“Where else?”
“I’m not getting a shot in the butt!”
Javier looks at her and laughs hysterically, rolling on the cardboard. “You’re not helping,” I tell Javier, so he composes himself and then cajoles Anna to let me give her the shot.
“Oww!” she yelps. She rubs her buttocks in a circular motion and has a distinct look of disapproval.
“I will be back tomorrow to check and see if you are all right.”
“No,” she pleads. “I will stop bleeding by tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I stand up, stooping to avoid hitting my head on the roof, a problem I had never foreseen myself ever having. Javier and Anna resume their usual sleeping position, one arm over her stomach and one leg over her legs. I walk out into the night. Gabriel walks over and asks me seriously, “How is Anna?”
“She is fine,” I say. “If she continues to bleed, you need to take her to the hospital.”
He nods. Both of us know that even if Anna had the audacity to go to the hospital, this Aymaran street girl might not even be treated.
“Don’t worry, Chi. I will take care of her.” Gabriel holds up his plastic bag of milk-water as if it were a talisman against all one’s ills. The longer children live on the street, the more they realize the meaninglessness of words. They don’t say things such as “Thank you” or “You are my friend.” They’d rather show through actions what is inside. It is more difficult for these street kids to speak than to act. The plastic bag filled with milk-water represents a covenant between Gabriel, Anna, Javier, and their family of street children. The one part milk and six parts water means, “Anna, you are my blood.”
The Next Day
I return the next morning to Gabriel’s house and find Anna dozing in and out. Gabriel wakes up and rubs his eyes. In her semicomatose state, Anna opens her eyes and recognizes me. There is something not right with Anna, but I cannot put my finger on it. “What happened, Anna? Why did you get rid of your baby?”
She looks away and toward the ground. She has always been rather quiet, oftentimes sad. She says nothing. I wait for a long time.
“It was Javier,” she says.
“What do you mean, it was Javier?”
“Javier was able to get a hundred bolivianos. I don’t know how he got that much money, but he did. He told me to keep it safe. Somehow I lost it. I looked everywhere for it but couldn’t find it. I was so scared that I shook all over. So I just waited and waited for my punishment to happen. When I told him that I lost the money, he went into a rage. Uncontrollable. He yelled and kicked. He kicked me in the stomach over and over again. I wanted him to kick me in the back or in my legs. Anywhere but my stomach. I just lay there until it was all over. Until his temper subsided. My baby was dead by then. Dead forever. Never to cry. Never to smile. I was in a state of shock. I don’t even remember if I cried or not. All I knew was that it was all over. Done.” Anna’s triangular face is blank. No anger. No sadness. Nothing.
“Then what happened after that?”
“Then I started to bleed slowly. Part of my baby came out bit by bit, but not all of it. I needed to find a way to take care of it. So I went to the witches and they gave me matte. I drank it and it hurt tremendously. I started to bleed a great deal after that. Afterward we buried the baby in front of the house. I continued to bleed. Then Gabriel went to look for you.”
Javier killed his own unborn child. The sun comes up only halfway on the street. There are no hard divisions between light and shadow. All is washed over by a gray moral ambiguity. The kids live in a violent and desolate world where right and wrong are often interchangeable, and their souls end up matching their environment. They become gray. Like Anna’s face as she cries. The forces of good and evil have fought their war of attrition within her, and she is left with nothingness. She turns over on her cardboard bed. I cannot see her face anymore. “Why do you still stay with Javier?” I ask her.
“Because I love him, and he protects me from men and other street boys. He is good . . . and bad.”
11
Lice
November 10, 1997;
The Hole, beneath a Busy Overpass
I look down into El Hueco. The Hole. A dozen street children sleep in a twelve-foot-deep concrete “hole” located beneath a downtown bridge. This architectural appendix of sorts is walled in on two sides by the stairwell down which I am walking. I sit down on the steps next to El Hueco, and I wonder why street children rarely snore.
