I picked up the knife and cut a slit from the hind legs to the neck of the goat.
“It won’t be long, Elena. Papá and Mamá won’t let you stay here alone for long.” I continued skinning the goat. I did it the way my godfather taught me, being careful not to contaminate the carcass with feces from the colon.
I felt sick again, this time from the lie I’d just told Elena. We’d both waited years longer than anyone thought. When Papá left, he’d said, “A year, two at the most.” It’d been almost seven already. Elena seemed resigned now to staying, as if she’d finally gotten used to the idea. If I told her what Don Clemente had offered, to send us north, she’d just feel worse, right? What good would it do?
“Besides,” I said, “I can work when I get to California. There’ll be more money if I’m working, too.”
“Por favor.” Elena rolled her eyes in disgust. “You know Papá will insist you go to school.”
I knew the big plan as well as she did. I would be the first hombre in the family to graduate from school. Elena would be the first mujer. Even after Papá and Mamá left, the plan hadn’t changed one bit. We just had to travel through half a continent and learn a whole new language to make it happen. Up to now, Elena and I just accepted that whatever Papá said, we did.
But I’d been nothing but a dumb kid. ¡Menso! I’d believed everything I’d been told. I held the knowledge about Don Clemente’s offer tight inside me. The wasted years of waiting!
I cut off the goat’s head at the base of the skull. Elena moved close to me to help with the next part. She took the knife from me and cut open the goat’s belly. The stomach and the intestines rolled out, and together we removed the bladder, the liver, and the gall bladder. All of these we threw in the bucket.
We took turns sawing through the bone to get at the heart and lungs. We pulled them out, washed the carcass with cold water, and wiped it dry. We cleaned the tools and rinsed our hands. Finally, Elena picked up the bucket with the discarded organs and walked slowly toward the door. She would take it to the far side of the property and burn it with the rest of the garbage.
At the door, Elena turned. “Don’t worry, Miguel. Go ahead. Vete al norte. I know what to do. I can take care of myself.”
Then she walked slowly across the field. The weight of the offal in the bucket made her list to one side, but she didn’t stop until she got to the burn site. She bent and kindled the embers with a handful of dried-up cornstalks.
She threw the organs, one by one, onto the flames. With each throw, she stood straighter and straighter. She watched until the organs had turned to ash and drifted off in the breeze that blew toward the North.
CHAPTER 8
My going-away party was small. There were Tío Esteban and Tía Cristina and my little cousins, José and Daniel. There were our closest neighbors, los Gonzalez, and Doña Maria, my Abuelita’s comadre.
Elena sat apart from us, with her best friend, Fátima, whispering and telling secrets. Fátima flirted with Chuy, but he paid her no attention. Instead, he served Elena a big plateful of barbacoa, then moved to stand right behind her.
We ate goat until we could eat no more. Tío Esteban drank some Modelos Especiales, crushing each drained can with his fist. He settled himself on the makeshift bench with his guitar, tuned it, and strummed the chords to “El Rey” and “Cucurucucú Paloma.” We got ourselves settled and comfortable around the fire. And then the storytelling began.
“Juanita’s husband never returned,” Señora Gonzalez announced, as if this were news. She’d told this story about her cousin a hundred times.
“We never heard a word from him. Some say he was lost in the desert. But I believe he found a new wife up north.”
The part about a new woman had the ring of truth. We all knew Juanita. She was famous for her mean spirit and bad humor. Any one of us would’ve done anything to escape her.
“Pancho Sanchez told us that his nephew’s friend was kidnapped up north, right on the border,” said Señor Gonzalez. “They drugged him, and when he woke up, he had a row of stitches in his stomach.”
He always began his story in the same way. I leaned forward. What body part would he include this time?
“They took out his kidneys and sold them.” Señor Gonzalez grinned, enjoying Tía’s gasp of horror.
Tío Esteban laughed and slapped his knee. “Epifanio, you can’t live with both kidneys gone. No es posible,” Tío reminded him.
But Señor Gonzalez didn’t care what Tío thought. The more gruesome the story, the better.
