Both Sides

by Gabino Iglesias

  “Up these stairs,” said Mateo. They marched up the ten concrete steps. Mateo opened one of the large, wood and glass doors, and they were in the Bradbury Building. As they walked down the hallway, Rogelio was not impressed by what he saw. Yes, the floor was beautiful with its Italian marble and Mexican tile—which Marisol proudly pointed out as if she’d designed the building herself—though it was nothing like what he knew from Blade Runner. They turned, went down a few steps, and then entered the magnificent atrium area. Ah! This was it!

  “Pretty fucking amazing, eh?” said Mateo. Marisol elbowed her cousin.

  “What?” said Mateo. “I suspect he’s used that word before.”

  Rogelio blushed but he liked how Mateo treated him like a peer.

  “Okay, fine,” said Marisol. “Now up to Los Otros Coyotes. Let’s take the stairs.”

  Rogelio could not hide his wonder. The Bradbury was a functioning office building, and even though it was after the dinner hour, tenants—and a few tourists oohing and aahing and taking photos—wandered about. At the second floor, they passed several large doors with beveled glass windows that had painted names of different businesses and law firms such as “Charoenpong, Eskandari & Lundgren LLP,” and “Elisofon+Van Gelderen Architectural Concepts,” and “Pletcher & Jones Designs.” They finally arrived at a door with the name, “Los Otros Coyotes: Party Planners.” Under the lettering was a painting that resembled a woodcut of three coyotes howling beneath a full moon. Marisol pushed a small button, and they waited. After a few moments, a thin, young man opened the door. He smiled at Marisol. She smiled back. The young man said, “Come in.”

  They entered. A dozen young people were at standing desks typing away on laptops, their faces aglow from the screens, almost all with earbuds listening to their own personal soundtracks. At the back of the room, a large table groaned with soft drinks, bottled waters, plates of fruit, coffee pots, paper cups and plates. To the left of the table was another door with VIVAPORÚ painted across it in bold, black letters.

  They walked to the door, and Marisol knocked.

  “Adelante,” came a voice that was the most beautiful Rogelio had ever heard.

  Marisol opened the door, kissed Rogelio on his forehead, and said: “Don’t be afraid.” He nodded and walked into the dark room as Marisol closed the door behind her brother. Rogelio turned and set his eyes on a figure who sat in an oversized, green-leather chair in front of a large, old, wooden desk. A brass lamp at the desk’s edge offered the only illumination in the room. Seven or eight books in Spanish and English sat in a stack just beneath the lamp. Rogelio could discern titles on four of the spines: Under the Feet of Jesus, La Metamorfosis, The Children of Willesden Lane, and La Hija de la Chuparrosa. The figure looked up from a large ledger. Rogelio lifted his eyes from the book titles. He just then noticed that, unlike the main office, there was no computer or laptop in this room. And instead of earbuds, the person in front of the boy had a turntable on a credenza just behind the large chair, the words “love supreme” repeating out of two, large speakers. The figure reached back and lowered the music to a whisper.

  “Siéntate, por favor,” said Vivaporú, pointing to one of two guest chairs that were stationed at angles in front of the desk.

  Rogelio sat. Vivaporú stood and looked down on the boy. Rogelio had never seen such a perfect person in his life. Vivaporú wore a luminous, white, three-piece suit accented with a shocking green shirt, collar spread open wide across the suit’s large lapels. Vivaporú’s earlobes were stretched with large, golden gauges, accented by a great, golden Chai—Rogelio thought it was a dog or some other animal—that hung on a thick chain around their long, muscular neck. Vivaporú’s lustrous, black hair was parted neatly down the middle and hung to their shoulders. They must have been at least six-feet tall, with the lean proportions of a ballet dancer. Vivaporú’s hazel eyes almost never blinked, and their smooth, brown skin gleamed. They pointed down at the ledger while keeping their eyes on the boy.

