“I see some things never change,” said Pedro, sighing at his younger brother disapprovingly. Sensing a prime moment to strike with the least chance of retaliation, he continued his prodding, “What gets you up at this hour? Did Michelle’s cooking do a number on you, too?”
“You’re a funny man, bro,” said Leo as he gulped his piping hot coffee far too quickly. “Ayyeeee!” he yelped, and then immediately took another sip. Looking down, he manufactured a sudden look of surprise. “Hey, what’s this thing on my leg? Man, you guys have huge cucarachas around here. Ever think of calling an exterminator?” He vigorously rubbed his niece’s head until her hair stuck out from the static charge.
“We tried that, but even they wouldn’t tangle with our little monsters,” said Pedro, his voice low and serious.
Eyes wide, Lita took exception to the insinuation. “Hey, I’m not a cockroach!”
Closing one eye tightly as the other opened wide to peer at his giggling daughter, Pedro reinforced his observation. “You sure? All you kids do is eat and crap. Sounds like a cockroach to me!”
Unimpressed by her husband’s crass brand of humor, Michelle walked briskly back into the dining room. “Pedro, language!”
Placing his hands on his chest, he lowered his head an apologized to his daughter, missing the mark on purpose. “Okay. Sorry for saying cockroach so early in the morning, Lita.”
“I think Mommy meant that you should not have said ‘crap’ with me around,” said Lita very seriously, hands on her hips as she lectured her father.
Glaring at her husband roaring with laughter, Michelle tried to scold her daughter. “Lita!” Finding it difficult not to laugh out loud at her little girl’s innocent comment, she smirked. “I think you’ve already had enough quality time with your papa for now. Go get your brother up and make sure he doesn’t roll over and go back to sleep.”
As Lita scampered down the hall toward her brother’s room, Pedro’s expression immediately darkened as he slammed his coffee cup down next to his plate, sloshing the dark steaming liquid onto the table. “I don’t want to go to work today.” Crumpling a napkin, he used it to stop the flow of liquid as it threatened to reach the edge of the table. He dropped the sopping cloth down into the center of what was left of his breakfast. “This whole damn situation is draining the life out of me and I’m sick of it. Everywhere I look is another gringo bigwig looking down the end of his nose at me and my family,” Pedro sneered, and Michelle leaned in and took his plate to avoid further mishap.
“Ehem. Present gringo excluded, of course,” Leo chimed in, tilting his head at his friend.
“I think ‘big-wig’ took me out of the running,” said Seth, taking another sip of coffee as he nodded appreciatively at Leo’s defense.
“Oh? Are you so sure about that, little bro?” asked Pedro as he turned in his chair to look squarely at Seth.
Suddenly aware that Pedro had turned his focus upon him, Seth grasped the coffee cup in both hands like a security blanket. “Are you serious? What did I do?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders as the churning in his stomach began anew.
Like a snake uncoiling toward helpless prey, Pedro unleashed menacing emotion slowly, methodically. “What did you mean yesterday when you said my house was clean?” asked Pedro, waving an accusing finger at Seth.
Tensing noticeably, Michelle shakily set the plate she was holding back onto the table in front of her. “Pedro, you promised you wouldn’t bring that up!” her voice quivered as she covered her mouth with one hand in exasperation.
In shock at the abrupt change in atmosphere, Seth answered with blank expression. “I, uh, I just meant your home is clean”
“Oh, I see. Does this surprise you?” growled Pedro as he extended his index finger and made a horizontal sweeping motion as if pointing at everything in the room at once.
“Huh? No, I was just noticing that your house was clean. An observation, that’s all,” said Seth holding his hands out to his side with his palms up in confusion. Somehow he’d stepped in it, even if he wasn’t sure how.
“He’s just saying your house is clean, Pedro. Don’t go looking for anything that isn’t there!” pleaded Leo, having the look of a man who has been through this before.
Clearly disinterested in his brother’s attempts at diplomacy, Pedro let loose. “A clean and tidy Hispanic home was such a shock that he had to say something? Does he comment on everyone’s cleanliness or just that of dirty beaners who he thinks are doing a nice job with keeping the filth at a minimum?”
