We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson

only one lightbulb, hung two steps in front of the desk. That is where the driver stands: directly underneath it, in an amber circle of light. He is hunched over a road map, squinting. He is one of the shortest men you’ve ever seen, his shoulders narrow like a twelve-year-old’s, the muscles in his arms wiry and dense. When he looks up at you, you see a tattoo on his neck: an upside-down tree, rooted at the jawbone and bursting into a snarl of leafless branches just under the shirt collar.
    You will never learn the driver’s name, or what the tattoo means. His car won’t have a license plate and the roads to the airport will all be eight-lane highways, roundabouts, the lanes inclined toward a background of skyscrapers and blackmountains. You will think of the tattoo again and again, the red parrot in the branches hung by its feet and peering sideways across the hollow of the driver’s neck. It is impossible and it is insane and you know it, but in the next weeks, you will think that all this was part of the movie, somehow. The director, he wanted it this way.

PROCURATORE CAPO: And you were aware, Signor Velluto, of the precarious political situation in the area at this time?
    VELLUTO: No more precarious than here.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: More than seventeen nations have issued travel warnings due to threats of domestic terrorism and cartel violence in Colombia, correct? Ovidio sits at a largely unpoliced region between these two nations, correct? This was the state of things during the time you were scouting for production? I’ll refer the jury to subexhibit 5C, producer Baldo Palaggio’s production notes.
    VELLUTO: Have you read La Repubblica today?
    PROCURATORE CAPO: Let me ask the questions.
    VELLUTO: The Red Brigades bombed six trash cans outside the Defense Department this morning. Seven blocks from here.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: We are not discussing Italy.
    VELLUTO: We should.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: Well, then, pardon me. But bombing trash cans isn’t quite the same thing as kidnapping international dignitaries.
    VELLUTO: You’d forget the murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro?
    PROCURATORE CAPO: I would never forget, but our state police have worked tirelessly to neutralize—
    VELLUTO: They are not neutralized. Terror is never neutralized. Not in Italy, not anywhere.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: Sir, you are the one on trial here.
    VELLUTO: And what about the student revolutionaries, the neofascists, who else—
    GIUDICE PRESIDENT: Signor Avvocato, please instruct your client to comply.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: I believe our giudici are aware that ourcountry has its own issues with guerilla insurrection at the moment, signore. Please answer my question.
    VELLUTO: Answer mine. You say all of those—the Red Brigades, the neofascists, the students, all those together are not as bad the M-19s?
    PROCURATORE CAPO: Please answer my question.
    VELLUTO: Setting aside that Colombia has about twice as many guerilla and paramilitary fuckheads as Italy—the FARC , the ELN , the AUC , I could go on—­setting all that aside, you think the fucking teenagers in the M-19 were the kings and queens of this prom?
    PROCURATORE CAPO: They’re not all teenagers.
    VELLUTO: But you concede that—
    PROCURATORE CAPO: Signor Velluto, let’s get to the point. Were you aware of the political climate in Colombia when you selected your location?
    AVVOCATO: Objection, relevance.
    VELLUTO: Oh, nice of you to finally join us, friend!
    PROCURATORE CAPO: This goes toward establishing Signor Velluto’s disregard for his actors’ safety.
    VELLUTO: And I’m saying that doesn’t matter. They were just as endangered in Colombia as they are here in Italy. No more.
    PROCURATORE CAPO: And the American? What about him? His home country is not in a state of domestic war.
    [Whereupon Signor Velluto laughs loudly, and Giudice ­Palermo calls counsel to the bar.]

ANDRES, EL PUÑO
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    Bogotá
    T here were