The Tattooed Soldier

“Sleep under the freeway. Antonio had heard this phrase more than once in the weeks leading up to this humiliation, as the money in his wallet slowly disappeared and the prospect of eviction became a certainty. Sleep under the freeway. It was almost a refrain in the neighborhood.” 

When Antonio and his roommate José Juan are evicted from their apartment, they begin their search for a campsite under the freeway bridges. That “sleep under the freeway” is spoken so frequently suggests the extent of the homeless issue in LA: Everyone knows where the homeless stay, and so many stay there that they’re impossible to ignore.

“To live forever with the voices of boys and girls, their last words, the calling out to their mothers. That was the biggest sacrifice. All of them cried before you silenced them for good, and a lot of them shit and pissed. Even now, the smell reminded him of death.” 

Longoria considers how the brutality he committed as a soldier affected him as a person. This is significant because he has internalized so much of his life as a soldier, even tattooing his battalion’s namesake onto his body as an expression of identity. But some acts are too horrible to compartmentalize or ignore, and killing children is one that continues to haunt Longoria.

“The Leninists were gaining influence because the movement had come under violent attack. During the day, soldiers dressed as civilians came to kidnap professors and students.” 

Much of the novel explores how individuals are marked and then targeted due to aspects of their identity, whether their gender, their race, their economic status, their political affiliation, etc. This quote shows how education factors into that marketing and targeting, especially in an authoritative regime like what existed in Guatemala. This is ultimately why Antonio and Elena were targeted, and why Elena was murdered.