The bar irlandés.
How far would you go to survive in a society not designed for you?
In the strum of guitars, the taste of late-night whisky and the alkaline stench of coca leaves, there I was, like always; the only qolla around. Qolla is not a friendly way to refer to my people but there weren’t many other places to go where my accent was welcome; it certainly wasn’t at the bar irlandés but listen up, yankee: there was a business arrangement between us and the owner.
You see, when the federalistas took over, everything became about politics. A man has to feed his family and keep them safe because he is a man. The men who couldn’t, or didn’t, were kept in check by a loose network of informants. Gossip spreads fast, and this gossip does half the job of the secret police for them. Our police, they don’t put you in nicely ventilated rooms for interrogations like this. They wouldn’t bother with rooms if you support the national MAS government, if you are a masista.
There was an infamous case that did the rounds in places like the irlandés: an alcoholic husband (husband might have sufficed) in the workers’ province funded his vice by prostituting his wife and daughters. A real sick bastard, but this was not unheard of. Before Camacho’s federalistas took over, he would have gotten off lightly with a year spent in Palmasola prison. Turns out he vanished without a trace. Only his remains were found in the frontlines by the masistas who took the opportunity to cry federalista barbarism.
Anyway, after that, every man in the department fixed up real fucking good, so to speak. Gamblers became philanthropists, abusive husbands began carrying Bibles and the usual scoundrels walked into offices with cheap suits, borrowed ties and hasty C.V copies.
Of course, there were many more rules, all of which just became subconscious instinct because the punishment was almost always certainly death. That primal urge to keep on living, which had lied dormant as people got complacent, was put on high alert and so I reiterate: everything became politics.
Early on in the war, most of the qollas left Santa Cruz. I don’t believe I need to explain why they don’t support federalism. Besides, the discrimination was too much to bear for most. After all, what good were the higher wages in Santa Cruz when your apartment would get petrol bombed for no real reason other than hatred.
Some stayed, like myself, and we all had our own reasons. My second cousin did well for himself as a translator for the Fuerzas Federalistas, the FF. A friend of a friend, Martín, actually moved here so as to prevent the loss of his extensive real estate portfolio. Some qollas just didn’t want to live under the rule of the governing MAS party and so viewed Santa Cruz as the last bastion of freedom in Bolivia.
As for me, and listen carefully, I was not a drug smuggler like some would have you believe. It is the most insulting thing I have heard in Santa Cruz. Fact of the matter is that I moved anything and everything. If someone wanted, and had suficiente billete, enough money, I’d move it across the battlefield. This included everything, even the guns made by your country, yankee. It was not just drugs.
Every now and then, I would also help people move between the two sides. Shortsighted qollas reunited with their families in the West. Same story with Cambas who wanted to go back to Santa Cruz. If it weren’t for me, families would be torn apart, sick people wouldn’t have had their medicine delivered and there would be too little communication with the other side. This used to be one united country after all.
And the money was only ever secondary. You saw my car before you arrested me, it’s not even a nice one. No, I did this because I could help real people: elders, women, children. The people of Santa Cruz are not getting everything they need. This did include their coca fix, but more urgently, petrol and food too. None of the aid your United States government sends goes to ordinary people. So, I do not run an empire. Empires, they plunder and destroy livelihoods; I walk amongst the people with sandals and second-hand clothes. I do not know why your DEA wants me, I am not a kingpin…
The owner of the irlandés, Don Marco? He was a camba and like most cambas, he supported the federalista rebellion and donated often to their cause. By local standards, he was quite wealthy. The guy had worked decades in Ireland, his kids still study there, and the Euro became literal gold when inflation skyrocketed. You see, the irlandés became a hotspot for federalista sympathisers, middle-class intellectuals and so on. I didn’t expect such a successful and patriotic businessman to come to me asking for contraband alcohol.
Figures well that the man in charge of renewing the irlandés’ liquor license was accused of spying. Needless to say, he was executed by firing squad. One of my boys, Pepe, told me that the real reason was that the man had been banging his boss’ wife. Word got out about this unjustified execution; the boss himself was thrown into the frontlines. License renewals were put on hold for a while after that.
None of the regular booze suppliers were willing to risk working with Don Marco without a license. So for a cut of the profits and an operation fee, we organised some 50 barrels of singani and tequila to be brought into Santa Cruz. It had to be covert because the authorities would never approve of this. Not even a hefty bribe would have kept Don Marco out of Palmasola, or a worse fate.
There was some trouble with armed guerrillas as the truck went through the jungle of the Chaparé region. There was no two-sided shootout, as your Western papers reported. We staged the whole thing when in reality, it was a massacre. It all happened so fast I couldn’t tell if they were masistas or federalistas. Our only casualty the whole time was some idiot, 19 year old kid who managed to get mauled by a jaguar while pissing by the side of the road. We dumped him near the frontline hoping he’d be tallied as a victim of war, not of Mother Nature.
Because of me, Don Marco’s famed bar stayed afloat. Everyone could keep getting shitfaced and nothing would change for the better, nor for the worse. As part of the deal, my men and I get free drinks at the irlandés, all day every day. Of course, this was a given. My men would have blackmailed Don Marco into free drinks anyway. I don’t drink though. You might ask then why I’m at the irlandés every other day.
Really, I just keep to myself in the irlandés. I don’t trouble anyone and keep my mouth shut. It’s how you survive as a qolla on the streets. But for once in a long time, I could just get lost in a drunken camba crowd that could not tell me apart. No one there knew I was the reason they could still get drunk, telling the same old tales about divorce, infidelity and misinformed politics.
Even then, even now, as the war still rages on, I can’t forget the FF is approaching my hometown; I’ve already lost my brother, my friends and, soon, my home will fall to the federalistas.
After everything I’ve done for them…