“Hey, hey,” he calls out. “Come on, carnal . . . don’t be that way.”
We run faster, and when I turn back, I see he’s stopped in the distance. He watches us for a beat longer and then he is turning and heading back to the motel.
“He’s gone,” I tell Pulga, who looks at me now, his eyes wild with fear that has awakened him. We duck near a small restaurant, where those inside look out the window at us. I feel like some kind of stray dog. Some kind of worthless thing that will be shooed away. But from here I see a church, and relief shoots through me. I’m about to tell Pulga we’ll head there, when I see the guy again, this time with the dog, looking up and down the streets.
Pulga grabs my arm just as the dog looks over at us and begins barking. The guy turns, sees us, just as we start running. My legs are weak even though I will them to run faster. But I am in slow motion, and the faster I try to run, the slower the world passes me by. My breath is coming in shorter breaths and I’m dizzy. I feel like I am splitting in two, like my soul is separating from my body, and I float up a little, and my body gets heavy and my legs don’t want to work. And then I am back in my body, and I run faster, but I keep floating up, like a helium balloon.
But there is the church, right there is the church, and I point to it because I can’t speak. Because speaking might cost me the breath I need to run just a little faster from that dog whose barks are so loud, so harsh, they scrape my eardrums and echo in my head. I turn and see Pulga, the guy and dog behind him as he stumbles up one, two, three stairs, and that barking, that barking as the dog pounces on Pulga and sinks his teeth into Pulga’s shoulder.
And then Pulga is yelling, and screaming.
I pull at Pulga, hollering at that dog to stop! He pounces on Pulga’s back and keeps his teeth in Pulga’s shoulder even as I kick and scream at him. The guy is there now, too, grabbing the dog by the collar. But the dog won’t let go.
The church door swings opens and a nun comes out yelling, a gun in her hand.
“Get that dog out of here, now!” she yells. The guy yanks on the dog’s collar, yelling at him, giving him a command that compels him to release Pulga. “And stop having him attack people. Desgraciado,” she says to the guy, who sucks his teeth at her, but grabs his dog and drags him away.
The nun hurries to Pulga, who moans, blood seeping from his shirt.
“Come on, niño,” she says. “Here, hold this,” and she shoves the gun in my hand. “It’s not real,” she says to me as she helps me pull Pulga to his feet and into the sanctuary. He is up on his feet but groaning in pain as we walk through the church. I hold on to him as we walk toward the front. A bronze crucifix glows bright and saints look down on us as we make our way.
The nun leads us through a back room, down some stairs, and to a hidden maze of rooms underneath the church. We pass a priest sitting in an office, who looks up as we walk by.
The nun rushes us into a room stocked with first-aid supplies. She makes Pulga lie down on the table and gathers her supplies. Pulga looks like he’s going to pass out.
“Don’t faint on me, niño,” she says as she cuts his shirt open and looks at the bite. Pulga’s eyes roll back and she breaks something in her hand, wafts it under his nose, and suddenly Pulga’s eyes open wide.
The priest comes in. “¿Qué pasó?” he says.
“That dog again,” the nun says. “That owner sics him on these poor people so he can steal their money.”
Pulga’s flesh is torn red and pink and the puncture wounds where the dog’s teeth sunk into Pulga’s shoulder are deep. The nun places a towel under his shoulder and pours alcohol on Pulga’s wounds. He cries out in pain.
“Perdón, criatura, but we have to make sure this is cleaned immediately or you’ll get an infection.”
That is when I notice how thin Pulga is. The outline of his ribs shows through his skin—his skin that is mottled with bruises. And it makes tears come to my eyes.
“He’ll need to be sewn up a bit,” the nun says, and the priest gathers the supplies she’ll need for that. I stand nearby, telling Pulga he’ll be okay. His eyes are shut in pain as the nun applies something on the wound before she begins stitching him up. Pulga sucks his teeth each time the needle goes into his flesh, cries out in agony. The whole area is raw and red and terrible looking.
