Uncaged

by Paige Notaro

  "I don't deal drugs or violence, no. But I profit from it. I'm not clean."

  "That’s ok for me," I said. "Does it bother you?"

  He stared out the window for a while, struggling for words. I watched his lips press and purse and tug apart, somewhat mesmerized.

  "I don't know now,” he said finally. “That's the honest answer. You ever see the world through the eyes of someone else? That's what you've done for me."

  "Sorry."

  He chuckled. "Really? You're sorry for escaping?"

  "No, I guess not."

  "Good, because I sure ain't sorry for helping you. I'm just saying it's like a friend come visits your hometown and you gotta defend it against his judgment, but you find you can't. It's the way things are but that doesn't mean it's right. You know what I mean? "

  "I haven't really had friends over, but I think I get it."

  His eyes popped wide and I flushed with embarrassment. Oh god, don't ask, I thought, but of course he did. "You've never had friends visit from out of town?"

  "I never... really had any friends from out of town."

  "Really?"

  I wanted to hear his story, not reveal mine. His look was so earnest though. I had no lies that could face it. "I kind of grew up on a farm out nowhere in rural Massachusetts."

  "They got a rural part of Massachusetts?"

  "Yeah. It's not big, but it’s far enough away from the rest of the world."

  I thought he would make me spill my past all right then and there – how pathetic I’d been long before I entered Mexico - but he just leaned back and said, "Georgia from the boonies of Massachusetts all the way down in Juarez. That's quite a trip."

  "I wished I'd made it here some other way."

  "Most everyone here does."

  "Where did you come from?" I asked.

  "Take a guess,” he said, drawling it out.

  Guess? I was no detective. The way he had said the words though made me focus on his voice. The rich flow of it that seemed to wrap around me and calm my heart. Most of that was him, his power, but a bit of it was something else: "The South?” I guessed.

  "Excellent start."

  "But you don't have a strong accent or I would have noticed earlier.” I tapped my head.

  "You don't have one either for growing up in the boonies."

  "I guess I took after my Ma," I said.

  He started to chuckle. "You know what? I take that back country girl."

  "What?" I ran the line over in my head. "Oh, Ma."

  "Now I know you weren't lying about the boonies."

  I ducked into my water with a mixed smile. He was teasing, I knew, but I so desperately wanted to overcome my past, especially in front of him. I wanted to be more than that weak girl he saved, for myself as much as to impress him. Then I saw he was giving me another clue.

  "You sneer at country folk," I said. "People from the city always talk about us like that."

  He threw up his hands. "You got me. But which city?"

  I leaned in as if that would make things clearer. All I got was the faint whiff of his musk, a rich and powerful scent that sunk into me as deep as his voice.

  "Here's a clue," he said. "I grew up inside you."

  I blinked a few times and even he seemed a bit ruffled at his wording. But I got the answer: "Atlanta."

  "That's the one."

  "You and Dennis both?" I asked.

  "Well he was shuffled around Savannah and a couple other smaller towns before he wound up with my mom, but yeah. I lived in a bunch of places but all within The Wheel."

  "What's the wheel?"

  “A road that circles around Atlanta. It intersects with all the main ways in or out.” He started drawing me a map and telling me about his city. The downtown, the places where he grew up, the things he missed about it and the places he wanted to see again if he got back.

  “Sounds really nice,” I said.

  “It’s better than Juarez, that’s for sure, but there’s plenty of darkness there too.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? That’s good enough for you.”

  I wanted to know it all, but he hadn’t pressed into my past, and I’d realized that I had no right to his. “If that’s all you want to share, it’s ok.”

  The food arrived and we eyed each other over steaming plates. The meat and onions made my mouth water, but that wasn’t enough to draw me from those bronzed eyes.

  “I don’t want to scare you,” he said.

  Now I really needed to know. “You won’t.”

  “I didn’t come from a pretty place.”

  “Does anyone?”

  Recognition dawned on him and my heart started pounding. It was the same look I’d seen when he started to win a fight. I’d revealed myself without doing anything.

