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Fully Immersive 1

Justin Watkins was starting to get desperate.  The junior mechanical engineering major needed to line up a summer internship.  Really, he needed to have one lined up months ago.  Without one, he wouldn’t be able to finish his degree in four years; that was something of a minor miracle in and of itself, as most students in the program took at least five years to graduate.  

He never envisioned finding an internship would be this difficult, especially in his field.  But the economy still wasn’t fully back on its feet, and even the biggest engineering firms were cutting back on their internship offerings.  Even though students like Justin wouldn’t be paid, the corporate world viewed time as money, and more and more companies didn’t think they could afford the time it took to babysit a bunch of college kids every summer.

It was early May, and the spring semester had only a few weeks left.  This was a race against the clock if ever there was one.  But on this day, all Justin could do was slink his way back to his apartment complex after class and hope one of his buddies wanted to make some poor decisions involving alcohol that night.

Justin was about halfway through his trek across campus when he, for no particular reason, stopped to look at one of the bulletin boards.  It was tall and round, just like thousands of others that dotted college campuses across the country.  And like all those identical twins, this one was covered in layer upon layer of fliers and posters in various degrees of disarray, in every color of the rainbow.  But a plain white one, partially stapled over by a not-all-that-cleverly veiled advertisement for black market Adderall, caught Justin’s eye.

As he peeled back the piece of paper covering the one he’d targeted, Justin’s lungs were suddenly assaulted.  He coughed hard, turning to see the culprit just a few inches to his right: a tall, bro-ish guy smoking a cigarette.  So much for that campus-wide smoking ban, Justin thought as he less than subtly pounded his fist against his chest.  He’d hope that, and his loud hacks, would get the bro to either move along or put out the cancer stick.  Alas, his hopes were dashed.

Normally Justin would just walk away, but he wanted to see what that flier said.  Holding his breath while the fratty dude kept puffing away, Justin beheld what had drawn him to this particular bulletin board: large block letters in black against a background of white:

NEED AN INTERNSHIP?

GET ONE TODAY—GUARANTEED!

CREDITS AVAILABLE FOR ANY MAJOR!

FULLY IMMERSIVE!

ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Could this be happening? Did the random flier outside the student union really just answer Justin’s prayers? His better judgment doubted it could be that simple, but at this point, Justin had nothing to lose.  The flier had a phone number at the bottom, and before he knew it, Justin had keyed it into his phone and hit “call”.

The voice at the other end—which sounded like it belonged to a bored, middle-aged woman—asked Justin some basic questions: name, age, major.  Justin answered easily, but then the questions got a little stranger.  The woman wanted to know his race (white), height (5’9” on a good day), weight (245 lbs.), economic background (middle-class) and criminal history (none).  Justin was growing more skeptical, but rattled off the answers.  When he was done, the woman told him she had something perfect for him.  So perfect, in fact, he could start the very next day.

Justin didn’t know whether to be psyched or really creeped out, but with no other solid prospects on the horizon, he decided to be psyched.   The woman gave him an address and told him to be there at 11:00 a.m. the following day.  It didn’t ring a bell for Justin; it was in a part of town, way off-campus, where he’d never really gone before.  Probably because if it couldn’t be described as the hood, it was definitely hood-adjacent.   It also returned no results on his Google search.

More confused than ever, Justin began to waddle his squat, flabby, pasty body back toward his apartment.  Just before he arrived home, he decided he’d give this mysterious, far too convenient opportunity a chance.  Oh, what the hell, he thought to himself.  I guess it can’t hurt to see what this is all about.

“GOSH DARN IT, HURRY UP!”

Justin knew the object of his rage couldn’t hear him, but he shouted anyway.  It was 11:02, and he was still in the car.  Finally, he rued inwardly, I get an internship and I’m late the first darn day.  The traffic had been a mess ever since he left his apartment complex’s parking lot.  Adding insult to injury, his “check engine soon” light had illuminated halfway through the drive.  Justin wasn’t happy.  He definitely didn’t have the money to pay for any kind of major repairs, and he’d more than used up his parents’ financial goodwill for the semester.  All he could do was, first and foremost, hope he got to the mystery address soon.  After that, he’d turn his attention toward hoping the warning light wasn’t a harbinger of a massive repair bill.

