a quinceañera party or any other festive event.

“Mercado Tucán is a cave of thieves!”

“Tucán’s workers deserve more!”

“Where’s the money you got from Fellokks?”

“Corrupt salesman!”

“Damned Talibán!”

“Valencia desgraçado!!!”

“Valeeeeencia!!!” … “Moootherfuckerrrrrr!!!”

Maru Salinas drove close to the main gate hoping the mob would make an opening and let her in. After standing there for two minutes, she gave up, backed out and drove around the block to the delivery entrance on the back of the building. Upstairs, she walked in Don Umberto’s office (now also Román’s) without knocking. The men were busy so she had time to gaze at the framed front pages hanging everywhere. Almost like a little girl looking at a rocket launch dreaming of one day becoming an astronaut, Maru told herself that the scoop she was working on would certainly land on the front page and that Don Umberto would probably choose to immortalize it by framing it and hanging it up here on La Calle’s wall of fame.

Maru looked again at her jefes and both showed no sign of interest in her visit. The editor and the publisher were both glued to their phones, talking at the same time, each on a different call; Román standing up by the window and Don Umberto sitting down on the sofa. Every thirty seconds or so they would both make eye contact with Maru acknowledging her presence, confirming and reconfirming they knew she was there, but none made the effort to hurry up and wrap up their calls. Neither man lifted his index finger to signal that it would only take a minute. They wouldn’t either turn away from the phone to whisper to her that she should come back later. For all Maru knew, she might have to stand there waiting for another forty seconds, or five minutes or a full hour. Who knows how long? That’s how it was here in the office and in every other setting of life in Ocumo; whether it was the individual at home taking on a mundane task like doing the laundry or the government working on a major endeavor like building a highway, you just never knew how much time something would take. Some unforeseen incident could occur – it almost always did – and hasten or delay things. It could be a power outage, a student protest, a robbery or, like it was the case today, your boss engaged in an endless phone conversation. Time in Ocumo, well … it is what it is.

Accustomed to waiting every time she came to see the boss, Maru had adopted the habit of going to the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf on the side opposite the world map to examine the eclectic collection of titles that Don Umberto had amassed throughout the years. She recognized some of the names, like Dahlia De La Cerda’s Reservoir Bitches, Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife and Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full. The ones she had already added to her to-read list included Ruth Capriles’s Leadership by Resentment, Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s La Reina del Sur and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza’s La llama y el hielo. Among the ones she herself had read were Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and Alberto Fuguet’s Tinta roja. Unexplainably, the bookshelf never ceased to surprise Maru with titles she had never seen before, like Metaphysics of Ping-Pong by Guido Mina Di Sospiro, Timothy Winegard’s Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, and What We Did in Bed by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani. Today was no different and Maru made a new discovery. Intrigued by its simple title, she reached for a shelf high up – the second down from the top – and pulled out the yellow book titled Butts. The synopsis on the back described it as Heather Radke’s historical analysis of the rump; “a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame.”

Don Umberto hung up (finally!)

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For the first chapter: Change Is Coming

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

El Gringo Estiben McKinsey turned to Sonia Elena, unintentionally placing his mirror aviator sunglasses in front of her, forcing her to see herself duplicated on each lens. She wasn’t the kind to worry about her weight but it bothered her to see her dimensions distorted by the reflection that made everything look wider than normal. She did her best to ignore it.

“We need your help,” Sonia Elena said. The words coming out of her mouth surprised her and instantly hit her with the realization that they would cost her in the future; help wasn’t going to come for free. There would be a price to pay at some point. Up until now, everything she had received from the gringos – scholarship, watches, luxury trips, etc – had come without her asking for it. Those were gifts that the gringos had willingly given her; being pragmatic by convenience, she had taken them because … well … because she wasn’t a fool. She knew, and so did the gringos, that her line of thought was wholly based on a technicality – gifts are not the same as debt – but that didn’t mean it was misguided. As in a court of law, a business contract or any other human setting, details mattered. That’s what allowed her, all this time, to see herself in the mirror and feel pride for not selling out to the Yankees. But not anymore. She heard the words echo inside her brain, “We need your help … help … help … help.” Now, she was asking – begging is what it sounded like – for a loan and she knew the gringo sharks would surely come back one day, probably when she least wanted it, to collect the principal plus interest. In a half-hearted and toothless attempt to take back her words, but not really, she added, “Me running for president was your idea … you put me in this situation.”

“We want to help you,” Estiben said, drawing up the corner of his mouth, a slick look that told Sonia Elena that El Gringo too had recognized the shift that had just taken place; the nature of their relationship had officially – technically – changed, progressed. They had now stopped being the generous philanthropist and the grateful beneficiary. They had proceeded to become the opportunist lender entangling the needy borrower. He got her now and would make sure to remind her by saying “help” every time he got the chance. This was it, Sonia Elena thought. This was the moment when she entered a deal with the Devil, that entity that some around the Globe even called the Great Satan.

El gringo continued, “We’ll give you all the help you need, but we can’t help you right now; it’s too risky … we’re working with Colonel Itzae Zambrano to find a way … when the time is right, we’ll take the risk and help you.”

Sonia Elena had seen Zambrano yesterday from a distance as he walked through the hotel lobby. She thought it was a coincidence that they were both in Miami but now, for the first time, she realized that Estiben had also entangled Ocumo’s up-and-coming colonel. She made a quick mental note to follow up on this new piece of intelligence and, without missing a beat, continued her exchange with El Gringo.

“If I swallow my pride and do go talk to Gattinelli, he’s for sure going to ask for money … I need cash … the labor union pestering Román will go away if we pay them … the banks too will back off if we got money … money will show that we are legitimate challengers … money will solve our problems … money is the only thing missing to get us the win.”

McKinsey listened without showing emotion. The aviator glasses helped him conceal not only his eyes but also any facial clues that would help Sonia Elena guess what he was thinking. As unique as this meeting was, it was also yet another iteration of hundreds of conversations he’d had throughout the years with a multitude of third-world leaders. The leaders were all different - males, females, young, old, Marxists, libertarians, rich, poor, Black, white, brown, democrats, autocrats, psychopaths, egomaniacs, idealists – but they all, in the end, shared one universal belief, an almost blind conviction that the solution to all their problems was money. If only they had more money, they would always argue, their people would be able to live happily ever after. Money, money, money is all the leaders ever wanted, all they ever asked for. And when they at last asked for it – they always did – they just gave McKinsey the bittersweet satisfaction of winning once again.

But it was equally frustrating to McKinsey that it could be so easy, so predictable, so … primal. It baffled him that these supposedly brilliant minds of the Global South, even the ones with the best of intentions, were incapable of asking for help to end the one real problem burdening the nations that they supposedly loved so much. No one ever asked McKinsey (the United States), or the World Bank, or whatever other entity, for help on how to end corruption. In fact, it was McKinsey’s belief that leaders were keen on maintaining, and even expanding the structures of corruption, favoritism, nepotism that he thought were the real problem in all the troubled places south of the border. While young, McKinsey thought this would change, that he could talk sense into the leaders and help them bring real progress and prosperity. Now, though, after so many years, he had given up. Who was he anyway, a white gringo outsider, to tell these people, these sick patients, how to cure the disease they themselves don’t seem interested in dealing with? Nah, McKinsey had been in this business too long to let his conscience keep him awake at night. If money is what they want, that’s what he’ll give them and when the time is right, he’ll come back to collect the principal, interest and more.

