Some of my New York friends were wandering around the beaches of Southern Asia or posting photos of themselves holding dead leopards on safari hunts. Some were in grad school, or writing what passed for cultural criticism on snarky blogs, or starting careers in finance or art, and a few were trying their faces in modeling, putting their familiarity with expensive clothes and nonstop partying to practical use. Some, like Charlie, had simply disappeared. Standing on that slanted deck, I felt like I had been given an opportunity, admission into a world beyond anyone else’s reach. Hadn’t I been trying to do something bigger with my life, something meaningful and real? Selfish or selfless, I was twenty-five. I had been raised on Kitterin profits, cloistered and padded by green groves of money that were cultivated by invisible hands. Surely life could be made better for others or at least eased a bit. Good intentions. How many have ended in imaginary bomb plots?
“I want to help,” I said. I still don’t know how I could have.
THREE WEEKS LATER I flew to New York for my father’s birthday. It was there in his town house, his face creased from an afternoon of smiling, that I recited the list of demands that Rafael, Marisela, and I had spent nights cooking up in my motel room. I presented the proposals under the guise of Kitterin ambassadorship. I exaggerated the growing antagonism for the company in its worker communities, perhaps even bragging of my chaperoned days in El Chorrillo where the gangs hosted cookouts and concerts and were in the process of building a medical-care unit for the elderly. “I’ve spoken directly to Kitterin workers,” I said. “I’ve heard firsthand the conditions we’re exposing them to. Some have actually lost limbs.” Marisela’s idealism was contagious, and only when I recited the mandates in my father’s study, as he sat in his armchair clutching the tufted, pony-skin leather, did I grasp how deluded we actually were: a raise by two dollars a day for all of its factory workers; basic health-care coverage for full-time employees; weekly distributions of food to the poor; the assurance of quality control for all baby food, no matter the regional market—I didn’t get to the day-care facility or sick days or free transportation on the school buses because I realized I had lost my audience. “These aren’t unreasonable requests,” I protested in a high-pitched wail that even I wanted to strangle. “It isn’t threatening the company. It’s assuring its future stability. You aren’t there, Dad. You don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Enough,” he said. “Enough, enough. I don’t own the company, Ian.”
“But you could bring these matters to the board. You must know that Kitterin has a history of health-code violations and environmental lawsuits. These are new problems that can’t be covered up anymore.”
“I sent you to Panama to work for the company, not to investigate it,” he hissed. “God dammit, one simple job.”
We went on, and with each volley my father grew older and I younger until we each reached the age where we were unable to communicate. I returned to Panama, defeated, to find the rainy season over. The trade winds had cleared the storm clouds. The slashing white sun replaced the constant drizzle, and people ran for cover from the blinding light more quickly than they had from the rain.
“It’s okay,” Marisela said consolingly. “At least you spoke of the problems, made them known. It’s a step. Most people don’t dare stick their necks out. Maybe they’re afraid to see how many want to cut their throats.” She seemed friendlier to me after my failed, familial coup, although we gradually slowed on our daily fuck lunches. In the time-honored tradition of the martyr, I surrendered my sex drive. And often, when we were hanging out with Rafael, I noticed the secrets their eyes took on, and I wondered if they had always been a couple. I didn’t call them out on it, because I needed Rafael to take me places I couldn’t go alone.
“So your father didn’t agree to the demands,” Rafael acknowledged. “Now we print them up and distribute them in the church lot.” No matter what we passed out in El Chorrillo, the residents happily accepted it—food, clothes, leaflets on unionizing labor. As much as I began to suspect the futility of our efforts, I enjoyed the warmth of neighborhood interaction, of families rushing from their doors in recognition, of afternoons spent on the slanted deck listening to music and watching young boys play video games. I often heard gunfire and later saw its aftermath, and I was the only one who flinched. The community appreciated our intentions, delighting in the fantasy of higher wages and longer breaks with such glee it seemed as if they were humoring us instead of the other way around. They often invited us into their homes for dinner where candle soot stained blue-marine walls and where black-and-white photographs of great-great-grandfathers digging through bomb-blasted jungle sat beside plaster icons of Mary and cartons of Marlboros smuggled out of the foreigners-only Free Zone in the even more dangerous city of Colón. I never met the leaders of Red Diamond, only their young, pistol-strapped foragers, some of whom helped us pass out our flyers, but Rafael assured me we had their absolute support. On the days I spent alone in the sanitized New City, I missed El Chorrillo’s sticky residue of life. The sun also brought waves of tourists and snowbird retirees to Panama, and the daily newspaper reported muggings and murders—Australian tourist stabbed in the stomach—but they were described in a manner similar to climber deaths on Mount Everest, by brutal unseen forces that were beyond anyone’s control.
