“Sir,” Prieto said, touching his shoulder as he introduced himself. When the man realized he was with an elected official, he moved to smooth his hair and placed his POW*MIA cap back on his head.
“？Estuviste en Vietnam?” Prieto asked.
“Ya, eso es verdad. Two tours for my country.”
“My dad, too.”
The man looked at him and blinked. “My granddaughter is pregnant. We ran out of water. I’m out of cash. I just … I just…”
The man buried his head in his hands.
Prieto took out his billfold and gave him $60. The man took it and crossed himself, giving Prieto a bendición, and rose to go and find the next line to wait in.
* * *
THAT NIGHT, HUDDLED around a few solar-powered lanterns in the Telemundo parking lot, Prieto sat with Sam and some other journalists, trying to make sense of all that they’d seen. They passed around a bottle of rum.
“You know what I can’t get over?” Prieto said. “That no one is expecting any help to come.”
A local journalist named Mercedes replied, “What evidence did we have that it would be anything but? That was clear before this storm happened.”
“Do you ever feel bad?” Prieto asked.
“About what?” Jeff replied.
“You’re able to get all over the island, but all you’re doing is holding your camera. Do you ever feel bad you’re not physically helping?”
“That’s hilarious, dude,” Sam said, with attitude.
“I didn’t mean any offense,” Prieto said. He hadn’t. He really was wondering what it felt like to document and not intervene. For his part, Prieto felt, weirdly, better than he had in months, if only because he knew he was really, directly helping people.
“No offense, Prieto,” Jeff said, “but if we weren’t here, do you think anyone would be thinking of these people and this place?”
There was a moment of silence. Even the coquís had gone quiet, just the hum of the local AM radio station reporting check-ins from the various municipalities. Satellite phones had been set up in some of the island’s larger urban centers, but cell service was still out. Radio was their only source of any inkling of news from other parts of the island. So they all listened. Intently.
“Wait,” Prieto said, “what did they just say?” His Spanish was good, but the newscaster spoke fast.
“Fuck,” Sam offered. “They’re saying that there’s been a prison break in Guaynabo?”
“No,” Mercedes offered, “they are saying it was a breakout—a group came and liberated the prisoners.”
“Shit,” Sam said. “If it’s bad out here, can you imagine how fucked people in jail here are?”
Prieto thought back to the thirty days he’d spent locked up in MDC for protesting the military occupation of Vieques. Yes. He could begin to imagine about how fucked those inmates were.
“The thing is,” Mercedes said, “I’m from around there. That’s not really a jail. It’s like, for kids, you know? What do they call them in English?”
“Juvie hall,” Sam offered.
“Some group comes in and frees up all the persecuted bad children?” Jeff offered. “No real mystery. Pa?uelos Negros.”
“Hold up,” Prieto cut in, “do you mean the dudes in the black bandanas? Is this, like, a thing? I heard about them in La Perla and I saw them Friday when we were up in Maunabo giving out water.”
“Well,” Mercedes said, “it’s all more lore than fact but…” And she proceeded to tell him about this group of rebels who some say were descendants of the Macheteros of the generation prior, under new leadership. There were rumors that they intended to be the Zapatistas of Puerto Rico, to go to war with the government, create a state within a state, but it was all speculation. All accounts placed them in the mountains, on a self-sustaining farm rumored to have its own supply of power, food, and young recruits from all over the island.
Prieto slept on a cot in the Telemundo newsroom that night, thinking of Los Pa?uelos Negros. As soon as Mercedes began to talk about it, Prieto knew his mother was involved. The timing, the objective, it all lined up with what he’d seen in her FBI file. He needed proof and, above all, he needed to find her. Giving out water was one thing; doing so with rifles was another. Liberating prisons—juvenile or otherwise—landed yet somewhere else on the spectrum. When finally he drifted off to sleep, he dreamt of worms. He woke up dripping in sweat.