“We want to help you but, like I said, we can’t do it right now,” El Gringo Estiben McKinsey told Sonia Elena, his lips the only part of his body moving as he spoke. “We like you but … you know we love you … but right now, you’re damaged goods … the whole world has seen the headlines, from Canada to South Africa to Belgium. We cannot risk a leak, some WikiLeaks or Panama Papers bullshit about the United States sending funds to the corrupt Cartiergate Mayor of Ocumo.”

“Fuck you!” Sonia Elena said, adding the best riposte she came up with. “I’m menopausal but I still lubricate.”

She hastily pulled out the straw from her caipirinha and chucked it to the side, lifted the glass and drank it bottoms up.

“Those are the facts right now but it all can change,” Estiben said, first with a sober face that then turned into a grin.

Sonia Elena put the glass down and tried to look the gringo in the eye but all she got to see was her own reflection on his mirror glasses. She hated the distorted duplicate images … but had nothing to say about it … had no choice but to take his shit.

“We’ll help you get out of this,” El Gringo said. “You are our Desperado, our lucky horse. We believe in you and we’ll be ready to help you when you get your luck back … we’ll help you get it back.”

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

Ocumo: A Latin American Novel gives a take on the region’s complexities through the perspectives of a diverse group of characters, including an up-and-coming politician, a Black live-in maid, an anti-establishment entrepreneur and an ex-prostitute turned news reporter. It’s a highly relevant and timely story in light of the U.S.’s renewed interventionist policies and the emergence of a new generation of charismatic Latin American leaders, from Mexico and all the way down to Argentina.

For all chapters: Archive

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Bursting out of the gate, Desperado started slow and last as expected, but as the race progressed, Sonia Elena’s horse kept gaining ground. Desperado moved to sixth place, and then fifth … and fourth … third … second and … in a dramatic photo finish came out victorious! The racetrack dropped silent, except for one woman screaming with joy in a sea of moaning men. The gringos paid Sonia Elena with pleasure and the story became legend in the inner circles of Power. At the dinner afterwards, an elder senator congratulated Sonia Elena and predicted she would go long in politics.

“You’re a lucky woman and luck is just as important as talent,” the senator said. “Hard work and smarts will help you go the distance but fortune is what’ll take you all the way … you seem to have that, the kind of luck that one needs to become a movie star, win a Nobel prize or win a presidential election.”

Sitting at a round table with a handful of younger guests listening quietly, the senator gave a short speech about how much the great Napoleon Bonaparte valued luck and how he had famously asked “is he lucky?” when assessing a general’s qualifications. Sonia Elena nodded and thanked the senator for sharing so much wisdom. She also said he was probably right because one big reason why she felt sure about her bet was that she had seen somewhere that Desperado’s jockey weighed one hundred twenty pounds.

“That’s a heavy jockey,” the senator said, lightly cocking his head a bit baffled. “Another reason to bet against Desperado.”

“Sí, mi senador,” Sonia Elena said, elongating the I in “Sí” to remind everyone of her foreignness. “Sííííííí, mi senador, but you know I come from the metric system so I made a mental calculation and reckoned that one hundred twenty pounds was sixty-nine kilos,” she said, confident that no one would double check the math.

For a second the men at the table looked at Sonia Elena in silence.

“Sixty-nine is my lucky number,” she said with a grin, rolling up her eyes and biting her lower lip, mimicking the bikini clad sex bombs featured in Ocumo’s beer advertisements. “I looove sixty-nine.”

The table cracked up with a thunderous burst of laughter, prompting the other guests in the room to turn their heads and deeply regret they were missing out on all the fun. That was the kind of humor and charm that the C.I.A. gringo liked in Sonia Elena. Estiben saw how her personality traits tended to outweigh her communist conviction.

Pulling her mind back to the present and the pool of the Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour, Sonia Elena thought, “I need my Desperado … I could use that kind of luck right now.”

She then turned her ears back on only to have to listen for the one billionth time to one of Pedrito’s old stories. Her husband, once a practicing lawyer, was telling Estiben about a client that had hired him ages ago, before Sonia Elena ran for public office. It was a wealthy man that had rented out an apartment to a friend of a friend of a friend. That was smart, Pedro pointed out, to rent out to someone you know, someone you can trust because in Ocumo, tenants have all the legal protection in the world. As a landlord you have close to no power to evict a tenant. The law gives the tenant all the rights and the landlord has only obligations. Not even when the tenant fails to pay rent can he be thrown out. And that was exactly why Pedro’s client needed help. The tenant, who was a friend of a friend of a friend, someone you would have thought you could trust, had stopped paying rent because he knew he didn’t have to; the law was on his side. Feeling powerless, the wealthy client came to Pedro and asked him to find a way to get the apartment back. Pedro took the case.

“As a landlord, the law isn’t on your side so you need to think outside the law,” Pedrito said, his mouth full as he chewed on fries and steak. “You need to think outside the law, but stay within the law. See what I mean? Can’t just break the law … gotta be legal.”

Estiben smiled and nodded expectantly

“So how do you kick the tenant out when the law won’t allow it?” Pedro said. “This is how I did it. I have this friend, un tremendo loco, who is up for anything. I call him Cuervo because he looks like a scarecrow ... so I asked if he wanted to hang from a rope down into the tenant’s balcony and do maintenance work, you know, clean the windows, paint the guardrail and whatever else he saw fit. The key, though, is that he had to be dirty, unshaved and naked.”

“Naked?” El Gringo Estiben said.

“Sí, one hundred percent butt naked … his dick hanging out, dangling and swinging … giant damp pimples on his butt … a very unpleasant sight … my friend did this day in, day out, day after day after day for three months.”

Pedrito made a quick pause to lean forward to cut into the juicy steak with knife and fork; his shifting weight making the loveseat’s rattan creak like the wooden hull of a caravel at sea. He grabbed another bite and then, again with a full mouth, resumed talking.

“The sick bastard really got a kick about being naked in front of people,” Pedro said.

“How much did you pay him?” Estiben said.

Gringo boludo always thinking about money, Pedro thought and then said, “I paid him peanuts to do it, but, to him, it wasn’t about the money. He would have done it for free. He even thanked me afterwards for giving him the chance to do this.”

“And the tenant? What happened?”

“The tenant complained and complained but my naked loco showed up in the balcony again and again. Three months of that and the tenant finally gave up and moved out. Case solved.”

Pedro clapped his hands as if to dust them off and laughed in sync with the gringo for half a minute. When the laughter had died down, Sonia Elena turned around to face the table.

“Are you done? … Can we talk now?” she said.

“Too bad that trick won’t help you this time,” El Gringo Estiben McKinsey said. “You’re in a tight spot.”

Next >> Desperado: Money, Money, Money

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For all chapters: Archive

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Sweat drops, large, bulky, salty, sweat drops rolled relentlessly down Pedro’s face. They started at his hairline and rolled down across his forehead to then continue underneath his pitch-black sunglasses and finally park on his lips or plunge from his chin down to his belly. The lounge table they had picked stood by itself, the farthest you could get from the others, offering privacy and discretion but no parasol to protect from the midday sun shining from near its zenith on a cloudless, clean-blue sky.

El Gordo sat on a designer rattan loveseat that was just as cool and chic as uncomfortable and impractical. The matching table was so low that Pedro had to lean forward, jackknifing with his feet on the ground, to be able to reach the food on his plate – a prime sample of Latin-fusion cuisine featuring a medium-rare tenderloin steak and a mound of fried yuca and sweet potato sticks topped with flakes of pink Maras salt and chunky, oily, green chimichurri. Sonia Elena sat on a separate chair beside him wearing a wide brimmed sun hat and beating the air back and forth with a matching paper fan, unsure that the effort helped her to cool down. The mayor – still full from brunch less than three hours ago – had ordered an ice-cold caipirinha that she parked before her after only one sip, leaving condensation to quickly cover the outside of the glass with moisture, forming droplets that rolled down the drink to build a thick ring of water on the table.

