“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“What can you do?” she replied. I walked away from her office feeling like a jerk. But what did I have to offer a depressed teenager? Nothing, I told myself. Still, as I left the school and walked toward Conroe’s, waving at Grupo in his cruiser, I felt a certain stirring. I tamped it down, pushing the girl from my mind. At Conroe’s, I climbed into my Ford Bronco (with newly upholstered leather seats—an anniversary gift from Jake) and drove toward Mildred Street. Jake would be waking up soon, and I felt like kissing him until my thoughts receded.
7
Carla
AS I HAD hoped, on my eleventh birthday Humberto asked me to be his girlfriend. By this time we had both stopped going to school and spent our days at the dump. Not many girls could handle the smell and the aggression, but I am not like other girls. As I’ve mentioned, my mother was in America, which gave me strength.
In the years my mother had been absent, her voice had grown raspy, hoarse. She sounded old. During one Wednesday call, my brother Carlos (now in kindergarten at Campbell Elementary School in Austin, Texas) mentioned “the baby.” I asked him, “What baby?” but my mother made him get off the phone. I asked her, “What baby?” and she said to please stop asking so many questions. Was she married? I asked her, and she said, “Dios mío, no.”
Each morning we walked to work in a group, our garbage bags over our shoulders: Humberto, me, some other boys. People lived at the dump, so we tried to arrive as close to dawn as possible to fill our bags before the piles were all picked over and you had to touch the needles or dig through shit to reach anything with value. Toward evening, trucks arrived, paying us handfuls of centavos for our hauls.
Some of the girls I knew had started sniffing glue. Some had become prostitutes. This is not a euphemism. No one was hiring you to do their laundry, not anymore. There were few jobs for men and no jobs for women. The robbers had become increasingly violent. I could go into more detail, but the point is that times were very hard. A woman had something to sell, and many did.
I did not.
I guess it was my grandmother’s Catholic doctrine, and the fact that my mother sent us enough money to survive. I believed that sex was something I would save for marriage. I lay in bed some nights, praying that I would remain a virgin. For some reason, I felt that this was out of my control.
On my eleventh birthday, I made fifty centavos. Walking home, Humberto and I lagged behind. Ever since I had started gathering trash myself, Humberto’s odor did not affect me. He walked very close, and I thought about him putting his fingers beneath my chin, tipping my head up, and placing a soft kiss on my lips. (I had seen this slow buildup in American movies.)
At the door to my house, Humberto paused. His shirt was worn thin as silk, and his body was wiry, his skin scratched and dirty but to me, perfection. “Carla,” he said.
“Yes?” I said. I could hear my brother shuffling behind the door. After my grandmother died, Junior stopped going to school. No matter how much I raised my voice, telling him that he needed to educate himself, that he was too young to be left alone, he did not listen.
“Carla?” My brother’s voice sounded scared. But I ignored him: Humberto had a dreamy look on his face. This is the moment, I thought.
“I was hoping …,” said Humberto. Was he going to ask me to marry him? It was too soon for that. And he had so little money. I wanted to kiss Humberto, but I was not sure I wanted to stay here, in Tegu. Even with him.
“You could be my girlfriend, if you wanted,” said Humberto in the nonchalant voice he used when he was afraid but wanted to sound unafraid.
His face was as familiar to me as Junior’s. He had dark eyes, and hair that curled along the sides of his face unless he caught it in a rubber band. “I do,” I said. He sighed with relief, his smile showing his nice teeth.
“I won’t have sex with you,” I said. “I mean, I want to stay a virgin until my wedding.”
“I know,” said Humberto, who knew everything about me.
“I guess I’ve always loved you, you idiot,” I said.
“I know,” said Humberto. He cupped the back of my head with his large hand. “Good night,” he said. He pressed the side of his face to mine, his skin soft and warm. But there was no kiss.
“Good night,” I said. I watched Humberto walk off, admiring his long stride, his thin but muscled back, and then I whispered to Junior to open the padlock and let me inside.