After what seemed like an eternity, the traffic broke, and Justin was able to cruise to his destination, arriving an embarrassing but not quite mortifying four minutes late.  He double-checked the address he’d been given, and confirmed he was in the right place.  But this was a little side street, almost like an alley, and the address didn’t belong to the kind of pristine office building where engineering firms are normally housed.  Instead, the address belonged to what Justin could charitably describe as a “weathered” structure containing an auto mechanic’s shop.

Why the heck would they send me to a place like this? Justin was really confused now, but he’d come this far, so he figured he may as well see it through.  Besides, maybe they’ll cut me a break if this old piece of junk needs some work.  

Undoing the seatbelt, Justin rose from his seat and straightened his suit jacket as he closed the door and locked it.  Three or four times.  As he padded towards the shop, he felt an anxious (or terrified?) feeling rising in his ample gut.  But Justin shook it off; he had to at least figure out what was going on here.

As he approached the main door—the twin garage doors were both closed—someone emerged from it, shouting at him with a booming voice.

“What da fuck you want, vato?!”

It was all Justin could do not to run back to his car. Instead, he just froze as a tall, heavily-tattooed, dark-haired, thickly muscled Hispanic man in a stained wife beater came nose to nose with him.

Say something, Justin told himself.  Anything!

“Uh,” he began, his high-pitched voice audibly racked with fear, “I’m, uh, supposed to have an internship here…I think?”

The Hispanic dude didn’t move.  Standing a full head taller than Justin, the guy was more than a little intimidating.  Remaining deadly silent, a scowl etched into his tough face, for several minutes only added to the intimidation factor.

A few seconds later, the Hispanic dude’s expression changed from a glare to a gold-toothy smile.  “Ayy, you must be Justin!”  For the first time in what felt like hours, Justin felt it was safe to exhale.  “Welcome to ‘Sangre y Lagrimas Mecanicos’, holmes!”

Allowing himself to relax, Justin spoke up again, his voice still trembling.  “What, um, what does that mean?”

The Hispanic guy laughed.  “Deese Anglos, man, why they keep sending me deese fuckin’ Anglos!”  The guy then paused, seeming to look Justin up and down and back again.  “Ayy, I know why.”  He laughed again.  Justin was clueless.

“I, uh, I’m sorry I don’t know Spanish, sir.  I didn’t know it would be required for completion of…”

“Who da fuck ‘sir’ do you see here, homie?”  Justin was taken aback by the interruption.  “Call me Hector, man.  Hector.”  The guy swung his right arm out, palm open at shoulder height.  Justin recognized this, having seen frat bros do it day after day.  He’d never actually been on the receiving end of one, but he knew what he had to do.  Justin awkwardly slapped his hand, his own palms open, into the other man’s.  

“It’s, um, nice to meet you, Hector.”  Justin straightened out his blazer again.  “I must admit, though, I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

Hector laughed again, harder this time, so hard he brought his tattooed hand to his mouth and dropped to his knees.  “I’m sorry, holmes, I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to laugh at you, man.  Ayy, you’ll laugh too when you figure it out.”  

Figure what out? Justin presumed that particular comment shouldn’t be shared aloud.

By now, several other men had come out of the garage to join Hector.  All were Hispanic, all sported close-cropped black hair and goatees, and enough ink to print a few thousand copies of the local newspaper.  Some wore dirty tank tops like Hector, others were in coveralls, which allowed Justin to learn a few of their names—Pedro, Jorge, Jesus.  Helpfully, Hector introduced the others within a moment—Tomas, Angel and Victor rounded out this motley crew.

Justin was a little surprised to see this many guys working at such a small, run-down place.  Heck, there weren’t even any cars in the driveway, so who knew if they were even working on anything? 

Hector broke the silence, which was growing more uncomfortable by the second.  “Aight, listen holmes, you a mechanical something-or-other major, right?  This a mechanic shop.  That’s why you here, man.”  The others chuckled, like they knew something Justin didn’t.

“You wanna learn?” Hector’s tone had gotten ever-so-slightly more sinister.  “I promise you, vato, you gonna learn.”  Now, Hector’s smile returned.  “Come with us, bro, we get you all taken care of.  First thing’s first, you gotta lose that suit, Joaquin.”

Justin was puzzled.  “Who’s…oh, I’m Joaquin?”

Hector and his crew laughed hysterically yet again.  He turned to Victor, shaking his head.  “This guy, man, this guy is the best one yet, yo.”  Hector put his hand on Justin’s shoulder.  “’Round here, you Joaquin, understand? That’s a sign of respect, homie.  Don’t make me regret it.”