Sonia Elena had booked the meeting here because she wanted to spend some time at the pool before checking out of the hotel and heading back to Ocumo. She didn’t like the sun, hated the heat, and swimming wasn’t an option because she could start bleeding any moment – perimenopause had made her period so unpredictable. Still, she wanted to be one hundred percent sincere when, someday in the future, she saw it fit to brag about experiencing the luxuries of the Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour in Mee-ah-mee, Florida. She had seen photos of the hotel in a Vanidades article about the favorite weekend spots of fancy mayameros. Palm trees and sand-colored parasols gave shade to the sunbeds sitting side by side at the edge of the pool. In a corner closer to the beach, knee-high wooden chessmen stood on their starting position on a human-size chessboard printed on the ground. It was just like she had seen in the magazine. Even more impressive, she thought, was the bling of the décor in the indoor common areas – the presumably invaluable artworks, the mahogany wall panels, the spotlights amplifying the sensation that it was all glittering gold, silver and crystal. Such class! Of course, she was going to stay at the Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour the next time she visited Miami, capital of Latinoamérica. And now she got the chance and took it, don’t mind that people back home were still talking about Cartiergate.

Sonia Elena was in Florida for work; she had been invited to attend the Conference of City Mayors from Latin America and the Caribbean. It was an annual event organized by Miami-Dade County and the United States government to gather up-and-coming local-level politicians in one place so they could mingle and network with gringo public officials and American export businesses. During the three-day conference more than two hundred mayors and other guests participated in panel discussions and presentations with titles such as “Natural Disasters: Prevention, Response and Recovery” and “The Intersection of Urban Infrastructure, Eco Tourism and Digital nomads.”

The invitation – with all expenses covered – came from her old-time amigo Steven H. McKinsey. They had met decades ago – both young idealists dreaming of changing the world – while working as volunteers to help indigenous peoples deep in the jungle. Estiben, that’s how they called him, had been sent there with the United States Peace Corps. Sonia Elena, back then a hard-core communist and aspiring guerrillera, detested his presence and kept her distance. Eventually, though, El Gringo got to her and won her trust, getting Sonia Elena to drop her guard after he complained the United States government had sent him to months of expensive Spanish and Portuguese language training, only to then station him with indigenous people that didn’t speak a single word of neither español nor português.

The Peace Corps had sent Estiben to Latin America to teach natives about private finance; every evening he would hold presentations about things like savings accounts and inflation. He quickly saw his audience grow with more people showing up every night to hear him talk, even though they didn’t understand anything he said and hadn’t a clue about the concept of money. The young gringo felt good about what he perceived as his increasing popularity and impactful work in laying the foundation for the spread of prosperity-creating capitalism. That was until Sonia Elena broke it to him that the natives coming to his so-called lectures weren’t there to learn; they just wanted to confirm with their own eyes if the rumors going around from village to village were true; that the tallest man alive had come to the jungle and that he had the pale skin of a ghost and a head covered in curly hair the color of red howler monkeys.

Today in Miami, Estiben sat with Sonia Elena at the pool’s lounge table, and listened with full attention to Pedro chatter about one of his old stories. El Gringo wore Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses with mirror-like silver lenses that reflected the image of Pedrito talking with his mouth full.

Sonia Elena, having already heard her husband’s tales a million times, looked away to the turquoise waters of the swimming pool and lost herself thinking about her so-called friendship with Estiben. The circumstances of them meeting for the first time felt so random, spontaneous, but now, it all seemed so premeditated. Damned gringo! Why did you come to my country and meddle in our affairs? Damned all these foreigners – gringos, Russians, Chinese – all telling us what to do, treating us like puppets in their own geopolitical games, promising progress and a better life. Better for who? First came the Spanish and then the Portuguese, then the French, the British, the Dutch … hell, even a chickenshit country like Sweden stole a piece of our lands … but no one beats the United States and their takeover, “buying” Latin American territory for less than a devalued peso, and, when that didn’t work, overthrowing our governments, orchestrating coups, ordering assassinations, sending in soldiers in their green uniforms. The people told them to leave. Greens go home! Greens go! Green go! Gringo! They finally appeared to pull back but in came the dark suits, the economic hitmen representing Uncle Sam and American corporations, bribing us, pushing for economic reforms, deregulating, liberalizing, privatizing, entangling us with loans at high interest – to reward Wall Street banks for taking on the risk but it is those lenders that then force the U.S. government to intervene in Latin America when they fear losing assets, so how big a risk is it really to invest south of the border? It is what it is … imperialism disguised as capitalism … but the gringos claim their meddling isn’t about money; it’s all supposedly in the interest of democracy – except, of course, when despot dictators showed U.S. friendly results. And if all that wasn’t enough, the gringos even stole our identity. Latinoamericanos have long insisted that we’re all one continent called América – including North, Central and South. But the gringos liked the name so much they didn’t want to share it. America is the U.S., they said and took our name because … well, because they could, because they wanted it all and then some.

Sonia Elena had known this all along but she still thought she could outplay the gringos. She hoped she could take advantage of the benefits they offered without paying the price. That’s why a young Sonia Elena had accepted the scholarship they gave her to study one year in Guáchinton, D.C. She had made the most of it and played the gringos for pendejos.

She remembered one day in her study-abroad year when Estiben – by then already working for the C.I.A. – took her to an afternoon at the racetrack together with a bunch of then lesser-known congressmen. She was the lone woman and non-American in the group. She was also the only novice at horse betting. They sure had race tracks back home but “this india mestiza” had never been to one, Sonia Elena had told them. The afternoon had started with drinks and a lot of mansplaining on the so-called science of horse betting. Sonia Elena played along with purposedly dumb follow-up questions and comments like “this is really complicated.” After a few drinks, the party proceeded to the tellers to make their bets. When it was Sonia Elena’s turn, she put her money on a horse called Desperado. Terrible choice, the gringos told her. That horse was just coming out of an injury and has never come close to winning. If there was something sure about the outcome of the race it was that Desperado wouldn’t win, couldn’t win. Sonia Elena laughed and discarded their concerns.

“I just love that name,” she said and doubled her bet, always the contrarian. “Desperado is my horse.”

She also challenged each man to put money on the table and bet against her horse. If she would win, she would get money from everyone. If Desperado lost, she would have to pay more than she had to each person in the party. “Sonia Elena was little in size but showed she had the balls of a giant, grandes cojones,” a senator recalled.

Pang!

The shot went off and the horses burst out of the starting gate.

Next >> Desperado: Lucky Number 69

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

Ocumo: A Latin American Novel gives a take on the region’s complexities through the perspectives of a diverse group of characters, including an up-and-coming politician, a Black live-in maid, an anti-establishment entrepreneur and an ex-prostitute turned news reporter. It’s a highly relevant and timely story in light of the U.S.’s renewed interventionist policies and the emergence of a new generation of charismatic Latin American leaders, from Mexico and all the way down to Argentina.

For all chapters: Archive

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

Don Umberto walked in like he owned the place – like a dog in his own house, as they say in el barrio. Since they had become colleagues – co-owners, publisher and editor, mentor and mentee – Don Umberto had begun his workdays by visiting Román during breakfast. The old man had become a close relative, a new member of the Valencia family; so much that the guard outside on the driveway didn’t stop him anymore; he would just lift the boom gate to allow the editor to drive in, park and, unannounced, just walk inside the house.

