by KG MacGregor
“Wha—you mean I’m adopted?” The sudden look of horror on Arturo’s face was priceless. “Just kidding. I know, I was there.”
“Whew!” Arturo glared at him before bursting into laughter. “Man, you just about gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry…I sometimes play around when I’m nervous. I’d give anything if you could get me out of here today.”
Arturo smiled weakly but Andy could tell he had doubts. “That’s my goal, but only if I can convince the judge to give you a hearing. That’s what I need to talk to you about. I want you to be ready at a moment’s notice in case I send for you because we won’t have much time. So don’t get caught in the shower.”
“No chance of that. I had a shower yesterday when I got here. I heard one of the other guys say you only get one a week.”
“We’re going to get you out of here, Andy. I promise, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be today.” Arturo stretched across the table to squeeze his shoulder. “However long it takes, I want you to keep your head down. You see any fights, you turn and go the other way. Okay, pal?”
Andy grinned. “My mom calls me that. Tell her I’m okay, I’m staying out of trouble. And when I get out I’m not eating anything but pizza for a whole month. Even for breakfast.”
The guard removed Andy’s chains almost as soon as he exited the room, proving they weren’t at all necessary. Did they seriously think he’d attack the one person who was trying to get him out of this hellhole?
He arrived back in his dormitory as a woman was delivering their laundry loops. Someone had replaced his missing rugby shirt with a plain white T-shirt. As he’d suspected, the rugby shirt was attached to Santos’s loop.
Santos eyed him sheepishly, clearly feeling guilty for stealing it. “Looks like they made a mistake. They accidentally gave me your shirt.”
“It’s a little big for me anyway,” Andy said. “Try it on. If it fits, it’s yours.”
The shirt fit Santos perfectly and he lit up once he had it on. “How’s it look?”
“Yeah, that works. Take it. I just met with my lawyer so I should be getting out soon. I’ll get another one.”
“Thanks, man.” Santos returned to his bunk for a slip of paper. “You still want to help me when you get out? This my probation officer, Gladys Segura. I don’t know her phone number but she in the office at Belvedere. And the other number’s my Uncle Hugo. That’s where I been staying since my ma left. He live on Percy Street. He don’t even know where I am.”
Andy changed back into his jeans and tucked the slip of paper in the hip pocket. “We’ll find them. I’ll get my moms to help.”
Santos, the tough guy. His family didn’t know where he was and probably wasn’t even looking for him. Andy wasn’t intimidated by him anymore. He just felt sorry for the guy.
* * *
A satellite news truck dominated the grassy lot opposite a brick marker that identified the detention center as Homestead Branch. Protesters lined the road for a hundred yards, many of them sitting in lawn chairs and holding signs. Homes Not Cages. Free the Children. Shut It Down. The entry to the center was enclosed by a solid green fence that blocked the view inside.
“What a zoo,” Lily said. Zoo or not, she was already considering joining the protests at the federal plaza in LA once this ordeal was over. ICE was beyond reform—for all its abuses, it deserved to be abolished.
Anna turned down a side road looking for a parking space. “Arturo says the weekends down here are really crazy. Hundreds of people show up, including most of the Democrats running for office. They set up speakers to blast messages and music into the center, make speeches using bullhorns…all to let the kids inside know they haven’t been forgotten.”
“Did you like him?”
“Arturo? Very much. He seems to be on top of things and he knows a lot of people inside, even the superintendent.”
“It’s nice to see somebody from a top-notch law firm doing work like this. Usually it’s just bleeding hearts like Tony and Shelynn cobbling together enough grants to keep the lights on.”
Anna smiled as she pulled off into the grass. “It’s obvious when you see the way he’s dressed that he has plenty of family money. If you ask me, he’s doing this to rack up his progressive bona fides. Mark my word, he’s headed for a career in politics.”
“Just tell me where to send the check.” Lily was pleased to find Anna in such a good mood, almost giddy at the prospect of getting Andy released. “What’s the plan here? Do you know who it is he wants you to meet?”
“Her name’s Isabel Fuentes. She’s supposed to be at the Channel Six truck. Speaking of that…I was thinking it might be better if you did the interview. You’re used to making arguments and I know you’ll watch what you say. I’m afraid I’ll slander somebody and get sued.”
“You’re better at arguing than you think. I should know, since I’m usually the one you argue with.” Lily leaned over for a kiss that turned deep when Anna cradled her head.
“Thank you for listening to your crazy wife this morning and flying all the way across the country to hold her hand while she tries not to have a meltdown.”
“Anything for you, babe. You should know that by now.” She stole one more kiss before opening the door. “Let’s go give ’em hell.”
Lily walked ahead a few paces while Anna stopped to take a call.
Anna shrieked with excitement. “Are you kidding? That’s fantastic! What should we do about the interview?” She held up a finger to finish the call. “That was Arturo. He got the judge to agree to hear Andy’s case when all the others are done today, but he wants us to go ahead with the interview. He says it’ll help show how unfair the system is and make people think it could happen to them.”
“That’s a good sign. Most judges won’t add cases to their docket unless they believe there’s an injustice. It’s the old ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ argument. Arturo must have convinced him.”
