Border Child

by Michel Stone

  Diego held a bottle of tamarind juice, its contents half consumed. He tipped it up and finished it off, and Héctor wished he had something cold and sweet to drink. “So these guys I know,” Diego said, setting the empty bottle on the table, “they may have work for you if you’re a good match, Héctor. They’re fishermen.”

  Héctor wanted to ask Diego about his diving, how he mustered such courage and how long he’d been diving from these cliffs. Had he just jumped on a whim one day and liked the experience, or had he practiced on lesser cliffs somewhere up or down the coastline?

  Héctor glanced at Emanuel, but Emanuel kept his eyes on Diego. Emanuel had facilitated this meeting with Diego with the slim possibility something might work out for Héctor, whatever it would be, but otherwise Emanuel seemed as uncertain about the details as did Héctor.

  “I can fish,” Héctor said. “I grew up on the coast.” But even as he said this he doubted he understood fully what was being presented to him.

  “I’m sure. Of course you can,” Diego said, nodding, looking as if he could walk away from this conversation and jump from the nearest cliff or stay right here and talk about fishing or shady dealings, and none of it would elevate his pulse.

  Diego wore a thin, hooded sweatshirt, unzipped with no shirt beneath it. The sleeves had been cut off, leaving tattered edges. A bead of sweat or seawater rolled down his bare chest. Somehow the outfit seemed wrong to Héctor, and he wished Diego wore something more elaborate and flashy, something to indicate to passersby that the famed cliff diver of La Quebrada was in their presence. No one would give Diego a second glance in that attire, and this disappointed Héctor. Diego was Héctor’s first encounter with a famous personality, and he wished the meeting involved more fanfare.

  “My little girl’s been taken from me,” Héctor said, unsure what details Emanuel had given Diego. “I’ll do anything to get her back. If you have a job I’ve never done, I’ll learn how to do it. I’m a quick study, and I need to make enough money to hunt for my daughter, however long the search takes.” He wanted to sound brave, but even as he spoke he knew he could never dive from a cliff, knew he’d never have hordes of strangers cheering for him and snapping photos of him to take back to their homes far away. No one had ever called him “Héctor the Magnificent,” and he realized how weak and despairing he must sound to this courageous and revered athlete and even to Emanuel.

  “The guys I know are fishermen, like I said. I can’t tell you what other endeavors they may undertake, but they have asked me about reliable, short-term help. My father’s company has delivery trucks, you know? Emanuel drives one. That’s an easy way to get supplies moved. These guys, on occasion, have asked to use a little space in the trucks.” Diego scratched his temple like all this explaining wore him thin.

  “Héctor’s crossed la línea and come back, so he’s seen some things, you know?” Emanuel said. “You can trust him. Set him up with your friends, and maybe this connection will be mutually beneficial.”

  Héctor had hated Emanuel for so long that hearing him speak on his behalf left Héctor uneasy, as if everything in this world stood imperceptibly off-kilter, and the sum total of the shifting left a terrifying and strange disorder.

  No, if God were to craft Héctor into a bird, he’d make him a useless yellow-eyed blackbird living off man’s trash. Diego would race the world’s shores as a shearwater or some other great and powerful creature, but Héctor? He could never be so bold, even as a bird.

  Emanuel pulled his cap down low and looked away. Héctor caught a hint of a grin as Emanuel turned, and his old distrust of Emanuel stirred.

  Diego stood. “So I’ll talk to these guys. I’ll tell them you’re interested in short-term work. No guarantees.”

  He raised his closed hand and bumped fists first with Emanuel then with Héctor, before turning and walking away, the back of his sweatshirt boasting in red lettering: DIEGO THE MAGNIFICENT. Héctor prayed a quick and silent prayer: “God, let his magnificence be so.”

  Chapter 13

  Emanuel

  Héctor’s eyes shone bright, alert, and he could not stand still, like a child in need of taking a piss.

  “So, Héctor,” Emanuel said. “This job, I’m sure, involves fishing, but these guys Diego knows…I suspect the work entails more than catching snapper and baiting hooks for vacationers.”