“Y a otra mujer,” he continued. “They took out her baby and stole it. And then they cut out her female organs and sold them to a barren woman in Saudi Arabia.”
He paused, looking around the circle for dramatic effect. “I can’t say in this company what they took from the poor woman’s husband, but they sold them to an infertile rich old man in Guadalajara who didn’t have a son of his own to inherit his millions.”
Then we laughed out loud. But my laughter was nervous. The stories seemed different this time, now that I was leaving. Maybe I didn’t believe everything Señor Gonzalez said, but the basic idea of kidnapping someone and then selling his organs seemed like it could happen. Weren’t there sick people all the time who needed a liver or a heart?
The sun fell down below the horizon. Doña Maria pulled her shawl more tightly around her and inched closer to the fire. Though the evening was still warm, she shivered. We all moved toward the warmth.
Doña Maria put her fingers lightly on my forearm. “M’ijo,” she murmured, “When you travel through the wasteland of the desert, you must take special care.”
No one ever gave away the secrets of Don Clemente’s operation. But Doña Maria believed, like all of us, that I’d walk through the desert to cross la línea.
“In that place of desolation,” she continued, “a ghost now walks at night. They say it is La Llorona. That I can’t say for sure. But this much I know. She’ll attempt to lure you away from your path. Cover your ears so you don’t hear her wailing. Don’t make the mistake many have made, of following her.”
She looked me in the eye, her voice quiet. “Those who pursue her are never found again. Their bodies dry up and fly away with the wind.”
I reminded myself that I didn’t believe in La Llorona. It was just a story that everybody told. There were a hundred different versions; of course one of them would put the wailing woman in the desert. But who knew what might happen crossing la línea? Lots of people were never heard from again.
“How do you like my chupacabra?” Chuy asked suddenly, changing the subject. Out of his pocket came his latest carving.
Chuy’s “goatsucker” figure had sharp spines all the way up and down its back and claws sticking out from its hands and feet. Chuy had painted it bright green. Its glowing red eyes reflected the light from the dying fire. The thing looked real, and evil.
“The chupacabras have migrated north,” Tío Esteban said with authority. “They’re no longer satisfied with draining the blood from cattle and other farm animals.”
Reports of mutilated goat and cow carcasses, their blood sucked dry by the chupacabra monster, came from all over Mexico. We’d all heard this part about the creatures’ move into new territory. And the last time he told it, Tío even claimed that the chupacabras were really aliens, here to colonize Earth.
“They now prey on humans, especially those out alone, at night, with no protection,” he cautioned.
He didn’t look in my direction, but everyone knew the story was pointed at me. Maybe the chupacabras were imaginary, but other creatures out in the desert were real. A scorpion was real. A culebra was real. People died all the time from their poison.
Tío took Chuy’s carving in his hand, turning it around and upside down. He studied the eyes, the tongue, the nose. Then he looked directly at the chupacabra’s rear end.
“Actually,” he said, “this part looks a lot like el presidente, don’t you think?�
��
Then everyone laughed and joked and told more La Llorona and chupacabra stories, each one wilder than the one before it. They told these tales with a purpose, to comfort each other, and to comfort me. The crazier the stories got, the less we needed to believe them.
But mostly, they told these stories to avoid telling the ones that were one hundred percent true, the ones that we had to believe.
Fátima didn’t tell how her brother Eleuterio left suddenly one day, only to be found two weeks later, suffocated to death, stuffed into an abandoned tractor trailer one mile north of la línea, dead with twenty-six others.
Lalo didn’t tell how his father was robbed, beaten, and left for dead in the desert. He didn’t tell how he came back, deaf in one ear, the fingers of his right hand gone. He didn’t tell how his father now spent his days in a darkened room, speaking to no one.
And no one spoke of the Martinez sisters, ten-year-old Juana and twelve-year-old Julietta, sent for by their parents, sent across the desert with a coyote, and never heard from again. No one speculated on the fate of the girls. No one wanted to say how they might have died or, even worse, how they might still live.
