“Stay here,” she said as she and others got off their bikes and ran to help the boy, someone having to signal to the driver to stop! Stop! But I didn’t stay there. I was scared and wanted to be with my mother, so I followed her and I saw him.
With the blood around his head and the way his arms were splayed out and his eyes showing only the whites, it reminded me of the crucifixion of Jesus. Except one of the boy’s legs was twisted in a weird way.
A few watermelons had fallen down, too, green and white rinds split open, revealing the fleshy insides. I remember red and pink and scarlet splattered all around him on that dirty street.
Anytime I sink my teeth into a slice of watermelon, I think of him. The aftertaste of iron lingers, no matter how sweet the fruit—as if I were eating the watermelon off the street laced with blood from that day. As if the sweetness that drips from my lips is his blood.
I don’t remember where we were going, but I remember we never got there because I cried so much that Mamá had to take me back home. I thought about that boy all day and all night. I dreamed about him. And I asked Mamá if she thought he survived.
She said, Yes, hijo. He survived.
But I don’t think he did. I guess sometimes lying to those we love is the only way to keep them from falling apart.
I get up, ignoring the soreness in my body. I unplug the fan and quietly take it to Mamá’s room. Her door is open and I see her asleep on her bed. I plug in the fan, turn it on, and head to my room.
Before I’m even to the door, I can hear Chico whimpering, dreaming of his mamita maybe. Or Don Felicio. Or the tombs in the cemetery. Or Rey. Or our fight.
I go to Chico and try to pull him from sleep as gently as I can. Still, he jumps and whimpers.
“It’s just me,” I tell him. “It’s Pulga.”
“What’s the matter? Are they here?”
“No, you were having a bad dream.”
I hear him take deep breaths, try to calm himself. I creep to the window, move the curtains just slightly, searching for any figures. Searching for Rey. Nothing. But when I get back to Chico, now fully awake, I speak in barely a whisper, just in case someone is out there listening. “We have to go. Pequeña’s right. Something bad is going to happen. If we don’t leave, something very bad is going to happen.”
I hear Chico take another deep breath. He knows it’s time for the plans we’ve been making long before this moment. It’s time for all that information we gathered outside Don Felicio’s store. For the times we sat quiet in the kitchen as another mother from the barrio passed by our patio and stopped to lament to Mamá about the departure of another son they’d never see again.
We listened.
We outlined how they first took a bus to the capital, then more buses to the border of Mexico before crossing the Suchiate River. We stored that information, waiting for the day we’d need it. For the day we’d have to do the same.
“We have to go,” I whisper.
“I know . . .” Chico says.
That’s all we say. I climb into my bed. Tomorrow we will figure out when. Tonight we will just sit with the decision.
I fall back into darkness, thinking of watermelons and blood and me and Chico fighting like two dogs, Rey and his guys looking on like gamblers who’ve placed bets on us.
But they’re not going to win.
Pequeña
A week after my visit to Leticia, Rey makes me and the baby get in the car with him.
“We are going for a ride today. As a family. I have a surprise for you,” he says.
“No, Rey . . . please. We haven’t told my mother yet and . . .”
But it’s as if he doesn’t hear me. He walks over to the bassinet and picks up the baby, carelessly holding him in one arm as he grabs me with the other. His fingers dig into my skin, and he steers me toward his car conspicuously parked in front of our house.
He shoves me in the passenger seat, slams the door after me. He gets in the driver’s seat. My heart is a quivering, exploding thing in my chest.
“Rey . . .”
“Shut up,” he says as he turns the key, the baby still in his grip. I stare at how his little foot dangles, the urge to reach for him, to save him from Rey, overwhelming. “Stop worrying so much about your mami. You don’t belong to her anymore, don’t you know that? You belong to me.” He takes my hand, pulls it toward him quickly, kisses my fingers and smiles. He’s about to hand me the baby when the smile is replaced by a funny look on his face. “God, Pequeña, what’s happened to you?” His eyes take in my T-shirt, my bleach-stained shorts and flip-flops. “No, this isn’t right. Go inside and put on a pretty dress. Fix yourself up.”
My skin crawls, but I’m too afraid not to listen to him. So I nod, open the car door, and then I stop. My body won’t move as I think of leaving that baby here, alone, with him. I won’t reach for him. But part of me wants to. And I stay there too long.
“Go!” Rey yells. The baby cries. I worry about Rey getting angry, so I go, head toward the front door of my house.
When I turn my back on the monster, I rise into the sky and see a million possibilities.
I see myself walking, as he opens the car door, as he raises a gun and aims it right at my back.
I see him pulling the trigger and the bullet, hot and whizzing, released from the barrel.
I see it sink into my back, my body bending into an arch before I fall to the ground and that bullet explodes inside me.
I see him come up next to me, toss the baby on top of my body.
I see Mami running up to the house, finding both of us that way. I hear her screams and sobs and see how she falls on top of us both.
“Hey!” Rey yells.
