El caso Monroy
Peru
Josué Méndez
Today, Ronnie Monroy woke up at dawn. He bought flowers and gifts. He went to the chicken restaurant next to Lima’s “Santa Mónica” Prison for Women, and reserved the best table. He wanted everything to be perfect.
Today, his latest conquest, Yadira, will walk free. Yadira is a forty-year-old Colombian, and Ronnie wants to surprise her with her favorite dish. Afterward, he’ll help her get settled at a hotel. They’ll walk together by the pier, and drink wine by the sea. In between anecdotes and smiles, there might be a little kissing. And then, who knows? With a little luck, maybe he’ll convince her to spend her first night of freedom with him. Then in the morning, they’ll go their separate ways, forever. Yadira has decided to sneak across the northern Peruvian border, into Ecuador, illegally, and Ronnie has offered to help her. She plans to rejoin her husband and child, whom she hasn’t seen for many years. Ronnie understands her situation completely—because Yadira isn’t the first inmate he’s waited for like this. And she won’t be the last one, either.
It all began five years ago, while Ronnie was working as a clerk at the Argentinean Embassy in Lima. Case files pertaining to Argentinean women who’d been arrested in Peru started appearing on his desk. Most had been accused of trying to smuggle cocaine into Europe through Lima’s airport. Once in jail, they asked their Embassy for medicine, lawyers, nourishment, and other needs impossible to satisfy so far away from their homes and families. Some of them were really pretty. And Ronnie found in one of those files the opportunity to be particularly helpful. Her name was Florencia, and she was 25. Ronnie visited her in prison; he began to bring her things, and helped her to process her parole. A few months later, Ronnie welcomed her out of prison and they spent the day together. When night fell, she said farewell to him with a sweet kiss, maybe out of gratitude, maybe out of true affection. Who knows? And who cares? Even if he never saw Florencia ever again, the fact of having met her and helped her gain her freedom was the greatest adventure to him. Ronnie was a modest working man and responsible husband. Yet now, at the age of 65, he suddenly felt that he’d found his destiny. A palliative against his monotonous life and the daily routine of getting old.
Since then, Ronnie has applied the same method with other inmates of different nationalities. Every Saturday he’s stood on line outside the prison, waiting to visit his new conquests. While they remained inside, Ronnie helped with their paperwork at the Department of Justice or at their Embassies; he negotiated with lawyers and bribed judges, getting deeply immersed in the tangled mess of Peru’s corrupt judiciary system. Little by little, he became an expert on the legal procedures, got to know the best contacts, and found ways to control the system’s shortcuts, with a skill that many of the best lawyers couldn’t match. But of course, he isn’t an attorney, and he never considered becoming one. What for? Along the way he’s learned that in Peru justice has nothing to do with the laws; you can change the outcomes for the accused simply by manipulating the system.
Whenever his conquests are set free, Ronnie waits for them with the enthusiasm of a teenager in love. He helps them deal with their first days out of prison. When they have nowhere to go and the safest thing is to check-in to a hotel for a few nights, Ronnie takes care of that. They need to declare an official job and a mailing address in order to keep their parole? Ronnie takes care of that, too. At the end of the day, some kind of mutual affection usually manifests itself. Of course, some of the women are more generous than others. Some just want to talk and go for walks. Wander around the city, dance in the clubs, sing karaoke, drink in the bars. Simple things that most of us – free citizens –take for granted. Obviously, Ronnie pays all the bills. But money also has its limits, and Ronnie learns to make things clear for his conquests: he lets them know that they should only see him as a temporary friend, as somebody who can help them for a limited time, not forever, because he has a wife and two kids that he isn’t willing to lose, and for whom he is responsible. The women always understood.
