The Things They Didn't Bury

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  Liliana pulled her shirtsleeve over her fingertips and wiped her nose, turning her face from him. Diego leaned forward instinctively, closing the space between them for just a second before he changed his mind and sat back.

  “If you don’t want to go tonight, I can take you tomorrow,” he said.

  She shook her head and Diego waited a moment before starting the engine.

  “Are you sure?” he said, reaching out to her with every invisible part of himself. His hand was desperately trying to will itself to slide across the seat between them and rest on Liliana’s skin. But it wouldn’t budge.

  “I’m fine,” Liliana said, “really. Let’s go.”

  Neither of them said another word until they finally stopped at a building just off the main road. There were large semi-trucks parked along the back and a faint orange light streaming from inside slid through the hinges, outlining the doorway. The bar looked like the carcass of some wild beast, all bare bones and grey; thrown in a heap on the side of the road. The door swung open and two shadows came tumbling down the front steps, their loud assault on the night cut by gunshots and dry voices. Liliana’s fingernails dug into the foam of her seat.

  “We’re going in there?”

  Diego looked at her with playful concern. “We’re not in the states,” he said, “we’re in Argentina, the wild.”

  Her eyes feigned fierceness for a moment before slipping back to a placid cautiousness and Diego tried to hide his smile. The man holding the rifle was Louis Paz. He was the father of Diego’s best friend, Marcos, and he was shooting blanks.

  Diego stepped out of the truck and Liliana slid out behind him, the wind catching the door and slamming it shut. Liliana jumped and Diego was surprised at how quickly her boldness had evaporated. A cold wind bit at Diego through his clothes as he made out the dark swirling outline of a thunderstorm. The wind pulled at them, uninhibited and suddenly Diego’s fingers were hooked around Liliana’s wrist, pulses warm and erratic against each other as he led her up the steps of the bar and out of the cold.

  “Diego Montoya Vargas, where the hell you been?”

  A tall and stringy guy in a t-shirt splattered with grease stains jumped down from the bar.

  “You came to play or what?” he said.

  Then he spotted Liliana, shuddering and shielded behind Diego’s shoulder.

  “I guess you don’t really need to,” he laughed.

  “Liliana, this is Marcos.”

  Marcos took Liliana by the hand and led her through the crowd of high school dropouts and unconscious truck drivers.

  “So you guys on some kind of date? I hate to tell you this but my friend Diego is,”

  “Is what?” Diego smirked.

  “Not me.”

  “So you mean I’m not an asshole,” Diego huffed.

  “No, but you’re a dick. So where’d you find this one?”

  Diego ignored Marcos. “We came to see if we could talk to Drigo.”

  “Drigo? What the hell for?”

  Diego scanned the crowded bar. “It’s busy tonight,” he said. “Can we talk in the back?”

  Marcos led them behind the bar and into the kitchen. The space was narrow but Marco’s father Louis had still managed to fit a green plastic card table near a low window. Someone was sitting on the windowsill facing the glass and when he heard their footsteps he slipped outside through a heavy metal door. Louis, all 300 pounds of him, was straddling an old wooden stool and shuffling a deck of cards. His shotgun was leaning against the wall in front of him.

  “Found some tourists.” Marcos’ voice swelled in the small space.

  “Better not be more of those potheads from the University,” Louis said as he turned to face them.

  When he saw Diego he laughed, sticking out his hand, But when Diego stepped forward, reaching for it, the man yanked on his arm, spinning him around until he had him in a headlock. Marcos laughed and Louis loosened his grip just long enough to sprawl Diego, stomach first, over his knee.

  “You owe me forty bucks you piece of shit.”

  Then he pushed Diego back onto his feet before stumbling over to a closet. When he came back he handed Diego a guitar.

  ***

  Louis, Marcos, and Liliana squeezed behind the bar as Diego dragged his feet toward a bar stool at the far end of the room.