And for many, many minutes, no one spoke at all. Finally, one by one, they wished me well. They hugged me and shook my hand, pressing a few pesos into my palm. They left, walking away into the darkness.
CHAPTER 9
Lalo, Chuy, and I sat in a tight circle around the barbacoa pit, watching the fire die down to red embers and white ash. We poked at the coals with sticks, and bright yellow sparks flew out into the night.
Elena moved behind us, cleaning up from the party. She worked quickly, but silently. She carted dishes and food to the house, gave a bone to the dog, and took scraps to the animals in the barn.
Finally, she threw the rest of the garbage on the coals, right in front of me, a messy glop of paper and grease. The fire popped and sputtered angrily. It leaped to life. A long tongue of flame rose up next to my foot. I moved back quickly. I turned to give Elena a piece of my mind, but she was gone. The door to the house slammed shut.
“What’s up with her?” Chuy asked. “¿Qué tiene?”
He motioned toward Elena’s pile of burning garbage, now a big black blob. It bubbled and writhed.
I shrugged. “Nothing. She’s just mad because I’m going. She’ll get over it.”
Chuy kicked at a log, sending more sparks into the air. “If you say so, Miguel.”
He turned and looked at our casita, and the light that lit the room Elena and I shared. Her shadow moved back and forth. Then the room went dark. Chuy turned back and stared into the flames, silent.
Suddenly, Lalo unbuttoned his shirt. Under it, he was wearing an America soccer jersey I’d never seen, just like the kind I’d always wanted. He quickly stripped off the shirt and carefully folded it into quarters.
“I got this from my cousin.” He placed the jersey in my hands. “I thought you’d like it. “No es nueva. It’s secondhand. Don’t get too excited.” But he looked at me sideways, checking my reaction.
“It’s perfect,” I replied. I pulled it over my head, fingering the silky fabric.
Chuy reached deep into his front right pocket. With one swift movement, he pulled out his carving knife, placed it in the palm of my hand, and closed my fist tightly around it. I felt the smooth bone handle, still warm from Chuy’s touch, and the switch that released the razor-sharp blade.
“You might need this,” he said.
I knew this was his only knife. It was the only knife he’d ever carved with. Neither of us spoke. The stories from earlier, told and untold, hung in the night air.
I was embarrassed. Lalo and Chuy had not only given me their most precious possessions; they’d given me the only things of value they owned.
And I felt ashamed. I had nothing for either of them. Worse than that, I hadn’t even thought about giving them a present. I stood, shifted my body, and stuck my hands in my pockets. I kicked the ground with the toe of one shoe, and looked out into the night.
But Lalo and Chuy didn’t care. They didn’t expect a thing from me. They knew me and my life upside down and inside out. How could I give what I didn’t have?
Lalo let me off the hook. A familiar sparkle appeared in his eye. “I have an idea. Let’s meet in ten years, when we’re twenty-five. What do you say, Miguel?”
He said it as a challenge. He said it in the same way he used to dare us to smoke or drink or skip school. It seemed like a present I could give. It was a promise I could keep.
Chuy jumped on the idea. “Yeah! Diez años. Aquí mismo, en San Jacinto. Okay, Miguel? Okay?”
I nodded. We shook hands, sealing the promise we’d made. Our eyes traveled from one to the other. These were my best friends. I could see in their eyes the belief that somehow we’d always be the same, that we’d always feel the same.
Papá had been gone seven years. It seemed like forever. Ten years was an eternity. Chuy and Lalo couldn’t know something I’d learned from Papá’s absence: that it wouldn’t be long before I forgot the way Chuy tilted his head when he listened, the way Lalo crossed his arms when he talked, how much Chuy loved to joke, or how much Lalo hated to lose.
My friends still believed they would somehow remember everything about me. I knew they would forget.
CHAPTER 10
I slept badly and, for once, it wasn’t Elena’s fault. Every time I started to fall asleep, I jerked awake. When I finally got up before dawn, Elena’s bed was rumpled but empty. I guessed where she was. I knew she didn’t want to watch me leave in person.
