The Lucky Ones

by Julianne Pachico

  The cellphone rings, its high-pitched trill breaking the silence, and we can’t help but jump as Baloo swiftly turns and flees into the undergrowth, bushes rattling like chattering teeth. He fumbles with the cellphone as he pulls it out, fingers clumsy, answers just before it goes to voicemail. At first he thinks it’s Nicolás from the processing laboratory, speaking rapidly in muffled tones, but finally he recognizes prostate-cancer Andrés—he’s agitated, calling long-distance from Medellín, asking repeatedly if it’s safe to speak right now. He listens calmly to the update, strolling back toward the house. He interrupts with a stifled snort of laughter, after Andrés says, My advice would be for you to take a trip abroad for a while—with your daughter, especially. Why risk it? Go to Europe; take her someplace nice. Just until things blow over with these guys. Until the situation is safe again.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he says, cutting Andrés off. “I don’t care what you have to do. Just take care of it.”

  The walk back to the house feels strangely short. Right as he passes the flip-flop he pauses, as if about to bend over and scoop it up, but at the last second he turns quickly away, leaving it behind in the grass. The party’s now reached the point where it’s either going to turn into anarchy or collapse into exhausted decay. Somebody’s thrown up on the grass, leaving a sour orange puddle. The dancers and drinkers on the patio are still mingling, eyes glassy, cheeks stiff from smiling. Somebody’s turned the music up so loud that the bass hurts his eardrums.

  He’s heading toward the patio door when he’s spotted. Hey, there you are! Where have you been hiding? He’s reluctantly tugged away, pulled into the crowd. His shoulders are slapped, his arms are squeezed, he receives winks and smiles, shouts and whoops. A shot of aguardiente, miraculously still cold, is pushed into his hand, followed by delicate kisses on his cheek. Terrific party! Amazing! Best time I’ve had since Carnival!

  Everybody’s happy to see him; they’re thrilled that he’s here. Somebody’s brought out a mirror to set upon the table; any moment now, the lines of powder will follow. He briefly scans the crowd one last time, but there are no children to be seen at this point, not even the teenagers—no small bowed heads, no hands stained with hardened candle wax, no hair slicked back with gel, no wet chewed braid. The phone sits in his back pocket, still warm from the call.

  From the quietest corner of the patio, under the grapefruit tree by the swimming pool, he checks his messages one more time. There are no new voicemails. Not even a text.

  He’s walking past the swimming pool when he sees it: the last paper plate, bobbing up and down, half-submerged. Its candle is long gone, sunk to the bottom. The pool is now completely dark. He stops and stares at it.

  There are more packages of paper plates deep inside the pantry somewhere—that might encourage the children to come back. He could go ask a maid to bring more out. Or even better, he could get them himself. Select a key from the chain, unlock the door, head inside. If he wanted to, he could spend some time slumped on the floor, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, hands resting calmly in his lap. It’s the kind of place where he could stay forever. Stay secret. Stay safe. A place where he could lock himself away and never, ever be found.

  We’ll be watching, though. We don’t mind. We’re not in a hurry.

  We’re not going anywhere.

  It comes out of nowhere, a low voice spoken in the dark: You guys feeling it yet? Everyone immediately straightens up, ears jerking, blinking and twitching in the voice’s direction, but I don’t bother. It’s one of the younger rabbits, I guarantee it, some kid with hardly any scabs or gunk in his ears, shiny white fur still clean and unknotted, bright pink eyes nervously scanning everyone’s faces. I’m not feeling anything yet. Do you think I ate enough? Do you think I need to eat more? Maybe I should eat more. Should I eat more? Are there any leaves left? Do you think we’re going to run out? Maybe someone should go get some more. Do you think someone should go get some more, in case we run out?

  That’s when everybody looks at me. As if I somehow know. Like I have a clue. For what it’s worth, I don’t mind stepping up. What can I say—it’s just the kind of rabbit I am, the kind I’ve always been. Take one for the team and all that. What else am I supposed to do? Like right now, when they’re all looking at me with wet, worried eyes and quivering noses.

