Hunting Season (22 page)

“This is indeed a tragic, tragic event. It is something that wounds the community. It wounds our humanity and yet we need to be mindful that there have been circumstances that promote a climate of intolerance here in Suffolk County,” he said in a somber tone. Gathering steam as he went on, he issued a challenge that sounded more like a threat: “We challenge the legislators in this community not to ever introduce another anti-Latino bill.”

Eddington, his hands folded in front of him and staring straight ahead, didn’t seem to react to Valenzuela’s words, as if he had not been one of the legislators who had introduced bills perceived as anti-Latino. There was loud applause, and voices from the audience asked, “Where is he?” Everyone knew that Valenzuela was referring to Levy. “Where is Levy?” voices went on. “He didn’t show up!” someone yelled.

Valenzuela let the moment pass and went on to explain why the death of Marcelo Lucero had not been a surprise. “Fourteen months ago, right in this community, we had a demonstration, and the theme was hate speech equals hate crime,” he reminded everyone, and he ended his talk with the most poignant of all battle cries: “Never again!”

Wolter knew that the angry tone of the rally was justified, but he thought that something more than anger was needed. He looked around and noticed that the majority of those present were Latinos. When his turn to speak came, he tried to change the tone from that of merely criticism and blame to empowerment and cooperation. He urged everyone to follow him in a four-word chant, “How can I help?” One way to help, he said, was to donate money to the Lucero family for the return of the body to Ecuador, which is what his family had requested. He had already begun calling civic organizations and asking them to make financial contributions to defray funeral and family expenses, which he knew would occur.
¹⁵

“If you don’t have the money right now, I’ll wait two or three minutes,” he said, and some on the stage and the audience chuckled.

Other community leaders addressed the crowd as well, but no one captured Wolter’s attention like a young man who suddenly leaped on the stage and grabbed the microphone. He was wearing a blindingly white T-shirt, a dark denim jacket, large sunglasses that hid his eyes, and a checkered cap worn low over his forehead, but Wolter recognized him as the same man he had seen in the group of Latinos standing near Lucero’s home. As Wolter would soon learn, he had been right in assuming then that the young man knew Lucero. He was Lucero’s younger brother, Joselo.

When Joselo took the stage, everyone listened. He had a quiet dignity about him, the kind that comes from searing pain and from knowing one has been wronged.

“I’m going to take these glasses off so you can see an immigrant,” Joselo said, and Wolter was riveted.
¹⁶

For about five minutes, he talked about his color, his features—the immigrant in him—but he also talked about his loneliness and his pain. He said he had received so much support that he felt “among family.” He described his brother as a hard-working man who was trying to make a living while helping the family he had left behind. “We are simple people,” he said, and he pleaded with the audience to help to stop hate and to “try to live together.”

About the young men who had attacked his brother, he said, “I don’t hate them, but I want justice.”

His message resonated with Wolter, who feared that the killing of Lucero would divide the community even further. In Joselo he recognized not only a young man in pain but also a potential leader, someone who could use the death of his brother to try to build bridges. Wolter had been following the news on television since Sunday, and invariably he saw white or brown faces talking about the crime, but he didn’t see any mingling. He didn’t see anyone crossing the aisle and standing with the other.
Wolter thought he could be the white face among the brown faces.

When Joselo got off the stage, Wolter followed.

Joselo had not wanted to come to the United States. His mother had made that choice for him. She told him he was leaving four days before he was scheduled to leave. Joselo was in shock when he heard, fearing his “one-way ticket” would forever separate him from everything he knew, from his country and his family.
¹⁷

In time he came to understand his mother’s reasons. Shortly before he left, he had been kicked out of school for bad behavior, and he had been restless at home, hanging out with a group of fourteen friends. But, one by one, his friends had started to make their way to the United States. At the same time, Doña Rosario was worried that her son would get in trouble, or, worse, that he would be recruited to fight in a skirmish between Peru and Ecuador over border territories, which began in November of 1994, escalated into war in January of 1995, and ended a month later. The conflict, known as the Cenepa War, left a bloody trail: about five hundred soldiers dead from both sides.
¹⁸

By then Joselo was gone. He arrived in Patchogue two years after his brother.