  “Rogelio Acosta,” said Vivaporú—not as a question, but a statement of fact. Rogelio remembered how the nurse at the detention center had said his name before checking the boy’s dog tag. But where that nurse had spat out a mangled version of his name, Vivaporú said “Rogelio Acosta” in an almost musical manner, softly pronounced in Spanish, as if the boy were a melody to be shared with an invisible audience. Vivaporú’s voice reminded Rogelio of a sound he once heard while hiking at the Mother Miguel Trailhead with his father a year before the separation at the Great Wall: a beautiful bird’s song that filled the boy’s mind with thoughts of his home back in Chula Vista.

  “Yes,” said Rogelio. “That’s me.”

  “Your hermana tells me that you want to be with your parents again,” said Vivaporú. “¿Es cierto?”

  “Yes,” said Rogelio. “It’s true.”

  “They’re in a safe city. Safe for children. We know this.”

  Rogelio listened silently.

  “Show me your right forearm,” said Vivaporú. The boy was confused at first, but then he realized Vivaporú wanted to look at the inoculation site. Rogelio pulled up his shirtsleeve and showed it to Vivaporú. The skin had healed leaving a small, square, shiny scar.

  “Do you know what that is?” said Vivaporú.

  “My inoculation.”

  Vivaporú let out a gentle, melodious laugh.

  “No,” said Vivaporú. “A microchip.”

  Suddenly, a black and white cat jumped onto the boy’s lap. It purred wildly and made itself comfortable. Rogelio smiled and petted the feline.

  “Su nombre es Sophie,” said Vivaporú.

  “I like Sophie.”

  “Sophie likes you.”

  Rogelio extricated his right arm from beneath Sophie, and showed Vivaporú the scar again. “Why did they put a microchip in me?” he said.

  Vivaporú leaned forward. “So that Homeland Security can track you to know that you’re still in los Estados Unidos.”

  “What for?”

  “Pues, because they need us as much as they hate us,” said Vivaporú with a loud sigh. “The country desires young people to grow up and then take the jobs that need taking. ¿Entiendes? All kinds of jobs, from janitors to engineers. The white population is aging, not—¿cómo se dice?—reproducing as fast as we are. Too many jobs, not enough people.”

  “I want to be with my parents.”

  “Por supuesto,” said Vivaporú. “But I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  The boy sat up straight. “You said it was safe.”

  Vivaporú shook their head. “No, niño, I said your parents are in a safe city. That is a different fact.”

  “What do you mean?

  “It is a dangerous journey back,” said Vivaporú. “Children have been caught by Homeland Security before they could get back to the other side.”

  “And what happens to them?”

  “They get sent far away, to places like Kansas and Nebraska and even South Dakota. They become—¿cómo se dice?—foster children, put with families that are not blood.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “No, it’s too risky.”

  “I need to be with my parents!”

  Vivaporú sighed, turned, walked to the turntable, and increased the volume. Vivaporú closed their eyes and swayed slowly to the rhythm of the jazz. Rogelio sat in silence for several minutes. Tears fell from his face. The track ended. Vivaporú turned off the turntable, and turned to face the boy.

  “The answer should be no,” said Vivaporú.

  The boy held his breath.

  “Pues, the first step will be to remove that microchip.”

  Rogelio wiped the tears from his face, smiled, and sat up.

  “Yes?” the boy said.

  “Sí.”

  Rogelio then grew serious, and looked at his forearm. “But the government will know it’s been removed,” he said.

  Vivaporú laughed. “
¡Qué inteligente eres!” Vivaporú walked around the desk to the boy, and pulled Sophie from Rogelio’s lap. “My beautiful gato will become you.”

  “What?”

  “We usually use rescue pets. I had been saving Sophie for a special person, and we have one here: You!”

  Rogelio shifted in his seat. He was trying to follow what Vivaporú was saying. Vivaporú returned Sophie to the boy’s lap, sat down in the other guest chair, crossed their long legs, and leaned toward Rogelio.