Don Umberto, with a book in one hand, went straight to the fridge and stood by it for a moment to decide what to take out. He then swung the door closed to clear the view so he could survey the rest of the kitchen. That’s when he first realized he wasn’t alone. On the opposite side, he saw Román’s back. El Jefe was leaning forward with elbows and forearms resting on the counter by the TV.

“What’s the word on the street?” the old man finally said in lieu of an ordinary “good morning” or “how are you?”

He then threw the book across the room. It landed next to Román, making a subtle bang like a quiet applause. Now with both hands free, Don Umberto opened the fridge again and submerged in it for a moment.

Román looked at the book on the counter and read the title Solymar the Stylist – Memories and Confessions. It would be generous to describe the publication as a book, but it wouldn’t be fair to call it a pamphlet. It had about a hundred pages and looked like a magazine but was smaller in size and thicker than your average weekly. It was something in between; a booklet printed on cheap, sand-colored paper and a cover of white cardboard that wasn’t that much thicker than the pages in it.

“Last week I saw you reading The Analects by Confucius,” Román said with his back still to Don Umberto. “What’s this pulp shit you’re reading now?”

“So what?” Don Umberto said. “Turn around.”

Román did as ordered and rotated his torso, giving Umberto a clear look at the four pendants hanging from his necklace, a gold chain so thin that it looked like cheap wick thread.

“That’s what I mean,” Don Umberto said, stretching out his hand with palm facing up, pointing at the small pendants on Román’s bare chest, as if accusing him of a shameful offense. “Look at that incongruous combination: a Star of David, a Cross, a Star and Crescent Moon, and a Luiza Antônia amulet … and you’re critical of my disparate reading taste … you’re not even a religious person so what is that all about?”

“I’m a little of everything,” Román said with a you-got-me smile. “By blood, and … well, just in case.”

“Sííí, just in case … I accept you the way you are … I’m the same when it comes to reading … a reading whore, that’s what I am … I’d read anything, everything, anytime … my only real fear in life is not having something to read.”

“What’s the book about?” Román said in a successful attempt to take focus away from his incoherent necklace and go back to discussing the substance of Solymar the Stylist.

“Solymar is Ocumo’s favorite hairdresser. She grew up in the slum and everyone there knows her story … she, he, was born in the body of a boy - Marco was her legal name - but he transitioned to a woman and became the favela’s top diva, a bombshell … she’s so good a stylist that the old ladies from la créme de la créme send for her when they want to get fixed up and chat … it’s one of Ocumo’s many contradictions, another example of this society’s hypocrisies … the most fancy, conservative Catholics exact Solymar’s talents … when it comes to fixing their hair and listening to gossip, the fine ladies will gladly take a break from their homophobic ways and call Solymar their dearest friend … you’ll even find the well-off Opus Dei doñas among Solymar’s top patrons … this is her book, her autobiography … actually, it’s more like a compilation of gossip.”

“Anything good?”

“The juiciest story is about a fancy lady visiting New York … Solymar says the police arrested the socialite for shoplifting on Fifth Avenue.”

“Who was it?”

“Solymar won’t say … hairstylist code is never to reveal her sources,” Don Umberto said, and after a short pause added, “Word on the street is that it was EMLU’s wife, the first lady.”

“Coño,” said Román. “Do you think it’s true?”

“Sure thing. You can’t make that up.”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“I love that parrot,” Don Umberto said as he closed the fridge with one elbow, both hands holding a brown paper bag with ham, a ketchup bottle and a large plastic Coke bottle. He then moved to the corner, took the piece of baguette left on the counter and made himself a bulky sandwich with the ingredients he had taken plus scrambled eggs and everything else in the buffet that Román had shunned.

“So … what’s the word on the street over here?” he said.

“Cartiergate,” Román said looking down on his glass of water. “Pinche Cartiergate. That’s the word on the street.”

“We’ll get through it,” Don Umberto said. “Luiza Antônia will help us.”

Román cocked his head slightly and squinted to let his eyes say “not funny, not now.”

“Don’t take it so seriously,” Don Umberto said. “This is all a game, una gozadera. Don’t believe your own bullshit about democracy … caramba, democracy may not even be what we need … that may be something for Europeans and gringos but we’re different.”

“You want dictatorship?”

“Not at all but we need something else … I don’t know what,” Don Umberto said and then talked of “we” as if he were a direct descendant of pre-Columbian peoples, as opposed to the offspring of Italian and Portuguese immigrants that he actually was. He said, “Let us forget the marble of the Acropolis and the towers of the Gothic cathedrals. We are sons of the hills and the forests. Stop thinking of Europe. Think of América.”

“José Carlos Mariátegui?”

“No, Ronald de Carvalho,” Don Umberto said. “You see, my own thought is that we’re a perplexing species … democracy has worked out fine for the gringos, autocracy for the Chinese … but not for us … we need something else … I don’t know what; I just know we are different … caramba, we managed to build pyramids without using the wheel!”

“You’re talking about the past,” Román said. “I’m worried about the future.”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“The future doesn’t matter here … we have no tomorrow … people here only care about today … about now.”

“Well, today they only care about Cartiergate,” Román said.

“Sí, but we’ll write new headlines and the people will forget about the old ones,” Don Umberto said.

“Maybe but the banks won’t forget, the unions won’t forget, the president won’t forget.”

Román told Don Umberto that he had been contacted by his banks with notification that they were putting his lines of credit under review. The government was the banks’ biggest client and Román guessed that EMLU had threated to withdraw its too big deposits. The banks had all said the same thing, that recent developments posed material risks to Román and his businesses’ ability to meet future obligations. The banks, like everyone else in the know, saw how the tide had turned against Román. Cartiergate had pushed Sonia Elena back in the polls and EMLU had taken the lead again.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

Also, the president had submitted a law proposal requiring that only people with a university degree in journalism be allowed to own news organizations. If passed, the law would only apply to news outlets with recent ownership change, making Román’s investment in La Calle the obvious target of the legislation. On top of that, a labor strike that had come out of nowhere hit Román’s other business, Mercado Tucán, making his cash cow bleed money for weeks.

“If it goes on like this, I won’t be able to pay you the half I owe you and La Calle will go down,” Román said.

Don Umberto realized the problem.

“Luiza Antônia will help us,” he said and took out his phone. Without looking in the contacts list, Don Umberto manually entered a ten-digit number and pressed the green button.

Tooot … tooot

Don Umberto put the phone on speaker and now also Román could hear the ringing tone.

Tooot … tooot

Tooot … tooot

“Aló,” a familiar man’s voice answered at the other end of the line.

“Pedrito, I’m here with Román and got you on speaker,” Don Umberto said. “Put Sonia Elena also on.”

“I’m here,” Sonia Elena said.

“I got the story that will change the narrative,” Don Umberto said. “I’ve never understood your beef with Gattinelli but, Sonia Elena, you just need to swallow your pride and go talk to the archbishop … Violeta Chamorro was right when she said ‘Reconciliation is more beautiful than victory.’”

“You and your big quotes,” said Sonia Elena.

Don Umberto didn’t skip a bit; he said, “Do what the racist snob EMLU won’t do … Gattinelli will listen. The Church is still the most-trusted institution here but they’re losing influence to the evangelists, the feminists, the Internet and everyone else. He’ll want to team up if we play it right.”

… Silence …

“She won’t talk to him,” Pedro said, uncharacteristically commenting (or was it commanding?) what his wife would or would not do. “She can only kiss so much ass.”

