Do They Know I'm Running

by David Corbett

  A woodworker from a nearby village delivered a pine coffin on a mule-drawn cart and they lifted the body into it, hammered the lid shut, then lowered it into the grave using ropes. It all went too quickly for Roque to make much of his last glance at his uncle’s body. Father Luis retrieved his stole and missal from the rectory and said a few prayers that consoled no one. Lupe wept softly, hand clasped across her mouth. Roque, feeling gutted, just stared into the grave, vaguely reassured by Lupe’s emotion, tapping into it secondhand. I will miss you, he nearly said aloud, but caught himself, for he felt the sorrow welling up and knew, once he gave in, there would be no end to it. Then the priest concluded his prayers, the men grabbed their tools again and began to toss back the dirt they’d just dug, the thud of each shovelful atop the coffin like a footfall on some invisible stair.

  When they were finished, Father Luis said quietly:-I’m sure we all could use something to eat. He led them into the rectory’s dining room-a crucifix and the Virgin of Guadalupe on the rough plaster wall, a modest cedar table with a white linen cloth. His tiny Mixtec housekeeper set out bowls of corn porridge called atole, tortillas with bean paste and mole, limes and salt, plus sliced fruit and a basket of chapulines, spicy fried grasshoppers. The woman’s name was Dolor and she reminded Roque of the Chamula woman selling popcorn in Arriaga. Samir wolfed down his food, Lupe fussed with hers mindlessly, Roque felt more possessed by his thirst than his appetite. No one but the priest bothered with the grasshoppers.

  Once the housekeeper collected the plates and fled to the kitchen, Father Luis looked around the table, registering each face as he enjoyed his dessert, dipping a hunk of soft white bread in a cup of Oaxacan hot chocolate.-You are not the first migrants who have landed on our doorstep in serious trouble. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I can’t help imagining you have a special problem. He lifted one of his hands; unlike Roque, he’d suffered no blisters.-I do not need to know what it is. I would, however, like to know if I’m vaguely correct.

  The weapons had raised an eyebrow or two during the day, as had Samir’s accent. Roque had an accent too, of course, but his was easily explained.

  – The only thing special about our problem, Roque said, is that the people we paid to get us to the States have been unable to protect us. Their competitors, their enemies, whoever it was out there on the road last night, they’ve been after us almost from the start. And yet, from what I know about how things are down here, there’s nothing really special about that at all.

  The priest dipped another morsel of bread in his chocolate.-The government is secretly in league with the Americans. It uses the federal police and the military to push back against the waves of people surging up from the south, who are doing nothing more than voting with their feet. And if the gangs rob the migrants or murder them? If the vigilantes or the paramilitaries torture them, then turn them over to the authorities? Nothing happens. It’s become a criminal system, there is no other word for it. Everyone is dirty.

  He brushed a trail of crumbs from the tablecloth into his palm, scowling as he dusted them into his empty coffee cup.

  – I believe I may know someone who can help you. He’s an American who lives up the way, a bit of a character, very storied life, if I’m to accept as true all he’s told me, which is probably foolish. My point is, I think he could find some way to be of assistance. He smiled abstractly, peering over the thick black ledge of his glasses.-If, however, I have read the situation incorrectly and you simply want to continue north on your own, you are of course free to do so. But I must warn you, the guns are a mistake. They will not protect you. One way or another, they will betray you.

  Thirty-Four

  THEY HID THE PICKUP IN THE RECTORY GARAGE AFTER FATHER LUIS drove off. Come nightfall they’d drive it back down the coastal road a ways and push it over the first convenient cliff.

