As a short, stocky Latino who left school in eleventh grade, my options in life were fairly limited until I recently journeyed to the Miami clinic of Ruben Martinez, the doctor famous for performing reconstructive surgery on Colombian drug kingpins. When Martinez first laid eyes on me, he gasped, "Oh, my God, is it...?" "No," I smiled, "but I'm gonna be."
The two things I'm best known for are being able to turn my eyelids inside out and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Pablo Escobar. When he was gunned down by a special Colombian drug task force and his corpse put on display, my friends told me, "He looks just like you would if your body was riddled with bullets and your face covered in blood." Using photos from back issues of "Time" and "Newsweek," Dr. Martinez was able to give me the appearance of the late Mr. Escobar while also "scarring" my legs and chest with what looked like ammunition wounds from automatic weaponry.
Stepping off the plane in Medellin, Colombia, a mere three weeks later, I instantly drew stares. Accustomed to being ignored by virtually everyone in all settings (from the clerk at Payless Shoes to my relatives at family reunions), I found this new attention most welcome. I approached a chauffeur holding a sign which read "Montgomery," and caught his eye. He immediately lowered his placard and said in a quavering voice, "At your service, Senor Escobar." Based on satellite photos I'd seen on GoogleEarth, I instructed my driver to take me to the Escobar hacienda with the greatest number of swimming pools (6). As I exited the limo, he handed me the equivalent of fifty U.S. dollars.
Upon entering the house, I found my "brother" in the Jacuzzi with a can of Pepsi and two young locals. "Out of the hot tub," I barked, "though the girls can stay." Roberto stared at me in shock. "Pablo," he stammered, "are you back?" I smiled: "What does it look like?" His face was beaded in sweat and Jacuzzi bubbles. "We thought you were...." "Indestructible?" I supplied. "Yes," he nodded vigorously, "indestructible, immortal, whatever." "What I am," I told him, "is very hungry." Then I turned to the girls, "And very horny."
Four hours later, I had completed the best afternoon of my 42 years on earth. I'd enjoyed six cans of Pepsi, three trays of nachos, an entire turkey, a half-gallon of Welch's grape juice, Lucia, and Isabella (twice). Then, when I was watching an episode of "Lost" on an 84" flat-screen (a personal record for me), people started to arrive out of nowhere. Cars filled the grounds as everyone showed up to verify if what they'd heard was true. It was like I was dead all over again.
Their bowing and scraping was fantastic. I took my cue from Brando in "The Godfather." I didn't stuff cotton in my cheeks, but did slap men at random. If some drug lord offered me tribute (soccer tickets plus $150,000), I struck him across the face and ordered, "Act like a man." This led to better tickets and more money.
In less than 90 minutes, I had raked in nearly four million dollars and all tickets to the remainder of that season's home games. I was beginning to understand why "Forbes" had ranked "me" the seventh-richest man in the world prior to my death.
Suddenly, a tall man entered the room. I realized this was Robert Duvall to my Brando: that is, the one who'd been to college. "Don Pablo," he said, eyeing me closely. I countered with some DeNiro: "You lookin' at me?" No dice. "I am most surprised to see you," he announced. I spread my hands: "Here I am." "You have aged well since you were shot in the legs, torso, and through the ears on December 2, 1993, at the age of 44." "Time has been good to me," I explained. "As I hope it will continue to be good to you," I added menacingly.
He appeared unfazed and I sensed a little college could be a dangerous thing. "Don Pablo," he said, "with no disrespect, may I see your bullet scars?" "Have you brought no gift?" I asked. He remained silent. "Have you brought me not even a collander from Williams-Sonoma?" He shook his head no.
It was now or never. I whipped off "my" 800-thread-count, royal purple bathrobe embroidered with baby peacock feathers and gold flax torn from an ancient 16th-Century Belgian tapestry and thrust my bare chest at him. He was as stricken as a man watching his new 600-series Mercedes loaded with hundreds of kilos of uncut cocaine plunge off a pier. While he stood speechless, I pressed a finger to each of my nipples: "These, too, are filled with lead."
I could almost see the thoughts racing through his head: "When? Where? How? Who? Why? What the...?" I stood my ground, placing full faith in the advanced scarification techniques of Dr. Martinez. Hoping something which had never previously let me down would not fail me now, I reached deep into my bag of tricks and turned my eyelids inside out. "Don Pablo," I heard, "you shall have your collander."