  Don’t worry, I say. I’ve got this. And then, even though no one stirs or says anything, it’s suddenly like the air in the burrow just got ten times lighter.

  I’ve got this, I repeat. I’ll go take care of it. I’ll be right back. Can you guys just hang here for a while? Is that okay? Does that work for everybody?

  All through the burrow there’s a line of nodding heads, ears bobbing. I shove another wad of leaves into my cheek and take off.

  A good supply of leaves will last a single rabbit for seven days, ten if it’s a big pile. When we start running low—when there’s nothing in the burrow but dirt and squashed insects, with no leaves within reach, no matter how far we stretch out our tongues or flop our heads around—that’s when it has to happen. Someone has to go see the Pastor. And when it has to be done, I’m usually the rabbit to do it. I guess that’s just how it works: You’re born a certain way, grow up to play a certain role, and that’s it, you’re you, unchangeable. It’s like what my father used to say, those times when I didn’t feel like helping out with digging and he’d cuff me across the head before turning away with an irritated frown: You grow up to do the things you were born to do. What else would you expect from life?

  The long run I’m heading down branches off into dozens of passageways, some leading to old leaf storerooms, others to long-forgotten shafts and drops. I’ve chewed long enough now for the spit to dribble down my chest and stain my fur. My heart’s not beating that rapidly yet, but I’m definitely getting the lip-tingling feeling, tongue going numb. That familiar jaunty sensation: Here it comes. When I pass a tunnel that leads aboveground, it’s nice to pause for a second to enjoy the cool air, blowing down from above. If I wanted to, I could pretend to still hear the snuffling of someone plowing through a leaf pile, jaws clicking and grinding as they chew away, burrowing frantically forward as they rustle through the bags in search of one last leaf, just one more.

  But I know I’m imagining it. These storerooms have been empty for a long time.

  The run slopes downward as I crawl into the Great Hall. As usual, it’s filled with everyone who’s not chewing, a sea of furry white bodies sleeping, scratching, staring vacantly into space, mechanically cleaning themselves. It’s a relief to raise my ears as high as I want, no need to worry about them rubbing against the cement ceiling. As I crawl forward I have to grit my teeth to prevent myself from crying out in disgust as I’m stepped on, crawled over, poked at, and kicked, like I’m swimming in a river of writhing white bodies. I push my way forward violently, Coming through, out of my way, watch it, jostling rabbits who turn angrily and glare at me. At one point I can’t push my way between two heavy males, so instead I have to crawl over a giant pile of shit left behind by rabbits who can’t even be bothered to go outside anymore. I close my eyes and plunge ahead, holding my breath, but it’s not so bad; most of it’s dry and crumbly from sitting here for so long. No fresh warm smears—those are the worst.

  As I move forward, there’s no avoiding it. At first I keep my eyes lowered, fixed on the sandy earth, but eventually I raise my head, as if to say That’s right, bring it on, do your worst. There it is. The Platform. The raised shelf of dirt where my father used to sit, eyes closed and head drooping so far forward his whiskers nearly touched the ground. Whenever he spoke, though, his voice sounded loud and clear. My father. The General.

  It used to happen here. When I was young, we’d gather together, all of us, to hear his stories—females, children, old folks, everyone, bodies pressed against one another, breathing in sync as we listened. He told us everything: about the metal hutch where he and the Pastor and the others lived, back when the Me
n used to be here. He talked about the Daughter, her long black hair hanging down her back like a skinny tail, who’d bring them vegetable peelings in an orange plastic bucket (my father’s favorite were the potato skins). There were the Children, who would stick their fat pink hands into the hutch and say things like Come here little bunnies, little darlings, little sweet things, waving around blades of grass and wiggling their fingers at us. I loved hearing about the Man the most, who’d come and squash his face against the wire, black hair bristling out of his nostrils, and my father and the others would huddle against the hutch wall as far away from him as possible (during this part we’d always huddle closer together too, shivering from something that was either delight or fear, I was never sure).