  “I thought he didn’t play in public,” Liliana said.

  “Oh you mean because of Andrés?” Marcos asked.

  “Who?”

  “His dad.”

  Liliana nodded.

  “He doesn’t exactly get out much. Did Diego tell you his parents were musicians? They used to play all over town, even played here a couple of times, before Marina left and Andrés went crazy.” Marcos popped the top off a beer and pulled it to his lips. “That’s how Diego and I met. When we were small enough we used to crawl underneath the bar stools and look up girl’s skirts.”

  Marcos pinched his bottom lip and sent a sharp whistle in Diego’s direction before taking another drink of his beer.

  “People, they miss Andrés and Marina, they love when Diego plays for them because it’s almost like old times. In exchange for the trip down memory lane, nobody mentions it to his dad.”

  Diego sat down and hiked his feet up against the legs of the stool. He pulled the strap over his shoulder and plucked a few strings.

  “Shit, you couldn’t at least tune it for me?” he called out over the crowd.

  “You’re the expert,” Marcos yelled.

  Diego’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling as one hand plucked each string and the other methodically twisted the silver tuning pegs, coaxing out the perfect sound. Satisfied, he let his hand fall across every string before nodding at Marcos and Louis.

  “Alright, this is for the cock suckers at the bar,” he yelled.

  Marcos clapped and gave him the finger. Then Diego started to play and suddenly his strumming was accompanied by the sound of chair legs scraping across the floor as people turned to face him. The drunken ones started clapping and a few started to yell, tossing their heads back, rolling and clicking their tongues. The notes began to swell, picking up speed and Diego drummed along the wooden face of the guitar with his knuckles.

  He was hunched over, his arms pumping out each note and rocking the stool off its hind legs. It looked as if he might fall over but every time the stool seemed like it was about to fly out from underneath him, the wooden legs would slam back down into the floor in perfect rhythm. Everyone in the bar was sitting at an angle, shoulders rolled forward, elbows slung over knees—their bodies stretched out towards the music and their eyes, already glazed by alcohol, made them seem like they were in some kind of trance.

  Marcos and Louis abandoned Liliana behind the bar and carried shiny aluminum tip jars through the crowd of people, the sound of coins bouncing off the metal bottom catching Diego’s attention, enticing his fingers toward an even more complicated melody. They hung there between music and mysticism—every note trapped in the low end as the people watching held their breath.

  Their rumbling slowed, cut only by a few drunken wails and sporadic clapping. Diego put one foot on the ground to steady himself, the rubber sole of his boot gripping him against the concrete floor. His lids were drawn, eyes behind them dancing as he wielded each note like the fine end of a brush, leading the cante to fruition.

  Then he opened his eyes, fingers lingering as they descended over every steel string—the vibrations casted off into silence, and then he collapsed, slumping into his seat, sweat trailing down his forearm and onto the worn wood.

  ***

  In the kitchen, Diego followed Marcos to the storage closet to grab some extra chairs, Liliana close on his heels until they reached the door.

  “So, really, man what’s the deal with her?” Marcos whispered when they were inside and out of her earshot.

  Diego quickly glanced over his shoulder. “Boss’ daughter.”


  “Ahuh,” Marcos huffed, “you sure that’s it?”

  “It’s work. That’s it.”

  “Well she’s hot and she’s got that whole American accent thing going on. You mind if I…”

  “Go to hell Marcos.”

  Marcos laughed and slapped Diego on the shoulder. “I knew it,” Marcos said as he handed Diego a stack of chairs. “Just work my ass,” he mumbled.

  They unfolded the chairs around a small card table where Louis was already pouring the contents of the tip jars across the plastic surface and counting the money. Mixed in with the cash and coins were a few cigarette butts and some used napkins. Something dark and lacy spilled out from the jar. Marcos lightly pinched the fabric between his pointer finger and his thumb.