“We don’t need La Virgen and miracles,” Sonia Elena said. “We got Chango … we’ll lock him up … that’ll give us the win; that’s what the people want.”

“Chango would help but won’t be enough to get you the win,” Don Umberto said. “Chango is temporary. Cartiergate is temporary. Luiza Antônia is forever.”

“Pinche pendejos, what are you talking about?” Román said.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

The parrot yelled again.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Cálmate, Román,” Sonia Elena said.

“La Calle can flood the zone with the Luiza Antônia story,” Don Umberto said.

Flooding the zone, putting the bulk of his news staff to work all the possible angles of a story, was Don Umberto’s ecstasy. He almost got an orgasm saying the words, “flood the zone.” Very few stories are big enough to merit flooding the zone. News outlets nowadays mostly do it for events like the Olympics or the World Cup. They’ll send their reporters to find all the angles beyond the actual sport events. They’ll report the story of the street peddler that’s selling odd souvenirs to fans. They’ll conduct investigations about the miserable living conditions of the workers that built the arenas and write about the host country’s homophobic tendencies. That’s what Don Umberto wanted to do with his Luiza Antônia story, to cover it as if Ocumo were hosting the World Cup and Luiza Antônia were the city’s own Lionel Messi.

“La Virgen is what the people on the street actually care about,” Don Umberto said. “They want La Negra Luiza Antônia to be a saint, a real one … canonized by the Vatican.”

“You think people are that dumb?” Román said, not calming down. “You think they’ll just forget about one million dollars in corrupt watches because of stories of La Santa Virgen?”

“Fuck you, Román!” Sonia Elena said.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Román, mijo, stop playing naïve,” Sonia Elena said. “People believe in God, don’t they? Isn’t that enough proof? The Vatican has people that certify miracles. They confirm whether a person, a supposed saint, has actually performed miracles after her death. The Vatican says it can confirm whether something was a miracle or not. And the people believe that shit. They believe it. And you’re really asking if people are that dumb?”

Sonia Elena agreed with Don Umberto. Politicians understand people better than anyone else. Román didn’t get it but she knew that, deep inside, the people didn’t care about Cartiergate; she remembered what the great litterateur Mario Vargas Llosa once said – “In Latin America we prefer promises to reality” – so she knew voters would forget about Cartiergate if a story like Luiza Antônia’s took over. Still, she refused to kiss the priest’s ass. She held her ground and insisted that Chango would have to do for now; Chango was her winning card.

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

The music came from the black-box TV-set. It was the classical tune used to signal the start of a special announcement, breaking news. Román and Don Pedro turned to the TV, as Sonia Elena and Pedro listened in silence at the other end of the line.

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

“We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news, live and direct from Ocumo’s district court,” a deep male voice said. The red headline banner scrolling sideways on the screen read CHANGO WALKS FREE. The voice continued: “Vincent Trujillo, the suspected thug and pedophile accused of several crimes including murder, rape and child abuse, has just left Cecleña Prison as a free man … freed from all charges. The judge threw out the evidence against him arguing that the techniques used by Los Tácticos likened those of an illegal murder squad.”

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

Pampam pamparam … pampam pamparam …

“Coño ‘e su madre!” Sonia Elena said.

Don Umberto turned to Román and gave him a look that said “I told you so.”

“There goes our winning ticket,” Román said.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For all chapters: Archive

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One million dollars!

Televised images showed how prosecutors and police officers knocked down the front door with a sledgehammer and broke into the home of Mayor Sonia Elena Ortega and her husband Pedro Calderón. They raided the place looking for evidence of corruption and said they had found a wristwatch collection worth one million dollars.

EMLU himself, presidente de la república, had ordered the raid. He had directed the Policía Nacional to start an investigation after El Heraldo had come out with a report with compromising photographs of Ocumo’s top leader. More than two dozen pictures showed Sonia Elena wearing different watches at different public events. The timekeepers were neither cheap Casios nor mass-market Michael Kors models. They were high-end, limited-edition jewelry that just happened to feature clock functionality.

A photo of Sonia Elena standing on stage at her rally outside the district court, the day she celebrated the arrest of Chango Trujillo and launched her presidential campaign, showed her wearing a Rolex Oystersteel Datejust 36 with 18-karat Everose gold and diamond inlays. Another photograph, taken a few days after the earthquake, showed her with a white-gold Patek Philippe Gondolo during a visit to the statue of La Virgen together with El Mudo, the mute boy that spoke.

Still, the picture that had become more widely spread, the one going viral on social media, the one everyone was talking about, was the one showing the mayor wearing a Panthère de Cartier. Todo el mundo knew that watch because the famous torero Andrés Peña Primo, Ocumo’s pride, wore one like it in ubiquitous full-page Cartier ads published in the likes of Hola, Vanidades, Vogue Latin America and Vanity Fair España. The watch had become synonymous with the matador and everyone knew its price tag equaled the cost of a brand new, standard five-door car. They also knew that a blue sapphire decorated the watch’s crown and that its blued-steel sword-shaped hands stood out in a silvered dial with dark roman numerals. It was an elegant small model in yellow gold actually designed for women but El Dandy, macho slayer of brave bulls, could get away with it without anyone ever questioning his masculinity. Sonia Elena, though, was having difficulty explaining how she could afford such luxury. She had first told reporters that all she owned she had earned through hard and honest work. Then during a televised press conference, she had tried to backpedal and said some of the watches weren’t hers.

“Actually, I borrowed them from good friends … I mean to give them back,” she said. “Besides, I hardly ever use them.”

Watching a clip from the disastrous presser, Román Valencia shut his eyes for a moment and opened them back up. He was alone, shirtless, wearing only a pair of pajamas shorts and standing in the kitchen in front of the television – an old black cube that looked a bit like a microwave oven and sat in a corner next to the Oster coffee brewer. Friends and family loved to make fun of Román for not throwing away the antique TV box; he should replace it with a modern flat-screen TV or a tablet. Román didn’t budge; why get rid of something that works? Pinche pendejos!

This morning, Román was watching yet another news report about Sonia Elena. In the past ten days, news show after news show had been reporting about the twists and turns surrounding Sonia Elena’s wristwatch collection. Cartiergate, that’s what El Heraldo called it and everyone else ran along with it. Everyone except La Calle.

“Pinche pendejo! Pinche pendejo!” yelled the parrot from the birdcage hanging on the kitchen’s panoramic window by the sink. More than a window it was a rectangular opening in the wall without frame and glass and facing the patio’s banana plant and giant mango tree. The bright-green bird, thanks to its strategic position, had picked up on the words most often spoken in the Valencias’ kitchen throughout the years. Normally, it would shout “Pinche pendejo! Pinche pendejo!” a couple of times a day, but today it seemed the parrot was more talkative than usual, as if it knew the timely relevance of its statement.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

Román turned to the bird and saw it standing still, upright with its feet clawed on a horizontal bar. It only moved its yellow-and-orange beak to once again state the obvious, over and over again.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

A half smile broke on Román’s face as he wondered if the wiseass parrot was talking about him or Sonia Elena.

