15. Whispers from the Root #3
“The funny thing is my father wasn’t a good man. He left my mom for long stretches of time,” Willie said to no one in particular. “He drank too much, smoked too much. The cops knew him by name. So there being a file on him was no surprise. Not a file. Wait, what did they call them?”
“Carpetas,” Norma said. “The files were carpetas.”
“Right, carpetas,” Willie repeated. He stared down at his strange claws.
His voice became harder. “My father and I, we’re way more alike than I want to admit.
He wasn’t good at anything, but he was good at painting.
And yeah, he helped those students with designing the pamphlets and making the protest signs.
He was always down for a cause. Anything to fuck them pigs over. ”
Even as he recounted the events out loud, the real story of his father’s life wasn’t as noble as Willie wished it to be.
His father worked at the bookstore because he wanted to get laid.
He joked about it to Willie on one of the last times he saw him.
The ’70s were like that, he was told, people taking all kinds of risks.
Una fiesta. On the night of his murder, his father believed he was meeting friends to hook up with the pretty college girls who frequented the bookstore.
“?Ayúdame! ?Por favor!” Don Manuel crawled to the front door at a snail’s pace. His cries for help were useless in a house so cavernous.
“I don’t know about you guys, but someone mailed the carpetas to me.
The weird thing was no one knew I was staying at that spot, not my family, no one close.
How did they know what address to use?” Willie asked.
“It took me forever, years, to go through the papers, but when I did, the only name that stood out was yours.”
Willie dug his claw into the back of the old man and dragged him to the center of the room.
No matter what, Don Manuel González was their captive audience of one.
The three recounted stories of their loved ones, moments they missed, joy they experienced, until the roosters sang.
And when that happened, Norma, Claudia, and Willie left Don Manuel crumbled on the floor, his bruised body heaving with the searing memories of his past deeds.
Don Manuel’s son Ramon was sending dick pics to a woman he had just met at a bar.
The woman hadn’t asked for any, but he sent them anyway.
Ramon had been living in Los Angeles for the past five years.
Whenever someone asked what his line of work was, he said he was a producer, but for the most part Ramon was just a man taking meetings, ingratiating himself with white men who considered him to be somewhat of a buffoon.
They trotted him out whenever they needed a Latino “expert,” but movie projects of brown people were rarely ever made.
Everything was in perpetual development.
But Ramon’s latest pitch was bound to be a hit.
He was so confident. Not only was the movie a personal story, it had every Hollywood angle: a suspense thriller, a love dynamic, and a historical context perfect for awards season.
He thought of the film as a sort of Killers of the Flower Moon meets The Accountant, but tropical.
When Ramon pitched the project, he barely mentioned that it was set in Puerto Rico, not wanting to limit the scope.
The hero didn’t have to be brown. He could easily see a young Ben Affleck wannabe taking the role, bringing in the gravitas needed to depict the inner struggle of the character.
Ramon always name-dropped Salma, Jennifer, Zoe, Selena as interested parties.
Their roles could take up way more space than the current script entailed, bringing the romance element higher.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a song by Selena or Jennifer.
There were so many ways the movie could reach the desired audience.
Whispers from the Root: The Untold Story of Las Carpetas is a film of a straightlaced man of faith bringing democracy to a small island ripped apart by communist infiltrators and the untamed woman on the other side of the political wall he falls in love with.
Who didn’t want to see that on the big screen?
This movie had the potential to be a Color Purple, a 12 Years a Slave, a Titanic.
The house Ramon rented was all floor-to-ceiling glass with beautiful views of downtown LA.
He paid too much, but appearance meant everything in this city.
He needed the right car, the right house, the right clothes.
Whenever he spoke to his father, Ramon always made sure to explain how the meetings were going great and “promising.” It was only a matter of time before someone took his pitch about the history of the carpetas and ran with it.
He had already spoken to Bad Bunny’s manager, who had a copy of the script.
In the eyes of his father, Ramon was a success.
A man who moved away from the island to Hollywood. So eager to sell a story. To sell.
When the budding actress didn’t respond quick enough to his overtures, Ramon drank until he became sloppy and dragged himself to his king-size bed.
He jerked off and quickly fell asleep. Surrounded by a cocoon of quiet, Ramon slept deeply and without worry.
His whole life was like that. His father made sure of it.
The best schools. Constant flow of money.
Everything at his fingertips. But most importantly, the elder instilled the idea that whatever Ramon wanted was his for the taking.
He just simply had to remove the obstacles.
Later that night, right before the first hints of dawn appeared across the sky, Ramon awoke to the sound of a horse entering his home.
When he opened his eyes, he saw three dark silhouettes standing before him.
Before he could get up to wield the bat he kept by his bed, a spur slashed across his chest.
“Siri, play ‘Pecador’ by Tito Rodriguez,” someone said.
First, Ramon’s tongue was yanked out of his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Then, both his feet were trampled on so he couldn’t run. Finally, Ramon’s eyes were gouged out, but not before he could plainly see the three.