  My father’s stories always mentioned the Party: the day that the Other Men came, carrying long black sticks. There were fires and explosions, and holes appeared in the walls, and the water in the swimming pool turned red from blood (we bowed our heads and trembled during this part, our ears hurting from the explosions, our eyes burning from the smoke). The Daughter never came back after that to push her fingers through the wire. And then came the ending, everybody’s favorite part, in which my father, the General, led the way and got everyone out. He figured a way to break out of the hutch and escape, bringing us here to found the warren under the swimming pool. And here’s where we’ve been ever since.

  My father would usually stop at that point, but not always. Sometimes he would go on to talk about how it had been his idea to get us the leaves out of the garage. The garage was a long walk away from the main house, where the Men would drag the black plastic bags and shake the leaves out on tarps spread out over the earth, mashing them with their feet into a thick brown paste. It was my father who figured out that the leaves would make us each bigger and stronger than any rabbit had ever been, capable of digging longer and harder than any rabbit had ever dug. As soon as he said this, though, he would fall silent, staring wordlessly at the ground. When the silence went on long enough we’d pull apart from one another, shuffling away uneasily.

  Nobody has spoken on the Platform in a long time.

  I’m just about to head down the Pastor’s tunnel when this really fucked-up-looking rabbit pops up out of nowhere, shoving his face against mine. Watch it, I say, pushing him away, wincing at his musty smell. Get a grip, friend. His face is a mess of pus-encrusted cuts, so thick his eyes are thin little slits, and his chest is covered in sticky foam. He whirls his head around in half circles, staring blindly at nothing, before finally flopping over sideways.

  The children, he says in a garbled voice, slimy green liquid spilling from his mouth. The children!

  —

  When I get to the Pastor, he’s busy, as usual. I keep my distance, hovering at the burrow entrance, picking at the dried-up leaf juice on my chest fur. He’s speaking to a young female, the kind who’ve been born lately with their ears drooping low over their faces. I almost never see females these days, what with them keeping to themselves all the time, clustered in the deepest, most tucked-away burrows. I can’t help but sneak glances at this one. Instead of eyes all I see is a thick yellow crust, and suddenly there’s nothing I want to do more than reach out and scrape it away.

  By turning my head sideways it’s easier to make out the Pastor’s words. It’s very hard, you know, he’s saying right now, for life to turn out the way you want it to. That’s just the nature of things, especially around here lately. But there are different ways for you to deal with it. There are always different choices you can make.

  At this point my skin feels tight; it’s like there are two different pairs of teeth sinking into me, pulling the skin in opposite directions. So I go ahead and saunter in, give the Pastor my very best grin, the same storyteller smile my father used to flash when he’d finish a real crowd-pleaser.

  Pastor, I say. Long time no see.

  He looks me up and down, blinking slowly with those wet black eyes that always remind me of the moldy leaves rotting under the mango trees (trees I haven’t seen for myself in years—when was the last time I went aboveground? When did it last seem worthwhile?). Eyes that linger on my ears, staring long and hard before looking away.

  How are you, the Pastor says flatly. General Junior. Scratching yourself again, I see?

  Don’t call me that.

  From the way his eyes move I can tell that he’s looking at the crumbs of shit on my chest, the clumps of half-chewed leaves. But I don’t even care at this point. Why should I? It’s all I can do to keep myself from wiggling in anxious anticipation, almost bouncing with the knowledge that every word with the Pastor is taking me one step closer to the leaves, like I’m skipping on a trail of stones laid out over a river.

  Well, I say, keeping my eyes politely averted from the female, who’s hunched over by the Pastor, shivering and wordless. You know what I’ve come here for. Old buddy. Old pal. Amigo, compadre, partner in arms, a friend in need…

  Yeah yeah yeah. He scratches a spot by his ear.

  You know, he says, there are too many damn rabbits in this burrow. It’s really starting to drive me crazy. Nobody’s mating anymore—did you know that? Nobody’s fucking, and by nobody I don’t just mean my ugly ass. It’s all falling apart—a real mess. Have you noticed that? Never mind, that’s a stupid question. You and that little crew of yours don’t notice anything.