  “Once we have identified a child who wants to be with their parents, we contact the parents by hacking around Homeland Security,” began Vivaporú. “Your sister is already in contact with your parents because she works with us. That’s what those beautiful young people are doing in the front office. ¿Entiendes? First, we remove the microchip from that child and put it into a dog or cat. That way, to the government, the chip is still on this side of the Great Wall even as the children are transported back to their parents on the other side. It is like a reverse—¿cómo se dice?—Underground Railroad.”

  Rogelio nodded. His class learned about the Underground Railroad last year when they studied the chapter on slavery. He thought of Biddy Mason who didn’t have to use secret escape route because she successfully sued for her freedom when her owner brought the family to California.

  “How will I get back to Mexico?”

  Vivaporú took in a deep breath and smiled. “In the belly of the beast.”

  “What?”

  “Those big black buses that take the parents through the Great Wall and into México, like the one they put your parents on. ¿Entiendes? We have identified several sympathetic drivers and guards who have gotten more sympathetic with a little mordida—¿cómo se dice?—bribe. And we do not charge you. We are supported by many churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples of all types.”

  Rogelio nodded. “And what about my sister?”

  “She has decided to stay here, for now. Marisol is one of our best hackers, and she has become invaluable. Ella es brillante. And she has excellent ideas for the Reconquista.”

  “The what?”

  “No es importante,” said Vivaporú. “At this moment, the question is: Do you want to be reunited with your parents even though it is risky?”

  “Yes,” said Rogelio after a few moments of thought. “Put my microchip into Sophie, and get me into the belly of the beast.”

  Vivaporú clapped their hands and stood. “Your hermana will alert your parents and get you ready.”

  En el vientre de la bestia.

  After Mateo and Marisol had finished their two-hour shift at Los Otros Coyotes, they walked Rogelio to a place called Tina’s Café, two blocks from the Bradbury Building. They strode in silence, the evening’s cool breeze beginning to make itself felt. In the back room of what was an otherwise normal coffee shop, a man removed the microchip from the boy’s arm and placed it in a tube of disinfectant for eventual implantation into Sophie. The chip’s slow dissent through the blue liquid enthralled Rogelio. Removal of the microchip hurt the boy more than expected, but he was happy that it would soon be in that lovely cat.

  As they drove back home through Chinatown, Marisol explained the plan. She would contact their parents in the morning so they can begin their journey from Ocotlán to Tijuana. In one week, before dawn, a small group of children, including Rogelio, would be picked up by a school bus a few blocks from their home. It will look like any other bus taking children to school, but in their backpacks, instead of books and folders, the children were instructed to have several changes of clothes, toiletries, water, snacks, and anything else needed for the trip to San Diego and through the Great Wall and reunion with their parents in Tijuana. About a mile from the large parking structure where the black buses were parked, the children would be moved into a van of the kind used by Homeland Security, and from there, they would be taken to a predetermined black bus where the luggage compartment—the belly of the beast—would be waiting for its young cargo. Bribes would be paid at each step. Once the bus crosses through the Great Wall into Tijuana, if all goes well, the children’s parents would be waiting to take them back to their homes. Many of the parents who had lived in places like Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras, were given asylum by the Mexican government, and so their children would settle with them in their new homes in Mexico. Marisol would not tell their aunt until after Rogelio was safely with their parents. Tía Isabel would be upset, no doubt, but it was the only way.

  The belly of the beast was hot. The black bus rocked back and forth as it made its way down three levels toward the exit gate at the base of the Great Wall. Even over the rumbling of the vehicle’s engine, Rogelio could discern the audio loop of the President that was broadcast in the detention center and parking structure: “…I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall….”

  The five other children who had ridden with Rogelio where huddled together in the dark. Two of them softly whimpered. The beaten-up luggage and duffel bags of the parents who rode above made the small space feel even more confining, like an ancient tomb. Rogelio sat in a corner and hugged his backpack. He willed himself not to cry. He had cried too much already. He was done with tears. He would soon be in Tijuana. He would soon embrace his mother and father. And after a few weeks of living in Mexico with his parents, Rogelio will contact his sister to find out more about this thing Vivaporú called the Reconquista. This was the boy’s promise to himself. And he always kept his promises.