  The issue of the guns was seemingly resolved when Samir claimed only a pistol and one of the Kalashnikovs.-You have not had to survive what we have, he’d told Father Luis.-I mean no disrespect but prayers would not have saved us. And I am a man who prays. The priest had countered that if they were caught with weapons at a checkpoint they wouldn’t be sent back to where they’d started, they’d be packed off to jail-and a Mexican jail was nowhere a foreigner wanted to be. Nor could it be known he had guns at the church. Ever since the teachers strike two years back, there were paramilitaries roaming the countryside looking for subversives. Goons and off-duty police murdered at will: organizers, activists, journalists, including an American. The governor boasted an army of thugs and everywhere he went violence broke out, invariably blamed on his opponents. Priests were always suspect, especially those who, like him, served the pinches nacos-the fucking Indians.

  – If someone finds weapons here, they will burn this church to the ground. Too bad for whoever happens to be inside at the time.

  And so it was decided another grave needed digging, a shallow one, into which not most but all the guns disappeared.

  Once the work was done, Dolor showed them to a washroom with a large tin tub, a cake of lye soap and a bucket of well water, asking for their clothes; she would dissolve the blood with hydrogen peroxide, then wash everything and hang it out in the sun. Lupe had only blouses and underwear to change into and so hid herself away in a spare room after washing the blood from her hair, sponging the rest of her body clean, handing up her filthy clothes. The old woman hefted the tub out into the yard and dumped the dirty water, then refreshened the bucket from the well and gestured for Samir. He was even worse off, only the clothes on his back, rank from weeks of relentless wear; once he had a chance to scrub the grime off his body, he modestly handed everything he’d been wearing through a gap in the washroom door. Roque went last; he stripped, passed his clothes to the housekeeper, then went to the tin washtub and began to lather his hands with the knife-cut square of grainy soap.

  From his spot on the floor where he sat naked, arms folded across his knees, Samir said, “I have been thinking about what we discussed before, what to do from here, who to trust. Even if the priest links us up with this American he knows, we still have to get across the border. Without money, that’s impossible, unless we stay with our original plan. That fee is already paid. And no offense, I understand you are grieving, but there is one less among us now. They can hardly complain. Perhaps they won’t even make us hand up the girl. It’s possible, you know.”

  Roque glanced over his shoulder as he lathered his hands. The Arab was chewing on his thumb, worrying it like a bone. “You’d do that?”

  “Let me tell you something, I have never wanted harm for that girl. Never. I just accepted things as they were. I understood I had little control of my fate. The same is true for her, so which of us is free to weep?”

  Like that’s the issue, Roque thought. “You said you’d lost confidence in the salvatruchos.”

  “They can’t be expected to foresee everything or protect us from every evil. Who knows who those men on the road were?” He inspected the reddened horn of his thumb. “Maybe they were El Chusquero’s, maybe they were Mara Dieciocho, maybe they were police or soldiers or just common thieves.”

  Roque gripped the edge of the washtub, looking down into the water murky with soap scum. “I won’t agree to handing Lupe over. I was against it before but now, no, it’s impossible. Not with my uncle… It’s bad enough I failed him, I can’t fail her too. His ghost will haunt me the rest of my life.”

  Samir chuckled. “So you’re one who believes in ghosts now.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You think I don’t understand how you feel? Let me tell you something, I too suffer the loss of your uncle. He was a very kind, very hopeful, very brave man. I see his son in him, him in his son. I know, I know, they are very different too but I see the similarities. I will miss him-yes, as little as I knew him, I will miss him. And I think I know enough about him to guess that he would also not want to know that by refusing to honor our promise, we hav
e condemned my wife and my little girl, Shatha, to the misery of their life in Al Tanf. They will die there. It is only a question of when.”

  We all have to die someplace, Roque thought. “I’m sure he would’ve felt for your wife and child. But he expressed to me a particular concern for Lupe.”

  “That is the choice, yes? Lupe or my family. Obviously, my choice is clear. And not because I am heartless. Should you become a husband, a father, you will feel what I feel.”

