We Are Not from Here

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  “Still, we should be ready,” Pulga says.

  In the distance, I see people come out of the nearby buildings and the overgrown brush. They climb on the train, some with bags of supplies, with blankets and pillows. Others with just a backpack. Some wear boots, others sneakers, others flip-flops. I notice the small platforms between the boxcars already have people tucked away in them.

  Pulga follows my gaze. “Those areas are easier to ride than the top. But those people have probably been here for hours, maybe since yesterday. And sometimes, when the train stops or slows down abruptly, there are these parts between the cars that hit together. Crush whatever is between there.” Pulga smacks his hands together. “People lose their feet like that all the time.”

  I suck in my breath, impressed and a little surprised by how much Pulga knows, despite how much he doesn’t.

  We watch as women reach down for their children, as men lift toddlers and babies into waiting arms. There are pairs and trios of young people traveling together, and men who look much older than us, walking up and down the train figuring out where might be the best place to sit.

  Those on board sit on the beast’s back under the grueling sun. They cover their faces, the backs of their heads and necks from the sun. Others use cardboard pieces as sunshields. We watch them sweating and melting, and as time ticks on, some climb back down and seek shade closest to the tracks.

  We wait, all of us, for the beast to wake up again. We watch as it sleeps, unbothered, unhurried. It doesn’t care that my heart is racing. That my mind feels dizzy from the heat and hunger. That my body is prickly with sweat and readiness. It doesn’t care that we’re dying, literally dying, to get as far away as possible from the places we love but that have turned on us.

  It doesn’t care how desperate we are to go on.

  We wait. Until La Bestia is ready.

  Finally, it hisses awake again. It clanks and rattles. It rumbles. For a moment, no one moves. We wait to see if this is really it. And then we hear the call—“¡Vámanos! ¡Vámanos!”—and see people gesturing to each other to come on! hurry up! as the wheels begin to move. People run from every direction.

  “Let’s go,” Pulga says, “I think it’s really leaving this time.”

  We grab our backpacks and run toward the train, crowded by others running, too.

  It’s gathering speed and soon more people are running alongside the tracks, looking for the perfect place to grab on, pushing others out of their way. Already, it’s crowded with people on top who withstood the heat for hours, looking down at those of us running. Others are clinging to its side, urging and instructing those running below.

  You suffer either way.

  La Bestia. This is it. A moment ago just fragments of cars, now an enormous steel centipede groaning and hissing to life, its power vibrating through the ground.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” Pulga yells. “Before it starts moving too fast!” He runs ahead of Chico and me.

  We race to the tracks and run along the gravel, just like everyone else. Brown faces and arms, reaching.

  I run faster, pumping my legs, my heart in my throat. My feet are a flurry and I feel like I am both in and out of my body.

  I hear Pulga’s voice faintly, yelling something up ahead, but I don’t even know what he is saying anymore, the world feels like it’s whirling faster as I run, as others run past me and next to me and behind me. As that beast rumbles and roars in my ears.

  I watch as Pulga grabs on to one of the metal bars, the side of a ladder that leads to the top of the train. A few more steps and then he is pulling himself up and climbing the ladder, to the top of the train already crowded with so many people. I see his panicked face as he looks down, tells Chico to run faster. I watch Chico reach for the same bar—watch him miss it once. Twice.

  My abdomen tightens and tightens, pulsing with pain. The sun gleams behind Pulga like a golden corona around his head and in that instant, he reminds me of Jesus. Jesus’s fate was sealed.

  But ours is not—not yet.

  I run faster, and I have a chance to get on. Then I see Chico’s face, the terror as he runs, as he realizes he’s falling behind.

  I won’t leave him. I can’t. I’m already leaving so many things behind. If he doesn’t get on, then I won’t, either. And we will watch Pulga go on without us.

  I fall back, point to where he needs to grab, and watch as Chico runs faster.

  I stay right behind him, those steel wheels speeding up next to us.

  I can feel the train breathing, like it wants to suck me in, under its body, under its wheels. I can feel it practically slicing through my ankles, detaching my feet from my body.

  I stumble.

  “Come on, come on!” Pulga screams. At last, Chico grabs on, and he is being dragged, his feet coming so close, so close, to those wheels. Pulga is shouting at him, but I can’t hear anything except the roaring and heavy breath of that beast.

  Chico finally manages to get one foot on the lowest bar, and he pulls himself up, climbs to the top like Pulga.

  The train gathers speed. My backpack swings back and forth, making me lose my balance. They are both looking down at me now, their faces in and out of focus, their mouths wide as they yell and scream to me. I run faster as the train sucks at my feet.

  I reach up, the bar just out of reach.

  I run faster, faster, reach for the metal bar again. This time I grab on, and the full power of La Bestia is suddenly traveling through my body, shaking me violently.

  I struggle to get one foot up, feeling like as soon as I do, La Bestia will gnaw at the other, and then pull my whole body under.

  Please, please, God, please, God, please, please . . .

  I close my eyes and lift the other foot onto the lowest bar, pull my weight up with all my strength. Then I am climbing, one, two, three, four bars, wedging myself between people as I pull myself on top of the train.