I watch as the needle pierces Pulga’s flesh, in and out and in and out again, the fresh pinpricks of red and the blue gloved hands of the nun. The act of being sewn back together.
I tell myself these are holy hands, healing Pulga, mending him. Putting him back together. And maybe that means he will be okay. Maybe he will not be as broken as he looks. Maybe all of him can come together again.
I watch as the nun finishes up. As she rolls off those blue gloves and throws them in the trash.
“I will take them to the shelter,” the priest says. “After they have a little bread and juice.” They leave the room and say they’ll be right back.
“Are you okay?” I ask Pulga. He nods, but his eyes tell me he’s not. Now that the needle has stopped, he is lying there dull and numb again in that room that smells like disinfectant.
The nun comes back, with a clean shirt for Pulga, a plate of crackers, two paper cups, and a bottle of juice. The sight of it makes me want to cry—watching her hands as she pours the juice for us and hands us the small paper cups. The way she whispers over us, her eyes shut, asking of God on our behalf.
“Despacio,” she says gently as we drink, as we eat. I close my eyes and try to eat slowly as the sweetness of the apple juice fills my mouth and I swear I can see the apples it came from and I can taste the sweat of the laborer who picked it. It makes me weep and I can hear the weeping and I know it is me, I know it is me crying like that, but the sound of it, my voice, doesn’t sound like my own. I wonder if—like Pulga—I’ve become someone else, too.
And then the nun’s hands are on my shoulders and she is whispering, but I can’t stop eating and drinking and crying. Even as a metallic taste fills my mouth, and even as the crackers taste of dust and crunch too loudly, too sharply, in my mind I see blood and bones.
“Creatura, creatura,” she whispers, like a prayer. A prayer I get lost in for a moment, before I open my eyes and see Pulga’s gaze on me. Then the priest is in the room and is telling us he will take us to the shelter he runs.
Pulga gets up from the table, his wounds bandaged, a clean shirt on.
The nun makes the sign of the cross in front of me, then in front of Pulga. And we follow the priest out, back through the maze of underground offices, back up the stairs, into the sanctuary, where Pulga stares at the altar with a few flickering candles as we pass by. I stop and light one for Chico.
I put some money in Pulga’s hand so that he can do the same.
But he does not.
Pulga
The ride to the shelter is short. It’s hot and bumpy. We ride with the windows open and the hot wind whipping at our faces. I bury my face in Pequeña’s shoulder because each bump jangles us and each creak makes me feel like I’m back on the train.
We don’t have to ride that screeching beast anymore. That’s what Pequeña says. But she’s wrong.
The priest who has introduced himself as Father Gonzalez is talking but I don’t know what he’s saying and after a while, he is quiet and we ride in silence, except for the wind, the creaks, the jostling of the keys on a key ring with each bump.
What I’m thinking of is the glow of the candle at the altar. And how I used to go with Chico to light one for his mother at the church near my house. He was always so quiet when we left but then, not too long ago—or maybe it was a hundred years ago—as we walked by some patojos kicking a soccer ball in the field next to the church where they once found a body, Chico whispered real low, I wish I could see her again.
He blinked like crazy, trying to hold back tears, trying to be t
ough like I told him to be. Chico, you have to be tough, or el mundo te va a comer, man.
Why was I always telling him the world was going to eat him up? I think of his chewed-up body on the side of the tracks, the way the beast tore into him.
I sealed his fate in so many ways.
My shoulder throbs; maybe this is my punishment. Maybe I shouldn’t have fought. Maybe I should have let that dog tear me to shreds.
But I wanted to live. And I’m ashamed that even though I tell myself I have no right to live, after this trip cost Chico his life, even then, I still want to live.
