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“There are two kinds of people in this world, my love,” he remembers his mother saying, combing back his unruly hair with her work-roughened, sun-browned fingers that always felt gentle to him.
Tuco doesn't always remember how that sentence ended, thinks that she had several versions of it. It’s because of this that he doesn’t think anything of changing the phrase as is needed–or, rather, as he needs. “Two kinds of people,” he says, drinking at the bar, raising his glass with a grin to his fellow drinker. “Those who toast, and those who are toasted.”
He throws back the shot and, as he’s lowering the glass, catches the eye of the fetching redhead across the bar. She’s new, and fresh, and has been trying to catch his eye all evening. She tastes like spring water and the untaxed whiskey they’ve both been drinking.
She laughs like spring water too, the color of her eyes, the drape of the sheets across her bare back, like the lushness of spring in the hills. Tuco thinks he might be in love, doesn’t think about the fact that he’s young, that she’s new, that the territories fought over by so many people and parties and factions aren’t the safest place to start the bud of a growth that might be something, someday.
The proprietor is understanding and beneficent and very appreciative of the hundred dollars that Tuco manages to pay him to cover Evie’s passage, room, and board since he had come.
“What was that,” she smiles sleepily up at him, her hair in her eyes, the last hints of twilight in the window. “About kinds of people?”
He smiles down at her. “I’ll tell you the rest later.”
–
His mother didn't believe in luck, good or bad, prayed to the saints, to the Lady and to the little baby Jesus. "Two kinds of people," she would say. "Those that follow God and those that devils follow."
Tuco had tried following God, had tried so hard, tried praying when his stomach was empty, when his shoes wore through, when his brother left, so tall and thin and pious, when he first pulled the trigger into another man’s belly, the gunpowder and blood churningly strong, when he felt the heft of a gold coin–a real gold coin–in between his fingers and wanted more.
There was something else his mother used to say, about nothing being impossible, but even the comfort of his mother’s bluest shawl wrapped around him with her arms couldn’t outweigh the solidity of the gold in his fingers.
Maybe devils followed him, Tuco thought. Maybe. But he had tried so hard, for such a long time, and had so far gotten nothing for it. The first time Tuco had talked to the devils following him he had gotten a gold coin for his troubles. So, he thought, maybe this was it. Pablo was going off and doing his dues to God and Our Lady and all of them so maybe that would carry them all through. While Pablo was off being oh-so-pious for God, Tuco would make sure that Mama and Papa were comfortable here on earth in the meantime.
Papa worked hard, worked his hands to the bone, cared for his fields and his crops with the sweat of his brow and the work of his hands. Mama cared for him, cared for Pablo, cared for Tuco, cared for– and she was happy. But it wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t easy, and Tuco longed to give that to her.
He looked at his wife, honey-blonde hair in a pile on her head as she lounged against the wall. Tuco wanted to give her the life she deserved, the life his mother deserved. And, just as soon as he was able, he would give it to them, he’d give them everything.
“Come back to bed, darling,” Lara cooed in her low voice.
Tuco smiled, and kissed her, and tucked his gun into his belt on its string. “The very moment I come back, I promise.”
-
"Two kinds of people. Those who see our Virgin’s light and those who cannot see at all."
Tuco had looked at his mother, and had said nothing, because what was there to say? The love of the Lady of Guadalupe had not spared her or his father a moment of work, of struggle, of their crushing existence. That same struggle that his father, with his fine, broad shoulders and fine, broad brow, seemed to shrug off like life was beneath him to vex him so with the troubles of the flesh. The crushing weight that his mother seemed to disappear to the fineness of her mending stitches, to fold into her fists pounding the dough into submission.
As many times as his mother prayed the rosary, as his father crossed himself, for how fervently they prayed, Tuco only saw two ways out now, these days, two kinds of people in his own judgement in the ways of the world. Pablo had gone off, had followed God off to his priestly duties at some mission of San Antonio. And if there were two kinds of people, Tuco thought, watching his mother bend to check on the bread, and his brother was serving the saint of lost things while ignoring their parents back home, maybe he'd be the other kind. Maybe he'd be the one to lead the devils away from home, away from his mother and father and their humble farmstead.
"Of course, Mama," Tuco said, and crossed himself piously. "Of course."
–
"Two kinds, my darling bird," his mother cooed, dabbing the blood from his knee. "Those who are wounded and those who do the wounding."
Tuco remembers Pablo standing, solemn and somber at his side, manner serious. “He should not have pushed him, even so, Mama.”
And while their beloved, sainted mother would never have naysayed her elder son, she could still give him a look, the one that said he should not contradict his mother, no matter how right and proper he thought he might be. “Even so.”
Mama had cleaned his knee and kissed his forehead and given him and Pablito a slap on the back to get back out there, to watch over his brother and–more importantly–to mind what their mother said.
Tuco remembers the first girl he ever fell in love with, that every boy his age in the village fell in love with, her cascading curls, her brilliantly white teeth against her rich, dark skin. The way Rosita laughed would settle in your bones and live there, Tuco thought, when he was younger. He never wanted to be laughed at, even with a laugh so sweet as that, he decided early on. He remembers her in her dress as red as a Christmas bloom, the picked-out yellows and whites in stark relief, the way she smiled at him (he was sure it was at least a little for him) as she waved farewell from the carriage window taking her from the village forever.
He picks up the parasol because it reminds him of her, of Rosita, the color of a fully-bloomed rose on its wooden handle. “Do you mind if I?” He gestures broadly to make up the rest of the question. With his gun and his insouciance, the bartender lets him take the parasol, at least, along with a bit of whiskey for his flask. He's exceedingly glad for the shade the parasol offers him, later on, taunting the blond man in the sun. In all of its pink and frilly glory.
--
"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend." Tuco glares at Blondie, at him stealing his line, his mother's line. "Those with loaded guns and those who dig."
So Tuco digs, thinking back to that dirty little place he first met this man with no name, this man stealing his bullets and his bounty and now his very words. Maybe, Tuco thinks, this is why the man never gave him a name--because he's not a man at all, but one of those devils Tuco intended to draw away from his mother and father. His mother who has been gone for a long time now, according to his brother, and his brother wouldn't lie. His brother might be many things but a liar has never been one of them. If he had his hands he would cross himself, but he doesn't, so, thinking of her, he sends a prayer heavenward for his mother and one for his father too, hoping some saint or martyr will hear and listen, even to someone as devil-ridden as him.
And if maybe a saint stops to give poor Tuco a chance? Well, he would never say no to that either.