  Chico and Pulga are yelling and hollering with relief and joy, grabbing on to each other and then me, too. I laugh and their faces shine even more with happiness. Chico’s cheeks so round, highlighted by the sunlight. Pulga’s more serious face and downcast eyes now gleaming with achievement.

  The train gains speed and the ground becomes a blur. One by one, people in the distance stop running as the train and all hope leave, come to a defeated stop when they realize they will no longer catch it.

  But we did.

  “We did it!” Pulga yells over the clacking of the tracks. Chico throws his arm around Pulga’s shoulders, turns his head to the sky and lets out a long wolf’s howl. Pulga cracks up and begins howling, too.

  I know I will always remember this exact image. I can’t remember when I last saw them looking so happy, so free. I can’t remember the last time I felt that way, too.

  Everyone around us laughs and lifts their arms in the air. Together, we howl and holler and yell in victory. And with so many voices, so many of us clustered together, not even the train can mute our celebration.

  We did it.

  We are not those in the distance who have stopped running and have to wait for the next train. We are not those back in our neighborhoods, waking up to another day and another and another of whatever threat has climbed in through our windows, whispered our horrible fate into our ears.

  We are luchadores. We are fighters. We are those who dare to try against impossible odds.

  We determine our own fate.

  The train speeds up even more and the hot wind is whipping at our faces. The sun beats down on us, so bright it hardly seems real. We settle in, weaving our fingers into the small holes of the grates on top of the train, and holding on, so tight.

  And even though we are afraid, even though the fear is right there beneath the surface, it’s a different kind of fear.

  It’s fear with hope.

  And hope
matters, as we ride into an unknown future.

  PART THREE

  El Viaje

  The Journey

  Pulga

  Hours have passed. I think. It feels like we left Barrios years ago, but it’s only been three days. I think. Already time feels like it’s shifting beneath my feet, something that bends and cracks like the ground during an earthquake.

  The thrill that everyone felt when the train first pulled out of the Arriaga station has slowly diminished as we ride, tree branches whipping at us from either side, the sun burning our skin.

  I look at Chico, leaning on Pequeña, their arms interlocked. She looks over at me, her eyes tired, but attempts a smile.

  The incessant heat and swaying of the train make me tired, too, but I don’t want to let myself sleep. My body rocks back and forth, to the sound of steel and tracks, to La Bestia’s rhythm. And I suddenly remember the promise I made to myself if I got to the train. I quickly reach around for my backpack, clutch it tight as I unzip it and feel for the Walkman. The headphones.

  I put the headphones on. I turn up the volume all the way. The train sways and I hold on tighter; the deep green of trees, the yellow glow of the world under the intense sun rush past me. I press play—set it all to music.

  The sound of a harsh click rings in my ears. A door slamming shut. And a creaky mattress as someone sits down.

  Then, my father’s voice.

  Okay, so listen, this next song right here, Consuelo, I’ve loved it forever, right? But now when I hear it, I think of you and I see us dancing. But, like, I see us dancing in my mom’s backyard with a lot of people around us at our wedding. Ah, I can’t believe I just said that! You got me thinking corny shit, you know that? Haha, I can see you smiling. I can see exactly how you’re smiling right now. You’d marry me, though, right? That’s the future I see. Because I love you so much. Ah, I feel so corny saying this shit. You’re laughing now. Anyway, that backyard wedding, my mom will invite the whole family, and the band. The guys will be playing this song right here, and you and I, we’re gonna be dancing, Consuelo.

  Good times are coming for us.

  Lots of good times.

  And your pain, you can leave all of it behind you now.

  Okay, so this here es para ti.

  I hit rewind. And listen to his message again. My lips silently mouth each word Juan Eduardo Rivera García recorded so long ago. I’ve listened to this tape hundreds of times. I know my father’s words. I know the lyrics to each song. I know the name of every band. I can recite it all.

  I’ve listened to it more times than I count—since the moment Mamá gave me the tape and told me that even though thinking of my father made her sad, that I deserved to have something of his. But she worried the tape would make me sad, too.

  “I always want to protect you, Pulga,” she explained. “But I do want you to know him. Even if it’s just in this small way.”

  I can still see her face as she got up from where she’d been sitting on my bed and left my room, closing the door behind her, already knowing it was the most I would cry in my whole life.

  But also knowing the pain would be worth the joy it brought me.

  I hit rewind again as heat, thick and humid, smacks at my face and La Bestia screeches loudly at a slight bend in the track. I wonder if that’s what it sounded like, the car that smashed my father’s body and Mamá’s heart and my future.

  Don’t get emotional, I tell myself. There is a reason I didn’t listen before—I needed to stay focused on getting us to the train. But now I allow these words to fuel my dreams, dreams of becoming a musician in California, like him. Of someday bringing Mamá there again, too. Don’t get emotional, I tell my heart that is swelling with every feeling right now. It’s just a small reward.

  I know I shouldn’t keep listening. I’ve gotten us this far by thinking with my head, not my heart. I have to stay focused to get us through the rest of the trip.