Justin nodded quickly.  Hector patted his shoulder, hard, then led him into the shop, reminding him to ditch the suit jacket as he went.  What Justin—Joaquin—saw when he crossed the threshold of the door left his eyes wide.  

Cars, everywhere.  More accurately, what was left of cars.  There were piles and piles of engines, tires, rims and other parts stacked 15 or 20 feet high.  “Wow,” he said out loud, inadvertently.

Hector threw his arms wide, showing off the grandeur of his place of business.  “Check it out, holmes! Your new ‘classroom’!”

It took a moment, but Justin put the pieces together.  This is a chop shop, he realized.  I’m doing my summer internship in a chop shop!   Justin reasoned if ever he was going to get out of here, now was the time.  He turned for the door, only to find it blocked by the towering, hulking bodies of Jesus and Angel.  Justin couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully.  Jesus and an angel, trapping me in a den of iniquity.  Only me.

“Nah,” Hector said loudly.  “You ain’t going nowhere, Joaquin.  You came here to learn.”  The large man was now in Justin’s face again.  “I’m ready to teach.  And trust me, vato, failure is not an option.”

After being scared more than half to death, Hector had instructed his crew to get Justin looking like he belonged there.  They watched as he stripped out of his suit, laughing loudly when they saw his flabby, translucent midsection and thumb-sized penis.  Justin couldn’t be sure, but he suspected they were mocking him mercilessly in rapid-fire Spanish exchanges, each punctuated by hysterical laughter. 

When he was down to his boxers, Tomas tossed him a pair of dingy black jeans.  Even for the rotund Justin, they looked like they’d be about two sizes too big around the waist.  But Justin didn’t see this as the time to quibble over such details, so he put the jeans on.  They immediately sagged to the middle of his fat thighs, causing the denim to pool at his feet.  Tomas was laughing again.  “You sure you ain’t dressing like this all the time, Joaquin? You got mad swag, yo!”  That caused Tomas and the others to laugh even louder than they did when they saw Justin’s pathetic prick.

“Can you at least give me a shirt, Tomas?” If Justin had been paying attention, he might have noticed the slightest hint of an authentic accent—Mexican, to be precise—when he said Tomas’s name.  But he wasn’t, and when Tomas handed him a size XXXXL wife beater—two X’s more than Justin normally worse, and covered in grease and sweat stains—he put it on quickly.  The absurdity of the situation was not lost on him.  He just realized long ago he was better off playing along than trying to fight it.

Black socks and well-worn work boots followed, and within minutes, Justin was dressed again, though in the kind of outfit he never envisioned seeing in a mirror.  Tomas and the others applauded; Justin suspected their clapping was tinged with a good amount of sarcasm.  “There you go, mayne,” Tomas said, approaching Justin for the same kind of hand-slap-hug-thing that Hector had.   “Now you look like you belong here.”  This was Justin’s first up-close look at Tomas.  He looked a little younger than Hector, and taller—at least 6’6”—yet a little less muscular.  But Tomas’s “little less” was still darned impressive.  Justin appreciated the dude’s ample neck muscles, broad shoulders, thick chest and prominent biceps.  He didn’t  know much about bodybuilding, but he knew a bodybuilder when he saw one, and Justin was sure Tomas had been hitting the gym quite hard.  

Just like Hector, Tomas was covered in tattoos.  Justin could spot many different words and phrases—all in Spanish, though he thought he could understand one or two—along with designs of all kinds, from the macabre to the stereotypical.  There were dozens of skulls, more than a few naked women with oversized breasts, and everything in between.  The black and grey ink soaked just about every inch of Tomas’s visible caramel-colored skin, from chin to fingertips.  Justin assumed his chest, stomach, back and legs were covered, as well.  He also noticed another thing everyone in Hector’s crew had in common: their faces were all tattoo-free, except they all had at least one teardrop inked on their cheeks.  Hector had the most—Justin had counted at least a dozen—while Tomas had only a pair, one on each side of his goateed face.  Angel had five or six, and Jorge and Pedro hovered around 10 apiece. Justin presumed the teardrops somehow tied into the hierarchy of this crew, because no one had nearly as many as Hector, and he was clearly running the show.

“So whatchu think, Joaquin? You like your new look?”