  “What the hell, man, you don’t even have to buy them dinner and you still get them out of their…”

  “You know what? I think I’ll let you keep those,” Diego cut him off.

  But Marcos didn’t seem to hear Diego’s quip. He was peering out of the dust-covered window, looking for the faint red glow of a cigarette butt.

  “Zalo out there again?” Marcos asked Louis.

  Louis nodded and turned to Diego. “He’s been doing that lately, goes outside like he’s about to light up a cigarette and then just keeps walking until he can’t see the lights anymore.”

  Louis patted one of the empty chairs, motioning for Diego to sit down.

  “He’ll be back, just leave that door unlocked, Marcos.”

  Marcos jiggled the handle, testing it, before he sat down.

  “They’re looking for Drigo,” he said nodding toward Liliana.

  “Liliana’s looking for some people who knew her mom,” Diego said. “One of them was in the ERP. Drigo was the only person I could think of who might know something about that.”

  “The ERP? What are you two working for the devil or something?” Louis looked at Liliana. “You some kind of grim reaper?”

  Liliana’s face flushed with a pale vacancy and Louis laughed.

  “You might be right, man. To find a ghost I guess you’d have to be a ghost. Drigo will know.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Not here.”

  “Not here? Where’d he go? I thought he was always here.”

  “He is always here. Calm down, he just went into town for some stuff for the bar. He should be back in an hour.”

  “Do you want to wait?”

  Diego turned to Liliana and she nodded.

  “What about Zalo?”

  Louis and Marcos groaned in unison.

  “Why not?”

  “Zalo…he hasn’t been doing too good.”

  “Yeah, he’s always been creepy as shit but it’s like he’s getting worse,” Marcos added as he peered out of the window again.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Liliana spoke up.

  The only sound that filled the tiny space was the buzz from the porch light outside. Louis shook his head.

  “What’s not wrong with him?” Marcos said with a weak laugh.

  “Towards the end of the war, there were a lot more women and young girls disappearing for no reason,” Diego started warily. “Zalo’s niece was one of them. There was talk that they were being sold.”

  “Like prostitution?” Liliana asked.

  Diego nodded.

  “Zalo found out where one of the ‘sorting houses’ was,” Louis added, “where they decided which girls were going where. It was in a big abandoned warehouse just outside the city and below the warehouse was one of their clubs. The front of the club was just like a regular bar but when clients would come in they would bring the girls out for them to see and then they’d pick one to take to one of the other rooms. Zalo found out there were even a few musicians who played there and that’s when he applied for a job.”

  “He pretended to be blind so that there would be no reason to suspect him of spying,” Diego said. “He even went so far as to change the physical appearance of his eyes. I have no idea what he did to them, or how, but he fooled all of them and they hired him. He would wear dark sunglasses every night while he played that way his eyes could wander all around the room looking for girls who had been taken. Family members of the disappeared would give him photos of their daughters and sisters and nieces and he would memorize their faces so that if he saw them at the club he could let the families know that they were still alive.”

  “What happened when he recognized some of them at the club? Did he help them escape?”

  “Well he would tell the families and since every girl at the club was for sale, for the right price, the families had the chance to buy them back. A male relative would take the money to the club and pretend he just wanted to buy his own personal prostitute and if he had enough money there was a chance that he could buy back whoever had been taken.”

  “That’s amazing. How many people did he save doing that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t imagine what kind of fucked up shit he saw when he was there,” Marcos cut in, “and all of the times that he had to just sit by and watch, otherwise they would have killed him too and then he wouldn’t have been able to help anyone else. With all of that on his conscious it’s no wonder he can never sleep.”

  At that moment Zalo’s silhouette passed by the window, his dark frame slinking inside as they all fell silent. Diego could sense the moment Liliana saw his eyes for the first time and he heard the breath she had been taking catch inside her throat. She stiffened.

