The Infinite

by Nicholas Mainieri

  She started with the car ride, the cross fire, and her abduction.

  “Cicatriz and his men ripped off what we assume was a cartel supply truck,” Garza offered, “six days ago, south of here, in the manner you have described.”

  Luz swallowed and continued. The dark and the heat, fleeing into the desert.

  “You,” Garza interjected, “were at his headquarters.” He gestured to the map on the wall. “Can you point it out to me?”

  Luz shook her head. “I was blindfolded. Somewhere near San Cristóbal, Felipo’s village.” She told Garza how Felipo and her grandmother cared for her, saved her. “You have to help him. Please.”

  Garza’s expression was difficult to read. “You saw them take your friend?”

  “They had him when I ran. They were chasing me.”

  “You didn’t see them take him, though. Put him in the Jeep and drive away.”

  “No.”

  “Forgive me, Luz, but my position has made me a harsher man than I once was.” Garza’s jaw muscles flexed. “How do you know that he has been taken?”

  She stared back, under the full weight of his meaning: “You found his body?”

  “No. Be that as it may, Luz. ‘One who owes nothing fears nothing.’ What would Cicatriz want with your friend if he owed nothing?”

  “He owed nothing,” Luz said. “He owed nothing aside from helping me.” She left out Felipo’s familial connection to Cicatriz because it didn’t matter, it shouldn’t. Rage punched like a hatchet through the cramp in her gut. “But it isn’t true,” she said.

  Garza cocked his head, and Luz didn’t realize she had spoken in English until Garza replied in English himself: “What isn’t true?”

  “‘El que nada debe nada teme.’ It is a lie.” She closed her eyes. The list tabulated. Those others in the taxi. Felipo’s mother and father. Jonah’s brother. Jonah’s parents, señora McBee. Mamá. And the life, the future, lost to Luz forever. What did any of us owe? She opened her eyes and glared at Garza. “Tell me what I owed. I was on my way home. What did I owe?”

  Something sparked in the pools of Garza’s eyes, and Luz sensed his need to push back. It only made her angrier. Garza’s eyes flicked to Marta and now back to Luz, and he returned to Spanish: “Apologies, Luz.” He got up and came around the desk. “I have become an insensitive man. Another glass of water?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you should rest, then.”

  “What are you going to do for Felipo?”

  Garza pursed his lips. “It is a terrible thing, Luz, but events like this occur all the time. Every single day. I know that doesn’t help any, but it is true. We will scout San Cristóbal and the surrounding area. We will do what we can in order to find Cicatriz, as well as your friend.” He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “You, however, must return home. You have been through too much.”

  Luz stood and turned for the door. Garza said, “Ah, I nearly forgot.”

  He opened a drawer, removed a photograph, and handed it to Luz. It was of a man with salt-and-pepper hair, and somewhere in the space between her eyes and the photo Luz watched him fall beyond the rim of the cliff and vanish, silent as the void.

  Garza straightened his tie. “Along with Cicatriz, this man is a former CDG member turned renegade. He, however, is also a former federale, and I care to have a few words with him. Do you recognize him, did you see him at the farm?”

  Luz looked at the photo. The eyes. She saw him smile and she saw him die. She lifted her face to Garza. “No,” she said.

  8

  THE MILITARY DOCTOR WAS A SHORT MAN. HE BLINKED THROUGH rimless glasses. He scribbled Luz’s succinct answers onto a clipboard. She lay on the table, paper crinkling under her, and stared at the brilliant fluorescents in the ceiling.

  “Eight weeks,” she told him, “maybe nine.”

  The doctor hummed and scribbled. “I believe,” he said, pausing, testing his words, “it is over. I am sorry.”

  The ceiling lights burned into Luz’s corneas.

  “There may be some cramping,” the doctor mumbled. “Some bleeding. But that will end soon.” He told her he could offer pain medication. The lights sizzled in the silence. “Nevertheless, you will want to see your own doctor when you return home.”

  Luz closed her eyes.

  “Do not worry, young lady.” His voice was softer now. He was trying to make her feel better. “When your cycle returns, you and your husband may try again.”