To the south, rising above the petty edifices of man, Mount Illimani’s four snowcapped peaks glisten in the moonlight, singing their crescendo at twenty-one thousand feet and tickling God’s feet. I breathe in slowly. Cold air burrows beneath the mists of Illimani and seeps into the alveoli of my lungs, invigorating me.
I hear footsteps. A boy swaggers down the steps from the bridge. His hair flows down to his nape once again. Where has Gabriel been? He sits down beside me.
“What’s up?” I ask him.
“Nothing.”
“I have been looking for you,” I tell him.
“You can’t find me. I am invisible.” He gives me a coy smirk.
“Why are you invisible?”
“You know why.” Gabriel tilts his head to the right, sticks out his tongue, and pulls up an imaginary noose. “They are after me.”
“You almost killed the boy.”
“I know. It’s too bad he got hurt,” he states nonchalantly.
“Why did you stab the kid?”
“Because I had to protect my own people.”
“But why did you have to stab him?”
“Either you get killed or you kill others. That’s survival on the streets. That’s how it is on the streets. I want to survive. Either you get killed or you kill. And I kill in order to survive. I want to live. That is the law of the streets, Chi. You know that.”
“You should be in jail.”
“I know,” says Gabriel. “But they will never find me.”
“Maybe I should turn you in.”
“You won’t though. You understand us.”
Silence. I make no reply. “I like your shoes,” I say, reading the faint words in black marker across their sides: “Gabriel Garcia.”
“Yeah, these are good shoes.” He smiles.
We look to Mount Illimani. We breathe frigid breaths.
“Chi,” says Gabriel, “my hair itches.” He looks at me with quiet eyes.
“Hmmm,” I say, “take your cap off.”
Lice and their eggs entangle the twines of his head. I open up my medicine box and shuffle through the various bottles. Found it. Permethrin.
“Lean your head over the railing.”
I squirt the medicine onto his head. A quarter liter flows down his long tangles and into the La Paz River. I rub the medicine into his scalp. With his eyes shut tight Gabriel asks me, “Do you think this will work? Will this kill the bugs?”
“No,” I say, “but it is worth a try. Otherwise, I will need to cut your hair off and make you a monk.”
Gabriel does not want to be a monk. He lets his head hang over the railing for a few minutes, the dead lice tumbling down into the river.
“Here.” I hand Gabriel the bottle of permethrin. “Keep it. Wash out all the medicine in ten minutes.”
“Thanks, Chi.” Silence. Illimani calls to us. Her icy breath roars in our ears. Gabriel looks up at the top of the bridge. We will need to leave El Hueco soon.
“Hey, I want my friends in the United States to know about you. I would like them to know your story.”
“Why would anyone want to know about me?” He is sincere. I look him square in the face. “You have an important story to tell.”
“Really?” he asks, understanding the mysteries of my world as much as I understand the mysteries of his. Why would well-off people want to know about him? He trusts me; if I ask him for something, it must be for a good reason.
I take the tape recorder out of my jacket.<
br />
“Why are you recording us?”
“Because I am old, and my memory is terrible.” I tap my temple.
“You are not going to make me look bad, will you?”
“No, because I understand you. I will tell the truth though.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” We hook our pinkie fingers together.
Gabriel looks at the tape recorder and then at me.
My name is Gabriel Garcia, and I have been on the streets for the past eight years. My house is in El Alto. I was sad during most of my childhood. I left my home due to the abuse from my family. My mother and father would beat me with sticks. On some days, I came home from school with my clothes dirty. My mother would be angry and beat me. Then she would make me wash clothes, oftentimes until one in the morning.
I like the streets more or less. I have many friends on the streets. We help one another, especially when we need to defend each other. To eat. To drink. I helped Anna when she was bleeding. Anna is a little bit crazy in the head. When she uses drugs, she says crazy things. Overall, the street children are a bad lot. They drink and use drugs.