  “Okay. Then what’s the work? I just need to raise enough cash to get me to Matamoros and do whatever I have to do to find and retrieve my little girl,” Héctor said, his willingness seeping from him like cheap cologne applied with zest.

  Emanuel sat on the edge of his bed and tossed a thin blanket and pillow to Héctor. He longed for sleep and was unaccustomed to houseguests except for an occasional visit from Ana María. Diego had sent word from the fisherman that Héctor should be at the dock the following afternoon.

  “I’m not going to guess what the work is, man. You’ll find out soon enough. You know, Héctor, this isn’t Puerto Isadore,” he said, reaching for the lamp.

  “What’s that mean?” Héctor said.

  Emanuel shifted in his bed, weary of Héctor’s company. “It means, I know you lived in el norte, so maybe you’ve seen things I never have. But Acapulco is not so simple like your village. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Héctor rustled in the darkness, settling into his makeshift bed. Emanuel waited for more questions. When none came, he said, “Life here is fast paced. Not all people are good, you know? This isn’t a backward-ass village like Puerto Isadore.”

  “All people aren’t good anywhere you go, not just here,” Héctor said.

  Emanuel recalled the way Lilia had spoken of Héctor when he’d left her behind in Puerto Isadore and headed to the border, how she believed in her husband’s dreams even when Emanuel had promised that he could take better care of her and that he’d never abandon her for el norte. For the first time, Emanuel saw a similarity between Lilia and Héctor, but the characteristics that made Lilia so desirable, aside from her physical beauty, were her trusting nature and childlike simplicity, and these traits were ill suited in a man. They made Héctor seem like a fool.

  “I’m going to sleep,” Emanuel said.

  “Hey, thanks for hooking me up with these guys, Emanuel.”

  “It’s nothing,” Emanuel said, grateful for the darkness, the day’s end, and rest.

  Why Lilia had chosen Héctor over him, he could not understand.

  Chapter 14

  Héctor

  Diego had told him the boats arrived from their charters around four or four thirty in the afternoon, and so Héctor found his way to the marina at three thirty and watched with great curiosity as boats of varying sizes eased into their moorings, their occupants windblown and colored by the sun. The boats were fancier than the skiffs he was accustomed to seeing in the bay at Puerto Isadore, and he wondered if fishermen on boats such as these were luckier than those who fished from simple skiffs. Could the fish know what type of vessel bobbed above them in the sea?

  He walked the dock reading the names on the boats as they arrived. Diego had said the name of the boat was Gabriela de la Costa, and so this was the name he searched for among the vessels. When he saw her he was not disappointed, though he couldn’t imagine any boat that would disappoint here. A larger man steered the Gabriela toward the dock while another leaner one prepared lines for securing her. A couple sat on the bow as if relaxing or simply staying out of the men’s way.

  Héctor continued his meandering about the waterfront, giving the men time to secure the mooring and settle up with their clients. Several curious seagulls flitted along the dock, eager for leftover bait tossed aside by fishermen. Héctor made his way down the marina and back at a leisurely pace, though doing so took great restraint. He watched the men as they shook hands with the couple and accepted payment from them for the day spent fishing. Héctor could not tell at that distance, of course, how much the couple paid. The day was bright with only a slight breeze, and Héct
or could imagine far worse ways to make a living than drifting on the clear Pacific, rigging lines and chatting with new friends about the weather and fish and the sea.

  “How’s it going?” Héctor said, approaching the boat.

  “Good. You?” The thinner man spoke as he sprayed blood and bits of fish from the hull. The heavier man heaved a large blue-gray fish from a white cooler and flopped it onto the dock.

  Héctor extended a hand to the big man who was nearer him than the thin man and whose hands were now free but slick with fish.

  “Diego sent me,” Héctor said. “I’m Héctor. Diego said you might have some work for me.”

  “Ignacio,” the large man said, shaking Héctor’s hand. “Yeah, Diego mentioned you.” He turned and went back to work, putting packs of little baitfish into a small red cooler of ice. “That’s Santiago,” he said, motioning toward his thin counterpart.

