My Brother’s Moto Taxi

I look out the window as I smoke my cigar, the afternoon silence

disrupted by the first droplets of one of those incessant rains that fall around this
time of year. I turn my attention towards the computer, and I sigh because I
know the time to tell the story has finally come. The story of a man who was a
victim of a wretched society and a poisoned justice system; the story of a man
whose dreams got savagely interrupted; the story of my own brother: Mario
Pineda. I put out the cigar, decided not to let anything distract me from my work.
I go towards the light switch, and by turning it on the room suddenly looks much
less gloomy. I sit down, clean my glasses, stretch my arms and put my fingers
to the keyboard. I sigh as I finally start the journey of remembering this story
and putting it in print.

Back then I was just a boy, not older than 13 or 14 years old, but I can
still remember the day my older brother got that first job of his.
─ “I bought a moto taxi” he said with enthusiasm to my father that day, to which
he replied, “Good. I’ve always been one to wonder why there are no moto taxis
in this town. They’re all over Honduras, why can’t we have them here?”
─ “I don’t know, papá, but my alero from Villanueva told me they’re good
business, and since I lost my job two months ago, I figured some money
couldn’t hurt”.
My brother had lost his job some months ago because the diputado who owned
the plantation he was working on was arrested with charges of corruption and
aiding organized crime and drug dealers. I remember thinking it was not fair for
Mario to lose his job like that when he was a hardworking man who only wanted
to give his wife and child a good life. Although sometimes he would get home
drunk, and the next day Adela, his wife, would come to my house bruised and
crying, seeking my mother’s comfort, but like mamá used to tell her, he worked
and loved her very much, and was a good husband most of the time. Maybe it
was both their faults for getting married so young, for 18 is a ripe age to have
the responsibility of maintaining a household and a newborn, but they decided
to have the baby and stay together. So, naturally, Adela was happy when Mario
got a job driving the moto taxi, because it meant more food on the table and
less fights around the house. Everything was going well with the moto taxi
business until the note came.

A “note” was jargon of the slums, and it meant a rather subtle threat to
someone who was messing with their business. It was normally things like
leaving a human finger in someone’s glove compartment to warn them to stop
selling jewelry cheaper than them, or filling their office drawers with cocaine to
warn them to stop selling it. It was a statement of authority to prove they could
reach them anywhere. The note Mario received was a little less subtle than
normal, and it came one night when he was finishing his daily route for the last
time. It was 9:30, and as Mario traveled down the main street in the city, he
spotted a hooded man standing under a streetlight. Naturally, Mario slowed
down in case the man needed a moto taxi, and sure enough, he did. When the
moto taxi stopped, the man did not try to get in, neither did he ask anything.
Suddenly, the man pulled a machete from behind his back and slammed in into
the moto taxi, tearing through the nylon roof of the moto taxi from one side to
the other, almost splitting Mario’s head in two. Before Mario could say anything,
the man said a single phrase: “You’re troubling taxi drivers” and then
disappeared into a dark street as if nothing had happened.

That night, Adela was at my house waiting for Mario when we heard the
moto taxi park out front. When I opened the door, I saw my brother standing
there pale and sweating, with dead eyes. Adela’s countenance enlarged, she
stood up and asked “Amor, what’s wrong? You look as if you had seen La
Sucia”. Right then I noticed the torn roof of my brother’s vehicle and asked him
if he had been in a car crash, he simply replied with “Worse”, and sat down on
the couch. My mother and father were there, and seeing Mario was in no
condition to talk, they asked me to get him some water. When he had drunk the
water, he recounted the events and as he did that, his face changed from
extremely pale to alarmingly red. By the time he finished, he was noticeably
furious, and Adela was crying profusely, not even able to form sentences
properly. When she could finally get it together, Adela melancholically asked
“Ay Mario, what will you do with the moto taxi? Do you have someone to sell it
to?” To which he replied with a chilling “I’m not going to sell it, I’ll keep going out
every day, it’s my job”. This surprised all of us, and papá was the first to speak
up, he said “That’s not a wise decision, hijo”. Mario looked at my father in the
eyes and said “I’m not going to let those malditos take away what I’ve worked
for. Much less give in to with empty threats”. “Pero ¿cómo se te ocurre ser tan
estúpido?” cried Adela, hitting Mario in the head with her open palm as women
do. But Mario did not listen to anything else anybody said after that, his mind
was made up, and he was resolute to keep going out.

Two weeks later, the local newspaper reported the death of Mario
Pineda, 25, a moto taxi driver. The paper said the body was found inside his
trashed moto taxi in a dangerous neighborhood. The report theorized that Mario
had probably left his route to leave a passenger there and was killed for his
money and valuables, but that was not what actually happened, it was just what
people were led to believe because the truth might have made them fear for
their lives. What the police report said was quite different. It stated how we
received two boxes in our front door that morning, one containing my brother’s
body cut up into pieces, and another with his severed head and a message on
his forehead that read “We warned him”. The forensic report stated that all his
wounds were inflicted with a machete. The official police report also told how his
moto taxi was found three blocks from our house, covered in dog urine. All the
money, along with the vehicle’s steering were taken. I was unbelievably
traumatized by the experience, but perhaps it was what kept me off the streets
and gave me the sense of self-protection my brother lacked. This story was kept
a secret for 35 years, but now I choose to tell it because the people need to
know what the powerful in this city are capable of. It’s the sad story of why there
are no moto taxis in this town.