  IX

  Tell me you understand what I’m saying.

  1

  IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME THEY REACHED LAREDO’S SPRAWL, AND they ran smack into gridlock as the interstate funneled toward the international bridge. Taillights stretched clear on, presumably halted all the way across the bridge. “Shit,” Jonah groaned.

  He eased them off the highway and onto an access road. He turned west into an older neighborhood, wheels drumming against the brick surface. There were shops and boutique hotels and restaurants separating them from the grade toward the river. They parked and went into a nearby Tex-Mex diner and got a booth. A young waiter with a heavy accent arrived and they ordered water, and Jonah asked the kid about the traffic.

  “They close the bridges all the time.” The kid twirled his pen. “Sometimes there’s fighting across.”

  Colby wanted to know if it happened often. “Fighting, I mean.”

  The kid held his hand out and wobbled it.

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  “Nuevo Laredo? No, man. I’m born in Laredo. I’m American. Got a sister and a nephew, they live across. She thinks things will get better. But I don’t know.” He shook his head and walked away.

  2

  THE AIR OUTSIDE SMELLED LIKE A THUNDERSTORM. THEY walked the alley alongside the diner to the tall chain-link in order to take in the view. The long swoop of the bank fell toward an unlit road and the river. The reeds were still in a windless moment. There was no moon, and the lights from the bridge guttered in the water. Across the way, Nuevo Laredo blinked. An enormous Mexican flag billowed like a sailcloth high over the city. Thunder grumbled. The taillights still sat locked across the bridge. Jonah hooked his fingers in the fence and watched.

  Something flashed in Nuevo Laredo, near the bridge’s foreign end. A silent orange blossom that was there before it folded into itself and vanished. Like that. Jonah almost wondered aloud whether it had been there at all, and then the sound of the explosion rolled to them like a distant thunderclap. The hush that followed filled with car alarms, quiet blips out there in the dark.

  3

  THEY STOOD QUIETLY IN THE ALLEY FOR A LONG TIME. THEY were on the border but Luz was no closer, and Jonah knew to certainty that if he couldn’t get to her their worlds would change forever. Hers would alter in a way, he imagined, that would no longer accommodate his. He needed to see her, to promise their future. To be a part of things.

  “We just saw that,” Colby said. “Right?”

  Lightning pulsed, silent.

  Jonah said, “It coulda been anything,” but it sounded and felt stupid. Whatever the cause, there had been a big explosion.

  “Let’s think for a minute,” Colby said.

  But Jonah turned, paced to the end of the alley, and put his hands on his knees. Old brick beneath his boots. What did Luz tread, and where?

  Colby appeared next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You gonna see her again, Mickey-Bee.”

  Jonah stood up straight. It was as if one word was chained to the next, each yanking its successor from his throat, and he hated them but he couldn’t stop: “How the fuck do you know?”

  Colby’s face flashed. He said, “Be reasonable, man. Shit looks a lot rougher than you probably imagined. Plus I don’t speak Spanish, and ’less you learned it in secret, you don’t speak it, either, so that’s two strikes. But the bottom line is, I ain’t going no farther.” Colby added, “You ain’t, either.”

  “I can’t go back to New Orle
ans.”

  “Wake the fuck up, Mickey-Bee. This—” Lightning burst nearby, and Colby flinched with the immediate thunderclap.

  Failure seared like a brand. Jonah heard Colby’s logic, but he couldn’t relent. If he returned now, he’d pull off the interstate into New Orleans and he’d be even less than he was now.

  “Come on, man. I get it. I’m worried about going back, too. I mean, shit, you think folks ain’t been wondering where I been? Davonte gets got and then I up and disappear? If I’m saying I’d rather go back home than cross that bridge, that ought to tell you something.” Colby paused before whispering the next part. “She ain’t called you. She wanted to, she woulda. I’m sorry. We gotta face the facts.”