“I told you he was good.”
Isabel Fuentes was easy to spot. A young Latina with long dark hair and ruby red lips, she had a look that was made for television. Reading from her notes, she prompted their remarks for the camera with prepared questions.
Lily held up Andy’s school photo from last fall. He was handsome in his tuxedo despite his refusal to smile, since he still had his braces at the time.
“This is our son Andy Kaklis. He’s sixteen years old. His birth certificate”—which she also held up—“proves he was born in Oakland, California, making him an American citizen. He was swept up last Saturday in Los Angeles during an ICE raid that targeted a Latino festival. According to witnesses, Andy showed the officers his government-issued driver’s license proving who he was, but they arrested him anyway.” She stopped herself from calling the arrest arbitrary and capricious, which was a legal term for abuse of discretion, though it clearly was. She was here as a mom, not a judge. “Over the weekend Andy was held in a cage in LA with other teens and children. He then was moved to Phoenix, and from Phoenix to here. In all that time my wife and I have yet to receive an official notification from the Department of Homeland Security that our son is in custody. Not one word. He wasn’t even allowed a call to let us know where he was.”
“But you were able to track him.”
“That was pure luck. He had a hearing in Phoenix that we only found out about because an attorney who was present in the courtroom phoned us and said he’d pleaded with the judge to give us a call. One simple gesture could have ended this but the judge denied that request. Andy wasn’t even given access to his own attorney until this morning.”
Though Anna stood silently by, Isabel directed a question her way. “Have you spoken with your son at all?”
“Not even once,” Anna replied, “but we finally were able to send him a message through the attorney this morning. I want to emphasize what my wife just said—there are children going to court with no adult representation.” She pointed over her shoulder towar
d the detention center. “How many others are in there cut off completely from their loved ones, left to worry that no one’s coming for them? What they’re doing to these people—especially the children—is unconscionable. America’s supposed to be better than this.”
Lily suppressed a smile but inside felt a swell of pride. The fire in Anna’s voice was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid when she’d asked Lily to do the talking. But this moment called for anger like Anna’s.
Isabel checked her notes. “Most of the children here were taken into custody at the border, but not your son. He was out for an evening with friends. How do you feel about that?”
“That’s something else people need to understand,” Lily said. “This could happen to your child if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. ICE officers do whatever they want because they know they won’t be held accountable. They’re carrying out policies that are deliberately cruel with no regard for those they hurt.”
Anna added, “Every day that we keep children locked up in detention without care, we do lasting harm to their emotional and physical well-being. The protesters here are absolutely right—we need to shut these places down.”
Isabel signaled to a camerawoman to stop filming and stowed the microphone in a bag at her feet. “That was fantastic. This is going to go straight to air at five o’clock.” She thanked them and excused herself to record her intro and sign-off.
“You totally killed that, Anna. I can’t believe you were worried.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“For what, making me fly three thousand miles and then not letting me get in a word edgewise?” She snaked her arm around Anna’s and entwined their fingers. “I forgive you. Seeing you get all righteous up close and in person was worth it. What time’s Andy’s hearing? Did Arturo say?”
“Just that it would be at the end of the day. Probably soon.”
Above the chants of the protesters was the unmistakable sound of an emergency siren in the distance.
“Sounds close,” Lily said.
The exit side of the center’s gate suddenly opened for a line of cars, one of which crossed the intersection and headed down the side road where the protesters had parked.
“Hey, there goes Arturo!” Anna pulled Lily along in pursuit as the siren grew louder. They caught up just as the young man climbed out of his car. “Arturo, what’s going on?”
He nodded behind them, where an EMT truck was driving through the gate. “They won’t say. All I know is they went to lockdown and made all visitors leave the premises.”
“What about Andy’s hearing?”
“Court was adjourned.” He kicked wildly at a discarded water bottle, sending it clanking into the road. “We were so close. I’d already sent the bailiff to bring him to the courtroom. His case would have been up next and the judge was ready to release him. I’m so sorry. All we can do is try again tomorrow—assuming they let us back in—but we’ll probably get a different judge, so I’ll have to start over trying to get him on the docket.”
At the moment Lily was far more concerned about the EMTs. She held out her hand to Arturo. “Hi, I’m Lily. Thanks for all you’re doing. What do you think’s going on in there?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say a fight of some sort. You can’t lock up thousands of stressed-out teenagers with nothing to do and expect all of them to get along.”
Lily knew that all too well from her work with the juvenile court. She also knew there were nurses on staff, and paramedics weren’t called to jail unless there were serious injuries.
Anna must have read her concern. Squeezing her hand, she said, “You heard Arturo. He was with the bailiff on his way to the courtroom.”
“Right.” So why did she feel like throwing up?
* * *
Andy’s legs shook so hard he thought they’d give out. Using the wall for support, he slid to the floor, discovering he’d somehow smeared blood all over himself. Santos’s blood.
“What the fuck happened here?” a voice boomed. A man Andy hadn’t seen before stalked into the restroom and looked over the shoulders of the two medical staff who were tending to Santos. “How bad is it?”