  Santiago glanced up, coiling the hose he’d used to spray out the boat. “What’s up, Héctor? You’re pals with Diego the Magnificent, eh?”

  The thought of being a friend of the famous Diego seemed strange. Could he really say yes, they were pals, after only meeting him once? “We’ve met,” Héctor said. “He knows a guy I know from my village, Emanuel.”

  “He knows a guy you know,” Santiago said in a voice as free of emotion as the dead fish.

  “Yes, my friend works for Diego’s dad in Acapulco. I grew up down the coast from here. Puerto Isadore. I’ve done some fishing, though never on a boat this nice. I’m a quick learner. If you can use me.”

  Ignacio slipped a long, thin blade from a sheath on his belt. He knelt beside the fish and turned it so its large, square head was at his knee. Héctor had never gutted such a fish and wondered about its weight and what kind it was.

  “You ever caught dorado?” Ignacio said, inserting the point of the knife into the fish, just behind its large, glazed eye.

  “No,” Héctor admitted, wishing he could say yes. “How much does that one weigh?”

  “He’s a good ten kilograms, eh, Santiago?” Ignacio said, gliding the knife down the fish’s side as if it were nothing but water.

  Santiago shrugged. “Eight or ten, yeah,” he said.

  After Ignacio had cut the length of the fish just beneath its spine, he brought the blade around to its yellow belly, making a parallel cut. He lifted a long pink fillet from the carcass. “How about that?” he said, grinning. “Sweetest fish there is.”

  Judging by Ignacio’s belly, Héctor trusted his opinion.

  Ignacio flipped the fish over and repeated the cutting pattern on its other side. In a moment, two thick fillets were on ice in the large cooler. He tossed the remains of the fish overboard, and before it had drifted or sunk from sight four squawking gulls descended, pecking at and fighting over the carcass.

  Santiago dug two cans of Pacifico beer from deep in the cooler beneath the fish fillets and passed one to Héctor. “So you think you’re cut out to be a fisherman?” he said.

  Héctor wanted to say that he was cut out to be anything he put his mind to being. “Sure,” he said, accepting the cold can and wondering what Diego had told them about Alejandra and why he needed this short-term work.

  “Ignacio and I run the boat, and we only need an extra hand on occasion, you understand, when one of us can’t be here,” Santiago said.

  “But we may have some work coming up,” Ignacio said. “A job or two when we can’t both be there, so we need to have someone on standby, you know. To help when needed.”

  Héctor sipped the icy beer. While this sounded as if, yes, Ignacio and Santiago could employ him, the offer, if this was an offer, didn’t sound like the plentiful, quick money he’d been hoping to make. “Okay,” he said.

  Santiago took a seat on the cooler. His arms and legs were sinewy, as if he were nothing but bone, ropes of muscle, and sun-blackened skin. Both men wore sunglasses and caps.

  “Some days we stay close to shore, bottom-fishing, depending what the paying customers want, you see?” Santiago said. “On those days we fish for snapper. Sometimes roosterfish. But most days, like today, we go offshore and troll for dorado, sailfish, marlin, tuna, wahoo, the bigger fish.”

  “The snapper are delicious and plentiful, but they’re not so sexy like the big fish,” Ignacio said.

  Héctor nodded. He could understand that. He’d seen the fishermen from his village walking home from the pier on late afternoons and sometimes into the evenings. Some days they carried their catches, the big fish, and on those days he most admired them. A basket of snapper was pretty, would feed a family, and perhaps make the fishermen money when the café owner bought them, but a big fish—that made for an imposing sight.

  “These norteamericanos, they like to take photos of themselves holding their big Mexican catches, you know? But sometimes they fear seasickness, and so we stay close to land and bottom-fish,” Santiago said.

  “So sometimes we don’t know our schedule until the day before we go out. The people book their charters with us through their hotels. Other times we know a few days ahead of time. Tomorrow we’re taking two people offshore.”