That day, Chico walked wiping the tears from his face in the late afternoon sun of Barrios, when the sun isn’t so bright. When the sky is so pretty it can make you sad, especially when your friend is crying for his mother. It was the saddest I’d felt in a long time, and I didn’t know what the hell to say to him so I said nothing and we just kept walking.
That’s the kind of friend I was.
The kind who broke him. Who pushed him. Who he would never tell he was too tired to go on, because he knew I’d just say, Be tough. So he kept going. And going. Until he fell off the train, just as if my hand had pushed him.
I close my eyes. The candle at the church glows in my mind.
“Is the pain real bad?” Pequeña whispers next to me. I open my eyes, feel tears on my cheeks that I don’t remember crying.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, because even throbbing pain feels like nothing now. How can it be both? And then I remember what I’d heard about people who fall off the train and live to tell about it, the ones who are sliced by its wheels but don’t feel it even as they stare at their dismembered bodies. At first, they feel nothing.
The pain comes later.
Maybe Chico didn’t feel it. I hope he didn’t feel it. I hope the pain of it never came.
Pequeña takes a deep breath, a worried look on her face, just as the truck slows and we roll up to the small shelter.
* * *
~~~
We get out of the car slowly, the sand-colored building blending in with dirt and landscape. Father Gonzalez urges us to follow him into the shelter, where he introduces us to a woman named Carlita. She has full cheeks and smiles a lot.
“Bienvenidos, m’ijos,” she says.
She listens intently as Father Gonzalez tells her what happened and how we’ll need to stay here awhile. Carlita’s shirt is blue.
It’s American Eagle.
American Eagle blue. If I had a box of crayons, it would carry crayons like Chico’s blood-red. Rey’s warehouse yellow. Hell-route orange.
“You need some food. A shower. Some rest,” Carlita says as Father Gonzalez goes and says hello to other people in the shelter. “You need to feel human again.”
I don’t want to feel human again. I want to feel human again. I want to live. I want to die. I want Chico back. I want a million contradicting impossible things, I want to tell them. How are any of them possible? But I stay quiet and follow her as she shows us where the restrooms are. And where we’ll rest, bunk beds lined up in rows in two back rooms—the left room for women, the right for men. She shows us to the men’s quarters and points to an empty bunk. Then digs in some boxes in the corner of the room, pulling out T-shirts and jeans we can wear.
“I’ll be right back,” she says as she leaves, and returns moments later with a small, thin towel for each of us. “Shower now and I’ll get you some food. Usually dinnertime is at five, but I will warm some food for you both now and you can come to the kitchen when you’re ready.” She smiles and her smile, her kindness, almost don’t make sense. How can there be good when there is so much bad?
As soon as she’s gone again, everything goes silent. A couple of guys at the other end of the room are playing cards and glance at us. Something in their look immediately makes me think they’ve been on La Bestia, too. Something in their eyes. They give a short nod in my direction, like they recognize something in me, too, but I just lie down on the top bunk and stare at the ceiling.
“You want to shower first?” Pequeña asks, standing next to me.
I shake my head. She says something else but I don’t answer and then she’s suddenly gone.
“El viaje es muy feo,” I hear one of the guys say from the other side of the room. “But you’ll be okay, paisano. You’ll be okay.” That’s all he says, and I hear the shuffle of the cards as they go back to their game.
I close my eyes and shut out the world.
* * *
~~~
I told him we would make it.
I told him to trust me.
I told him if we didn’t run, we’d die.
I open my eyes to the smell of soap and warm earth, and it’s Pequeña standing next to me. “Your turn,” she says.
In the shower, the water is cold. I keep the dog bite from getting wet, but I stare at the stiches and wonder if when the dog bit me, he stole whatever was left of my soul. Because I feel nothing, except for the cold.
When I’m done, I go to the kitchen, following the smell of food that I don’t want but my body does. Pequeña is there, talking to Carlita. I sit across from them, where there is a plate—beans, tortillas, and eggs. I mutter a thank-you before eating.