Justin turned to the full-length mirror, which he thought was oddly placed in the middle of the lounge/kitchen area, and regarded himself.  He looked like the lowest of the lower class, in his disgusting top and trashy jeans.  But he also thought it made him look a little more dangerous, a little tougher maybe.  Justin couldn’t quite place it, but aside from the clothes, something else was different about his reflection.  Was his hair darker than it was earlier that day? Had he lost weight and not noticed?

Justin dismissed those thoughts, chalking it up to the massive amount of confusion his brain was experiencing.  He turned back to Tomas and nodded.  “Looks hella tight, mayne!” Justin was shocked by what had come out of his mouth.  He’d never said a curse word before—not even hell—and he definitely noticed the accent this time.  I ain’t sure what this is, he thought, but shit, the flier said  this would be fully immersive.  Guess I’m immersing, yo!

Tomas smiled broadly, exposing a mouth that had a few teeth replaced with gold stand-ins, and others missing altogether.  “Glad to hear it, vato, glad to hear it.”  The six men in the room with Justin all smiled, some chatting quietly amongst themselves in Spanish.  Now, though, Justin could decipher a few words here and there.

Tomas slapped Justin playfully on the upper arm.  “Come on, holmes, smoke break, you earned it.”

“Nah, bro,” Justin said.  There’s that accent again.  “Shit’s bad for you, man.”  And the cursing.  They must be rubbing off on me.

Tomas laughed.  “Maybe so, Joaquin, maybe so.  But consider it part of your…learning experience.”  Tomas gestured down to his waistband, and Justin’s eyes followed.  He saw two things he never expected to see on the first day of his big internship:  a pack of menthol cigarettes, and the grip of a black handgun.

  Justin was nervous.  Or at least, he felt like he should be.  One of his hands, which looked like it had gotten a nice tan over the last few hours, he held a cigarette.  In the other, a lighter.  Tomas, Angel and the rest of Hector’s crew—sans Hector himself, who’d left to “conduct business” a while back—were watching him intently, waiting for him to do something.

“Vamanos, vato,” shouted Pedro, “we ain’t got all day!”  Pedro was leaning against the exterior back wall of the shop, his own menthol dangling from his lips.  Smoke escaped his nose and mouth as he chided Justin for dragging his feet.

Justin didn’t to light the cigarette.  He knew he would cough.  He knew he would hate it.  He knew it was unhealthy, and dirty, and just plain wrong.  Which is why he was just as fascinated as the crew when in one fluid motion, his left hand put the filter of the cigarette between his lips, and his right raised the lighter and activated the flame.  Sucking in as the fire met the tobacco, Justin inhaled the mint-tinged smoke into his lungs.   

But the cough never came.  A second later, he exhaled through his nose, two large plumes of smoke jetting out from his nostrils.  Smoking didn’t actually feel bad.  In fact, it felt…good.

The crew gave him a round of applause. “Atta boy, Joaquin, you be looking more and more like us all the damn time,” said Victor in a sing-song Mexican accent.

Justin smiled between puffs.  “Gracias, vato,” Justin replied.   Where did that come from? he thought to himself.  “It feels good, yo, real good.”  

The young man’s mind was in turmoil.  On the one hand, the rational hand, he was being held against his will by a bunch of thugs, lured to an illegal chop shop on the pretense of a college internship.  They were making him do things he would never do on his own, including smoke cigarettes, a habit that had been repulsive to Justin just hours before.

But on the other hand, it all felt right, somehow.  Justin had never been an especially remarkable person.  Sure, he was booksmart, but he didn’t have many friends, his social life was nonexistent, he’d never come anywhere close to losing his virginity, and his body was certainly nothing to write home about.  Now, he had friends—vatos—and inexplicably, his appearance was changing.  The old Justin was melting away, being replaced by someone he didn’t know or recognize.  Justin was becoming Joaquin.

His rational side was terrified.  But the other part of his mind was winning out.  Justin—no, Joaquin—was committed.  

Over the next few hours, Joaquin continued to assimilate into Hector’s crew.  The vatos showed him around the shop, showed him what they did to the cars that “mysteriously” appeared on their doorstep at all hours of the night.  Joaquin was learning quickly; by the middle of the afternoon, he felt like he’d been a mechanic forever.  He knew what everything was, what it did, where it went…and how much it was worth.