“Probably both,” he said out loud and turned back to the TV corner, his attention caught by the smell and sound of fresh coffee dripping down into the Oster’s glass jug. Besides it, the maid had laid out a small but elaborate buffet with half a dozen plates and bowls. Oh, how he wanted to pour himself a cup of café preto and eat a fatty and salty breakfast with scrambled eggs, refried beans, grilled cheese, toast and butter. That’d be so nice. Yet, Román decided today wasn’t a day for luxury. Today he could taste failure so he opted for the breakfast of defeat.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

Román denied himself the culinary pleasures of crispy bacon and minced tomatoes lightly fried in corn oil so he could get a taste of what he would be eating for the rest of his life in the now likely event that Sonia Elena would lose the election. He poured himself a glass of tap water at room temperature instead of his favorite morning thirst-quencher, fresh orange juice with ice. He reached for a baguette, broke off a piece and took a bite. That’s it, pan y agua, the taste of failure. Insipid, unsatisfying food that would end your hunger and quench your thirst but give you no pleasure whatsoever, nothing. In Román’s mind, bread and water symbolized living in poverty, as a prisoner of the system, unable to get more out of life than the bare minimum. Bread and water was just enough to help you survive for another day, to keep you alive but without actually living.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

Openly supporting Sonia Elena, openly attacking the president. What was he thinking? Had he really believed that he would be able to both save the people and become a money-making businessman at the same time? Such an ingenuous dream. Embarrassing! Why was he helping Sonia Elena go against the state? The president was the one enemy no one wanted in a country where political connections, more than talent or hard work, was the key to success. Losing this one fight would mean the end of his aspiration to transcend, to make a real impact in the world. Losing would make him a failed enemy of the most powerful and profitable connection of all, the state. No one would want to deal with Román and risk their dealings with the government.

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

“Pinche pendejo! … Pinche pendejo!”

Maybe it was time to back down, just get out, take the loss and hope for the best. Nah, there was no going back. It’s all in now but how? How do you keep going without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?

Looking out the window, searching for a pleasant thought to distract himself, Román saw the maid sweeping the patio, just like she always did right after putting on some coffee. The image was identical each morning except for the lyrics she sang while working. Román believed he had never heard her sing the same song twice; he just couldn’t grasp how this analphabet old lady had memorized so many lyrics. Today, at least, she sang something that Román recognized, and it sounded just like Valeria Vargas herself crooning her folk classic “Gracias por todo”:

… Thanks for everything

I’ve received so many gifts

Laughter, love, joy, and all the tears

that made me appreciate the good things …

Sounding something like this:

Pahm-pahm!

Don Umberto rushed in through the kitchen door and you could have sworn he had opened it with a kick, like a flamboyant mariachi outlaw entering the saloon in a Wild West movie.

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Next >> 12.2. Cartiergate: A Little Bit of Everything

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Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

For all chapters: Archive

For Ocumo in paperback: Bookshop.org, Amazon and others

The morning show host was introducing a segment with the highlights from last night’s presidential debate between EMLU and Ortega.

The morning show host said, “opinion polls suggest the debate result was a draw with no candidate coming out as a clear winner … take a look and judge for yourself … the following clip is from the beginning of the debate when the candidates were still talking amicably.”

The taped broadcast from the debate began with a close-up of the moderator as he laid out a question with the serious face of a judge reprimanding attorneys in his courtroom.

“Señor Presidente Landreau Ungarte … Señora Alcaldesa Ortega de Calderón … this is perhaps the most pressing issue, as it’s been in previous elections and unfortunately still is today … it’s the issue that each hard-working citizen of this country – the bodega owner, the peddler, the live-in maid, the farmer, the construction worker, the nurse, the contractor, everyone – is worried about. I’m talking of course about the economy.”

The camera cut to a wide shot showing the moderator in the foreground, seating behind a desk with his back against the audience. In the background, the two candidates stood behind see-through plexiglass podiums placed on each side of the stage. They both nodded up and down and narrowed their eyes as they listened to the moderator’s long-winded question.

“To be honest,” the moderator said. “This is the exact same question I posed in the presidential debate five years ago. When I looked through my notes from that debate I just copy-pasted it into my notes for today. Inflation is up, unemployment is up, investments are down, property prices are all over the place. What is your plan to fix the economy once and for all? You go first, Señor Presidente Landreau Ungarte.”

“I’m glad you’ve asked about the economy because it is in fact an important and complex issue,” EMLU said. “The thing about the economy is that measures take time, there’s no quick fix. We’re constantly looking into what we can do and that’s why we’re forming alliances with emerging economic superpowers that can help us prosper. We just signed a treatment with China that opens up that market for our coffee exports. Believe it or not Chinese consumers have started to drink coffee and they want to buy beans from us in exponential quantities … we’ve also signed a deal with Turkey to add more direct flights between our two main airports. That’s going to bring more tourists and foreign investors.”

“Can you comment on that, Señora Alcaldesa Ortega de Calderón?” the moderator said.

“President EMLU is taking us down the wrong path, and positioning us to be enemies with the U.S. and our neighbors in North, Central and South America,” Sonia Elena said. “I agree that previous dealings with the U.S. have been unfair to us and that needs to be corrected but our development is closely linked to the development of Estados Unidos and the prosperity of our sister nations in Latinoamérica … we need more unity here in our region … I want to forge win-win collaborations with our sisters and brothers, including Los Norteamericanos … let’s not forget that the U.S. is the world’s biggest economy, with the most powerful military, the best universities, the most innovative corporations … let’s work with number one, why settle for lesser partners?”

A cutaway shot showed members of the audience sitting down in impeccable silence like tidy kids in school listening to their disciplinarian teacher.

EMLU said, “Sonia Elena, mi amor…”

She wanted to retaliate with a “fuck you, I’m not your love” or a more moderate, TV-friendly version of that but contained herself; she would lose by showing any sign of irritation for that patronizing and demeaning, yet generally accepted manner of addressing women. Anything she had said about it would have sounded hysterical. She knew that and every other woman in power – in politics or the workplace – knew that.

“… my love, mija, the U.S. is not what it used to be,” EMLU said. “Everybody knows that Estados Unidos is a decaying empire … its power has been declining ever since they appointed El Moreno Colin Powell as secretary of state … the future, my love, is Asian, away from the U.S. and from the dollar … that’s why we’re also looking into the potential of cryptocurrencies and how they can help us avoid total dollarization … I promise you that we’re on our way to fixing the economy … Hugo Chávez once said that Latin America’s struggle ‘is a marathon, not a sprint’ … wise words … things take time … I promise you things will get better … have patience.”

“Señora Alcaldesa Ortega de Calderón, can you make a final comment on this issue before we move on? Keep it brief, por favor,” the moderator said.

“Chávez also said ‘the future belongs to those who fight for it today’ … that’s what I promise to do,” Sonia Elena said. “My promise on the economy is that we will find the best partnerships with our regional friends to create jobs and prosperity for all.”

Watching TV in her living room, still standing between the sofa and the coffee table, Josefa Trujillo felt the urge to utter the vulgar words that she had overheard men saying outside the bodega as they bragged about the best strategy to lure women and get them into bed: “Make her promises and more promises until you fuck her … and once you’ve fucked her, forget what you’ve promised her.” Those degenerate words so clearly explained the game these políticos were playing on the debate, making promises and more promises. Josefa felt sick and couldn’t bother watching anymore but just as she was about to turn it off, the host of the morning show was back on the screen commenting the debate and getting ready to introduce another clip.

“Following is a segment when the candidates discussed crime and Chango Trujillo,” the show host said. He mumbled something else that Josefa didn’t catch because her mind had stayed glued to the boy’s name for over a second. She then blinked and brought herself back to watching the TV debate.

“I promise to change the legal system, make it more just and democratic,” Sonia Elena Ortega said into the camera. “We’ll introduce judicial elections to allow the people to vote and choose their judges, from local magistrates to supreme court justices. That will make us the most democratic country in the world.”

