"Corruption is a recurring theme in what I write, because it's something that exists, that's there, even though I've never experienced it in my work." The writer Félix Martín Garrido sips a toasted beer at the bar. It's midday and the soft notes of Stan Getz's Café Montmartre blues accompany the atmosphere of the Bar. The regular smiles, enjoying the moment, living it to the fullest. Realizing that the most important thing is always what one is doing, neither before nor after, seems to be the greatest lesson life has taught him. The one he is most grateful for.
A criminologist, police officer, and long-time trainer in public and private security, he confesses that, more often than he would like, professionals in this field who write fiction conform to the perception and clichés that the public is accustomed to from series, movies, and thrillers. "If many processes were told as they really work, the reader or viewer wouldn't believe them, even if they are much truer than what they are used to seeing or reading!"
Methodical, meditative, focused on a present that could have been cut short when, at twenty-three, a guy ran him over with a stolen car to avoid being arrested, Félix cultivates an unrestrained love for reading and a passion for philosophy, both in its historical aspect and in the work of thinkers like the Korean Byung-Chul Han. Scratching from his free time, he writes books and stories and visits libraries, "even if they are no longer the places of reading and silence they once were."
A journey that began during another journey
As a good inveterate reader, writing was something Félix Martín Garrido carried deep within, like a standard attribute. "About thirty years ago, I decided to get into it, one afternoon when I filled four pages that I didn't follow up on." Those pages stayed there, in a drawer of his desk and, also importantly, in another of his mind.--- So, when did you get serious about the literary matter?
The writer looks back. "It was about twelve years ago, I was returning from Santiago, Chile, after giving a seminar on security to the local police. During that journey, I picked up those four pages again, I started writing on the plane." Almost at the end of the trip to Chile, another one had begun that has lasted ever since, that of writing. "In a short time, I had a first draft of four hundred pages, from there it was a long process of rereading, pruning, and rewriting." After this process, his debut novel, El efecto dominó (The Domino Effect), "which deals with the revenges and retaliations so common after the Civil War," saw the light.
His next novel, No queda lugar para la poesía (No Room Left for Poetry), addresses urban corruption. The third, No merecemos nada mejor (We Deserve Nothing Better), set between Barcelona and Santiago, Chile, deals with political and police corruption, inspired by the Bárcenas case. And, very recently, the writer's fourth work, Quiero que nunca dejes de hablar conmigo (I Want You to Never Stop Talking to Me) (Octubre Negro), inspired by that Navajas report which, in 1989, linked Civil Guards from the Intxaurrondo barracks with drug traffickers, has seen the light. "The protagonist, Marcos Aranda, is a character split into two, within whom each of the two personalities takes control as each situation requires." And he explains it with the smile of someone who has had a blast tracing a story of moral decay and blood, with a generous seasoning of black humor.
With all his secrets in plain sight
The writer Félix Martin Garrido has always lived on the outskirts of the city ---"Mataró, Argentona, Badalona, Tiana…"--- and confesses that his relationship with Barcelona is "almost like that of a tourist who likes to come, stroll, discover new corners like the hallof the Hotel Oriente or the location of the old Conde de Asalto police station, where Francisco González Ledesma's Méndez "solved his messes."Observing the landscapes and people of the city, always discovering some new one of its countless visible secrets, in a city that "is becoming very expensive and that, perhaps, I don't know if it's because of itself or if I perceive it that way, has lost a bit of the cultural flavor it had before." He finishes his beer. "That Europeanist and open spirit of a thousand ethnicities and colors that was complemented by its inspiring indigenous scoundrel," he adds, with his gaze on long past nights traversing streets where everything was possible and where it never seemed like dawn would break.
--- What has a thousand flavors and is worth discovering is the gastronomic offer of our Bar. Can we tempt you with something to eat?
Gerry Mulligan's Lonesome boulevard plays and, true to his philosophy, Félix Martín Garrido enjoys and savors the moment. Nothing matters more than what is happening right now.
"Well, one more beer, and I think I'm going to opt for some varied tapas," he replies, looking with appetite at the display case where some succulent bites are exhibited.