Narcas y Narcos

Abstract

His name is Bernabé Melendrez. His eyes are brown, his beard is neat, his cheekbones, I’m pretty sure, are crabapples. His nickname is El Gatillero (“The Gunman”) and even his happiness seems to partake of the larger weariness that name connotes. He is the man you picture when I ask you to envision a man on a cold Sunday morning in front of a tackle shop with a weight on his mind. More specific? Sometimes I think he resembles a corpulent Thom Yorke, though other times, when “Knives Out” cycles onto my playlist, I think of Yorke as an emaciated Melendrez, grievously in need of a home-cooked meal, an ice bucket of Tecate and the clemency of a real friend. Few things achieved between the sticky aisles could please me more than finding 16 foot-lamberts of him glowing in my neighborhood multiplex, hearing his reedy voice in Dolby Surround, watching him give the look to Brad Pitt, the one that would have earned him this walk-on as Tarantino’s latest obscurity. Whereas Mario Almada is stoicism itself, and Jorge Reynoso jives between chummy and batshit, Melendrez’s signature look is a portrait of angst so masterful it’s shocking how malleable it can be, infusing scene three’s establishing shot with apocalyptic portend, and the aftermath of scene seven’s triple homicide with gunner’s remorse. It’s more than angst.

“So yeah, what chapter does Slut Commando fall into?”

—My nosy conscience¹