I stabbed the boy because he was bothering and taunting my friend from the orphanage. He started the fight. At that time, I was cutting an eraser in half with my knife. The boy was bothering everyone. He was saying things that were incredibly ugly. Then he started to call his friends to join him. That is when I stabbed him.
I admit it was a bad thing to do. It was a bad thing because I could have gone to jail. I am sad for that action, because I was living at the orphanage at that time and I had many things going well for me. Yet a street boy often does not know what he does. He does not realize the possible consequences until after the action. On the other hand, I steal and rob from women in the streets so that I will not die from hunger. I need to survive.
The older men on the streets are stern, evil, and corrupt. Just the other day, I had my radio. They beat me and tried to steal my radio from me. But I would not give it to them. Oftentimes, they take money from me, five or twenty bolivianos. They often beat me. I am not afraid of them, especially when I am high or drunk.
I always change the location of where I sleep. They are always looking for you. Looking to steal from you. Looking to beat you. Sometimes when we don’t give them money they spray gas into our eyes.
I think the streets have changed over the past eight years. Everything is changing. There are more children on the streets now. There used to be only forty or fifty children. Now there are many more.
However, I do not want to sleep in the streets for the rest of my life. I want to learn and work because I am tired of begging and shining shoes. I want to become something else in my life. I want to leave the streets, but it is very difficult. It is difficult because I am used to the life of the streets.
Some of the orphanages for street children are terrible. They are terrible because they abuse us. They make us work day and night. A home for street children should give us support and help us. If I were a counselor for street children I would tell them to change their lives. You can only accomplish this by talking to them. Tell them to return to their families.
The most important people in my life are those who have helped me and continue to help the children on the streets now. You have helped the street children with your medicines and by bringing materials to us. You cure our wounds and stabbings. You encourage us to change and move forward. But it really depends on us. We are changing in very small ways.
My dream is to get off of the streets. To change. How do I change my life? I change my life through work and stopping my thievery. However, I will stop stealing when I do not need any more money. I know it is wrong to steal, but I have no choice.
I want to be a mechanic. In five years, I will have a job and some money to feed myself.
Nine years have passed. I have lost Gabriel, my friend, my child. That interview was the last time I ever saw him. Rumor has it he traveled south to Cochabamba for the warmer climate and better economy. Some children tell me he died in a fight. No one knows, except Gabriel and God. Sometimes not knowing is best. In the end, I am disappointed in Gabriel the Criminal, and I am proud of Gabriel the Survivor. I can say this now because I do know him. I understand him.
12
Fatso
95°F, Summer 1980, Texas
Humid air slaps my face as it blasts in through the car windows. We’re driving to Houston, and my head hurts because my father is driving. He slows down when he is talking and speeds up when he remembers he’s driving. I lay my head down on the seat and perch my legs on top of the Styrofoam ice chest filled with Mountain Dew and ba zang, our lunch. Ba zang is rice with pork and peanuts wrapped in banana leaves. I love filling my stomach with ba zang.
Mingfang sleeps next to me, clinging to her gigantic teddy bear. I hate my little sister. She’s fat. She’s stupid. She’s ugly. I don’t know why my parents still call her Cutie. When we lived in South Carolina, Mingfang went to the hospital because she was sick, and when she came back she was bald and skinny. But Mom made up for it by feeding her like there was no tomorrow. Mingfang stayed inside and away from germs and did nothing but eat.
Now we live in College Station, Texas, where my dad studies computer science all the time. He’s so busy it’s hard for him to stay around the house. He comes home and doesn’t say much. My mom tells me he is under a great deal of stress. I stay out of his way and keep quiet.
I open the ice chest quietly and dig up a few pieces of ice. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. And one! The ice hits her right nostril! She flinches and changes positions. Okay, it is time for Dr. J to hit the right ear and win the NBA Finals. Clunk! Oops. The ice misses the rim and hits the right eyeball.
“Yannnnn!” my sissy sister cries. “Mom! Chin-chin is throwing ice at me!” Oops. Technical foul.