In the middle of the room was a new dress. It was aqua, and made from some amazing fabric that fell across my hands in waves.
“It came today,” said Junior. He sounded strange. “Stefani brought it to the house.”
“Have you been crying?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m hungry,” he said.
We had so little food by this point. I made a paste of flour and water, and as we ate, I looked at the dress. When would I wear such a thing? What did my mother think my life was like? You could not eat a dress.
Still, after I scratched Junior’s back and he fell asleep, I slipped from the pallet and took off my clothes. I pulled the garment over my head. It fit me perfectly. Our mirror was cracked and rusty, but I could tell I looked like a supermodel.
“Happy birthday,” I said to the girl in the mirror.
8
Alice
AS SOON AS I stepped off the plane in Montrose (an hour and a half from my Colorado hometown), I realized I should have left my vintage skirt and red leather cowboy boots at home. Funky wasn’t really a thing in my family. My sister was waiting by the gate in high-waisted jeans, sneakers, and a functional anorak; her three boys wore athletic shorts and T-shirts.
Jake, who had recently grown a moustache, gripped my hand tightly. My father, in his John Deere hat and twenty-year-old parka, stood with his hands on his hips behind Jane and her kids. “Your dad scares me,” whispered Jake.
I squeezed his hand back. Jane came running, her smile huge and warm. She looked the same as when she was six, with her wheat-colored hair cut shoulder length, bangs straight across her full face. She hugged me so tightly I struggled for breath, and then she was wrapped around Jake, who shot me a look of thrilled panic. “Boys!” Jane yelled to her sons. “Come give your aunt Alice and uncle Jake a hug!”
We were swarmed by skinny arms and I breathed in the smell of dirty sneakers. Tears came to my eyes, but I brushed them away. “I’m so sorry,” said Jane. “Oh, Alice, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Jake sadly. “It’s been—”
“Where’s Dennis?” I asked, to change the subject.
“What do you think?” said Jane. “He’s running the store.” My parents had taken over the town grocery store, Hill’s Market, from my grandparents. My father, Joshua Hill, learned from his father how to be a butcher. He’d met my mother while hiking in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Before they had us, my mom and dad hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. They backpacked in Mexico’s Copper Canyon and ascended Machu Picchu. Then they returned to Ouray, took over the store, and never looked back. My mother told me that when Jane and I were born, all her dreams had come true. I still remember her voice breaking a bit as she said, “Now I get to enjoy.”
After she died, my father became quiet, leaving us with his parents and taking off for days at a time to go into the backcountry. He hunted and fished, teaching us to do both as well. The first time I brought Jake to Ouray, I challenged him to climb Mount Sneffels, my favorite Colorado fourteener. He barely made it to the picnic lunch before begging me to halt.
“You’ve got to reach the peak, or try,” I admonished him, using my father’s stern tone. “You can’t just stop!”
“Watch me,” Jake had said, settling in a grassy spot and pulling a salami sandwich from his backpack.
Now he conferred with my father about the July 4 brisket; the men planned to stay up all night July 3. Years before, Jake had built a smoker in Jane and Dennis’s backyard, winning over al
l our nephews by letting them try out his welding equipment. In the airport, my father clapped his hand on Jake’s back, leaning in and saying something about the dry rub. “Hi, Dad,” I said, under my breath.
“You know how he is,” said Jane.
When Jake and I had booked our July trip to Colorado, we thought we’d be bringing Mitchell to meet the family. When those plans changed, Jake convinced me we needed a break from the Texas heat anyway and should keep our reservations. We’d already given everyone at Conroe’s the week off, he insisted. I loved Colorado but found it full of uncomfortable memories and relationships that stressed me out. It was hard not to compare myself with Jane. I was jealous of her kids, and being around her made me question my decisions. At the same time, I worried about my baby sister. No matter how much I pushed, she refused to have the genetic screening that could save her life. I’d have a talk with Dennis this visit, I decided.