The crew had taken frequent smoke breaks, and Joaquin was now a more than willing participant.   After just three hours, he’d smoked twice that many cigarettes.  He’d taken to keeping a spare behind his ear at all times, the white paper wrapping contrasting boldly against his hair, which was now jet black and very short.  After Justin’s old, nondescript hair had completely darkened, Jesus had taken him to the back and given him a haircut.  It seemed Jesus was a master barber in addition to a pretty good mechanic, because Joaquin emerged with a perfectly executed skin fade, with sharp lines at the temples that flowed seamlessly into a pencil-thin, expertly lined beard.  Jesus had also taken good care of Joaquin’s mustache, which was a little thicker than the rest of his facial hair.  Like any good vato, he thought.  After work, the crew had promised to take Joaquin for his first tattoos.  He couldn’t wait.

It was just about 5:00 when Hector finally returned.  The crew, including Joaquin, were lounging against the front of the shop on yet another smoke break.   Hector had worn a scowl when he emerged from his customized Cadillac, but when he saw Joaquin taking a drag off the menthol and pull it away with his thumb and forefinger, Hector smiled broadly.

“Ayy what the fuck is this yo!” He approached Joaquin for another handshake, and now Joaquin knew exactly what to do.  When the two finished their masculine embrace, Hector grabbed his new vato by the shoulders.  “You lookin’ real good, holmes.  I didn’t think we could make you this grimy this fast, but I take it!”

Joaquin laughed in response.  He hadn’t been to the mirror lately, but if he had, he would have noticed his teeth were now wildly out of place and stained brown, a stark contrast to the perfect chompers in which Justin had taken great pride.  “I’m lovin’ every minute of it, hermano!”

Hector smiled again, but this one had a bit of a sinister twinge to it.  “Bueno, vato.  ‘Cuz I got a new lesson for you.”  He pulled up his wife beater to reveal a pair of shiny handguns resting in his waistband.  Hector pulled out one and held it out to Joaquin.  “You ready to learn some more, holmes?”

Joaquin looked down at the piece, up at Hector, then back down at the gun as he took it confidently into his hand.  “Whatever you need, jefe, I gotchu, mayne.”

Hector put his powerful arm around Joaquin’s shoulders, which seemed to be coming in quite nicely.  Soon, he’d be just as big and strong as Hector and the rest of the crew.   Having strong guys was important in this line of work, for several reasons.  

“Good,” Hector said.  “First, let me show you something, bro.”  He motioned for Joaquin to follow him into the shop.  Joaquin took a final, double drag off the cigarette and flicked it into the street as he walked through the door, smoke still pouring out of his nose as he crossed the threshold.  Joaquin barely noticed it among all the other changes, but his walk had changed, as well.  Where Justin took short, hesitant steps, Joaquin swaggered like a lifelong homie.  

Hector led Joaquin into his private office, a small room off the main garage protected by three sets of locks.  Closing the door behind him, Joaquin took a seat on the ripped, stained chair on the near side of Hector’s cluttered desk.

The boss broke the silence quickly.  “You understand what we doing here, right?”  Joaquin nodded.  “No, I mean you understand what we doing to you.”

The new vato responded that he sort of knew what was going on, and that it felt weird at first but now, it felt awesome.  Joaquin didn’t realize he had said all that in Spanish.

Hector reached into his desk drawer and pulled out six file folders.  “Aaron Gabriel.  Jin Park.  Peter Morris.  Tommy McGinty.   George Krakowski.   Vince Distefano.  You recognize those names, Joaquin?”

“No se, hermano,” Joaquin replied.

“How about Angel Gutierrez, Jesus Pajarito, Pedro Morales, Tomas Manuel, Jorge Carneul and Victor Diaz?”

Joaquin’s heart skipped a beat. Dios mio, he thought.  They were all like me once.  

Hector continued.  “I be straight witchu, homie.  I needed a crew.  All my old vatos got themselves locked up or fuckin’ shot and shit.   Then some gringo comes to me and says he can help me rebuild my staff.  I says ‘Si, hombre, why the fuck not?’  

“But this puto keeps sending me these pasty-ass, pansy-ass frat party looking motherfuckers.  So I bust into dude’s office with my piece and ask him what the fuck’s he trying to pull on me.  The guy says, ‘Didn’t you read the sign on the door? ‘Immersive Internships.’  And then it hit me, yo.  Alls I had to do was tell these conos what to do, and not only would they do it, they’d fuckin’ become it!”

Hector went on to briefly describe what each vato had been when Hector got his hands on them. One had been a swimmer, another an honors student.  Others were just slackers—they had embraced the change the quickest, Hector said.