“I am not throwing ice at you, Fatso,” I tell her. “Maybe if you weren’t such an oink-oink you wouldn’t sweat so much. Isn’t that right, oink-oink?”
“Mommy! Chin-chin is calling me a pig again!”
My mother turns around and glares at me. “Stop it!”
Every year we have to take this stupid vacation down to Houston in the yellow Ford Maverick. “This stinks, Mommy. I hate the banana car. We need air conditioning.” My mother doesn’t reply. “And why does Mingfang always get presents when we go to Houston? She goes into the room, she comes out, and you buy a gift from the gift shop for her. You favor her. I hate you!”
A tall man in a long white coat finally comes into the office. A silly yellow mask hangs from his ears by white rubber bands. “Hello, I’m Dr. Jacoby,” he says to me in a deep, baritone voice. He peers down at me.
I look over to my mother. She has a tear in her right eye. I think she might have dealt with him before. I tug on her shirt. Mom! Why don’t we get out of here? I will just punch Dr. Jacoby in the stomach, and we’ll run.
“Mingfang, how are you today?”
She starts to cry and whimper. How do you think she’s doing, mister? She clings to her teddy bear. “No, Mommy! No, Mommy!” The bear is lying on the ground now, and she uses both of her hands to cling to Mommy.
“Let’s bring her to the examining table and start the conscious sedation,” Dr. Jacoby tells the blonde nurse. The nurse injects some liquid into a tube that’s connected to Mingfang’s arm. Whoa! What’s going on? Mingfang’s eyes just rolled up into her head. Her arms are like Jell-O. Gee whiz!
They lay my limp sister down on the cushioned table. Her right buttock is showing. I have never seen it before. Boy, is it white and fat. I hate her. She’s spoiled.
Everyone is quiet now. Dr. Jacoby brings forth a shiny silver box. Inside the box are long metal rods with sharp points. He places brown liquid on my sister’s buttocks. A uniformed woman holds my sister down. My mother looks on, resigned.
“Are you ready, Mrs. Huang?”
“Yes,” she replies. Ready for what?
“Are you sure you want
your son to see this?”
“See what, Mommy?” I pipe up.
She nods. “He needs to see.”
The doctor takes a metal rod, about the thickness of a pencil and really long, and slowly punches it deep into my sister’s butt cheek.
“Yeaaowww,” my sister whimpers.
“Can we have a little bit more fentanyl?” he tells the nurse. The rod goes deeper, and I just wish it would stop, but it doesn’t stop until the whole thing goes inside. Hasn’t it hit a bone? Hasn’t it ended up on the other side of her body? Gee whiz. I want to scream. I want to jump up and pound the freak for hurting my sister. I don’t know why I am not doing anything. Maybe this is supposed to happen. Before I can do anything, the freak takes out the rod.
“Mrs. Huang, I will know the bone marrow biopsy results within the next week. At that time I can tell you if your daughter’s leukemia is in remission,” he states without emotion.
Leukemia? What’s leukemia? Whatever it is, I don’t want it, especially if I have to see the freak again.
I squeeze my sister’s arm. “Don’t be afraid, Mingfang. Things will be all right.”
My sister is in her room drawing animal pictures at her desk. I walk up to her, and I smirk in her face. “Hey, Fatso. Do you know what day it is?”
“What day is it?” she asks, falling again for a trick question.
“It is report card day.”
“So?”
“So? What did you get, Mingfang?”
“None of your beeswax.” She covers up her animal pictures.
“C’mon, my little piglet sister. Let me see your grades.”
“No.”
“C’mon. I’ll let you see my report card.”
“You’re so stuck up, Chin-chin. I already know what your grades are.”
“You don’t know that.”
She considers for a moment. She’s not that stupid. “No,” she says. “Mind your own business.”
“C’mon. We can play carnival or obstacle course tonight with prizes and everything.” Carnival is a game we play where Fatso has to throw balls into small boxes and form three in a row in a tic-tac-toe grid.
When Invisible Children Sing Page 11