“A lot of bleeding but we’ve got it under control.”
The man grunted and whirled around to take in the scene in the restroom. Though he was dressed like the others in a yellow polo shirt, his command of the room made it clear he was the boss. “Who’s the fucking moron that let somebody in here wearing gang colors? What’s the manual say about that, huh? No red, no blue.” The veins of his neck bulged and his shaved head dripped with sweat. “Do we have a weapon? A witness?”
The guard who’d come to take Andy to court cleared his throat. “This kid found him, Mr. Vogler…sir.”
Vogler bent down and sneered. “And how do we know you weren’t the one who cut him?”
Shocked and intimidated, Andy tried to answer, only to have his mind go utterly blank. Did they seriously think he was responsible?
The guard spoke up again. “I was escorting him to court, sir. He stopped to hit the can and came right back out to get me. It wasn’t enough time for him to do it.”
“He was my friend,” Andy finally said. “Why would I hurt him?”
“Your friend, huh?” Vogler drew to his full height, towering over Andy with his hands on his hips. “Do you know who did this?”
Andy grasped the mistake he’d made by linking himself to a gang member. He had a very good idea who was behind it—the Norteño who’d gotten smacked around last night—but he didn’t want to end up with a hole in his gut like Santos.
“Coming through!” A team of paramedics rolled in a stretcher. “Let’s have a look. How ya doing, kid?”
“It hurts like a motherfucker,” Santos grunted.
Andy could have cried with relief to hear him speak so clearly. When he first saw all that blood, he was sure Santos was a goner.
“What’s your friend’s name?” Vogler asked.
“Santos Aguilar. And we aren’t friends, not really. We came here together from LA is all. I promised him I’d call his probation officer when I got out. Can I go to my hearing now? I need to see the judge.”
“Hearings are canceled. This facility’s on lockdown. No one’s—hold on, did you say you came from LA?”
“Yes sir, I got here yesterday. Santos too.”
“Oh, fuck me,” he muttered, almost under his breath. “Please tell me you’re not that kid they’ve been calling about all day. Andres something or other.”
“Andres Kaklis. My attorney brought my passport to show the judge, and my birth certificate. I’m a US citizen. I’m not supposed to be here.”
Vogler made a sound like a whimper and bit his fist. “Christ almighty. They aren’t going to hang this bullshit on me. Get this boy cleaned up and ready to go.”
Chapter Seventeen
The restaurant at Gilbert’s Resort overlooked Blackwater Sound, a shallow harbor off US-1 near Key Largo and less than thirty minutes from Homestead. Arturo had recommended it for breakfast at sunrise, when a dockside table granted a comical view of hungry pelicans stalking fishermen for chum.
Arturo had promised to call once he confirmed Andy’s place on today’s docket. Until then, Lily was determined to keep Anna’s mind occupied with fun memories.
“I’ll never forget that time you called me in San Francisco and told me Andy had dumped a whole jug of bubble bath in the hot tub and turned it on. I had to put the phone down and walk away so you wouldn’t hear me cracking up.”
Anna laughed heartily. “Oh my God, the whole back yard was a mountain of white foam. And on my way to turn it off I—”
“Fell into the pool!” they shrieked simultaneously.
“He was the funniest kid,” Anna said wistfully. “Except that time he spilled an entire chocolate milkshake down the console of my Z8. That wasn’t funny at all.” Anna still called that sleek roadster her all-time favorite car. She’d been stubborn about tradi
ng it when the twins came along, but then a gang of car thieves took the decision out of her hands.
“Your precious Z8…in all the years we’ve been married, the only time I ever worried you might divorce me was over that milkshake. I even told Kim to find me a house just in case Andy and I needed to make a run for it.”
“But then I realized I loved that little boy more than I could ever love a car.” Even behind her sunglasses, Anna’s gorgeous blue eyes were smiling. “And for the record, there’s nothing you could do to make me want to leave you.”
“Hmm…am I supposed to take that as a challenge?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Anna grasped her hand and brought it to her lips for a soft kiss. “You’re the love of my life, Lily. You and our children. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost any of you.”
Lily took note of the serious turn. It was almost as if Anna couldn’t give herself permission to truly let go and have fun until they were all back together again.
“This will pass, sweetheart. Today, if we’re lucky.”
“I thought Arturo would have called us by now,” Anna said as she signed the check.
“Remember, he’s not allowed to take his phone inside. We might not hear anything until he takes a lunch break.”
Anna groaned. “You know, if I were going to design a program to torture families of ICE detainees, it would look a lot like this. I can’t stand not being told anything.”
Lily took consolation in the fact that they knew how Andy’s story would end, unlike the thousands of less fortunate kids behind those walls. If they were released at all, it would be to a life with the threat of family separation or deportation hanging over their head at every turn. Or worse, a life of terror amid violent drug lords back in their home country.
“That’s really something about us making the national news, huh?” Anna said. They each had gotten dozens of texts and emails from friends in California who’d seen their interview on the evening news as part of the network’s story on children held in detention centers. “I’ve got about ten requests for comment from other reporters, including one at the LA Times.”