  “Fuck you,” Jonah said. Colby was calm, but Jonah was shaking. He had never told Colby to fuck himself before and meant it. Jonah was rebelling against the fact that she hadn’t called, sure, but what really pissed him off was Colby’s implication that the facts somehow suggested that matters would improve. That things would work themselves out. When did things ever get better on their own? No, this was Jonah’s chance to do something. To help etch the path ahead rather than to dumbly accept what was offered, what was denied. He needed to be there, to look her in the eye and tell her that he was bringing her back to New Orleans. “Don’t tell me to face the facts,” he went on. “You never see how fucked we are. The army, that’s gonna be all fun and games and shit, right? You just keep hoping for that.”

  Colby bit his lip and let his fists hang. He turned and looked at the river, and Jonah thought he might, for the first time, see his friend get truly angry. He imagined Colby pivoting to swing at him, and the image blunted the edge of his own anger.

  But Colby only sighed. “I came on this trip for you,” he said, “because I knew you needed it. I’m trying to be positive for your ass. But there ain’t no point because you right, just like always. I never realized how shitty tomorrow looks. I’m that fuckin’ stupid. You right, Mickey-Bee. Thanks.” Then he walked to the truck.

  Jonah remained behind. A spasm seized his stomach. He took a few breaths. All the things he had assumed, all the ways he’d sold his friend short, all while believing he owned some special kind of knowledge about the world and the way it worked. It had been nothing more than a way to think he was better than Colby. That was what it was. That and nothing more. It began to rain then, cold and stinging.

  4

  JONAH JOGGED TO THE DINER AND GOT SOME DIRECTIONS FROM the Latino waiter. When Jonah returned—sopping wet from the downpour—Colby was sitting with his arms crossed. Jonah started the truck and drove out of the old town. Colby glanced at him when he turned away from the bridge, still gridlocked, but he didn’t say anything.

  The bus terminal wasn’t far. Colby said, “Mickey-Bee—” but Jonah snapped, “I’m not going home yet, Colby.”

  “Stupid ass,” Colby muttered. “Just being stupid.”

  They counted their funds. The booking agent, a friendly woman named Jessica, quoted them a price of more than two hundred dollars for a one-way ticket to New Orleans, the bus leaving early in the morning.

  “Nah,” Colby said, “we only need one ticket.”

  “That is one ticket, sugar.” Jessica was smiling, chewing gum.

  The air went out of Jonah. They didn’t have enough, considering the gas money Jonah would still need. He backed away from the counter and went and sat in one of the plastic seats. He glanced the room over. A few Latino families seemed to be waiting for a bus. That was it. Colby sat down next to him. They didn’t speak for a while. Then Colby said, “You gonna leave me in Texas, then?”

  Jonah closed his eyes and the fluorescents burned through his lids. He was so tired. He rubbed his face and looked at Colby and sighed. He said, “Hang on,” and then he went to talk to Jessica again.

  He asked her if she knew anything about the buses in Mexico.

  “Yeah,” she said, smacking her gum, “I got family that lives across. Mexican buses are nice. Luxurious. For real. They do express routes on the federal highways, too, no stops.”

  “Are they more expensive?”

  “Nah. They’re nicer and way cheaper.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. But it depends where—”

  But Jonah had already told her thanks and started off. Colby asked what was up, but Jonah only motioned for him to follow and they walked outside. They stood under the overhang, watching the rainfall.

  Jonah took his keys out of his pocket and held them out. Colby looked at them before he reached, timidly. “Jonah . . .”

  “You can do it.”

  Colby tried handing the keys back. “The fuck I can.”

  “I know you can.”

  Colby lowered his face, and Jonah could see that his friend remembered that big empty lot, the hulking and abandoned roller coasters. Just the two of them, whooping and hollering. Colby drove, they laughed. There was no one else around. A good day.

  And that was what Jonah said to Colby: “It was a good day, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Colby looked away. “It was.”

  “You can do it.” Jonah spoke softly. “I can’t go back, man. Not yet. And I can’t make you come with me, either, even if I want to. This is best.”

  “What you gonna do?”

  “Get a bus ticket over there. Lady said it was way cheaper.”