Once his latest conquest leaves the country, Ronnie begins visiting the next. He never courts two simultaneously. That isn’t him. Each one is different. Each adventure is new. There’s Angela, the vengeful Chilean nymphomaniac who gets Ronnie mixed up in a settling of scores—it ends in a shoot-out, which he barely survives. There’s Marlenis, the only one for whom he considered leaving his wife. Marlenis was 35 and Cuban. They had made plans for when she came out of prison. But once outside, he discovered that she’d been lying to him. She was really in love with another person: a transgender female she met at the women’s prison. Ronnie was devastated and decided to stop visiting “Santa Mónica” for a very long time; and if he ever returned, not to get involved with foreign inmates again. Farewells were too painful, and he had suffered enough already. In those months, he reencountered his wife’s unconditional love. They went out to the movies again, just as they did when they were teenage sweethearts. Without knowing what was going on with her husband, she ended up helping him deal with his frustrations. Nevertheless, six months later, Ronnie once again got bored of family life and couldn’t wait another day to visit that place of unexpected adventures, that paradise full of sad and lonely women desperate for help and care—women who’d reward generosity with affection.
A few years later, Ronnie still works at the Argentinean Embassy. He still goes to church every Sunday with his wife, as has throughout their forty years of marriage. She still waits for him with a hot plate on the table every weekend, after he’s returned from bringing comfort and hope to those poor incarcerated women who have nobody else in this world. But now, it’s the Peruvian inmates who provide Ronnie with new and stimulating adventures. The first thing Flor, a forty-five-year-old countrywoman who had been convicted for terrorism, wanted to do was to find her husband and kids, whom she had abandoned when she was put in jail. Ronnie never knows what the next woman will ask for. But he does know that his life of adventure can’t possibly last forever. He’s frightened of what time does to people. Now close to seventy, he fantasizes about growing old peacefully, alongside his wife. But that prospect isn’t what entices his imagination. He can only picture himself joining that visitors’ line once again, holding a bag full of presents—his eye focused only on his appetites every saturday morning, from now until the end of his days.
Destiny, however, will save its biggest surprise for the end. After surviving his most dangerous adventures, Ronnie will encounter the most challenging of them all. His wife, who’s found herself in legal trouble on Ronnie’s account, will end up in prison. And Ronnie will have to face the strangest adventure of all: having his wife become his client—and new conquest.
Today, his latest conquest, Yadira, will walk free. Yadira is a forty-year-old Colombian, and Ronnie wants to surprise her with her favorite dish. Afterward, he’ll help her get settled at a hotel. They’ll walk together by the pier, and drink wine by the sea. In between anecdotes and smiles, there might be a little kissing. And then, who knows? With a little luck, maybe he’ll convince her to spend her first night of freedom with him. Then in the morning, they’ll go their separate ways, forever. Yadira has decided to sneak across the northern Peruvian border, into Ecuador, illegally, and Ronnie has offered to help her. She plans to rejoin her husband and child, whom she hasn’t seen for many years. Ronnie understands her situation completely—because Yadira isn’t the first inmate he’s waited for like this. And she won’t be the last one, either.
It all began five years ago, while Ronnie was working as a clerk at the Argentinean Embassy in Lima. Case files pertaining to Argentinean women who’d been arrested in Peru started appearing on his desk. Most had been accused of trying to smuggle cocaine into Europe through Lima’s airport. Once in jail, they asked their Embassy for medicine, lawyers, nourishment, and other needs impossible to satisfy so far away from their homes and families. Some of them were really pretty. And Ronnie found in one of those files the opportunity to be particularly helpful. Her name was Florencia, and she was 25. Ronnie visited her in prison; he began to bring her things, and helped her to process her parole. A few months later, Ronnie welcomed her out of prison and they spent the day together. When night fell, she said farewell to him with a sweet kiss, maybe out of gratitude, maybe out of true affection. Who knows? And who cares? Even if he never saw Florencia ever again, the fact of having met her and helped her gain her freedom was the greatest adventure to him. Ronnie was a modest working man and responsible husband. Yet now, at the age of 65, he suddenly felt that he’d found his destiny. A palliative against his monotonous life and the daily routine of getting old.