“In some ways she want to make me a better person,” he told a documentarian shortly after his brother’s death. “She want to, you know, help me grow up, you know. Cuz we don’t have many hopes. We don’t have many opportunities in my country. So I don’t go to school. It was really a hard decision for her. Either way, she can keep me there and send me to the war or send me here.”

At the beginning, living on Long Island was “like a nightmare,” he said. His brother, whom he had seen as a father figure since the death of their father when Joselo was six, was working all the time. His friends, who were so excited to see him at first, were busy as well. Everyone worked, went to school, or had responsibilities. Everything was far. Joselo couldn’t just walk outside
and meet friends, as he used to do at home. All of a sudden he was alone in a place where he did not know the language. He was nineteen.

“I just see in the mirror myself,” he said. “And I was like, uh, I don’t know what to do.”

He cried often. “Mom, this is not for me,” he sobbed on the phone with his mother more than once. Not only did he miss his family but he also missed a young woman he had fallen in love with and had hoped to marry. For the first two weeks, he would dream about Gualaceo every night. He would wake up in the morning and wonder, “Where am I?” Slowly he came to understand that there was no way back, and that he needed to find work and grow up. After a year sharing a place with his brother, he moved out and began living on his own.

Still, Joselo saw his brother as his protector and guide. The two talked all the time and saw each other often. The Friday before Lucero was killed, they had talked for about forty-five minutes. They had gone out to dinner and then parked by the train station and continued talking. As he was getting ready to leave, Joselo, who sometimes called his brother “Loquito,” as in little crazy one, said, “I’ll see you tomorrow or later.”

“Okay,” Lucero replied.

Then, when Joselo was walking off toward his own car, Lucero surprised him with a shout: “Loquito! Take care of yourself.”

That was the last thing Joselo heard his brother say. The next day, Lucero went to work and Joselo went out with friends. They didn’t see each other or talk all day, which was not unusual.

On Sunday morning, Joselo was still in bed when he heard pounding on the front door. He jumped from the bed and looked out the bedroom window. There was a car outside, so Joselo went to the door to see who it was.

It was a detective, showing him his badge. Joselo was surprised because he had never been in trouble with the police in Patchogue. “Are you Joselo?” the detective asked. Joselo said, “No, I’m
not Joselo.” He had a weird feeling. He was scared and thought that whatever they wanted to tell him, he didn’t want to hear, so he decided to lie. But the detective pressed on. “This is something really serious. Do you know Marcelo or do you have any relationship with Marcelo Lucero?” The mention of his brother’s name made Joselo focus. “Yes, of course. He’s my brother,” he replied.

The detective then asked to come in. They needed to talk. He asked Joselo to sit down. At that moment, a cousin called Joselo and asked him if he was all right. Joselo had no idea why his cousin was calling, but thought it was related to the detective’s visit. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up and expectantly turned to the detective.

“What I’m going to tell you is something really hard and I want you to take it in the calmest way possible,” the detective said. “Your brother was murdered last night. Seven kids attacked him and stabbed him.”

At that moment, Joselo would recall later, he did not believe the detective. “I simply said, ‘No, this is not right. It’s not true.’ ” He picked up his phone and called his brother’s cell phone number, but of course no one answered. He called a second time. No answer. Then the detective said, “He’s not going to answer. We have his cell phone.”

“That was the worst moment of my life,” Joselo said.

When he got off the stage, Joselo walked south on South Ocean Avenue. A group of Latinos were huddled on the corner waiting for him, but Wolter was not deterred. He felt as if God was taking him in that direction. Like a leaf in the wind, he let himself be guided. Out of habit, he reached in and pulled out his business card. Oh, great, he thought to himself. Another white guy with a business card. He put it away and approached the men, who seemed to have built a protective layer around Joselo. Wolter asked for their permission to speak, and to his surprise his first words to Joselo were, Where is your brother’s body? Until that
moment, he hadn’t known what he was going to say or what his role in this tragedy would be.