  Héctor nodded and sipped his beer.

  “Why don’t you go tomorrow with Santiago?” Ignacio said. “I’ve got some shit I need to do, and you can get a feel for the Gabriela.” He looked to Santiago and added, “Hey, Santiago, we’ll find out if Héctor here has sea legs.”

  “No puking on the Gabriela,” Santiago said. “Hang it overboard, man, but don’t lose your breakfast on my boat.”

  “I’ll be here,” Héctor said. “And I won’t puke in your boat.” He’d never experienced seasickness, and he wondered if it could be controlled by sheer will. If a man could stave off the vomiting by determination and pure resolve, then he knew he’d not suffer the seasickness.

  “You’ll mostly work for tips and sometimes fish when the customers don’t want to keep them. We’ll pay you a little bit per trip, too, if this works out,” Ignacio said.

  Héctor wondered what kind of tips the norteamericanos paid. He couldn’t imagine the tips would be the kind of quick money he’d hoped for, and he didn’t want to spend months in Acapulco when every day Alejandra could be getting farther and farther from him.

  “What kind of tips?” Héctor said. “I’ll be grateful for any, you understand, but it’s just that as I discussed with Diego, I’ve a little bit of an emergency situation. Please understand, I know we just met and of course I’ll work hard…”

  Santiago and Ignacio looked at each other.

  “I need to make money, decent money, to get me toward the border as soon as possible. I lost my daughter there, and I believe she may still be there somewhere. I need to earn enough to travel there and search for her.”

  Santiago stood, finished his beer, then crushed the can and tossed it back into the fish cooler. He cleared his throat but said nothing, and Héctor feared he’d been too pushy with these men.

  “So we’ll see how everything goes tomorrow,” Ignacio said. “And then we may have a little riskier work, something a little more labor intensive, and if we do, and you’re up for it, we’ll discuss it, and maybe that work will pay you the kind of money you need to move on in this journey of yours.”

  “Okay,” Héctor said, unsure what else to say.

  “Be here tomorrow morning by five thirty,” Santiago said.

  Héctor thanked them and assured the men he’d be on time. As he walked along the waterfront a yellow-bellied sea snake undulated beside the dock before slipping beneath the water’s surface, diving deep. He’d seen such snakes in the waters off Puerto Isadore, and he knew their venom could be deadly. How odd nature’s allure could be. If he didn’t know better, he’d like to scoop up such a brilliantly colored creature and keep him in a large jar of seawater like sunshine on a cloudy day. But he did know better, and he understood that sometimes the prettiest of creatures were deceptive in their attractiveness. He hoped he’d always be able to discern the dif
ference between benevolent and malevolent beings.

  Héctor turned from the marina and began the walk into the hills toward Emanuel’s apartment. He wondered if the riskier job Ignacio mentioned would take him far out to sea and if a whale could flip a boat, and what the job would pay him, and he hoped he would not vomit in the Gabriela, or in the great Pacific, or anywhere.

  Chapter 15

  Lilia

  Though Lilia had been through two pregnancies already, everything about the process remained mysterious and uncertain. Perhaps such was God’s plan, that no matter how many babies a woman delivered, each pregnancy would be a singular, special event with its own set of concerns and circumstances.

  Héctor had been gone more than a week now, and though she did not worry as much about his safety as she had when he’d left their village for el norte, the uncertainty of their lives weighed on her in an unexpected way. She told herself that this separation was different from the last, that this time she’d been left with an active and curious two-year-old instead of an infant, and that last time her grandmother had been alive and of great help to her. But now Fernando gave her little rest, and her blossoming belly kept her ill and always tired.

  Each morning at sunrise and again before settling into bed at night, Lilia held her rosary and uttered prayers to Jesus Christ, to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and to San Cristóbal, the patron saint of travelers, asking for Héctor’s safety. Then she would light incense, just as her grandmother Crucita had always done, as an offering to the local gods to appease them and ask that they protect Héctor and allow him safe passage through unfamiliar territory. These worries, along with her weary body, left little room for other concerns.