  “You know,” Roque said, turning around so his nakedness faced the Arab’s, “when I was waiting in Arriaga, I heard that it’s not just evangelicals making inroads down here but Muslims as well. Not so much here in Oaxaca but farther south, Chiapas, in the mountains. Mosques have been cropping up more and more the past few years, that was the gossip anyway, teaching Arabic to Chamula kids who don’t even know Spanish yet. Maybe you could come back here with your family, settle in the hills, teach. Life could be worse.”

  Using his shoe, Samir crushed a furry red spider crawling toward him on the cement floor. “That is always easy for the other man to say.”

  “It’s better your family stay in that camp?”

  “Given everything that’s happened, you honestly believe I would want my family here? Would you bring yours?” He scraped the spider’s remains off his shoe. “Sure, why not? You’d be closer to your uncle’s grave.”

  “Don’t mock.”

  “Don’t make such ridiculous suggestions.”

  Roque turned back to the tub, glancing down into the scummy water again, his reflection a misshapen blur. Finishing up his wash, he soon heard the soft wheeze of the Arab’s breath whistling through his teeth. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Samir still sitting there, legs tucked up, arms locked around his knees but his head had dropped. He’d fallen fast asleep.

  ROQUE PULLED JEANS AND UNDERSHORTS AND A T-SHIRT FROM HIS knapsack, dressing like a backdoor man slipping out before daylight, Samir dozing away. The clothes weren’t clean but they’d serve until Dolor was done with the wash. Standing for a moment in the doorway, he watched across the parched hardpan of the churchyard as the tiny Mixtec woman pinned up the damp wrinkled clothes, shirt sleeves and pant legs bucking in the wind.

  He idled through the rectory with its concrete floors, coarse plaster walls, bare plank ceilings. It was the stillness, though, that struck him. Lifting his head he silently prayed not to God or any of the saints or angels but to his uncle and his mother. His prayer was brief: Help me. He felt weak and lost and, in that moment, a little dishonest but there was no harm in trying, he supposed.

  Then he caught the muffled keen of Lupe’s sobs beyond a thick wood door.

  A smallness inside him wondered what she had to cry about. What secrets had she and Tío shared during their trek from Tecún Umán to Arriaga? He wondered if they’d talked about him. What a needy little shit you are, he thought. Was that your uncle’s job, be your pimp?

  He eased toward the door, pressed his ear to the wood. Knocking quietly, “Lupe?”

  No answer, just snuffling. The door clicked open. Through the gap he spotted a narrow bed of wood planks, a thin straw tick for a mattress. He didn’t see Lupe till he edged his way in, easing back the door. She closed it quickly behind him, standing there naked.

  Her damp hair hung tangled across her shoulders, down her chest and back, her breasts peeking through the uncombed strands. Her face was streaked with old tears, fresh ones welled in her eyes. She stepped into his arms, laying her head upon his chest, hands listless at her sides. He held her, pressed his cheek to her drying hair, thick with the fatty smell of the soap. They stood like that until she laced her fingers in his, guided him to the bed, attended to his zipper, pulled off his T-shirt. Neither of them spoke. This isn’t love, he told himself, this is grief, her eyes told him that. And yet touch had never felt so familiar, so necessary. She made room for him and they lay side by side, straw rustling inside the tick as they settled in. Bits of straw poked through the burlap like a hundred pinpricks but when he reached out her skin was smooth and warm and met his sore hand, raw with blisters, with a welcoming tremble. All those times he’d fantasized about sharing her bed, catching her off guard with his know-how, the deft little tricks Mariko had taught him, that all felt obscene now. Open the fuck up, he told himself. No more moody loner, no more hotshot with the sad guitar. Let her in.

