DON JERÓNIMO WAS a kindly, moustachioed taxi driver in his fifties who moonlighted as a driver for the Paramilitaries. Palillo and I were his first pick-up, and he talked to us jovially about his two teenaged daughters. Owning a taxi licence allowed him to transport people across the country without raising suspicion. The Paramilitaries paid him one hundred dollars per recruit, and reimbursed his fuel and food expenses. If a third party referred a recruit to him, he split the commission.
We travelled north into the province of Meta. It was a clear day with a sprinkling of cotton clouds drifting across the blue sky, and I was glad of the silence and the beauty. The long, flat road sliced through verdant pastures and water-drenched fields like a dried river of tar. In shallow marshes, flocks of white storks lurched into motion. Long legs thrashing, they seemed to run along the water’s surface, the tips of their feet leaving light ripples.
An hour into the trip, Don Jerónimo pulled off the highway behind a black SUV. The driver opened the back door and a skinny kid with glasses scrambled out. Jerónimo shook the man’s hand, produced a crisp banknote from his wallet and guided the boy back to our car.
Palillo shifted into the middle, and the kid, who was twelve years old and named Eugene, perched awkwardly on the edge of the seat beside him. When Palillo told him to sit back and relax, Eugene lifted his shorts to reveal welts and purple bruises covering the back of his thighs. They’d been inflicted by his father, a violent drunk called El Machetero, who’d killed six men in separate cantina brawls using a machete.
Three days earlier, Eugene had walked in on his father kissing a woman who wasn’t his mother, and his father had given him seventeen planazos with the flat side of his machete. Eugene hid under his aunt’s porch. She brought him food, but his father continued looking for him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to go home. Instead, he begged the local Paramilitaries to take him. ‘When I showed them my legs they said my father was a prick and I should never go back. That’s when they called Don Jerónimo.’
Palillo shook his head. Even his stepfather had never hit him with a machete.
‘What about you two? Why are you joining?’
‘The Guerrilla killed our fathers,’ Palillo said.
Eugene eyed the blood on my school shirt, waiting for me to elaborate, but Palillo and I had already agreed: no surnames, no place names and no identifying details. In order to protect our families, it was best that no one knew we’d joined.
Mid-morning, on the highway that led to Los Llanos – Colombia’s eastern floodplains that border Venezuela – we stopped at a gas station to pick up two more boys. Tango, a dirty, unshaven boy of about seventeen, squeezed into the back. His younger brother, Murgas, took the front passenger seat. He had long hair and a missing tooth, and looked like he hadn’t slept for days. When they saw the rest of us they exchanged glances as though doubtful they were in the right car. I wasn’t sure we were headed to the same place either. Eugene was as skinny as a rifle. Tango and Murgas reeked of alcohol and cigarettes. None of them looked like soldiers.
‘You guys going to be working at the finca too?’ asked Tango while Jerónimo filled the gas tank.
‘Same as you,’ Palillo answered. Like me, he must have assumed ‘working at the finca’ was code.
We continued travelling west towards the city of Villavicencio, the capital of Meta and the biggest city in Los Llanos. By midday, the rising heat haze made headlights shimmer for minutes before oncoming vehicles became visible. Metre-long iguanas sunned themselves on the highway’s shoulder, absorbing the road’s accumulated heat.
‘Anyone hungry?’ asked Jerónimo. ‘Everything is paid for by the company: transport, clothing and food.’
The others nodded ravenously. Don Jerónimo pulled into a restaurant that offered mamona – meat smoked over hot coals.
‘But please,’ he said, pointing to me, ‘you can’t go out looking like that.’
I could have changed but I shrugged and stayed in the car with my dark thoughts while Jerónimo bought the others all the beef, pork crackling and chigüiro they could eat.
The trouble began after lunch when Tango and Murgas took too long in the bathroom. Jerónimo honked repeatedly until they emerged, glassy-eyed and smelling of marijuana.
‘Last fiesta before starting work,’ stated Murgas, laughing unashamedly. He took a bottle of aguardiente from his bag, gulped some down and passed it to Tango.
Jerónimo’s jaw clenched. ‘Just don’t vomit on my upholstery.’
Drunk and stoned, Tango and Murgas became talkative. I realised that recruiters had tricked them, offering them highly paid jobs as security guards on a private finca. None of us said anything. It wasn’t our responsibility. As for Jerónimo, he’d already paid for their lunch and wouldn’t receive his commission unless they were delivered.
Two hours later we entered Villavicencio. Concrete high-rise buildings towered over the streets. There were traffic lights on every corner, and dual carriageways of bustling trucks, fleets of yellow taxis and large, inter-provincial buses heading to the capital, Bogotá. I’d never seen anything like it.
‘You guys look young to be working in security,’ said Tango when Jerónimo stopped to check the tyre pressure. He poked Eugene in the chest. ‘Especially you.’
‘Maybe we’re going to different places,’ I said, trying to warn him surreptitiously. ‘You should ask Jerónimo.’
Tango and Murgas looked at each other and seemed to sober up suddenly. When we set off again, they stopped drinking and began watching every passing road sign.
Fifty kilometres beyond Villavicencio there were no longer any roadside dwellings. There were no shops, no towns and no traffic. Just long, flat, grassy plains. We passed a municipal road sign: GUERRILLA ¡NI PÍO! – GUERRILLA, NOT A PEEP! – indicating we were deep in Paramilitary territory.
Murgas signalled Tango, who tapped Jerónimo’s shoulder.
‘I need to use the bathroom.’
‘You used it at the restaurant. We’re almost there.’
Murgas lifted his green sports bag to his knee. He produced a packet of crisps, which he shared around, but he left the bag open so we could see its contents: a tennis-ball-sized chunk of marijuana wrapped in plastic, a second bottle of aguardiente and a black gun.
‘I don’t want trouble,’ said Jerónimo.
‘Neither do we.’ Tango clasped Jerónimo’s shoulder and leaned forward to speak menacingly into his ear. ‘So don’t make me piss on your upholstery.’
While Tango and Murgas urinated by the side of the road, or pretended to, they argued back and forth. Through my open window I overheard Tango’s last words as they returned to the car: ‘If we go back, we’re dead.’
Murgas opened the front passenger door but didn’t get in. ‘Listen, old man,’ he said. ‘You better tell us where we’re headed.’
Jerónimo sighed. ‘I’m dropping you off at a finca called El Filtro. You’ll stay there for a few days. After that, you’ll be doing a four-month Autodefensas training course. If you want to turn back, tell me now.’
Tango and Murgas stepped away and debated in a furious whisper. Finally, they got back into the car.
‘We’re in,’ Murgas said tersely, but neither of them looked happy.
Soon afterwards, Don Jerónimo turned onto a minor road that led to a run-down farmhouse and a long, dormitory-style building where we’d be staying. We were introduced to the owner, Doña Amanda, a tough woman of about forty with crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and pink slippers on her feet.
Before departing, Don Jerónimo paid us fifty dollars each as an advance on our salary. ‘Good luck, boys,’ he said.
The money reassured Tango and Murgas. They now seemed resigned.
I remained silent. Palillo thanked Don Jerónimo and shook his hand. Eugene waved goodbye. They had full bellies and more money in their pockets than they’d ever had in their lives. I knew that to Palillo this seemed like the beginning of a grand adventure. But to me, it was the beginning of a long quest for justice.