“There’s just one problem, yo,” he continued.  “At the end of the day, I gotta give you the chance to go back to your old life, holmes.  That’s part of the deal. You can walk away from all this, no fuckin’ questions asked.  You won’t remember shit.”

Joaquin considered what Hector had said.  He could go back to the life he’d been living all along, the buttoned-down, boring life of Justin Watkins.

“Or,” Hector said, continuing Joaquin’s thought for him as he pulled something else out of his desk drawer.  “You can smoke this blunt with me, and be my vato for life.  It’s your choice, mayne.”

The little bit of Justin that still existed in the recesses of Joaquin’s transformed brain was crying out for him to walk away.  But Justin wasn’t running the show anymore.  

“Ain’t no choice to make, jefe,” Joaquin said, brandishing the weapon he’d just been gifted.  “I wanna ride with chu, hermano.”

Hector laughed, his gold teeth catching the dim light of the lamp in the corner of the cramped office.  “I was hoping you’d say that.  Muy bueno, hermano.  You’ve made me very happy.”  Hector picked up the blunt he’d pre-rolled specially for this occasion, wrapped in the paper of his contract with Immersive Internships.  He’d figured out the trick to locking in the transformations by accident.  Hector had three or four of his interns go back to their old lives, and was growing frustrated with II.  Angrily, he ripped a contract in half and used it to roll a blunt.  Moments later, Angel—the first of his permanent vatos—had told him he wanted to stay on.  He was in the midst of his transformation from Aaron to Angel at the time, and when he took a few hits off the contract-blunt, Hector watched in amazement as the metamorphosis sped up.  By the time the blunt was out, all traces of Aaron were gone, and his body had just about doubled in size, all of it muscle.  Aaron was dead, and the very Mexican Angel was here to stay.

He’d gotten to do that five more times, creating Tomas, Jorge, Pedro, Jesus and Victor.  Joaquin would be his seventh, bringing his crew up to full strength.  Hector was looking forward to this particular change.

For his part, Joaquin couldn’t wait to seal the deal.  He reached across the desk and grabbed the blunt, brought it to his mouth and lit it.  He took three or four deep drags, holding it all in his lungs, before exhaling with the cough of a practiced weed smoker.  “Dat some good shit, jefe, gracias,” Joaquin said through a smile of crooked teeth.  Hector took his turn.  And then he watched.

Joaquin doubled over in pain as the change rapidly intensified.  He stood up as his height rocketed to a towering 6’7”.  Reflexively, he kicked off his boots as the feet inside them grew to a size 19.  At the same time, the skin all over his body continued to darken, finally settling on a mocha color that complemented his hair, which had already become an inky black.  

Hector kept hitting the blunt as Joaquin packed on muscle, pounds at a time.  His shoulders grew to the size of soccer balls, connecting to a pair of 26” biceps and a set of meaty, sinewy forearms.  Joaquin ripped off the nasty wife beater as his chest inflated, giving way to an identical pair of powerful, heaving pecs.  His nipples went from pink to dark brown and now pointed straight down at his abs, which were popping into existence like bricks being laid one at a time.  An exquisite Adonis belt pointed the way to Joaquin’s rapidly growing dick, which burst through the cotton of his boxer shorts like an actor rushing through the curtain of a stage.  It, too, became dark, growing fat and flopping around in spasms of growth.  Joaquin watched as his foreskin grew back, creating a polla that would be more than a foot long when it was fully hard.  

Next came the thighs, which looked more like they belonged to a rugby player, thick and tight with corded muscle.  They went nicely with Joaquin’s new calves, which stuck out behind his leg like someone had glued footballs to his skin.

Just like that, it was over.  Justin Watkins was dead.  Joaquin Valbuena, the hulking enforcer of the Sangre y Lagrimas crew, was born.  The new, permanent vato extended his giant hand to Hector, took what was left of the blunt and polished it off, letting the smoke waft through his thick black mustache.

“Ayy,” Joaquin said, his voice now a lilting baritone, clearly belonging to someone who spoke only the most basic English.  “What chu want me to do wit dis, jefe?” He motioned to the gun, still sitting on the desk.

Hector leaned back in his chair.  “You want some of these, vato?” He indicated the teardrop tattoos that dotted his rugged cheeks.  Joaquin nodded furiously.

Hector stood up, walked around the desk, cocked the gun and put it into Joaquin’s massive paw.  “You gonna get the chance to earn four of them tonight, holmes.”