Joselo appeared surprised and relieved at the question. His shoulders dropped, as if releasing tension. His face relaxed. Why? he asked. Because it’s been a few days, Wolter said. What are you going to do with the body?

A brief discussion ensued. No one knew what to do, but Wolter knew that shipping the body of a murdered undocumented Latino to Ecuador would be a complicated, multistep process. There was no point in saying that to Joselo, Wolter reasoned, and changed the topic. Are you going to have a service to put some beauty and healing into this?

I don’t know, Joselo said. Maybe at the funeral home.

A funeral home, it’s not going to be big enough, Wolter said. Then he pointed to the tower of his church, the tallest structure in town. I’m Reverendo Wolter, he said, trying to reach out with a word in Spanish.

Oh, said Joselo. That’s your church?

No, Wolter replied. That’s your church. Then proceeded to offer it for the service. He gave Joselo choices: You can have the service in the morning, afternoon, at night. You choose the preacher, the language, the music. Whatever you want.

Joselo agreed and said he would call the funeral home.

But Wolter knew that too could be cumbersome for Joselo to handle alone. The body was still in the morgue. There was an investigation going on. You know what, he said, I’ll talk to the funeral home.

Shortly after their talk, Joselo went to Wolter’s church to plan the service for his brother. The Reverend Allan Ramírez, a local Ecuadorian-born pastor and an advocate for immigrants, would play a role in the service. A friend of the family had offered to sing. The rest, Joselo said, he wanted Wolter to handle.

The first thing Wolter did was to make the decision to close
the service to the media. He wanted the service to be solemn and memorable. The idea of photographers focusing their lenses on Lucero’s corpse repelled him. He also feared that, as rattled as everyone’s nerves were, the memorial could turn into a forum to air differences. Already Wolter had felt the sting of criticism. Several of his parishioners and others in the community had criticized him for offering the church for the service. Was he siding with the Latinos? Whose side was he on anyway?

The night before the funeral service, Wolter had attended a community meeting at the local synagogue. Several civic leaders and elected officials were there, and some spoke. But the meeting had deteriorated as many began to hurl insults at legislator Jack Eddington. They criticized him for introducing legislation, mostly unsuccessfully, that they described as anti-immigrant.

Eddington, who was trained as a social worker and had been taught to solve problems, didn’t perceive his attempts at improving the Patchogue-Medford area as anti-immigrant. He viewed them as practical solutions that could benefit all in the community, including immigrants. If, for example, Eddington was concerned that there were too many accidents at a particular intersection and a study revealed that the accidents were caused because cars stopped to pick up immigrants looking for work, the obvious solution to him was to prevent the laborers from standing in the streets soliciting work. To him that seemed logical. To many in the community, that seemed racist.
¹⁹

Eddington deeply resented being called “racist.” Born in 1947 and raised in a housing project under the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City, he had been the victim of black and Latino bullies who singled him out for being white, red-haired, freckled, and Irish. His body still bears the scars from being shot with a zip gun—a crude homemade weapon—when he was about ten years old. “I couldn’t understand why they were
attacking me,” he told me the first time we spoke in 2010. Later he understood. “They were doing to the whites what the whites had done to them,” he said, referring to the African American kids who had terrorized him. In an unpublished memoir that he wrote a few years ago, he described how he viewed the world when he was young: “It can be a hostile place. A place where you must always be prepared for an attack. Where you must always be vigilant and armed for defense.”

He had found no respite at home. If he misbehaved, his father would hit him with a contraption he called “cat o’ nine tails,” a foot-long wooden stick with nine two-foot-long strips of rawhide. “It would leave welts on my back and often break the skin. And the strange thing about it is that I never thought to tell anyone or complain to anyone or seek help. Who would I go to?” He writes that he was beaten once or twice a week with that instrument of torture.