Free Hot Sur by Laura Restrepo

happened to Christina was happening to me. I kept telling myself, if she could do it why can’t I, if she can get to that house glinting in the distance, why couldn’t I be free one day.
    It was because of that book that I decided to take your class. I signed up right away when they announced that a writer was going to teach a class in the inmate rehabilitation program and that enrollment was open. I did it not because I imagined I could learn how to write—that seemed like an impossible dream, a dream I hadn’t even dreamed—the truth is that I signed up because I wanted to meet a writer in person, just to see what a writer was in real life. Maybe you’d look like Jordan Hess, or better yet, like Andre Agassi. I have to tell you I was quite surprised when I did meet you, so tall, so scrawny, so pale, with the little lightning bolt on your forehead, your cute freckles, and those short-sleeved Lacoste shirts and canvas sneakers you wore, those light-colored pants that would have fallen off if not for the tight belt. It looked like you had been dressed by your momma or come directly from the campus of a very expensive university, or from an old-fashioned tennis court. I grew concerned because this was no place for you, buried in this dark world, breathing this rotten air. It seemed as if you had come from very far away, and you looked clean and innocent, always freshly showered, but as if someone had sent you here by mistake. You even told us yourself, not that first class but the fourth or fifth class, that white prisoners had three to four times the suicide rate of blacks or Latinos, because the whites weren’t used to such harsh conditions. Of course, you could come and go as you pleased, you’d be in the prison for your classes a few hours every night; but even so, coming into this place is not something everyone can take. Soon after, I began to look forward to your classes, and it was much easier to put up with that face of a seminarian freshly shaved and shirts the color of baby chicks, although sometimes baby blue, and sometimes white, but always the alligator brand. It had even become a running joke among us, taking bets before class on the color of your shirt that day. I always bet yellow, and almost always won. But the most intriguing thing was that lightning-bolt scar; you must have taken some motherfucking whack on the head to get such a scar, which I thought was a mark of intelligence. Someone with a lightning-bolt scar is one of two things: Harry Potter or some brainiac, which is what I thought when I first saw you, even though another inmate, old Ismaela Ayé, a superstitious witch, had spread the rumor that the scar meant you had the gift of prophecy. And it might be so, who knows, it doesn’t seem like such an off-the-wall theory, but I still prefer mine because I just don’t get along with Ayé the witch. Others said it wasn’t a lightning bolt but the letter Z , like the mark of El Zorro. As you will see, everyone had a theory.
    The marketing investigation company gave me a job right away. It was my first interview after having become free. That wasn’t so long ago, but it feels like prehistoric times or some earlier life. They noticed my good disposition and strong work ethic right away. Also, I was bilingual and the consumer survey business was made up of both Latinos and gringos. In the actual field, I had to deal with all types of people: blacks, Latinos, whites, Quakers, Protestants, evangelicals, Jews, hippies. Even Catholic priests. They probably hired me just because I was bilingual, but I made it a point to prove to them I was a good worker and that everything I did was done right, door-to-door surveys, focus groups, pantry checks. And don’t think it was easy; forcing your way into people’s houses and asking them questions about their personal habits required both talent and guts. It’s always risky because you’re out on the streets and the streets are the streets. In the bad