  He nodded. “Alright, let me ask you this – you ever heard of a crack baby?” I shook my head and he went on. “Well I almost was one.”

  He ignored the food and told me about the drug addicted biological mom who had dumped him. The homes he was shuffled through and gotten himself kicked out of. How he had been ‘on the ropes’ and all set to spend the rest of his life in and out of cells until he’d landed in the house of his real mom - the woman who’d finally set him straight.

  His eyes lit up as he talked about her, and even though I’d started to eat, I sat with my fork frozen halfway to my mouth a lot, giggling at the stories of her grounding him and taming his crazy side and how they’d both done it all over again when Dennis joined them.

  Then we started to near the end. Time seemed to skip for him. Suddenly he was in Juarez and Dennis was calling and telling him about how her cancer was doing. His food sat still on his plate as he talked about the last time he’d seen her over video. How far she’d faded from the woman who’d taught two ornery boys about how to be men.

  I wanted to ask why he hadn’t just driven back for the end, but his eyes had clouded over a bit, so I stuck to my word and let it go. We ate in silence, and I spent the time wondering what it would be like to even have a single parent half as decent as the woman who raised him.

  Even with my head start, we finished about the same time. Andre looked spent.

  "Did you like it?" he asked.

  "It was a great lunch."

  He got my meaning and flashed that easy smile again. I felt pretty good too. I didn’t have really any of the answers I’d wanted, but I had seen his heart. There was more to him than his power and I could wait to understand what that was. He dropped a few bills and guided me out. His white sedan was parked in a garage a few blocks away and I got into it without a drop of worry.

  "It occurred to me that you haven’t seen much of the city," he said.

  I thought of the dark and scared streets I had ridden through with Mr. Tarly's hand on my thigh. Panic dizzied me for a second and I had to catch my breath.

  "What's wrong?' Andre looked at me like an injured animal. I hated the concern on his face. There had to be more to me than just pity and mockery.

  "I’m ok," I said.

  "That's what I say when I'm about to lose a fight," Andre said "You don’t have to say it when it's true. Especially not gripping the door handle like that."

  My knuckles had gone chalk white. I let go and met his eyes. They crinkled.

  "I don’t know,” I said. “It's just a flashback. You taking me out like it's some sort of treat."

  "Got it," he said. "It takes time with the right people to forget about the wrong kinds. If a trip around the city is a trigger for you, there’s only one way to reclaim it."

  He was right. I had to make this mine, too. "Ok," I said. "I know this isn’t the same. I know you’re not. So we should do this."

  He glanced at the mirror and pulled into the traffic. Behind us was the tail end of the trail of cars leading up to the Paso del Norte bridge, fleeing the city. I could have been out of here by now too if I’d turned myself in the first night, but here I was going in deeper to Juarez. With Andre
sitting next to me though, it felt like the right choice.

  The bustle of the Fronterizo died down quickly as we moved away. The quick spacing of the buildings and their bright signs also gave way to dirtier, cracked blocks of stores and plaza. These places had seemed so alive that first night as I escaped, but I saw them now for how empty they really were. Compared to New York or even El Paso, the two lane streets didn't seem more developed than a poor suburb.

  The car pressed on with only the steady hum of the tires. It started to heat up in the sun and Andre reached for the a/c, but I stopped his hand. Electric thrill passed between us and I jerked away like I’d touched an outlet.

  "If this is Juarez, I wanna feel it," I said.

  "This is a Juarez greenhouse," he grumbled, but he didn't try again.

  I tried not thinking about the feel of his fingers, the weight of the strength that I had stopped. No, that he had let me stop. Why did it feel so new now? He had led me out of that arena pressed to his shoulder.

  But this was the first time our skin had met.

  I pressed my face flat against the window and forced myself to be very interested in a hotel. It did seem to rise a few stories above everything else so that was something. The whole area around us looked to be a smaller version of where Andre lived.

  "This is the PRONAF," he said. "Casinos and mall and restaurants. I used to live here when I first came."

