“I keep hurting and I say, Alexis, you have to stay here. I‘d make my family rich if I were to die. They‘d get three million dollars if I were to disappear. They want me here, but I‘m lonely in the world. Even my wife knows that, she senses it. I can‘t do it. I wish I could. I wish I could, Jesus Christ, leave this place. What can I do in this world? Make money? I don‘t want money. I already spent twenty years on top of the world. Money is nothing. Money is bullshit. I have invested two million dollars. It doesn‘t mean shit. Look, with so little I‘m happy.
My kids, my wife, happy. If I want a drink, I‘ll drink. What else can I do? We come here for a reason. God wants me to be here, and I have to be here as long as he wants me, for a reason. You know, we lose courage sometimes because we are human beings. There are so many wrong things going on in the world, so how can I behave? I don‘t want to keep living because I know there are so many wrong things and I know that people can do better. Like my country. This country wanted the war because they wanted to sell weapons. I see those things and I get disenchanted. The beauty of the world has disappeared.“
Alexis Arguello, to Peter Heller, late 1980s.
Tags: ALEXIS ARGUELLO
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