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But for me, fear is a sometime thing, almost a special event. But what if it is like oxygen, part of the very air one breathes, and so is not noticed and yet is not ignored? To notice it would require concentration, to ignore it would be an invitation to death. Imagine living a life of constant caution, of fearing police, of avoiding the authorities, and yet this blanket of fear is so steady and pervasive that awareness of the sensation ebbs because fear becomes the fabric of life. All doors must be locked, the windows barred, the drapes—should one have the money for such things—be pulled tightly shut, the stranger knocking at the door suspect and possibly dangerous, the traffic cop on the corner a predator, the sirens in the night promising no succor to a single soul but simply blaring the obvious danger that rises like a vapor from the very ground under one’s feet.

There is recourse to magic. If things are not said, then these things do not exist. Just as some people cleanse their vocabularies of racial slurs or sexist terms and, by that act, convince themselves they are altering reality and ending tribal or religious or racial strife and bringing men and women into some kind of parity and joy, so there is a magical belief that to ignore the killings, to deny the violence, to refuse to admit to fear, these decisions lower the temperature of human rage or human mayhem and erase fear or the things to fear. It is a form of prayer practiced without a church or priest. And it is a return to childhood when we all had secret ways—don’t step on the crack of the sidewalk, carry that lucky stone—to slay the sensation of dread.

So it is quite possible to live in a violent place and not speak of fear and for days at a time not to truly feel fear. Just move and act in a fog of fear. If you are a success in the drug industry, you will have police credentials, most likely federal or state, and these credentials will identify you as an officer. If rich, you move with bodyguards in a car with bulletproof glass and slabs of armor—and if you are a significant person in the drug industry, your bodyguards will be federal police officers, your own private posse. If not so rich, you live in a gated community. If not rich at all, you lock things up, try to arrange a life where someone is always home. And get robbed now and again.

Regardless of your station in life, you may vanish or be murdered. There is this fatalism in Mexican life, and it is based on fatalities.

You try to recall incidents, but this is difficult, because all the moments when someone brought out a gun or when the police swarm you and demand papers and there is no one else around, or when the gang kids eye you, and you stare into the emptiness that seems to take up all the space in their skulls—all those events have ceased to be events and have been sanded smooth by time. And by fear. The fear especially grinds away at them until they can no longer be glimpsed and never really happened. The only incident you will ever truly remember clearly and vividly is when you are taken, perhaps tortured and raped, and then killed. And you will not remember that one very long.

I have a friend who tries to explain this way of living. His small pickup is his joy, and he keeps it secure at night behind a heavy metal gate. But when he drives, there is always the risk of someone swerving ahead of him, pushing him to the curb, and coming to his truck window with a pistol in his hand. Auto theft is almost a white noise here, the random buzz of small violence below the larger barrages from machine guns. In the past, he notes, there was always some name, some number you can imagine calling and at the other end of the call would be someone with power who could speak for you or speak to someone yet more powerful, and so there was a way to feel safe.

Now, he tells me sadly, there is no one to call. No one at all.

So you are left with the fear, a fear you no longer recognize