  "And then they upgraded you?" I asked. "For winning?"

  "Yeah, they gave me the best seat in the city," he said, but his smile wasn't on. "Course that lets you look out and see how poor your domain really is."

  We left the small rich oasis and the surroundings plunged back down to dusty looking houses only broken up by the occasional bodega.

  "Why is this city so poor?" I asked. "El Paso is so rich and it's right next door."

  "Sister cities," Andre said. "But one sister's been abused."

  "Abused by who?"

  We were at a light, but Andre's fingers squirmed on the wheel. The smile seemed very far away now. "People like the ones who pay me," he said.

  "Who is that?" I asked, then immediately thought better and asked. "Oh, is it ok to ask?"

  "Cartel," he said as we started to move again. "It’s fine. I own up to it, but it's better if you don't know their name."

  "Oh." I’d thought that was the name – that word seemed to be everywhere around here. I’d heard it back in New York, but it hadn't seemed very dangerous - just a group of businessmen. The business around here must be very different. "So you fight for the Cartel?"

  "For them to watch. Not for them or anything."

  "Got it. But why would they damage the city?"

  "Cause there used to be cartels, plural, and my bosses didn’t like that. This city was the most dangerous in the world when they were trying to wipe each other out. By the time I arrived that was pretty much over."

  "How bad was it?"

  "I can show you."

  We drove up the highway a bit then left it for a one lane street. I could see houses on either end - tall ones that rose up beyond high concrete walls. Except parts of the walls had giant holes blasted through them. What was still standing often had little holes peppering it, and I realized with horror that they were from bullets. A few of the walls had angry looking graffiti, but worse yet were the peculiar shaped brown stains and splotches that seemed to litter the area.

  We rolled down at a funeral pace, and even in the baking heat, my sweat felt cold against me.

  "This used to be one of the richest hoods in the city," Andre said. "Course that meant that a lot of cartel leadership lived here. Not who you want as neighbors in a drug war."

  "It's horrible," I said. "Why do they leave it like this?"

  "Cause it's part of the city now. You can't just go putting everything back the way it was when something really bad happened to it."

  We sped out of the haunted neighborhood and crossed a few more streets. The gray buildings started to be plastered with bright ads. Another short trip on a highway and we turned into another broken road, except instead of houses, this one was filled with bars and other stores. Each one we passed was boarded up and had the same pockmarks from bullets.

  "I don't need to see anymore," I said.

  "I didn't come here to show you that."

  We turned a corner and the street seemed to erupt in music. A crowd was mingling around a storefront. We crawled through and saw people smiling and laughing. A bright red sign caught the sunlight and blared "La Viva Roja."

  "The red life?" I asked.

  "Muy bueno," Andre said. "See, you adapt. People adapt. The city may be hurt bad, but it’s not dead. It’ll come back to life bit by bit, here and there. That’s how life works out in the desert."

  I had to admit - the red sign was beautiful in the middle of all the wreckage, maybe even because of it. Even when we passed more broken up buildings, the memory was enough to hold up my spirits. We crisscrossed the city and Andre punctuated the silence with a couple of tourist lessons. I sweat and listened to his warm breeze of a voice. Eventually we returned onto the two lane highways. I could see Hotel Lucena growing closer, but then Andre took a couple turns and stopped.

  I looked around. We were at a roundabout but there were only other cars and stores nearby.

  "What's this?" I asked.

  "Come on," he said. "It's one of my favorite places in the city."

  I walked behind him carefully through the honking traffic, to the green center of the turn. A podium was there with a statue and Andre stopped in front, beaming.

  "Recognize him?" he asked.

  I wasn't sure how I would know about Mexican history but then I looked up and saw the solemn face of the 16th president looking out beyond me.

  "Abraham Lincoln?" I asked.

  "The whole street's named after him. He opposed the Mexican war. Didn't work out in the end, but they loved him for it anyway."

  Andre was as calm and dark and rigid under the dropping sun as the iron statue itself. They both looked upon each other in some silent conversation.