And I think maybe he wants to see my face as I watch the bullet headed toward me.
“Pequeña!”
I turn slowly, hoping he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes. He’s halfway out of the car, that baby still dangling in one arm. No gun pointed at me. “Don’t be long, okay?” he says.
I nod.
If he doesn’t kill me, maybe he’ll drive away with that baby. And part of my terrible prayers will have been answered, in the most terrible way. And it will be God’s punishment for asking for something so terrible.
Or maybe he will drive me and the baby out to some deserted place where he will kill us both. And decide there is another girl more deserving of him.
I walk up through the front patio and into the house. I do as he says.
I choose a dress with red flowers, so if Mami finds me dead, the red flowers will disguise my blood. I put it on, smooth my hair, put on lip gloss. I shove my feet into black flats.
Because God help me, I suddenly hope he is in love with me. Maybe then, he won’t kill me. Because I realize when death feels imminent, when it feels certain, all I want is to live. I will do anything to live.
I think of leaving Mami a note, but can’t find paper or pen and don’t even know what I would write. So I hurry, hurry, because I don’t want him to get mad.
But before I open the door, I watch him for a second through the window. Holding that baby. Checking his phone.
And for a moment, I think of taking the money and running out the back door, running as far as the money will take me. I could run right now. I could leave them both behind right now.
But as much as I can’t love that baby, I can’t leave him in Rey’s arms like that. And as much as I want to run right now, I know I won’t get far without a plan; he’ll easily find me within an hour.
So I open the door and go back outside.
He looks at me and smiles.
And I promise that if I make it out of this alive, I will find the nerve to leave. On Mami’s next day off, she will stay here with the baby. I will ask to go to the market.
And I’ll never come back.
Pulga
“Hey, pay attention, pendejo!” Nestor yells. He’s holding his gun. “You load the magazine like this, you see?” A harsh click makes me jump. “Then you cock it like this.” The sound of rippling metal grooves rings in my ears. “And then it’s ready to use. You remember, right?”
My knees are weak and my hand trembles when Nestor puts an identical weapon in my hands.
“Hey, man, toughen up. No seas gallina,” he says when he notices. He makes a chicken sound and laughs, but nudges me like we’re friends. Just like that. We’re supposed to be family now. Toro, the guy with the ring through his nose, who whistled outside our window that night, looks on and laughs, too.
For three days now, Nestor has picked up Chico and me on our way to school and brought us to the same warehouse. Yesterday, he tossed breakfast sandwiches our way and took us somewhere to shoot, where he whooped and hollered when we started getting the hang of it. Today, he arms me as we leave. Chico looks terrified.
“You’re going to take this to this address.” He hands Chico a backpack and shoves an address in my hand. “And you collect the money. Don’t come back without it, understand?”
I’m too afraid to even look in the backpack. I don’t ask what’s in there. I don’t want to know. And even though each morning I wake up sweating fear, today, with this gun in my pants, I feel like my body won’t work. Like my skeleton has crumbled within me.
“You think these guys won’t pay up?” I ask Nestor.
He twists his lips. “I mean . . . we’ve had small problems with them in the past. But Rey got real tough on them, so I don’t think they’ll give you trouble. But.” He shrugs. “Just make sure you get the money. You want to prove yourself to Rey, right? Stay on his good side.”
“Yeah . . . of course,” I say as my heart races.
“Good.” He tosses me the keys to one of Rey’s motor scooters we use to get around now. “¡A trabajar, muchachos!” he yells.
And Chico and I listen.
We get to work.
* * *
~~~
We zoom and zip past cars. Weave in and out of traffic.
Our helmets are dark and hot, but Rey insists on helmets. Not because of safety, but for anonymity. It’s the only reason I’m not terrified of someone seeing us and reporting back to Mamá. And because at the warehouse we change out of our school uniforms and into street clothes.
We ride these streets now, Chico and me, as Rey’s guys. Just like that.
If we refuse, if we tell anyone, if we don’t act grateful, that click and rippling sound will wake me in my room one night.
Chico won’t last. I can tell already. He jumps at every sound in the house, at a motorcycle that backfires. He doesn’t eat. I’ll last longer, I know I can. But I don’t know how long. We have to go. We have to go. The thought screams at me every time we get in Nestor’s car. Every time I look at Mamá, waiting for the moment she demands to know why we haven’t been in school for the past week. But every time I think of leaving, of getting the bus ticket out of here, of taking that first step, I can’t.
I think Mamá has noticed something’s off. Act normal, I tell Chico. Act normal, I tell myself. But I don’t know how much time we have before she finds out just how wrong things are.
I pass through the market. I think of the two guys on a motorcycle who killed Chico’s mamita.
I think of us becoming them one day and I zoom faster, leaving the memory and the thought far behind. I look at the address again. It’s a store on the other side of town, boarded up just like Don Felicio’s.
I park the motor scooter, and Chico and I make our way slowly to a back door.
