Roger Martin

Roger Martin (birth name Rogelio Bartholome Martinez, Jr.) was born in Los Angeles in 1945, a part of the Baby Boom. His father was a Hispanic Army grunt from East LA, his mother a Black hotel maid from South LA. Neither was ever really a presence in their second son’s life. His father was perpetually stationed away, then KIA in Korea. His mother worked long hours, to try to keep her five kids from dropping from poverty to abject poverty.

He was raised instead by two Catholic matriarchs: his abuela, whose botanica was a center for her barrio, and his grand-mere, who’d bought her extended family out of Louisiana in the Great Migration. The two agreed on little — not even his name — really only three things: He was never to break faith with his guardian, St. Peter. He was never to join a gang. And third, no, he could never drive some dangerous muscle car. But then, there was also his grand-pere, mechanic and ardent devotee of such cars.

When he was a very young child, his abuela would sometimes task “Rogelio” to meet a certain person at a certain intersection, to give them a message from Elegua, known to come to the faithful in the form of a child at a crossroads. His grand-mere, on hearing of this, would purse her lips and correct “Roger,” saying non, non, Papa come as an old man. One night, his grand-mere had Roger up very late, to come with her to meet a strange man at an intersection in her neighborhood. There she had him take a rolled up packet from the stranger, and bury it. And it was she who talked his mother into keeping the stray dog that followed them home after. But his abuela would never let the dog into her shop.

Once he was of age, each taught him in her own way how he could contact St. Peter, who his abuela told him is the oricha he was born to, the owner of his head. At seven, he had three first communions, one at his mother’s Catholic Church, the other two in the separate places where his grandmothers practiced. But once he got to high school, his friends’ teasing curiosity made him too painfully embarrassed by it all, so he refused to go be ridden when they asked. He broke all three things his grandmothers agreed he should never do, although he secretly asked the saint his forgiveness every time he did not answer their call.

Right after his high school graduation, Rogelio volunteered for the Army, without a call-up — it being the fastest way out. The recruiters “fixed” his name on the application, and with that, Roger was a new man, if still Black. He played the straight arrow — all, yes sir, no sir. He was willing to act the well-behaved “boy” to fly under the radar, to climb up. He used his aptitude with fixing cars in Army specialization training, and worked his way up into an Engineer Sergeant rank in the 5th Special Forces. He was an “old” Army man by the time the lottery draftees started surging into Vietnam.

Although his intent was never to draw attention to himself, just survive the Army, there was enough there to pique Project SANDMAN’s interest. There was a notably lucky record in engagements under fire. There was a commendation for one impossible, needle-threading escape while chased. And there were the peculiar citations for insubordination around religious practice. Out of the blue, the Green Beret found himself re-assigned as a mere chauffeur for some VIP Army-adjacent types, driving them weird places and taking their weird tests when he wasn’t. There was even this friendly fellow Catholic who showed an interest in some of his family’s definitely not Vatican II approved practices. He drove them around, he answered their questions, he occasionally built incendiaries for them.

Eventually, the penny dropped, the weird shit hit the fan. The Project got to see his skills beyond driving, and that he had the necessary mental resilience to survive. To Roger, the truth of the demimonde glimpsed seemed just more saints’ names on top of the gods he already knew, that had already ridden him. As a kid he’d already learned three syncretic systems, what was another?

So he made the mental adjustments to accept deeper recruitment. As for working even more deeply for the Man, Roger had long made his peace with it as the price of living. Back in the States, he got to have the better life — his nice suits, time to work on his beautiful car. And then he impressed the new bosses with a success when trusted on an undercover assignment. They made him part of an operation into a militant Black power group that had turned twisted cult and gotten into some dangerous waters. Impressive, yes, but not without damage. But as far as the Project was concerned, the experience only cracked him a little; nothing further mental conditioning couldn’t plaster over. They judged him recovered well enough, and useful enough, to assign an uneducated wheelman into the elite Operation URIEL.

Maître Kalfu
(Maître Carrefour, Master of the Crossroads, El Diablo)

Yes, brother! I am the old spirit of liberation, of people seeking freedom, seeking their dreams. People who need someone like you. I am here to set you free, so you set others free! And brother — you are enslaved. You have shackles on you beyond what you know.

Kalfu, to E.L. Moore
The Musician and the Devil