  The bus suddenly jerked to a stop. Rogelio heard shouting in both Spanish and English. He held his breath, and the other children’s whimpering grew louder. What was happening? Rogelio could hear cars honking and speeding by the bus. He then heard footsteps on the gravel of the freeway’s shoulder. More shouting, men and women. Arguments, cussing, both languages mixing into one cacophonous commotion. Then silence, adults whispering, a clicking and sliding of the locking mechanism that kept the children in the belly of the beast. Suddenly light—three, maybe four flashlights aimed at the children. And then Rogelio—blinded by the flashlights—heard a woman scream, “Oh my God!”

  FUNDIDO

  Johnny Shaw

  Gordo should have been in bed with his wife, but instead he was driving a van full of corpses to a demonio necrófago’s lair. It wasn’t a complaint. It could have been worse. He could’ve been in the back of the van with the dead.

  The phone had rung, he had received his orders, and went to pick up the kid. Whatever had happened at that nightclub was none of his business. Gordo may have been Raul’s cousin, but he was still only told essential details. The cargo and the destination, that was all.

  Gordo had been to Barranco Seco a few times. He would never get used to the place, but he had learned to tolerate its ghoulish creepiness. This was the kid’s first time. When the compound came into view, the kid inhaled deeply and let out a whimper. The place didn’t look like much, just a trailer and an old barn surrounded by a high fence. It was the stories of what happened in that barn that made the kid’s face lose its blood. Like everyone else, he had heard the stories of El Fundidor.

  At the gate, the kid got out of the van and unlocked the padlock. Gordo drove onto the compound and waited. He wanted to see the kid’s face when he caught sight of the skulls.

  From a distance, the barn looked stuccoed. As they approached, it became evident that it was covered with animal skulls of all shapes and sizes. Perforated, bleached, some skulls fused together. Dogs and pigs and goats and cattle. But it was the writing that made Gordo shudder. Strange sigils and markings written on each skull. Curses or spells, he didn’t know, but they were definitely a warning.

  This was an evil place. A place where death wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Where death was the beginning.

  The man they called El Fundidor heard the gate open outside. He heard the gravel under the van as it entered the compound. He didn’t rush to greet h
is guests. They would wait. El Fundidor went back to his work. It required concentration.

  Too little acid and the process took days to complete. Too much and the froth overflowed from the edges of the barrel. Precision was everything. Dissolving a human body was both science and art.

  The early years had required considerable trial and error. At first, roadkill and carcasses supplied by feedlots and farmers. A series of brews that showed mixed results: boiled water, acids, caustics, oxidizers, dozens of multisyllabic corrosives. Some ineffective or slow. Others dangerous alone, worse in combination. He wrote his recipes and notes on the animal skulls as a record of his progress.

  The patchy scar tissue on El Fundidor’s arms stood as a reminder to the primitive experimentation that had led to his mastery. His persistent cough the product of almost a decade of melting flesh. The two missing fingers on his left hand had been a hard-learned lesson in overconfidence. He had never tried to perform the process without measuring again.

  After hundreds of melts, he had little doubt that he could perform the entire procedure by eye and feel. By the fizz of the liquid solution. By the creamy color of the tallow. By the acrid, yet meaty aroma. His grandmother had never needed a measuring cup to make pozole, but El Fundidor was making a very different soup.

  It took no added effort to carefully measure. To stay humble. To get it right. It’s the least he could for the dead, show them respect before he erased their existence. Each corpse was once a human being, one of God’s children. The Lord God had chosen El Fundidor’s purpose. It was his obligation to perform his task with the same care and precision each and every time. Anything less would be a sin.

  There had been many changes at the top since El Sanguinario had conscripted him into his service. He had been a butcher’s assistant, not yet twenty. Old for a new recruit, he had thought he had evaded the cartel’s reach, but El Sanguinario had got it in his head that someone that worked with meat would understand how to disintegrate a human body. He had not been wrong.