“I meant no such thing!” said Seth, his voice catching in his throat. “I didn’t think that—”
Cutting him off sharply, Pedro struggled to maintain volume as he tried to keep the children from hearing the discussion from their bedrooms down the hall. “You don’t have to think when it’s what you believe!”
“That is enough!” demanded Michelle, her hands now positioned firmly on her hips. “Every little thing sets you off lately. Seth meant nothing by it, he was just paying our family a compliment. Now let it be.” Her amber eyes flashed, matching her husband’s rage.
Suddenly aware of his wife’s searing gaze, Pedro took a deep breath and leaned forcibly back into his chair. “Ok, maybe I’m a little sensitive right now,” he admitted, lowering his head and looking up in shame. “I’m sorry for blowing up. It’s just this stupid work thing.”
“No, I didn’t explain myself well enough yesterday,” apologized Seth. “If you saw what my apartment looked like when I left, you’d know why a clean house impresses me.” Speaking sincerely, he hoped they didn’t think he was simply falling back on his usual, casual sense of humor.
A telling chortle said he accepted the clarification as Pedro looked at his wristwatch and moaned. Sliding his chair away from the table, he ended the uncomfortable conversation as if it had been little more than a regular part of his morning agenda. “I need to get going. It is a long commute through traffic and I don’t want to be late. I can’t afford to give those bastards a real excuse to get rid of me.” As he stood up, his son walked slowly into the kitchen and plopped down across the table from him. “Hey, be good today and watch out for your sister and mother. You’re the man of the house until I get back tonight,” he said to his groggy son, who had heard that little speech more than a few times.
Barely lifting his head to look at his father, Marc replied lazily. “Ok Papa. I’m the man.”
Reaching down, he tousled his son’s hair vigorously. “That’s right. You da man!” The contact with his son served to erase the anxiety from moments before—the tension in his muscles melted away and his shoulders relaxed. He gave Michelle a quick peck on the lips, and Lita one on the top of her head as she reentered the kitchen with the furry brown teddy bear Leo had given her. Patting the bear’s head gently, he walked toward the front door, grabbing the knob and pulling it toward him. The golden glow of morning sunlight filtered into the house as the door swung open. Taking a deep breath of fresh air into his lungs, he stepped outside. As he turned to pull it closed behind him, he paused and looked back at the motley group watching him from the kitchen. “Hey Leo, if you’re around later I’ll buy ya a cold one. Seth, if you’re around I’ll buy you a couple,” he said in as macho an apology as he could muster. Smiling, he closed the door firmly behind him.
***
Having already said a heartfelt thank you and goodbye to his hosts, Seth waited in the car for his partner to do the same. Now a few minutes after nine o’clock, he took a few moments of quiet time to breathe the cool morning air which seemed to promise an end to the heat wave that had been plaguing the Midwest for more than a week. Watching a pair of squirrels frolic on the lawn for a moment, he got an idea. Reaching for Leo’s music collection, he decided to hide it somewhere within Gertrude’s vacuous back seat. He figured this would protect his ears for a while since it would take an excavation crew a solid day just to sift through the mounds of burger wrappers, empty paper coffee cups, and soda cans to
find anything specific on that floor.
As Leo walked down the blacktop driveway, he waved at Michelle and the kids and stuffed a final chunk of buttered toast into his mouth. Arriving at the car, he patted it on the hood, opened the driver side door to a loud squeak of the hinges, and sat down. He rested his head forward on the steering wheel and said his short silent prayer. Then, after pulling the door closed with an inadvertent but inevitable slam, he turned the ignition key. Whirr-whirr click….He tried again….Whirr click click.
“Sounds like Gert is less of a morning person than you are, Leo,” prodded Seth as he fastened his seatbelt.
Pumping the gas to get the car’s juices flowing, Leo agreed. “If only she ran on coffee like me.” He tried the key again. With a loud pop and what could only be described as a gasp, the old green Ford started up. Smiling, he signaled and rumbled away from the curb and onto the previously serene residential street.