  I knew that it couldn’t mean for me what it did for him, but I saw what he saw. "Freedom.”

  Andre just nodded. "A dream to hope for." He glanced at me. "For all of us to hope for."

  I didn't know what was holding him here, but I knew for sure he wasn’t here by choice now. I also was kinda thinking that freedom wasn’t the only thing in the world to hope for. Sometimes it was nice to find a place to bind yourself to.

  Or a person.

  The moment drifted past and we were just at a noisy roundabout again. Andre took me by the shoulder and led me back to the car.

  "Ready to go home?" he said.

  "Home?" I said slowly.

  His cheeks seemed a bit darker than normal. "You're staying with me right?"

  "I am."

  "Ok," he said. "So let me take you home."

  Nothing had ever sounded so sweet.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Georgia

  I met the morning excitedly, gazing down at a city that already seemed to have seeped under my skin. I watched cars and trucks scootch along and people move as dots away into the endless sprawl.

  When I'd left home I'd imagined that my life would really start, and that I would wake up from my nightmare. New York had been too much, too fast. I had barely been able to survive. This place, though, this place I could get. Simple and broken as it was, I fit right in.

  I tossed on a different one of the tight shorts and T-shirts Maria had helped me buy the other day, then brushed out into the kitchen. A jumble of voices steamed down the hall and I smiled. Everyone was here.

  The three greeted me as I came out. Andre was standing right by the cabinets and patted my back as I came in. His touch was tender, but the strength backing it up was clear. I felt a sudden heat imagining more of it pressing into me.

  "Hey Georgia," Dennis said. "In the mood to head to the US consulate?'

  My
skin went cold.

  "For what?" I asked.

  "For what?!" Maria said. "So people know which country you are from."

  "Don't worry," Andre said, pushing open a seat next to him. "You don't have to mention Mr. Tarly or anything. Just tell them you need a passport and they’ll work it out."

  “So I can go back to the US."

  "Yeah," Andre said. "If you want."

  "I do."

  He watched me expectantly, and I thought he knew what I’d left out: But not yet.

  I couldn’t read him back. What answer was I even hoping for? Part of me demanded to know why I would stay a moment longer in this city which had trapped me. I was in a very pretty part of the cage now, with nice people, but I was way out of my element. It would be easier if I went back to the US.

  So I just said again. “Alright then.”

  "Good," Dennis said. "I'm busy in the morning -"

  Maria rolled her eyes audibly.

  "Very busy," Dennis said. "But I can take you round in the afternoon."

  I nodded, and set into the chorizo and eggs that had been prepared for me.

  "Actually," Andre said. "I got this. I can take Georgia right now."

  "What about training?" Dennis asked.

  "It's fine, this shouldn't take long."

  "Shouldn't take long?" Dennis muttered. "Jeez, man, you really forgot how a government office works huh?'

  Andre shrugged. Maria was frowning and whispering something in Dennis's ear. Dennis's face suddenly matched the worry on hers.

  "Yo, bro. The consulate is US territory. You sure you want to-?”

  “I got it, alright?" Andre said. His muscles were tight, though, and his chest barely moved.

  Dennis just shrugged. "The man's got it.”

  I ate quickly, just to avoid the tension. Maybe it had gone, maybe it was just my anxiety at leaving this place, but I'd never seen Andre look like this since hearing about what happened to me. His face revealed nothing, chiseled and hard and certain. He smiled the few times he met my eyes, but I saw sadness in there, deeper perhaps than at any time before.

  We left the apartment together, and Dennis and Maria waved off and climbed into a taxi for the bar. Andre and I got into his car and rode the other way. Andre blasted through the radio stations, showing me the different type of Mexican music, trying to piece together what I liked. I had to admit to him even the US pop stations weren't too familiar, but Andre just boomed out one of his incredulous laughs. We landed on something he called bachata. It sounded sultry and scandalous, and I started swaying a little to it without even realizing. It was infectious. Apparently there was a dance to go along with it, and I could only imagine how sexy it could be.