It tastes like nothing. I look at Pequeña as she finishes the last bites. As she accepts a second helping from Carlita, her eyes closed, and I wonder if it tastes good to her. I stare at her and she looks guilty.
“We’ll be okay, Pulga,” she says.
“Claro que sí,” Carlita says. “With the help of Diosito, you will both be okay.”
But I don’t say anything. I don’t tell them how I was just thinking about what a lie that is and how I’m not sure if God exists, even as I look at the wall behind them and see the words DIOS ESTÁ AQUÍ painted big and white. Lines that look like beams of golden light surround it, and on either side, red roses.
Where? Where is He?
I put another forkful of food in my mouth and chew.
* * *
~~~
That night, I dream of La Bestia. She’s angry I refused to say goodbye. She rides into my dreams, roaring just like I knew she would.
And then I am being shoved all over the place on a night ride, pain shooting through my shoulder, and I see that I’ve tumbled from the top and the wheels have sliced through my arm. And I am crying and screaming in the pitch-black of night but no one knows I fell. And I am left alone on the side of the tracks.
Light replaces dark in a flash and Pequeña is suddenly next to me, yelling at me to wake up, wake up! And I am back in the room at the shelter, Pequeña telling me I’m okay, it’s okay, as the two guys sit up and stare at me from their bunks on the other side of the room.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, pulling the thin sheet over me, turning away from her and the glaring overhead light in the room.
“Are you sure?”
When I don’t answer, I feel her slip away, switch off the lights in the room again.
I stare at the darkness, trying not to fall asleep. Fighting to stay awake so I won’t have bad dreams. But fighting sleep reminds me of being on the train.
Everything reminds me of La Bestia.
I wonder if I will ever truly escape it.
* * *
~~~
In the morning, my eyes snap open at the sound of clanking.
I take in the cracks and patches of brown on the water-stained ceiling, the voices of others, the bittersweet scent of coffee, the sound of running water and more clanking. My heart races, and I have to clutch at my chest to calm it down.
“Breakfast.” Pequeña stands at the door, a new cap on her head, but her dirty jacket still on her back.
I’m sweating and Chico’s face flashes in my mind. I hear the echo of his voice; I think I was dreaming of him.
I
want to go back to the dream.
“You need to get up,” Pequeña says, her voice snipping through the thin thread of my dream, my faint connection with Chico.
I sit up quickly, too quickly, and blood rushes to my head, making the whole room spin. But I get up and follow Pequeña to the kitchen anyway.
Seated at the table are the two guys from yesterday and Carlita. There’s also a woman, a man, and a little boy. The woman is holding food up to the boy’s mouth, feeding him.
“This is my brother, Pulga,” Pequeña says, and they all nod and greet me with a chorus of buenos días and mucho gusto.
“These two are brothers also,” Carlita says. She gestures to the two boys with whom we shared the room. “José and Tonio.”
The two guys nod at me.
“I’m Nilsa,” the woman feeding the child says. “This is my husband, Alvaro. And this is our little one; we call him Nene,” she says, smiling down at the small boy. He looks at me and gives me a little wave. I look away.
Carlita puts a plate of food in front of me—some shredded chicken and mostly potatoes stewed in a tomato sauce. I thank her quietly and her hand touches my good shoulder and I can’t help but shrug it off. Everyone continues talking as my hands pick up the spoon and bring the food to my mouth. My jaw chews it and my tongue pushes it down my throat. But I don’t taste it. All I can do is stare at it and remember how hungry we were on the whole trip.
I could eat a mountain of chuchitos.
I don’t want it but I won’t waste any of it.
“How’s your arm?” Carlita asks me. Her voice reaches me from somewhere far away and when I look at her, I shrug.
“I’ll change your bandage today,” she says.
“And you,” she says to Alvaro. I hadn’t noticed at first but now, as I take him in more, I notice the bruises on his face. “ Are you feeling stronger?” Carlita asks him.
We Are Not from Here Page 24