“Hey man, I’m sorry that Pedro got out of line in there this morning,” Leo apologized, in an attempt to relieve his friend’s conscience. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. Hell, I’m the one who mentioned there might be goats!” he said, punching Seth lightly in the left shoulder.
Rolling down his window, Seth perched his right elbow on the top of the door but didn’t say a word.
“Pedro is a lot like Papa was,” confided Leo, remembering his father well. He tried to reassure his noticeably quiet partner. “Dad was always seeing a conspiracy when just about any white man would say or do anything. Pedro knows you and should have thought better than to accuse you of anything,” said Leo, frowning slightly as he recalled the morning’s conversation.
Still quiet, Seth looked down at one of the burger wrappers now sticking to his shoe heel. He had been thinking about the events of yesterday and this morning, unable to shake a guilty feeling. “He doesn’t owe me an apology, Leo,” he said quietly, scraping his foot against the floor mat until the wrapper came free. “Maybe I really did mean it the way he said.” He shrugged his shoulders, unsure of his own feelings.
Turning his head, Leo shot Seth a crooked, but reassuring smirk. “C’mon, bro. You and I both know that’s not true. I think I would have noticed by now if you looked down on me for where I came from.”
“You and I trained together, so I never got the chance to make assumptions about what you were like. I saw every day that you worked just as hard as I did. Harder, actually.”
Wishing he could just take his partner’s assurances and be done with it, Seth just couldn’t be sure. “I just can’t shake the feeling that I really might’ve been surprised to find a Hispanic family living so much like my family did growing up. I guess I don’t know what I was expecting,” he conceded, still too ashamed to look directly at his partner.
“All that might be true, but don’t go kickin’ your own ass over it.” Convinced of his friend’s good character, Leo had no intention of letting his buddy tarnish his self-image. “You might make some assumptions about Hispanic people, but that doesn’t make you a racist, bro. It makes you normal.”
Finding the sentiment an odd one, Seth glanced in his partner’s direction. “If I go into a situation believing a stereotype, then what would you call it?”
“I’d say experience…and ignorance,” said Leo simply.
Looking directly at Leo this time, Seth wasn’t sure what that meant. “I’m not following.”
When driving, Leo tended to move his left hand to the top of Gertrude’s steering wheel so that he could wave his right around when he needed to emphasize a point. He did so now. “Experience from what you do for a living, for one thing. You deal with lowlife scum all day long in Milwaukee and many of them are minorities living in slums. Your view is skewed by your experience, bro,” he explained, gesturing emphatically.
Intrigued, Seth could see how it might be easy to start making false assumptions based upon what he usually came across. “Ok, that makes sense, but what about the ignorance part?”
“Ignorance just means…not knowing,” shrugged Leo. “You just don’t know enough about the Mexican way of life, so your mind creates its own expectations. You know—it fills in the blanks on its own.” His right hand slapped down on the vinyl dashboard, punctuating his point.
“Right or wrong?” asked Seth, furrowing his brow.
“Right or wrong,” confirmed Leo with a confident nod. “Most of us experience such a small part of what’s out there that it’s hard not to be a little weirded-out when we realize things aren’t the way we thought they were. It only becomes racism if you try putting your perceptions over the truth because you’re afraid of anything else.” Putting both hands back on the wheel, he knew that there was just one more thing he had to say. “Think about it, man. Would I have a racist as a best friend?” Amazed, Seth could only manage a thankful smile. Leo was usually so lighthearted that most people wondered if anything ever really bothered him.
Reaching into the back seat, Seth pulled out his partner’s collection of cassette tapes. He placed the box on the front seat next to Leo and patted it with his palm a couple of times. “Hey, I think you misplaced these.”
The magnitude of the gesture was not lost on Leo. “Whoa!” he said in happy astonishment, his eyes wide. “I must’ve really said some good stuff. I thought for sure I wouldn’t see these again this trip when I saw you leave before me this morning.”
Already feeling less weight on his shoulders, Seth began to feel as though the day might actually be salvageable. “Heaven forbid!” His feeling of relief shifted quickly back to tension as a high-pitched ringing began emanating from his coat pocket.