When Rafael asked me one April morning to break into Kitterin computer records and print out the monthly profit sheets, I refused. He took the rejection lightly, slapping me on the arm. “You’re right, forget it.” The very next week Marisela was fired from her internship when my boss caught her at the copy machine with confidential sales-report binders. My boss stopped by my cubicle that afternoon, chewing on her lips as she studied my screen.
“How’s it looking for Libra today?” I asked her. She slipped one of the leaflets we had circulated that compared the wages of Panamanian workers to their factory colleagues in Des Moines.
“Do you know anything about this?”
I waited until the next week to tender my resignation, hoping even the short delay would prevent any association. When I called my father to tell him the news, he seemed both aggravated and relieved that I would no longer be on the Kitterin dole. “Now you can commit yourself full-time to your suntan.” I remained at the Royal Decameron Arms and dedicated myself to organizing a clothes drive for El Chorrillo. At my weekly dinner at the mansion, I didn’t mention my resignation and instead invited them to contribute donations to my latest initiative alongside a local journalism student named Marisela Nuñez.
“I’m sure we can wrangle together something,” the woman said. “I can even ask my friends. It’s wonderful that you’re getting so involved.”
When I followed up later with phone calls, the housekeeper reported, so insistently I knew it was scripted, “Señora isn’t here,” “Señora is unavailable,” “Señora would prefer if you didn’t call back.” She might have spoken with my father. Or maybe by then she had seen Marisela Nuñez’s op-ed in the newspaper El Siglo.
Marisela channeled all of her accusations against Kitterin into a thousand-word missive, sharpening the facts into bayonets and indicting upper-management on charges of gross apathy and greed. The following day’s paper printed a notice from Kitterin identifying the writer as a disgruntled intern who had been dismissed for poor performance. Marisela transferred her rage to an anonymous Twitter account, filled with gruesome pictures of on-site injuries, lists of reported baby-food poisonings stretching back to 1973, and one post that chilled me personally: “If Kitterin gets to feed our children, we should be allowed to feed theirs.” The op-ed piece had raised the hackles of Kitterin, but it seemed to traffic little among the workers, who continued on, shift after shift. On the weekends we watched the cruise ships line up at sea and the crimes spike and in the night there were fireworks.
I stayed on, helping where I could, hanging out in El Chorrillo, picking up the tab for lunches with Marisela and Rafael, who chose to sit togeth
er across from me.
“Should we drive into the jungle for the weekend?” I asked. “Or we could organize a boat and visit the San Blas Islands.”
“Everything we’ve done so far means nothing if there’s no next step, no explosion.” Rafael had grown increasingly fidgety and caffeinated, and I wondered if he was dipping into the supply his brother trafficked in the mornings along the promenade. Even his limp was more agitated, like a coffee stirrer whisking around an empty cup. “What we need next is a walkout. A protest outside of the factory.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. None of the workers had asked us to intercede on their behalf and now we were organizing them against their paychecks. In a moment of sanity, I realized the point at which our fantasy home was starting to undermine the value of the neighborhood.
“That’s not practical,” I said. “They’ll all be fired. There is no union here. Kitterin can simply terminate them and hire fresh workers from someplace else.”
“Not practical,” Rafael wheezed. “Who are you to say? What have you really done to help? Do you think a trip to the San Blas Islands will help?”
“I don’t think risking their jobs is helping them,” I screamed in English. “What will they have once they’re unemployed?” I was sick of speaking for people I hardly knew.