  Hey, I say, I notice plenty. I saw this one rabbit on the way over here. His face was all cut up.

  Really. Bite marks?

  I can’t help but laugh. What are you saying?

  He sits up and begins cleaning his face.

  I start shaking my head. Come on, Pastor. Rabbits don’t eat other rabbits. That’s not something we do.

  No, the Pastor says, his eyes flickering briefly to the female, as if only just remembering that she’s there. That’s right. It’s not.

  He takes a deep wet breath.

  Well, you’re going to be disappointed. The warren’s all out.

  I don’t say anything.

  That’s right. You heard me. You remember the black garbage bags? Of course you do. Even if you didn’t drag them here yourself you must remember seeing us when you were just a kid, the way we dragged them across the yard, pulling them with our teeth. We don’t usually carry things, you know—some would murmur that it wasn’t normal, that it was unnatural. But your father said we would learn, and that it would be useful to have a store. And you know what, he was right.

  He coughs and a thick clear liquid drips down his chin.

  But it’s gone now. The storerooms are empty. Search all the runs and burrows if you like—it’d take you months, if not a year, but believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

  I still haven’t spoken. There’s a fluttering in my chest, as though I’ve swallowed a winged insect that’s beating weakly at first against my rib cage, then harder and harder, and it’s making me feel like if I don’t find something to shove into my mouth to start chewing, then I’m going to sink my claws into myself and tear the layers of fur off, scratching as deep as I can.

  I don’t even realize that I’ve been backing out until the walls of the burrow exit scrape against my shoulders and the Pastor calls out, Wait—mijo. The human word for “son.”

  I stop in my tracks.

  If you really wanted to, he says, you could get more. He hesitates for a second, lip trembling.

  There’s a way. But you’d have to go to the garage.

  He’s breathing heavily, those huge nostrils of his flaring like the flapping wings of a beetle. The female stirs, moving her mouth as if she’s trying to speak, something thick and pink slowly poking out between her lips.

  Nobody’s done it, the Pastor says. Not in your lifetime. And why would they? What would be the point? His voice sounds angry, as though the thought of it is a terrible insult.

  Well, okay then, I say. That’s fine. That’s great. That’s wonderful. I don’t even know why you’re making it sound like a problem.
Why would going over to the garage be a problem? I don’t see why it would be a problem. You’re making it sound like there’s going to be some kind of problem when there is no problem.

  Junior, the Pastor says, his eyes still big wet pools. You have no idea. You talk too damn much. You’re just like your father—

  Yeah, except he actually had something to say, right?

  The female jumps at how loud my voice is, crouches down and closes her eyes, digging her claws into the dirt. The Pastor doesn’t move. He just sits there blinking until I finally start backing out of the tunnel, as fast as my shaking legs will allow.

  That’s right, he says, turning away so that I glimpse the burns on the other side of his body. You better get going. Before it’s too late.

  Too late for what?

  He doesn’t answer. My eyes slide over to the female one last time. Her tongue is sticking out, so big and pink and thick that for a second I’m confused: How could a rabbit have a tongue that thick and big? As it keeps sliding out of her mouth, I can see the tiny whiskers, the perfectly formed front feet, the miniature ears, and that’s when I realize the dark hole is really one of the baby rabbit’s eyes. Everything that comes out of her mouth after that is so bloody and chewed up and mangled that I start backing out through the tunnel as fast as I can, my forehead pulsing so hard I can feel my ears jerking up like an insect’s antennas. I can hear my jaw clicking, grinding away, searching for leaf pieces that aren’t there anymore but it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, because inside me there’s this tiny glowing light, a faraway exit glimpsed at the end of a long tunnel, and the beating heart in my chest echoes like a voice in my head, and what it’s saying in rhythm to the throbbing blood is more, more, more, soon, soon, soon.

  —

  One last long uphill tunnel. Crumbling soft dirt in my face. And then I’ve done it, I’m outside, blinking in the sunlight at the edge of the swimming pool, bushes with thick pink flowers hanging heavy over my head.