Rigo

N3 isn’t much of a “working title”, but it’s what I’ve got.

Obviously, I can’t publish any of N3 here, but because after every session I work on the story, I’m wired-up pretty tight, it’s interesting to me to tell you about some of N3’s characters and issues.

Long ago, living in fear of this story(I doubt I’m capable), I would tell people I wanted to site the story at least partly at a residential construction job with a mixed-race crew.

It didn’t take Rigo long to show up at the renovation site. He’s from Morelos just south of Mexico City where Emiliano Zapata was shot at his rancho. Rigo is wealthy, he drives a faded old HiLux pick-up and he showed up at the site unannounced one day and just started packing long panels of steel roofing aloft. By the end of the week, Cease, the Contractor handed him a fat envelope full of cash and hired Rigo.

About Rigo’s face: once, back in the Noriega/Contra days when Oliver North got famous in Nicaragua, I was just a fresh-caught Ensign in the US Navy. I was sent to Imperial Beach, California for a couple of weeks. I berthed down the road from “I.B.” in Coronado at the Seal Training Facility. One day, I found myself in an elevator with a bunch of Officers who were definitely not US Navy. I remember two things about them - their gaudy, outlandish, pastel pink and green uniforms  - draped with braiding and costume-jewelry-like medals.

I also remember their faces – swarthy, creased, pock-marked and cruel.

This is Rigo’s cloudy face. A deceptive face.