Since then, Ronnie has applied the same method with other inmates of different nationalities. Every Saturday he’s stood on line outside the prison, waiting to visit his new conquests. While they remained inside, Ronnie helped with their paperwork at the Department of Justice or at their Embassies; he negotiated with lawyers and bribed judges, getting deeply immersed in the tangled mess of Peru’s corrupt judiciary system. Little by little, he became an expert on the legal procedures, got to know the best contacts, and found ways to control the system’s shortcuts, with a skill that many of the best lawyers couldn’t match. But of course, he isn’t an attorney, and he never considered becoming one. What for? Along the way he’s learned that in Peru justice has nothing to do with the laws; you can change the outcomes for the accused simply by manipulating the system.
Whenever his conquests are set free, Ronnie waits for them with the enthusiasm of a teenager in love. He helps them deal with their first days out of prison. When they have nowhere to go and the safest thing is to check-in to a hotel for a few nights, Ronnie takes care of that. They need to declare an official job and a mailing address in order to keep their parole? Ronnie takes care of that, too. At the end of the day, some kind of mutual affection usually manifests itself. Of course, some of the women are more generous than others. Some just want to talk and go for walks. Wander around the city, dance in the clubs, sing karaoke, drink in the bars. Simple things that most of us – free citizens –take for granted. Obviously, Ronnie pays all the bills. But money also has its limits, and Ronnie learns to make things clear for his conquests: he lets them know that they should only see him as a temporary friend, as somebody who can help them for a limited time, not forever, because he has a wife and two kids that he isn’t willing to lose, and for whom he is responsible. The women always understood.
Once his latest conquest leaves the country, Ronnie begins visiting the next. He never courts two simultaneously. That isn’t him. Each one is different. Each adventure is new. There’s Angela, the vengeful Chilean nymphomaniac who gets Ronnie mixed up in a settling of scores—it ends in a shoot-out, which he barely survives. There’s Marlenis, the only one for whom he considered leaving his wife. Marlenis was 35 and Cuban. They had made plans for when she came out of prison. But once outside, he discovered that she’d been lying to him. She was really in love with another person: a transgender female she met at the women’s prison. Ronnie was devastated and decided to stop visiting “Santa Mónica” for a very long time; and if he ever returned, not to get involved with foreign inmates again. Farewells were too painful, and he had suffered enough already. In those months, he reencountered his wife’s unconditional love. They went out to the movies again, just as they did when they were teenage sweethearts. Without knowing what was going on with her husband, she ended up helping him deal with his frustrations. Nevertheless, six months later, Ronnie once again got bored of family life and couldn’t wait another day to visit that place of unexpected adventures, that paradise full of sad and lonely women desperate for help and care—women who’d reward generosity with affection.
A few years later, Ronnie still works at the Argentinean Embassy. He still goes to church every Sunday with his wife, as has throughout their forty years of marriage. She still waits for him with a hot plate on the table every weekend, after he’s returned from bringing comfort and hope to those poor incarcerated women who have nobody else in this world. But now, it’s the Peruvian inmates who provide Ronnie with new and stimulating adventures. The first thing Flor, a forty-five-year-old countrywoman who had been convicted for terrorism, wanted to do was to find her husband and kids, whom she had abandoned when she was put in jail. Ronnie never knows what the next woman will ask for. But he does know that his life of adventure can’t possibly last forever. He’s frightened of what time does to people. Now close to seventy, he fantasizes about growing old peacefully, alongside his wife. But that prospect isn’t what entices his imagination. He can only picture himself joining that visitors’ line once again, holding a bag full of presents—his eye focused only on his appetites every saturday morning, from now until the end of his days.
Destiny, however, will save its biggest surprise for the end. After surviving his most dangerous adventures, Ronnie will encounter the most challenging of them all. His wife, who’s found herself in legal trouble on Ronnie’s account, will end up in prison. And Ronnie will have to face the strangest adventure of all: having his wife become his client—and new conquest.
Support:
Festivals and Awards:
Malaga Film Festival 2023, Lima Film Festival 2023
World Sales:
Chullachaki Producciones