  But I let my father’s words fill my ears once more, and even though I know they are for Mamá, that there was no way my father knew about me or what the future held, I feel like his words have always been meant for me, too.

  I see us dancing.

  And I see us, jumping around to the bass of these songs. You, all cool and young, your tattooed arms reaching for me in a living room that would have existed—if only you had known not to go out that night. If only you had lived long enough to know Mamá was pregnant.

  Haha, I can see you smiling.

  I can see him smiling, too. I’ve even studied that picture of him and Mamá. I’ve memorized his smile. I’ve tried to match my smile to his. Sometimes, I think I do. Mamá gets this look, and she gets lost for a moment, before her smile erases and she looks away.

  That’s the future I see.

  What future did he see, really? A lifetime of Mamá and him cruising in his car, along the Pacific Ocean? The sun glinting off the water? Did he see me, even then, sitting in the back? Did he see me, the son he would have someday? Did he know that I would miss him, a father I never got the chance to meet? The one who could’ve saved me, Mamá, from all of this. If only he hadn’t died. Why did he have to die?

  I love you so much.

  Could he love me even though he never knew me? The way I love him.

  Your pain, you can leave all of it behind you now.

  I’m heading there, to the future, to the place where he grew up. But now there’s a different pain. Because I’m not leaving just pain behind. I’m leaving behind everything I loved, too.

  I let the rest of the tape play. My father sounds like a gringo, like the tourists and missionaries who sometimes come to Barrios. His mouth stumbles over Spanish words, like his tongue doesn’t want to cooperate when he says them. The first time I heard it, I ran into Mamá’s room, and asked her how she never told me that. She laughed and said it never occurred to her. Your father was Mexican, but he was born and raised in California, she said. So he understood Spanish but hardly spoke it. It was cute to me, his accent. I used to tease him about it.

  Tal vez no te recuerdas, but this song, esta canción estaba en el radio cuando te vi la primera vez. He laughs. Maybe it wasn’t a big moment for you, he mumbles in English. Pero era un momento muy—another laugh—muy bonito para mi. Es una de mis favoritas. And you, tú eres mi favorita. He laughs again. Shit, girl, I can’t believe you got me making mixtapes.

  The sound of a guitar fills my ears and mind.

  After I heard this tape for the first time, I went to school the next day and stayed after, googling lyrics and asking my English language teacher to help me get enough of the lyrics to google the songs and titles and groups. It took a while, but it felt like I was finding bits of my father. And each song helped me know some part of him better.

  And now, as I ride through this land, I feel like he’s here, too. Somehow, I know this land is in his blood. And mine.

  I listen to the songs, so many of them with a twangy, beachy guitar sound, like you could just be relaxing by the ocean, enjoying the sun instead of being killed by it. That guitar, that is how California is, I imagine. Where the sun has mercy on los americanos, where it kisses their skin and turns it the right shade of brown.

  Not like here. Not like ours.

  When you’re from here, the world thinks less of you. The world thinks we are ants. Fleas.

  The world thinks they are gods.

  My father was a god.

  Someday I’ll be a god, too.

  * * *

  ~~~

  My arms and legs ache from sitting and gripping the roof of the train. Someone sits up and I have just enough room to lie down on the other side of Pequeña. Just for a little while.

  “Don’t let me fall asleep,” I whisper. She looks at me, her eyes sleepy, but nods.

  I stare at that sky, all that sky. And I turn the volume up as hig
h as possible.

  An image of my mother alone in her room floats around in my head. I’m sorry, I say to her. My heart trembles, loosens the emotions I’ve been trying to keep tight.

  Don’t get emotional.

  I put my hand to my chest, press down hard. Keep pressing, until the image fades away to black.

  * * *

  ~~~

  I open my eyes to streaks of pink and purple and orange and roaring that becomes louder and louder.

  I sit up with a jolt, realizing I must have fallen asleep. In my chest, panic and fear—this is how people die. By falling asleep without realizing it. By forgetting where they are.

  I look over at Pequeña. Her eyes are closed. Next to her, Chico is asleep, too, still holding on to her arm and curled toward her.

  I notice a man with his arm over a woman’s shoulder. He stares back at me, hard. The look, a message to not even think about messing with him or his girlfriend. The guy could chew me up and spit me out.

  I open the cassette player and flip the tape over.

  Esta aquí es muy buena, Consuelo. Cool as hell, baby.

  I look at the sky again, the colors burning and intensifying with every passing second, so beautiful, it seems almost impossible to think we won’t make it to the States.

  I focus on the intense red as we ride to Ixtepec, a red that, up in the sky like that, doesn’t remind me of blood. And I watch as the sky darkens, going from purple to a deep indigo.

  I watch as the bright colors get swallowed up and night finds its way in.

  Pequeña

  The black velvet sky is scattered with estrellitas.

  We’re huddled together, hunched over, quiet, letting the wind sweep over us.

  There are so many of us that each turn, each jerk of the train makes those on the very edges push toward the center for fear of falling, tightening everyone in between. We press on each other every few minutes and I feel the squeeze of the group, the desperate pulse of us.