I surveyed everything I’d packed for the journey and pulled Don Clemente’s packet from its hiding place. I put the money in my pouch, checking to be sure it didn’t bulge beneath my clothing. I packed Lalo’s soccer jersey and stuck Chuy’s knife into my front right pocket.
I looked in the cracked mirror above the dresser one last time. I saw the same high cheekbones, the same familial dimples, the same slightly hooked nose.
But I hardly recognized me. Somehow, it seemed my outside hadn’t caught up with my inside. There were my very same deep-set almost-black eyes and eyebrows that swooped up at the ends. How could I look the same and feel so different? I peered again at my reflection—the same old face, the same old Miguel.
I picked my way in the half-light of the dawning morning down to the corral and the little barn. Sure enough, there in the darkness, I could just make out Elena’s form. She was curled up on the straw, lying next to the dog and the cow. This was her other bed. The gentle breathing of the animals, the warmth, and the sweet smell of the hay had always been able to put her to sleep.
I left Elena alone. I wasn’t going to tell her I was sorry I was leaving and she was staying. Why should I? She hadn’t wished me good luck. She hadn’t even said she’d miss me. She’d said nothing to me, nothing at all. Well, she’d have to get over it, sooner or later.
Abuelita had prepared some food for the first part of my trip. She packed and unpacked it several times, fussing over where it fit best. She finally tucked the oranges and apples away on the sides of my backpack and lay the tacos on top.
“I have something else for you, m’ijo.” Abuelita lifted her Virgen de Guadalupe medallion from around her neck.
I’d never seen her take it off, not once in my whole life. The bright blue of the Virgin’s mantle reflected the light of the sun as its first rays peeked through the window.
A piece of the silver chain caught in her hair. I untangled it, but a few strands of gray remained in the links. I left them. Abuelita gathered up the chain and the medallion, pressed it into my hand, and placed her hand on my head.
“M’ijo, que La Virgen te guarde, te proteja y te cuide con todo su amor en tus caminos,” she began. Her low, raspy voice was strong, but her hand trembled.
“Y que La Virgen te abra los ojos hacia todos los que tienen menos que tú.” This was an old blessing, but the words felt new. This time, the blessing was for
me.
Except for Elena, who cried at anything, we were a dry-eyed family. No one cried at leaving, no matter how long we’d be separated. We liked to pretend we’d be gone just a few days, instead of years. We liked to fool ourselves that the absence was easier to take that way.
I looked up at Abuelita. This time, the tears rolled freely down both of our faces.
She’d been my mother. I’d been her son. There was no sense pretending we’d see each other again. She was old. I wouldn’t return for many years. I might not return at all.
CHAPTER 11
It took me three hours to walk to the city, but it felt like minutes. I wanted to catch the next bus north, at noon. Then I’d be slightly ahead of the timetable set out by Don Clemente. I wandered around, peering into shop windows and pushing my way through the crowded stalls in the mercado.
The city was a crossroads for a steady stream of people headed north, south, east, and west. Cars and trucks belched black exhaust that burned my eyes. The taxi drivers blasted their horns and a loud whomp-whomp of music blared from the speakers of other cars.
Midmorning, I stood in the shade cast by the giant wall of the cathedral and pulled the last of the tacos de cabrito out of my bag. The tortillas had turned hard and cold, but I ate every bite.
Two hours early, I found my way to the bus station. What if the seats were sold out? I didn’t think I could stand to wait for the next bus. I wasn’t the only worried one. Dozens of anxious travelers sat side by side, their belongings stacked at their feet. I bought my ticket, found a seat on a worn wooden bench, and settled down to wait.
An older couple sat across from me. They propped their legs up on a huge, bulging suitcase. He wore an old black suit, the shoulders dusted by dirt. She, too, wore black, a long dress with shiny buttons. In her hands she held a small photograph, its edges tattered and worn. She caressed the face on the photo with her index finger. I decided they must be going to the funeral of their only son.
La Linea Page 3