Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Robert Rodriguez and assorted. And this is all Sands' fault.
BALLAD OF THE BLIND GUNMAN
by Beth ([email protected])
Blind, kind, defined, maligned...
El prefers writing music over lyrics any time. And though his English is good, using it to create something with rhyme and rhythm is difficult. But for this song, creating both a Spanish and an English version will be the right thing. Perfect balance, isn't that what Sands would say?
Night, sight, plight, delight...
Night has long fallen. The large room filled with equipment, called Team Scorpion Headquarters in official documents and The Batcave by Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, is almost empty. In a distant corner Lorenzo and Carmen Davis are bent over blueprints and photos, going over yesterday's mission. Sands is sitting in front of his computer. Over the headphones in his ears an inhuman voice reads out documents and correspondence. Sands' fingers rest on the keyboard, but when he periodically stretches to loosen the muscles in his back and neck, his hair brushes the neck of El's guitar.
Begin, within, akin, might-have-been...
Sands mentioned the song on that first night, when they sat outside a tavern in a small town on the eastern border of the state of Sinaloa.
I just heard a story, he said. About Culiacan. Are there songs, too?
Corridos, yes, El told him. Not very good ones.
Write a good one then. I've about enough of songs where the bad guys are the heroes.
And here he is, choosing notes and picking rhymes.
Hero, grow, although, reap what you sow...
He remembers that night well. It took an hour before Team Scorpion (a name only Sands could think up; El is grateful that the idea of costumes with a scorpion logo was unanimously vetoed) was even mentioned. Instead they talked about other things.
He told how it felt to put a bullet in Marquez's head, to lay his ghosts to rest with a pull of the trigger.
Sands told how it felt to kill people you couldn't even see, and rebuild your life in one wild-assed gamble on the top floor of a building in Langley.
El came to that town under direct orders from the President. He was fully prepared to leave before morning. But as he listened to Sands' vibrant vision of cleaning up Mexico, things changed.
You see, El, one person can do lots. You of all people know that. Just think what we can do with a bit of real organization.
Three hours and he was sold. And that was when he decided to write this song.
One, gun, stun, undone...
They are a strange group of strange warriors. The Americans don't talk much about themselves, but he knows Sands chose the mavericks, the ones who were good - damn fucking good, Sands said that night - but for some reason did not fit other cogs in the machine that was the CIA. The Mexicans talk even less, but El chose them himself, and he knows they're good, and that they have absolutely nothing left to lose.
Then there is himself and Sands. All stories he heard equal two commanders in one team to disaster, yet for some reason this arrangement works. It is something he never expected when he first met the agent, before the Day of the Dead.
Sometimes he wonders if that was, truly, the same man. It is not only the sunglasses Sands now holds on to like a lifeline. Nor the clothes: warm colors replaced with dead black. It is in the way the agent moves, the way he kills. It is the difference between a pampered pet that happens to have claws and a feral cat who fights for his life so often, he no longer sees it as something unusual.
Now Sands, in black and with death by his side, is someone El understands.
Dark, mark, spark, stark...
During that first night, Sands even found it in himself to laugh at what happened in Culiacan. Spectacular fucking mess - I ended up helping your cause, there in the end. Bleeding for Mexico, as if the bitch was not satisfied with taking my eyes. Fucking ironic...
El remembers the way Sands smiled then, easy and careless.
He tries to imagine the same face tightened in pain, blood tears flowing from under black sunglasses.
Tears, appears, frontiers, fears...
Insulting Mexico is still one of Sands' favorite pastimes. He even does it when El talks to the President; the agent goes off on long diatribes on how fucking stupid this country is, and El has to put his hand over the phone's receiver and threaten to shoot Sands if he does not shut up.
El has still not told the President that Sands' initial plan was to intervene after the assassination. He is not sure why. It may have something to do with the fact that in Culiacan, in the end, El faced a doctor and a man weakened by a serious operation. If there had been one more trained gunfighter, things would have been different.
But the gunfighter had her guts blown out in the city square by a man who didn't know when to give up.
Surrender, splendor, render, defender.."
El has known good people and evil ones. He prides himself on the ability to tell one from the other.
There has only been one case where, to date, he has not made the call. Still, though he cannot attach a label to the agent, he does know what to expect from him. Shooting impossibly straight for someone who does not see the target. Incomprehensible humor that Sands does not mind if no-one else gets. Cold analysis of each situation and perfect determination once the optimum decision is reached. Plans twisted enough that no-one figures them out until it's too late and their blood is pooling on the floor. And, in the end, someone who saves the day once everything's gone to hell and back.
El takes a comfort in knowing he's not the only hero around.
Eyes, prize, disguise, demise...
A hand on his arm almost makes him jump.
"It's late," Davis says. Her other hand rests on Sands' shoulder; the blind man isn't wearing his headphones anymore. "You should rest."
El shakes his head and bends over his guitar again.
"I don't sleep much anyway," Sands says lazily. "And I want to hear the song he's working on."
"This will take time," El warns him.
Sands twists the swivel chair so that he can half-lie on the back of the chair and look at the mariachi. "Time, I've got."
Davis shakes her head and heads upstairs. Sands listens to the music.
And El plays.
~FINIS?~
Add comment? (yes/no/bang!)