  She kissed clumsily and the thrill of that startled him. He could taste on her breath a hint of the lemon slices Dolor had stirred into the pitcher during their afternoon meal, along with the vague tin taste of the pitcher itself. He could smell, beneath the mask of soap, a lingering tang of sweat and her growing wetness. She slid beneath him, lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, guided him in. No foreplay, no romance, this wasn’t about that. He opened her slowly, shallow at first, deepening his movements bit by bit, rocking his hips gently until the two of them felt locked together. A sense of having found something, not blindly, foretold. He let the sadness come in waves and he rode them toward her, one by one, and she wept out loud as she came, pulling him tight, locking her legs around him, pushing her body hard against his, a dozen rough little jolts or more, jabbing in time with her sobs, then finally she dropped back on the burlap tick, covered her face with her hands. He wanted to tell her no, please, let me see your face, but before he could, she whispered:-I promise I will keep this baby. If God wills it should grow inside me and live, I will keep it and name it Faustino. Or Faustina. I will remember. I will always remember. I am not a bad person. I am stupid and vain and weak but I am not evil. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

  Thirty-Five

  A DOZEN SQUAD CARS JAMMED THE STREET ON THE HILL ABOVE the sugar refinery, strobes flashing blue and red in the afternoon fog, plus another half-dozen unmarked sedans, a canine van, the coroner’s wagon. The TV crews were being held back for now but they’d get cut loose soon enough. All we’re missing, Lattimore thought, is the caterer.

  He was standing on the porch with the detective from Crockett, one of just two on the local force; they rotated in and out of patrol on a quarterly schedule. This guy’s name was Dunn-chunky, a workhorse, black loafers, blue suit. They were waiting as a uniform marched up the drive, carrying the pictures requested from Rio Mirada PD.

  Lattimore took the manila envelope from the officer and unwound the thread, opened it, shaking out the contents, frontal and profile in-custody shots of Pablo “Happy” Orantes and Godofredo Montalvo, taken from their arrest on pot charges two years back. He felt a curious mix of dread and mystification at the sight of Happy’s face, a vaguely guilty sadness at Godo’s. He remembered the young man well, not just from his name cropping up in the undercover tapes but from that day at the trailer park, when he stood there with his pitted face and a Remington pump-loader, holding off two gung-ho morons from ICE. A miracle all three of them hadn’t died right there. Two marines from his own battalion had taken a similar turn after Desert Storm-a standoff with guns, one with a hostage-and they’d seen far less to justify it, though how did one measure such things?

  Dunn waved toward the photos like a lazy magician. “Anything you can tell me?”

  They were debriefing the surviving victims here at the scene because they only had two interview rooms at the station. The pictures were for six-packs they were showing to the cleaning lady, who had broken down the instant she was alone in a room with a cop, begging him and everyone else to understand, she’d been forced into the scheme, they’d threatened her girls. For now everyone, Lattimore included, was willing to accept that. She was cooperating, hoping to forestall deportation. They’d tell her the bad news on that front once they were done with her.

  Lattimore puffed his cheeks. “They’re cousins, more or less. Not the easiest family to unravel.” He pronounced Godo’s full name, tried to explain the connection, him and Happy.

  Dunn regarded him stonily. “Let’s stick with ‘cousins,’ shall we?”

  “This one, Monta
lvo, he doesn’t look like this now. Came back from Iraq looking like a woodpecker mistook him for a stump, shrapnel wounds all over his face.”

  “But this Orantes mutt, the ringleader, he was your boy?”

  Lattimore glanced up. The man was thickly jowled, his stubble and brush cut the same dull gray. His eyes lay burrowed in creased flesh. “My CI.”

  “Right,” Dunn said. “No offense meant.”

  Lattimore had already endured his first quick interview with OPR; they were trawling through the case files now, seeing what laws or guidelines had gotten short shrift in his handling of things. He felt confident he’d survive the scrutiny-Pete Orpilla, his supe, had his back and for now things felt tense but not hysterical. This mess had come out of the blue, no hint that Happy had been side-balling him but that didn’t mean somebody wouldn’t want his head. All it would take is one call, a congressman, a mayor, somebody with juice paying back a favor. In the time it took to pick up a phone, his career could be history. Maybe that was just. It was possible, without even knowing it, he’d lost interest in the thing, gotten sloppy. Maybe he was just too old-at forty-four, an eye-opener.