  Colby tried giving the keys back again. “I can’t do this.”

  “It’s easy,” Jonah said. “Just get back on the highway, and when you hit San Antonio follow the signs for Houston and then keep going. Stay in that right lane if you’re nervous.” Jonah slapped him on the back. “You’re a great driver. I seen you.”

  Colby hemmed and hawed, and Jonah told him that this was the only way he was getting home, short of hitchhiking. “Just drop me back off at the bridge first.” He chuckled, trying to keep it light. Colby cursed.

  He accelerated and braked jerkily a couple of times just getting out of the lot. Jonah encouraged him, telling him to ease in and out.

  “It’s like riding a bike,” Jonah said.

  “Real fuckin’ funny.” Colby shook his head. “Gonna have to pump gas and shit.”

  “You can do it.”

  Soon enough, they were back by the river.

  The wipers whipped back and forth. “Gotta drive in this shit,” Colby said.

  “Why don’t you wait a minute for it to slow?”

  “Why don’t you just wait with me?”

  “All right,” Jonah told him.

  When the downpour finally ebbed, Colby prompted, “How you gonna get back without your truck?”

  Jonah snorted a laugh. He hadn’t thought about it until just then. But an exciting feeling bubbled, something to go along with the necessity of it all. The feeling had something to do with this final and utter commitment to the journey itself. This severing of escape routes. He smiled at Colby. “I don’t know.”

  Colby said, “You look like a crazy person.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’ll call you, let you know what’s up.”

  Colby shrugged. “I still wish you’d come with me,” but there was resignation in his voice.

  “I know. You drive safe.”

  Colby held out his hand and they shook, and Colby pulled him in for a quick embrace. Jonah got out and shouldered his backpack. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he told Colby.

  “Be good, Jonah man.”

  Then Jonah stood in the drizzle and watched the bleary taillights of his father’s truck, his brothers’ truck, his own truck, shrink away.

  5

  THE TRAFFIC HAD STARTED MOVING ACROSS IN FITS AND STARTS. The drizzle had strengthened again, and Jonah stood at the beginning of the bridge, sheltered. He didn’t notice the man in uniform until he spoke: “You ain’t going across right now?”

  Jonah looked at the man. Tall, pink faced. A hat with a round brim. Jonah shrugged and said, “Yeah.”

  “I’d advise aga
inst that, kid. Not a good time.”

  “I got to see somebody important.”

  “Wait till the sun comes up, at least. It’s the middle of the goddamn night.”

  Jonah decided he didn’t want to wait for the rain to let up. He didn’t want to be here talking to this man. He readied to dash out from shelter.

  “Christ’s sake, kid.”

  Jonah told him he was sorry, he didn’t know why, and ran out into the rain. He set to jogging along the walkway, his backpack bouncing. He paused in the middle of the bridge, where the plaque beneath an orange light identified the border. Jonah straddled it, and what struck him was the weight of the two countries to either side, infinitely falling against each other, and the line between them that was infinitely small. Invisible. He looked out through the fence and tried to imagine what Luz might have thought when she crossed, years before. But it was dark and raining and he couldn’t see anything, not even the river.

  6

  THERE WAS A MOTOR POOL AHEAD AND SEVERAL MILITARY-TYPE vehicles, one with a heavy machine gun mounted to its back, but Jonah didn’t see any soldiers. The traffic crawled, tires sighing against wet pavement. There was no other pedestrian traffic. A man in uniform appeared and motioned him inside the guardroom.

  There were two other men inside. A ceiling fan spun at full tilt, the fluorescent light behind the blades lurid and flashing. The smell of burned coffee and cigarette smoke. Jonah was freezing in his soaked clothes. The guards spoke Spanish among themselves and glanced at Jonah, and one spoke in English.

  “You are running from police.”

  “No,” Jonah said, feeling it come out too quick, too high.

  “Then why you cross now, hmm?”

  “I’m going to see a sick friend,” Jonah said. He didn’t know where the lie came from. His heart thumped, and he half worried the men would hear it. “It’s an emergency.”