“Thank you, Señora Alcaldesa Ortega de Calderón,” the moderator said. “Now to you Señor Presidente Landreau Ungarte, you’ve talked a great deal about mano dura and it’s fair to say that being tough on crime has become the centerpiece of your campaign …”

“That’s correct,” EMLU said with pride.

The moderator continued, “But recent media reports suggest your strategy is not giving results … that you’re not as tough on crime as you claim. News outlet La Calle has gone as far as to call you, and I quote, ‘the sugar daddy of the gangs’ … Can you comment on that?”

“I am tough,” EMLU said, the camera close-up revealing in real time how his cheeks went from pale to pink, almost red. “Those media reports that you’re referring to are false, biased and part of a malicious disinformation campaign carried out by my rival.”

“Which part is false?” Sonia Elena said, conscious that he had just referred to her as “my rival” and had stopped calling her “my love.” It was a shift that Sonia Elena took as signaling that EMLU was feeling vulnerable.

“Don’t interrupt me,” EMLU said.

“You’re falsely accusing me of spreading fake information…”

“Let me talk. Don’t interr…”

“You’re the liar here,” Sonia Elena said.

“Keep it down, you sound like a hysterical hen,” EMLU said.

“The only hysterical chicken here is you, a coward that won’t fight crime.”

A new cutaway shot of the audience showed people standing up, cheering, laughing, whistling, applauding frantically; they had turned into schoolkids in a classroom where the teacher had stepped out for a moment.

“Candidates, por favor,” the moderator said mildly in an effort to look like the adult in the room but with no genuine intention of ruining the perfect-for-TV feisty atmosphere.

“I…,” EMLU began saying something but was half a second too slow for Sonia Elena.

She said, “When I become president of the republic, I’m going to bring mano dura to the whole nation the way I’ve done with Los Tácticos in Ocumo.”

The moderator, rightly sensing this was the perfect opportunity to pour gasoline on the fire, interjected again, “Sonia Elena’s referring to the arrest of Chango Trujillo by Ocumo’s special police unit Los Tácticos. Polls show that voters are very concerned about Chango. EMLU, can you…”

Now even the moderator had sunk to the two políticos’ street-spat tone, dropping formal titles and double last names. “Señor Presidente Landreau Ungarte” and “Señora Alcaldesa Ortega de Calderón” were out; “EMLU” and “Sonia Elena” were in.

“EMLU, can you comment on the Chango case?”

In the living room, Josefa pointed the remote control at the TV, raised the volume another notch and sat down at one end of the sofa.

“We’re putting him behind bars once and for all,” Sonia Elena said.

“You won’t get anything done,” EMLU countered. “You’re pass your prime, go home and take care of your grandchildren, you don’t even lubricate anymore.”

“Abuelito, I’m at the top of my game,” Sonia Elena said, opening her arms with wrists bent inwards and both index fingers pointing at her own breasts. She then pointed down towards her waist and raised her fingers back up towards her breast as if scanning her torso. “You can double your dose of Viagra and Cialis and you still won’t be able to handle this,” she added.

The audience’s cheers, boos, laughter and whistles got louder.

Josefa gasped and brought one hand to her mouth in horror, desperation, frustration, hopelessness, anger at those two fools that won’t take anything seriously. She turned the TV off and rushed to the dining table to look again at the bank statement that she had placed on top of a pile of papers. She had studied it last night to confirm that the monthly deposit had come in. It had, same as always. On time, on the first day of the month, every month for the past twenty-three years. The only thing that had changed all that time was the amount’s size. It had increased from year to year, adjusting for inflation. It was a generous sum enough to cover all daily expenses and still leave cash over for a little luxury and savings. Those monthly payments allowed her to be a full-time housewife even though she didn’t have a husband. Unlike most of her neighbors, she didn’t have to hustle in a job from eight to six, Monday thru Friday, and sometimes even Saturday. Being discrete twenty-four seven, that was her job. All she had to do to keep receiving the generous payments was to keep their secret. That’s what kept the money coming all these years. She did her part to make sure there was money for the boy. Money was never a problem; it wasn’t the solution either, she thought. Her eyes turned red and watery, but still without letting out tears. Paying the bills isn’t enough. Raising a child takes more. More attention. More discipline. More love. More contact with his parents. She had done all she could but it wasn’t enough. Can’t do much alone.

Slowly bending forward, she let her torso and extended arms fall flat on the table. Her head twisted sideways with one cheek resting on the documents, Josefa caught a glimpse of a days-old copy of La Calle. The newspaper reminded her of the reporter she met at Juan’s Bodega. Maybe there was one more thing she could do to help the boy. Maybe it was time she changed her ways. Who cares about money if it means her son living miserably behind bars? The watery eyes of a defenseless pussycat changed into the gaze of a predator, a jaguar about to go for the kill.

“Whatever it takes,” she said out loud and swinged both arms like human windshield wipers, back and forth a couple of times, to clear the table, throwing the documents and everything else to the floor.

She straightened her back, looked down on the floor, and crouched to pick up a pen and blank piece of paper. Josefa the Jaguar then pulled out a chair, took a seat and started to write:

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NEXT >> 12.1. Cartiergate: Pinche Pendejo

Ocumo is available in paperback on Bookshop.org, Amazon and others.

Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026

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Sitting in the tiny porch in the little house – her casita – Josefa Trujillo held up the broadsheet wide open. She was one of those few dinosaurs – surviving member of an extinct species – that still read the printed version of the newspaper every morning. She wasn’t a fan of progress, development or whatever they called change these days. She saw no use in owning high-tech nuances like a dishwasher machine and a microwave oven, and regretted that the Electrolux man no longer walked door to door selling vacuum cleaners. She also missed the days when she could look up stuff in the phone catalogue’s yellow pages where everything was neatly organized in categories and alphabetical order. When they stopped printing the phone book, Josefa had no choice but to learn to search on the Internet, first on a desktop and later using a smart phone. That was a rare example of how, in her way of seeing it, she had given in and moved along with the world. But when they stopped delivering the newspaper to her door and directed her to start following the news online, Josefa refused. “Enough is enough,” she had told herself and adopted the daily routine of going out to the newsstand to get the paper every day before eight. News had moved to the digital space but Josefa decided to hang on to the old ways as long as possible. It was with similar determination that she had long ago decided to stay her course as a woman of principle. Yes, the world had become crueler, more selfish, more cynical and dishonest, but Josefa remained one of the few people left in Ocumo that still took pride in being loyal and honest, the kind that would go through absurd trouble to get something done only because she had said she would, even when no one expected it her to. Like that time a couple of years ago when she was a few coins short to pay for groceries at the bodega. El Bodeguero, standing behind the cashier, had told her it was OK. She could just pay with what she had and take the groceries home. Josefa thanked him and promised to come back the following day to settle her debt – a sum smaller than the price of a postage stamp. El Bodeguero told her not to worry about it but Josefa reiterated that she would come back and pay. The following day it rained a biblical deluge – as if God poured jugs of water down from the sky – leaving the city paralyzed; public buses stopped running and taxis were nowhere to be found. That didn’t stop Josefa from going out and taking the forty-five-minute walk to the bodega to pay her minute debt.

“Señora, por favor, you didn’t have to come all this way in this weather,” El Bodeguero told Josefa in the tone of a father berating a child.

“I said I would pay you and I always keep my word,” said Josefa, soaked from head to toe, and then headed out in the rain again.

Today, Josefa had already gone out and picked up the day’s newspaper. She now sat alone at home in her casita; the only things – living or dead – keeping her company rested on the small round metal table next to her: a vase, a cup of coffee and an ashtray. The red hibiscus in the glass vase had withered and the water in it was murky and smelly. The cup on the saucer was filled up to the rim with café con leche. The coffee, still untouched, had turned cold and stopped steaming. On the ashtray, a cigarette burned, its smoke rising slowly in a thin, almost-perfectly-straight line. She had only puffed on it once, a while ago.