“You have a different idea of what a human being is,” Rafael said as he picked his teeth. “You think only in terms of I. Our people will always look out for each other. That’s what you’ll never understand. Red Diamond is there because the community needs it. In this community, there is no individual.” Our order arrived and we said no more.
That night in my room, Marisela tried to kiss me. I moved away.
“Rafael’s insane,” I said. “Whatever I thought I was doing, I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”
“It’s easy for you,” she said stiffly. “You can just go back.”
But I couldn’t, not like before. “Did you ever stop to ask why the gangs have allowed me into El Chorrillo in the first place? Did you ever think that maybe Rafael and his brother wouldn’t mind if everyone lost their jobs and had to rely solely on the charity of Red Diamond? You know what would really be a problem for them? If Kitterin started paying fair wages. Then they’d have no more need for the gangs. A boycotted factory would be a dream come true.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But as she grabbed her bag and left, I could tell my suspicions had taken root.
It all ended quickly. A few evenings later, Marisela, Rafael, and I arrived at the Red Diamond hangout for a party celebrating the high school graduation of a gang member’s sister. There was cake in the boxing room, and kegs and chicken wings on the deck, and pot smoke as thick in the trapped air as the shake of musty curtains. The sight of bullet shells in spilled beer had long stopped surprising me. I knew now that no one here would ever give up their weapons freely, that every day would end in another dead body on the sidewalk, just as another kid’s leg would barricade the door to the room where no one else was allowed to enter. Rafael sat by his brother, crouched gang-style. Marisela was fixing her hair in a cracked mirror. An inch of black had grown against the fuchsia. There was no air-conditioning, and the humidity was reaching a savage stillness, where just being around other warm bodies hurt. I could hear the punches on the leather bag down the hall, thwak, thwak, young muscles fatiguing on strokes of violence. They would hit harder tomorrow.
“A bomb,” Rafael taunted. “That would get their attention.”
“Sure,” Axel agreed. “We got the dynamite. But the workers, Raf. You can’t kill them. I don’t care what you say.”
I thought Rafael was joking. I spun around to gauge his expression. He wasn’t joking. He was nodding, as if he had it all figured out.
“No, we do it at night. There’s one hour between shifts. One A.M. No one’s there but a few managers. We bomb it then. Won’t kill any of our own.”
Marisela stopped fastening her barrette.
“Good-bye factory.”
“You’re crazy, Flaco. Smart but crazy.” Axel yanked his brother’s ear. Rafael shoved his hand away.
“You don’t believe I’d do it? I’ll do it. And no one will see. You just lend me a little backup. A few guys and a truck is all I need.”
Axel nodded, either in quiet agreement or because he knew that any response only encouraged his brother. I grabbed Marisela by the arm and dragged her out into the hall.
“I want to leave right now,” I demanded.
“But it’s dark, and the—”
“I want to go home!”
We held our breath until we reached the car. We drove back to the New City in silence. Only after I opened my door in the KFC parking lot did Marisela lean over and speak.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and once again I gave those words credence. I believed she was sorry. “You were right about Rafael. He is insane.”
The next morning the police raided the Red Diamond hangout and arrested Axel and a few other minor, forfeitable members on collusion to plant an explosive device. None of the leaders of Red Diamond were touched. I wasn’t sure if Marisela was questioned, because she stopped responding to my texts. I didn’t place the call to the authorities, although I’m sure many suspected that I had. Maybe it was Marisela. But my guess is that the police had informants on the inside in case El Chorrillo violence ever threatened to spill beyond the neighborhood. I packed my bags and phoned the airline. As dusk was settling over the New City, I heard a tap at my window. I opened the curtains and found Rafael standing on the other side of the pane.
“I need to borrow some money,” he pleaded. There were tears in his eyes. “Please. I need money. Just to get north for a while. Until it all settles down.”
I didn’t want to help him, just as I knew that he didn’t want to ask for my help. But I was more afraid of him sought by the police than I was of him bragging in front of his brother. We walked together to KFC, and I went inside to use their ATM. Near the outdoor table, I handed him two hundred dollars. He stared at it, tapped his crippled foot on the ground, and asked for more. I went back inside and handed him two hundred more dollars. He folded the bills and tucked them into his shirt pocket.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “You won’t be seeing me.” He seemed to expect me to give him a hug.