Jake and I were staying in the apartment above Hill’s Market. It was where our family had lived when Jane and I were babies, before our parents bought the Oak Street house. Now it was rented out or used for visitors. (Dennis had a large family in nearby Gunnison.) As Jake and I lay in bed for the first night of our three-night stay, I stared at the familiar striped wallpaper. “It does smell good here,” I whispered. “Cleaner, or something. It smells like snow, even in July.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” warned Jake.
“Don’t worry, my love,” I said. Still, as we spent our first morning making pancakes at Jane’s house, getting used to the constant activity as the boys whirled through the kitchen like tumbleweeds, I felt a yearning. It wasn’t that I wanted to live in Colorado, of course, though I adored the way the sun shone on the mountains, loved the way the water was always ice-cold coming from the faucet, felt safe and happy lying on the lawn with no thoughts of chiggers. Maybe it was Colorado. Who knew?
That evening, July 3, Jane and I left our husbands and father in the yard with growlers of beer and the slow-cooking brisket. Jane said I could sleep over, as Dennis would be up all night, but I declined. I walked from Oak Street to Main Street, past the old Randolph house, where my first boyfriend had lived, and the Western Hotel, where I’d had my first legal beer. I felt both nine years old and seventy. I was a visitor here now, and I always would be. I would never be a Colorado mother. I missed my own mother. I stood on the bridge above the rushing Uncompahgre River for a while, feeling melancholy.
The apartment above the store had a deck that overlooked Twin Peaks. I took a cup of hot tea outside and curled up in a chair. I remembered sitting on my mother’s lap in this same place. Was she somewhere? Could she see me? “Mom?” I said aloud. I blinked back tears, feeling stupid. Somehow I’d thought she’d send me a sign—a shooting star, an owl calling out—but of course there was nothing. She was gone.
9
Carla
I SUPPOSE I ALWAYS knew I would ride The Beast to America. My mother told me not to come, but she didn’t understand what life had become in Tegucigalpa. I found it hard to sleep for fear of robbers. A boy I’d known since childhood, Oscar, told me I had to pay him protection money or risk being raped and beaten. But it wasn’t until what happened with Junior that I knew it was time to go.
Everyone was aware I had a mother who sent money. Junior and I were targets, because most people had nothing. Some robbers were getting organized, selling drugs, but when business was slow they became roving gangs, sending boys like Oscar to take from those who had any small thing.
Junior, as I’ve said, spent much of his time alone. On occasion he came with me to the dump, but he barely gathered enough to help at all. He took to sitting outside the house instead of inside. At six years old, he was skinny, with long legs and a sunken chest. He started to have opinions (throwing a bowl of paste on the floor, saying it was “shit”) and desires (“I want to be the Terminator and kick everyone’s ass!”). He set his jaw in such a way that he looked like an angry adult. Sometimes he would surprise me on my walk home, just appearing by the side of the road in the dangerous purple twilight.
“I needed to get out,” he would mutter when I admonished him. It was painful to look at Junior—he was so hard and hungry—and to remember myself at six, beloved by my grandmother, clad in new American clothes.
One night Humberto and I walked home as always, weary and dirty but holding hands. I was still waiting for my first kiss. As we walked farther from the dump, the awful smell faded and it seemed possible to remember that we were young. I had turned twelve by this point, and I felt very tired. This is hard for an American to understand, but it felt like my life was over. In my village, some married at my age, and soon became mothers.
Humberto brought me joy. This was all the happiness I had: the way he looked at me and how this made me feel. If you pressed down one of the curls on his head, it sprang back up. This was what Humberto was like in general. You could not keep him flat. Oh, the feel of his fingers around mine. I knew—I thought I knew—we would marry in the Maria Auxiliadora Church, in a ceremony that was long enough to make Junior fidget in his pew, but also glorious. We would move into the same house—into the same room!—and I would greet my Humberto each evening with a kiss and a hot meal. In this way—sitting next to each other, the sunset burning from marmalade orange to violet to black, sipping milky coffee, holding hands—we would grow old.
