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brew if the peer pressure got to be too much, when they ragged him endlessly about Marfa, Texas. Where, they said, your ordinary evening was spent watching cement harden. He made the mistake of telling them about his hometown one night after he'd had about one and a half cans of suds, which loosened his tongue. He would endure Marfa jokes from that night on. file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009
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    Ernie Salgado had a long face, with a jutting chin and protruding overbite. Wisecracks about his teeth and jaw would come to get on his nerves more than the gags about Marfa, Texas.
    Joe Castillo had a lithe athletic build and was the kind of young cop the groupies might ogle. And did he ever appreciate that. He was twenty-five years old and by his own reckoning was still in the "black glove" phase. That is, the period of street adjustment when young policemen feel the enormous weight of the new shield on their chests. When some cops quite literally find it imperative to buy and wear
    black leather gloves, and would probably carry a riding crop if the department would approve.
    Joe Castillo was a poor report writer and had some fear of Manny Lopez' reputation for being the kind of sergeant who was strict on reports. Still, the task force seemed like it might be a stepping-stone to some good plainclothes job. Maybe he wasn't a bookworm, but anything physical was his cup of tea, he figured. Like Fred Gil he spoke lousy Spanish, but in the beginning he thought: What the hell, How much Spanish do you need to jump out of trees, or whatever, onto the heads of a bunch of Tijuana junkies and kick their strung-out asses? Joe Castillo was extraordinarily macho.
    In the months to come, when the camaraderie was to take a few unexpected twists and turns, Joe Castillo frequently gave vent to frustration and rage. He was wont to say to his colleagues: "You don't like it? Let's step outside!"
    Unfortunately, it sometimes caused hoots of laughter from all hands when Joe Castillo would momentarily forget that they were already outside. Carlos Chacon finds himself suddenly confronted by horror. His sister is being attacked by three men. They force her to the ground. One of the assailants is trying to stab her. Carlos goes for them. One of them raises a long knife. Carlos Chacon runs forward but he's too late. The knife is plunged into the belly of his sister, who begins screaming. The scream is for pain, for help, and a cry of outrage at being murdered. He's screaming too, so loud he can't hear her anymore. He lunges at the heap of bodies. He pulls the knife from his sister's heaving belly. It sucks from her guts and splatters blood all over their faces. There's a lot of blood.
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    Now he is the assailant and the three men are fighting for their lives. He's relentless, without pity. They scream. He holds the heavy knife. The knife feels like… justice. He man cannot even cry out. He just looks at Carlos in horror and accepts his fate. Carlos is big, weighing well over two, hundred pounds. He is twenty-three years old. The second assailant is no match for him. He plunges the knife into the throat of the man. Up to the hilt. The man does not even try to scream. The third assailant gets away. Carlos' rage is unspeakable, worse than anything he has ever experienced.
    He wakes up. The dream is one of many that recur. He dreams of violence a lot.
    "My mother was a real wetback," Carlos Chacon liked to say. She had four children in the Republic of Mexico when she was still a young girl. She crossed into Texas by way of the Rio Grande—hence, a real wetback. But she had only three children with her on that crossing. Her husband gave one of them away, a daughter. Carlos' mother would eventually have four more daughters and two more sons. She would raise