I don’t believe in this war no more,” Rodriguez told me. “People trying to kill you, everybody angry, everybody crazy all around you, smacking the shit out of people.” He paused, eyes downcast. “I don’t know what gets somebody killed, and what keeps them alive. Sometimes you can fuck up and it’s all right. Sometimes you do the right thing and people get hurt.”
“You’re thinking you can control what happens,” I said. “You can’t. You can only control your own actions.”
“No,” he said. “You can’t even do that all the time.” He paused and looked down. “I been trying to do what I think Fuji might have wanted.”
“That’s good,” I said, trying to encourage him.
“This city’s an evil thing,” he said. He shrugged. “I do evil things. There’s evil things all around me.”