Beginning to despise the shrill tone of the FBI-issued cell phone, he found that the sound was typically followed by unwelcome news. He retrieved the phone from his pocket, pressed a button, and brought it to the right side of his head. “Rosie’s bar and grill, Rosie ain’t here,” he opened jokingly. Yanking the phone reflexively away from his ear, he cringed as Bob’s voice rattled from the plastic piece of technology. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I will try to be more professional,” he said with a smirk, listening to his boss barking orders. “But, how did she get your number?”
Straining to make out what was being said, Leo always hated hearing just one side of a conversation.
Acting as if he was in the same room as his boss, Seth held up his free hand as if trying to calm the man down. “No…yes…why would…oh… Captain Fillion…okay, okay we’re on it.” Hanging up with the press of a button, Seth stuck his tongue out at the device as if it still possessed some element of his crotchety boss. “We love you too, Bob,” he said acerbically, putting the phone back into his coat pocket. Rubbing his right ear, he looked dejectedly at his partner. “Bob’s sending us back to school, buddy,” he said without enthusiasm. “Someone seems to think that you and I are here to investigate every little thing that happens in this town.”
“Sweet!” exclaimed Leo. That calls for a little driving music!” With a devilish grin, he reached for the shoebox full of cassettes and began to rifle through.
Seth eyes immediately glazed over. The thought of listening to another round of Black Sabbath or Iron Butterfly’s seventeen-minute version of “In-A-Gadda-Da- Vida” made his temples ache. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a fresh pair of earplugs. “Knock yourself out,” he smiled as Leo steered Gertrude westbound and back toward the university.
Chapter 12
What Once Was Lost
AT EIGHT IN the morning, bright and early by university student standards, Erin and Kevin stood nervously in front of Professor Manisha Shukla’s desk, attempting to explain events from the night before. Their earlier conversation with campus security seemed relaxing compared to the one they were having now.
“What do you mean the database is gone? What about the genetics data? Didn’t you back up the server?” questioned Doctor Shukla in manic succession.
Kevin reclined backward slightly in his chair, a pained expression on his fa
ce. “It was my fault, professor. I had been backing up the data on the lab computer, but didn’t connect up with the mainframe yet this month,” he agonized. “I swear I was about to do an upload when this happened.”
It was now Erin’s turn to fall on the sword. “It’s not all his fault. I could have been backing up the data, too. I just don’t know why anyone would steal the computer while we were sitting right there!” Still traumatized, her voice quivered. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to wait until we were gone for the night?”
Leaning back in her chair, Manisha ran her fingers thoughtfully through her long, dark hair. She realized that she had been gazing at the two students in a way that could have turned Medusa to stone. A more conscious effort to soften her approach was necessary. “It is nobody’s fault. With the exception of the one who actually stole the computer that is.” She smiled consolingly. I’m just glad that neither of you was hurt, that’s the most important thing.”
“Thank you, Professor. I, rather, we really appreciate that,” said Erin, feeling the tension of the ordeal begin to melt away, but only slightly. “I might have some of the data on one of my own floppy disks, but it may take a while to track down.”
“We also still have the spreadsheets that Erin and I were looking at when the lights went out,” said Kevin, raising his eyebrows in hopes that Professor Shukla wouldn’t ask if they were talking about anything else at the time.
Appreciative of her student’s wiliness to repair the damage, Manisha knew that it would be a tall order. “Anything you two can piece together will be helpful. Unfortunately, the spreadsheets provide just part of the equation. If we don’t have the original data, it’s like having the answers without ever knowing what questions were asked.
Clearly, no one in the room was enthusiastic about spending hours poring over data that had already spent hours on end in analysis, but true science isn’t allowed shortcuts. “I really hate to say this, but we are likely going to have to start over,” she said, leaning back stoically in her office chair. “The original files and genetic samples are probably recent enough to still be in storage. If we start from scratch and forego sending any of the samples to D.C. for quality checks, we may be able to reconstruct what we need in a month or two,” she added with cautious optimism.
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