“I’m leaving too,” I replied.
“Yeah.” His tongue poked at his cheek as he scanned the avenue for cars. “Did you enjoy your vacation in Panama?”
As I began to walk away, he called after me.
“You know how I got my foot like this? Your father’s plant.”
I turned. “What? You worked there as an infant? Or are you blaming it on baby food. Jesus.” I almost muttered you people, but I stopped myself.
He smiled angrily. “My mother worked there, the whole time she was pregnant with me. Eleven hours a day, no time off, like a slave with no rest, until she got sick, and she still worked up until the minute I came out. She’s dead now.” I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure he was even telling the truth, but the guilt flared nonetheless. “Thanks for the money,” he said, patting his pocket. “You should go home. You’re better off.”
Rafael was caught the next day in Colón just as I was settling my bill at the Royal Decameron Arms. I’m not sure if he was the one who implicated me—once again, it could have been Marisela—but the city newspaper ran my name and photo as an accessory in a yearlong gang-related campaign to destabilize Kitterin among its workers that ended in a bomb plot. The police never questioned me, either because being within earshot of a man boasting of bombs didn’t register as a crime for an American or because Kitterin called in a favor for one of its own. Until a blog in the States picked up the article two weeks later, I assumed it was another mistake I had left behind.
I put my luggage in the trunk of the taxi. The palm trees swayed like drunk, restless girls, and racks of sunscreen lined the sidewalk. The driver made the sign of a plane
taking off with the palm of his hand. “That’s right,” I said. “Today’s the day.”
My father made baby food. I would have to live with that fact. I went back to New York.
CHAPTER 5
Dreams.
I am one degree from nothing. The sea is placid, we have swallowed our valuables for safekeeping, but we are on high alert for pirates in the waves. A woman next to me is puking rubies and emeralds. Now I am a man in a suit pressed against a gate. Rough grasses blow in circles in the field, and there are goats grazing through it for the first time. Somewhere is the sound of a saw purring, maybe inside one of the goats’ heads. Whales that are planes drop from the sky into the water, filled with people ooooohhh-ing. This needs to happen: the lessening. I don’t have the number to call, to tell them it’s over, they can stop now. The goats, but I need to speak to an ambassador. My feet are not guilty, but the path is guilty and I wander down it to the shore. Louise is pulling off her bathing suit, she’s got the rubber suit halfway down, her arms digging like shovels at her waist, and she laughs so I know it is okay. “Come,” she says, “closer, close.”
I wake to the sound of a truck pulling up outside the cabin. Light moves aquatically across the ceiling, and dust motes Milky Way through it. The patio door is scythe-blade-streaked with glass cleaner. The sordid complications of dreams concede even to the bareness of a guest room, its white walls, its Lucite chairs, like a thumping, all-night party that goes magically still at dawn. I can’t imagine a dream so tenacious, so portal-hopping, it could convince a man to desert his family and move to the opposite side of the Earth. But isn’t that exactly what Sonny said happened with the psychologist pedophile from Chicago? Still, my dream was loud with color and there was a grip of captivity to it, as if I’ve just been released from a rockslide or a hot car on a hot day. I try to remember more but only catch the tail end, Louise in her bathing suit on the shore.
I was too tired last night to invite Louise into my room. On the taxi ride from Chora, her head on my shoulder, she gave an abridged version of her life in the past decade: she bounced around cities like Boston, Dallas, and San Francisco, taking temporary restaurant jobs, always returning to Lexington, always putting off the inevitable graduate school that ghosted her like a police cruiser on the highway, just waiting for her to break the speed limit to pull her over and return her to the sanity of a reliable order. Louise left me on the steps with a kiss on the cheek. She’s now probably fifteen feet from me, her hip bones tipped against her mattress like a conch shell, her airplane reservation back to America tucked in the pocket of her suitcase. How can I compete with the entire continent of her life back home in the little time we have on this island?
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