  His eyes were small like an animal’s and the raw skin around them was dark, flushes of red carved along his lash line. His pupils were black and bleeding into the irises, the white’s of his eyes dull and grey. It wasn’t until he blinked that you could be certain there was any life in them. Zalo seemed to feel the heat of Liliana’s eyes on him and something like a wince cut between his teeth as if he had been burned. When he finally met her gaze, Diego watched as something strange flashed across his expression, as if her face had shaken him loose, as if it had triggered something dark inside of him. Louis was speaking to him but it was as if he couldn’t hear them. His lips, shaking, began to pull in air, but before he could form any words, Louis had him by one of his shoulders and was shaking him.

  “What the hell Zalo, you look like you seen a fuckin’ ghost.”

  Zalo rubbed his palms on his knees and tried to huff out a reassuring laugh. He blamed his moment of mental absence on his lack of sleep before moving to sit down across from Liliana and Diego.

  She turned away from him and Diego could feel her knees pushing into the side of his thigh. When he felt her skin sliding across his pant leg, his fingers crept toward her but instead of touching her he balled up his fists and tried to get the conversation back on track.

  “She’s looking for someone,” Diego said, motioning to Liliana, “some people who knew her mother.”

  “Who was your mother?” Zalo suddenly said.

  “Isabella Ruiz Serrano. She was killed in the war.”

  “So you’re not looking for her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t, Zalo,” Diego stopped him.

  “What is he talking about?” Liliana said.

  “Nothing. I’m just some kind of fucking lunatic. Haven’t they told you already?” Zalo stood and kicked his chair out of the way before heading out into the bar.

  “Who are you looking for?” Louis said, his voice low and apologetic.

  “Trinidad Suarez and Adrian Monroe,” Liliana said.

  “Trinidad…Trinidad, you mean Trini?” Louis asked.

  “So you know her,” Diego said.

  “I knew her. That was back when the ERP was trying to lay down a spot. The Montoneros had The Mill and the rabbit houses and the ERP wanted their own hang out for making their bombs and hit lists and shit. They tried to meet here for a while but that wasn’t going to happen. But I remember her. There weren’t many young girls runnin’ around with those guys but she was always
with some stick of a thing, tall and greasy. Hardly a man at all.”

  “What happened to them? Do you know?”

  “Who Trini and that guy? Probably went underground. They all had to after a while.”

  “Underground…” Liliana cut in.

  “Yeah, you know, into hiding. They had to spread out, too, so that the junta couldn’t track their numbers.”

  A steel door at the far side of the kitchen swung open and a man wheeled in a stack of cardboard boxes on a dolly.

  “There’s Drigo,” Marcos said and waved him over.

  Drigo was a tall man with a long thin face. His cheekbones jutted out from beneath his wrinkled skin and his large eyes were sunken into deep plum sockets. He was wearing a long black raincoat that glistened like it was made of oil.

  “Drigo,” Marcos said, “got a minute?”

  Drigo shook his coat over the sink and laid it on the counter.

  “You got a chair or am I gonna have to pull up a tree stump,” he said looking at everyone on their makeshift seats.

  “Take mine,” Marcos said.

  “This is Liliana, a friend of Diego’s. She’s looking for someone, an old ERP member. Name’s Adrian Monroe. He had a girlfriend named Trini. You know ‘em?”

  Drigo pulled a cigarette from his pocket and pursed it between his lips. He glanced up at the ceiling.

  “Monroe,” he said quietly to himself. “Monroe, yeah I know him. Not much of him to know anymore. Went a little off the edge after the war.”

  “Do you know if he’s still alive,” Liliana said.

  “Barely.” The word floated out, trapped in the smoke from Drigo’s cigarette.

  “Where?”

  “Vines. Somewhere on Vines. I think in those apartments.”

  Chapter 19

  Diego

  “What did Zalo mean about looking for my mother?” Liliana said when they were back in the truck.

  Diego could feel Liliana’s eyes trained on the side of his face, could practically hear the gears spinning behind them. He shook his head.