Where Death Is a Way of Life

I met Sylviano at a Ciudad Juárez funeral in early 2011 when he told me to hop in the navy blue hearse he was driving to a cheap cemetery. Chubby and chatty, he carried the stains of a hearty meal on his shirt and the velour seats in his Cadillac were pocked with holes from dropped cigarettes. The air conditioning didn’t work either so dust—and the scent of the body in the back—kept rushing up at me.