But I wasn’t ready to be old yet.
So much was mixing in my mind that night; it was confusing. There was the girl I had been, the child my brother Junior was not allowed to be. There was sadness for having to pick through garbage. There was hope for the thrilling kisses Humberto and I would share, and also the ways of our bodies coming together. I knew the basics, of course, but had been told by Stefani that my own body would do things I could not yet understand. (Stefani had been seduced by an older boy, a man, eighteen. He took her from her family and into the city. I had not heard from her in months.)
Humberto’s brother, Milton, had tried to get to America the year before. He had told us that he would go to Arizona, where the crossing was easiest because there were fewer immigration officials. Obviously, none of us knew how to get to El Norte, not really. We had heard things. We had seen things. Some of us had relatives in America (like me). Some had money for coyotes. Some paid coyotes and were caught by la migra anyway. Some people did not want to leave, the old or secure, but many of us dreamed of escape, of money and food and a complete family.
But back to Humberto’s brother, Milton. He set off at dawn with a dozen water jugs and three pairs of pants and three shirts on. All his money was in his underwear. I watched him go. He didn’t say goodbye to me, and why would he? He was seventeen. He could spend his life in the dump or he could try to reach El Norte.
Milton was gone for two weeks before he was caught and brought back to Tegu in a small van. He’d never even made it past Guatemala. Police had raided a park where he was sleeping, gathering his strength for the journey through the Guatemalan jungle to Mexico.
Getting into Mexico, Milton told us, was the most important thing. Once you made it into Mexico, you could pretend you were Mexican and they would only deport you back to southern Mexico. All your trouble would not be for nothing. But if you were caught in Honduras or Guatemala, you would start all over. Milton was discouraged, but a week in the dump convinced him to try again. This time he was gone for almost a month. He came back skinny and with many stories. People fell and were crushed by the Train of Death, he told us. Gangs lay waiting to kill you, to steal your clothes. Still, the gleam in his eye told the truth: he was gone again three days later, leaving his pregnant girlfriend in tears. Two weeks later, he was returned to us—dropped off in the city again.
This time he started with the glue. You can get a baby-food container with glue at any store, and breathing it takes away pain. The Resistol is cheap, but eventually people will rob their own grandmother to obtain it. I have never seen anyone stop using glue once they have begun. Never
. Not once.
Humberto and I made a pact when we were young. We saw the yellow-mouthed zombies that replaced our friends, and one night Humberto cut a line down the center of his palm with a broken Fanta bottle and made me do the same. We pressed our bloody hands together and promised each other we would never sniff Resistol. I have kept my promise.
But back to Milton. He stayed in the village until his girlfriend gave birth, and when the baby was a few months old, he left again. Milton was gone for months this time. We assumed he had made it. His girlfriend waited for news, money, maybe even clothes for their baby girl.
Instead, Humberto answered the door one morning and a social worker told him Milton was dead. His bones had been found in the desert outside Tijuana. He had almost made it to California. His remains were returned and we held a funeral. In the front pew, Milton’s girlfriend held his daughter, Aylyn. Neither cried, but Humberto’s eyes grew wet when he placed his hand on his brother’s coffin.
One night, walking home from the dump, I told Humberto that I was worried about Junior. I did not know what he was up to all day, but I knew he no longer stayed at home, where he was safe. Humberto told me he would think carefully about how to help Junior. (He was already helping his elderly mother and his brother’s girlfriend and daughter. To be clear: he was feeding four people by gathering garbage.)
I think Humberto felt it was selfish to go. It was true that most of the ones who left were the braggarts, the most macho boys. My own mother had made it, but she had gone with a coyote. The thousands of U.S. dollars a coyote would cost (three thousand for a male coyote; six or more for a female, who would hopefully be less likely to rape you; ten thousand for a plane trip with papers) were not possible anymore. Not for us, anyway.
The Same Sky: A Novel Page 4