“Stop!” A guy we hadn’t noticed steps out from the cover of lush trees behind the store. He has some kind of automatic weapon pointed at us. “Put your hands up.”
We immediately do as he says.
He’s tall and scrawny, the weapon practically bigger than him. His face doesn’t look much older than mine. “You Rey’s guys?”
I nod. “Yeah, hermano . . . sorry, yes, look.” I gesture toward the backpack strapped on Chico.
The guy comes closer to us. He eyes my waistband, easily making out the outline of the gun Nestor made me take. “Don’t even think about using that, hermano,” he says. “Keep your hands up, and come on.” He points to the back door and makes us walk in front of him.
Inside, some guy sits at a folding table counting money.
“Rey’s guys are here,” the guy with the gun tells the guy at the table.
He looks up from the bills on the table. When he lays eyes on us he laughs. “Are you serious?” Chico and I stare at each other. “You two are fucking babies.” He shakes his head and laughs harder.
“Shit, Rey’s really testing me . . .” he says to the guy with the gun. They stare at each other, and you can practically hear the whole conversation shared in those looks.
We could take them out. Keep this shit without paying.
I know where to get rid of the bodies.
It’d be so easy.
But Rey . . . he’s getting bigger.
Yeah . . .
Better to keep him on our side.
Okay.
Get the backpack off that gordito’s back.
Got it.
The guy with the gun takes the backpack off Chico and heads to a back room with it. The guy at the table stares at me until the guy opens the door again, gives him a thumbs-up, and hands him the empty backpack.
“Okay . . . looks like we’re good,” he says. But he doesn’t move. He gives me the unzipped, empty backpack.
I can feel Chico’s fear. The way every part of him wants to run. Act normal, act normal.
“Is that what I should tell Rey?” I ask the guy, looking at the empty backpack. I try to keep my voice steady, but I hear the way it strains, the way it quivers. “That you said we’re good?” The guy sucks his teeth and chuckles. He takes the backpack from me and throws rolled-up bills in there before tossing it back at me.
“Get the hell out of here,” he says. The guy with the gun comes up from behind and nudges us forward.
Chico trembles as he puts the backpack on.
I nearly crash us as I swerve the motor scooter out of there, as fast as possible.
We have to get out of here, I think as a bus honks, long and loud.
We have to get out of here, as we pass through the market again.
As we head back to the warehouse.
As Nestor claps at our arrival and Toro fills the place with an earsplitting whistle.
“Rey’s gonna be impressed,” Nestor says.
We have to get out of here.
As we make another run.
As we stop by the bus station.
As I take out the money I took from Mamá’s secret hiding spot and hand it to the girl at the window, my hands shaking so bad I can hardly count out the bills for the tickets.
We have to get out of here.
Pequeña
He gets on the highway headed out of town, toward Honduras. And I look out those smoked windows and realize I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing me with Rey. I could bang on those windows, screaming for help, and nobody would see me.
When we get to the border crossing, my heart races. And when the guy there just waves his truck through, I feel like my heart will slip out of my mouth.
“You see,” he says. “The connections I’ve made, Pequeña? People are learning to treat me right.”
“Yes, of course. You deserve to be treated right.” I stare out the window, the baby now in my arms.
Rey pulls off the road sharply and I think this is it. This is where I will die.
We dip and ride through back roads and I know, I know nobody will ever find my body here.
“I want to show you a very meaningful place
to me, Pequeña.”
We go down a few more roads, until finally, I can see sand and water ahead.
Maybe he will drown me.
“Come on,” he says, parking and getting out of the car. My legs feel weak, but I follow. “This is where I decided I wasn’t going to be a nobody, Pequeña. I came out here one night, and I decided I would take things into my own hands. Be in charge of my own destiny. Take what I wanted and answer to no one. And get rid of anyone who stood in my way.”
He takes my hand in his. “Dios, look at how you’re shaking. I wanted it to be a surprise, but maybe you already know.” He reaches into his pocket. “Close your eyes, Pequeña.”
I do what he says. In my head, I recite the Lord’s Prayer.
I feel him slide a ring on my left hand.
“Open them,” he says.
When I do, I see a diamond so big, it has no business being on my scrawny finger. He kisses it.
“There,” he says. “I want you to know, I paid for that. I didn’t steal that ring. It’s important you know I bought it.” He studies the diamond, the glint of it. “This ring is your destiny.”
I nod while on that deserted beach, where no one can hear you scream, he tells me we will be happy.
I stare at that ring, and see my future with Rey.
My lungs seize in my chest. A terrible sound comes from me as my legs give out and I fall to my knees, still holding that baby. Rey’s dark figure stands over us.
I can barely make out his face.
“I knew you’d be happy,” he says, his voice from somewhere far away. I feel him hoist me up roughly and lead me to the car. The baby shrieks as we pull onto the highway and I stare at the road ahead, seeing nothing but the years, years and years, ahead of me.
I look at the door handle as Rey presses down on the gas.
We Are Not from Here Page 9