Free This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha by Samuel Logan Page A

was sharply focused on the point where Denis’s knife had ripped through his skin. It hurt to breathe and even more to run. Adrenaline took over. He had to escape.
    Denis and his homies pursued. Crazed with fright, Joaquin began screaming. Maybe someone would hear him.
    Denis caught up with Joaquin only moments later, after he tripped on an unseen root. Sprawled out on the ground, Joaquin fought the pain in his chest and tried to get up, but it was too late. Denis jumped on top of Joaquin and held him down. Joaquin bucked and fought to get Denis off of him, but when another one of Denis’s friends ran up and kicked Joaquin in the head, the world spun. His ears were ringing and his vision was blurred. He was on his back on the cold ground with Denis straddled on top. Still he fought to get Denis off him. A secondhomie arrived and passed Denis the knife he had grabbed from Fiel’s kitchen. Denis gripped the knife and attacked Joaquin with powerful downward strokes, slashing his raised forearms and hands and stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and stomach. Before Joaquin stopped trying to defend himself, Denis had stabbed him thirteen times, a macabre salute to his gang. Still on top of Joaquin, Denis breathed heavily from the exertion. Joaquin’s body was still, but his chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths. Joaquin still wasn’t dead, and Denis wasn’t finished.
    As the others watched, Denis sawed at Joaquin’s neck, cutting deeply to the spinal cord before cursing, frustrated with the inadequate steak knife. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut off the head. Denis settled for what he could do with the dull blade: he cut out his victim’s larynx, esophagus, and windpipe. Finally done with his grisly task, Denis threw the body parts aside, stood up, and stepped over Joaquin’s body to begin the walk back to the car. The others followed in silence, stupefied by what they had just witnessed. But no one dared to say a word. As calmly as they had arrived, the group drove back to an apartment in Alexandria, where Denis washed off the blood.
    Early the next morning, two fishermen nearly stumbled over Joaquin’s remains while walking to the river. They were sickened by the sight of a nearly decapitated body and immediately called 911. The next day, news of Joaquin’s murder hit the papers. Denis loved it when the press picked up on his work. As word of the crime spread through the ranks of his street gang, Denis once again enjoyed a swell in his reputation as a heavy hitter and a man who had no problem committing grisly murder.
    Many months later, in the summer of 2002, as Denis got to know Brenda, he readily shared his story of killing Joaquin. He respected her as someone he thought was a hardened homie who was jumped in at age thirteen, and he wanted to boast. Denis’s story represented everything she hated about her gang. His story pushed her to the edge of what she thought she could handle. Smile now, cry later—it was a mantra she found harder and harder to follow. Brenda wanted to cry now and smile later, but she maintained her façade. After Denis told her about Joaquin, Brenda had to focus on what she liked about Denis. She didn’t dare allow herself to think about what he had told her.
    Brenda longed for a moment alone, but after Denis confided in her, he was more watchful, careful to see how she carried the weight of thisinformation. Now she knew about two cold-blooded murders. These two murders settled heavily on her conscience, mixed in with all the other images and experiences she had endured as a member of the MS-13. As much as she loved the gang, and some of the men she had met during her time as a gangster, Brenda felt like she needed a break. A small part of her even wanted out. This gang life was too intense, a small voice in her head began to repeat softly. Her inner feelings of disquiet and desire to leave the gang sat dormant until a fateful day when the Arlington police finally separated her