As she held the newspaper’s page two in her left hand and page three in the right, you would think Josefa was reading but, actually, her frowning eyes went past the paper and stared at the house’s little paved front yard with a blind gaze, as if lost in the distance, far away in the horizon at the edge of the ocean. Next door, her neighbor had turned on the radio and the volume was just high enough so that she could make out what they were playing. It was the salsa-romántica classic “Maria Elena” by Grupo Vulgar:

… Maria Elena, stop blaming yourself

For all his shortcomings

He turned you into a single mother

And left your child without a father

He took advantage of your innocence

Stole your heart with all his lies …

Sounding something like this:

The music stopped abruptly and a distant voice yelled “Puuuuta!” Instantly, Josefa understood that another power outage just hit the area. She didn’t share her neighbor’s frustration, though. At least not today. She had to deal with a different, heavier burden, something that was weighing on her, consuming her.

Five, twenty or sixty minutes ago – she had lost sense of time – Josefa had been trying to read the main article on page three for the nth time. It was the same article she had been reading and rereading again and again in the past few days; this edition of the paper was almost a week old but she couldn’t move from it even if she had gone out to buy the latest edition earlier this morning. The article she was obsessed with was a continuation from the front page, a story with the headline CHANGO IS GOING DOWN. They were using an old photo taken the first time the police had captured him as an adult; a mugshot of Chango looking straight into the camera with an exaggerated wide grin and holding up a sign from Ocumo City Jail with the number 284821. They made him look like Pablo Escobar on that infamous mugshot that has become so iconic that Josefa sometimes saw it printed on people’s T-shirts and fake dollar bills.

The newspaper article said Los Tácticos had done everything by the book and meticulously collected enough evidence to secure a guilty sentence to “finally” put Chango behind bars. The “finally” stung Josefa the most. It implied what Josefa already knew but was nevertheless painful to see in print, that the whole world was out to get the boy, and had been for a long, long time. And now, “finally,” it seemed they were close to succeeding. She felt the urge to cry but didn’t get herself to shed any tears. She had run out of them by now, she said to herself, after so many years of suffering.

Not everything was dark. Ever the fighter, never a quitter, Josefa had also chosen to see a glimmer of relief in an article on the opposite page. It was a report about a sensational heist at a cold-storage facility. One man dressed in neon yellow high vis freezer jacket and pants, helmet and protection goggles had entered the facility looking like a regular worker until he pulled out a submachine gun, probably a fully automatic Mini Uzi, judging from black-and-white images captured by surveillance cameras. The perpetrator, most likely working alone, had made off with a refrigerated delivery van filled with fish and seafood worth a small fortune. Authorities speculated his plan was to sell the produce on the black market to capitalize on expected increased demand in the coming weeks of Lent when the more serious Catholics forgo meat. The good news, Josefa thought, was that they couldn’t accuse her boy for the robbery because he had a rock-solid alibi; Chango was already sitting in jail, waiting for trial for other alleged crimes. Otherwise, they surely would have blamed him because that’s what they had done for years … uninhibited, without shame, unfairly.

The boy – that’s what she used when referring to him in the third person – grew up without a father because the idiot that had impregnated her turned out to be a liar. He was a real charming mango – formal, elegant, of fair complexity, with green eyes and light brown hair – but what he had in looks, he lacked in integrity and courage to commit to her and the boy. Sure, the jerk bought Josefa this casita and paid the bills. Respect and appreciation, though, was nonexistent. El Mister didn’t give her any of that. She had been such a fool and swallowed all the lies coming out of his mouth, hoping someday she could become his respectable wife and give the boy a respectable home.

In the beginning, Mister Important thought he could be a good father just by showing up every Christmas with a bottle of expensive whiskey, presents and promises. “This is our year,” he would tell Josefa. “This is the year I’ll leave it all so we can get married.” That’s what he would say before they had sex. After he had made love to her – fucked her – he would drop the charm and become bossy, telling Josefa and the boy how worthless they were. “You’re just like all the other little indios,” he would yell, holding a glass of Johnnie Walker Black in one hand and swinging the other sideways to point at both, child and woman. “You people are all a bunch of lazy gold diggers. You want, want, want. I can’t do everything you want. I have a name and a reputation to take care of. What do you have?”

Year after year, Josefa would put up with the same insults, choosing to believe what she, deep in her gut, knew were empty promises. He loved her, he would tell her again and again. But he couldn’t move in with her just like that, he would add. He was a conservative Catholic and he needed to protect his fine reputation, his good name. It wasn’t until the coward raised his hand on the boy that she finally put a stop to it. “Don’t touch the boy ever again, you filthy motherfucker,” she said, surprising herself with words she had never uttered before or ever since. “Coward! Touch him or me and I’ll make sure to stain your fine precious name. I’ll do whatever it takes. I swear it on the name of my dead aunt Wara who raised me in the mountains and loved me as if she were my own mother.” The jerk promised to change but never came back. Still, the loyal Josefa kept their relationship secret. As expected, despite everything, she kept her word, like always.

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan, tin …

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan, tin …

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan, tin …

The melody from the passing ice-cream truck snapped Josefa out of her hole and prompted memories of Vincent when he was still an innocent child.

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan, tin …

Her troubled frowning changed into smiling. The boy really loved ice cream. He would jump in joy when he heard that melody. How he would run, fly, out the door to stop the truck. A Danky 21 cone with rum raisin ice cream, chocolate swirl and a cherry on top; his favorite. Such a sweet child. In her eyes he was still that cute innocent boy and not the twenty-three-year-old thug that everyone said he had become. It’s true he had made her cry many times, too many times. But don’t they say he who loves you will make you cry? It’s true he had promised over and over again to straighten up and get a job, only to mess up time and again. It’s true he had snatched money out of her purse and she had looked the other way. How could she not? After all, he was proud, like her, not the kind that asks for help, or even worse, begs for money. She understood. And anyway, Josefa knew he would pay her back as soon as he had some cash over.

People can say what they want but he was a good boy. As a matter of fact, more than anything else, he was a victim of the system, prey of these hungry, ruthless streets that will eat you up if you don’t fight back with any means you have. If only the world knew the real Vincent. If only he had gotten a fair chance.

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan, tin …

Tintin, tantin … tin, tan …

The music faded.

Tintin, tantin … tin …

Tintin, tantin …

Tintin …

Josefa looked down to the newspaper and read the headline again; CHANGO IS GOING DOWN. She scrolled with her eyes to the bottom of the page to another article, a report on the latest poll results ahead of the presidential election. An infographic with bars in different sizes and colors showed how Sonia Elena Ortega’s numbers had skyrocketed since the previous poll, making her a legitimate rival to the seemingly no-longer-unbeatable EMLU. If the election were held today, the article said, Ortega would unseat the incumbent president and make history by putting an end to the Conservative Party’s hegemony.

Josefa put the paper down, rose up and went inside. Walking through the living room, the moving images coming from the TV caught her eye. Electricity was back up, she thought, and focused on the headline at the bottom of the screen; WAR OF THE SEXES. She leaned over to the coffee table placed between the sofa and the TV, picked up the remote, unmuted the volume and watched without sitting down.

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Next >> 11.2. Whatever It Takes: Double Dose of Viagra

Ocumo is available in paperback on Bookshop.org, Amazon and others.

Copyright © Mel Páez, 2026