by JJ Flowers
BK laughed as Juan Pablo rose and they exited together.
“Weird,” was all BK said about it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Where’s your mom and dad?” Rory asked the next day after they’d gone swimming and were eating lunch in the large dining hall. They had taken a table with a view of the ocean, surrounded by a hundred or more tables. A buffet covered the length of the auditorium-sized room, but after looking at the piles of food, they collectively decided to order grilled cheese sandwiches and sodas.
Juan Pablo smiled at their bloodshot eyes. “I am with my grandmother.”
“Oh.” Rory stared at her phone, texting a friend as she talked. “What cabin are you in?”
“2014.”
“We’re in a cheap cabin. No balcony,” Cory said, the words somewhat muffled by the sandwich stuffed in his mouth.
Looking up, Rory sighed with the exaggeration of the much put-upon. “Mom wanted a balcony, but Dad said she has to learn we aren’t as rich as her patients. Mom thinks she should be able to buy whatever she wants because she works so hard. She’s a nurse for a plastic surgeon.”
“Making people beautiful?”
“They just make ’em younger,” Cory explained. “Our dad sells drugs. That’s how they met.”
Juan Pablo’s eyes widened. “Your father sells drugs?” A droguista, here on the cruise?
“Yeah,” Cory said. “For a big drug company, but he hates it. They keep hiring more people to do his job. So my dad makes less. He has a lot of stress. That’s why he started drinking more, mom says.”
“Do your parents fight a lot?” Rory asked.
“No. Never,” Juan Pablo said.
“You’re lucky. I hate it when they fight.”
“Last night . . .” Cory shook his head, but didn’t finish.
Rory confided, “We think they’re going to get a divorce.”
Rory and Cory exchanged looks of worry and sadness. Cory stopped eating and Rory brushed at her eyes, turning away. She stared out over the dining room.
Juan Pablo didn’t know what to say.
“Why are those men staring at us?”
Juan Pablo turned to where Rory stared. The crewman, Julio, and another man stared at their table. Julio waved like they were friends. To Juan Pablo’s horror, he marched over to their table.
“Hey, how’s it going, buddy?”
Juan Pablo swallowed and not trusting himself, he took a long sip of soda. “Good.”
“What’s your name again? Juan Pablo?”
The buzzing was loud in his mind, but it seemed too late to lie, and he nodded.
“That’s what BK said,” Julio said.
Juan Pablo melted with relief. BK had told him his name.
“Just stopping by to say hello. Well, okay, Juan Pablo.” He knocked his knuckles on the table. “Okay, now,” he said again. “Have a fun day.”
They watched Julio walk back to the other man. The two men conferred for several minutes before disappearing.
Juan Pablo breathed a sigh of relief.
The twins looked at each other and shrugged. “Come on,” Cory said, rising. “Let’s play the game. It’s my turn. Give me ten minutes.”
Cory disappeared out the main doors.
The next text came in.
Cory: Look up. Blue.
Rory and Juan Pablo studied the next clue, deciding Cory might be on the upper deck. They raced to the elevators.
“Rory, what is America like? To live there?” He didn’t add, where it is mostly, always, safe.
“You’ve never been to America?”
Juan Pablo shook his head. “I have seen it on TV and in movies.”
“I guess it is just like that. Only, you know, more real.”
The more they played the game, the richer they were going to become; the game was more fun even than swimming. Everyone would want to play it, even adults, they decided. That night Juan Pablo ate dinner with Rory and Cory for the last time. They had spaghetti, french fries, and milkshakes. He had pie and cake for dessert and even though he was fuller than he ever had been, Juan Pablo savored his last free ice-cream cone. They spent three hours in the game room with other kids, making plans to connect online to keep working on their app, getting it ready for an investor.
Finally, they said goodbye.
Juan Pablo wanted to take one last swim in the pool.
There were a few other people in the Jacuzzi, but no one in the swimming pool. He floated on his back, staring up at the stars. Thinking of the Sky People and his abuela, he gave thanks for the fantastic voyage that took him straight to America’s shores. He gave thanks for Rocio’s safety. He gave thanks to his abuela for all the years she had been in his life.
He felt her love surround him. A physical warmth descended on him, filling him with peace and happiness, a feeling that everything would be all right.
“Te amo, Abuela,” he whispered to the sky.
He finally forced himself out of the warm water. It was time to meet BK.
The warning buzz suddenly sounded in his mind. He hopped up and down, hoping it was water trapped in his ears, but no.
Cautioned by it, but not able to imagine anything wrong, he dried off and gathered his things. He made his way down to the casino. Few people were about at the late hour and most of these people collected in the casino, which closed at midnight.
The casino was empty. BK wiped down the bar, finishing up.
“Okay, kid, this is your last night. Tomorrow you will be in America. Are you ready?”
Juan Pablo nodded.
He had to wait a few minutes while BK completed the closing, but they soon made their way back to the theater where BK’s cart was. No one questioned why he had to move the cart to his cabin every night. Juan Pablo hopped in. BK hummed as he pushed the cart to the employee elevator at the end of the ship.
Once down below, BK pushed the cart along the I-95. The crew members were all getting off of the late shift and there were a number of janitor carts and people carrying stacks of trays and linens.
“Hey, BK.” Julio appeared from one of the side halls.
Juan Pablo froze instinctively, the buzzing suddenly loud in his mind.
“How’s it going?” BK asked without stopping.
“You know that kid you were showing magic tricks to?”
“Yeah?”
“Look at this,” Julio said.
Juan Pablo’s heart pounded so loud, he feared it could be heard.
“What the fuck?” BK said.
“He’s a wanted boy. Look at that reward.”
BK pretended confusion. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s a reward for information on his whereabouts.”
BK whistled. “Geezus, who would pay that much for some kid?”
“Beats me,” Julio said, smiling.
“You don’t?”
“Me? Naw. These are the bad guys, you know? I don’t get involved in any shit like that.”
“How did you get it, though?” BK pressed.
“My wife’s sister. She . . . I don’t know . . . hangs with a certain type. It must have been passed on through her contacts. I knew I had seen that kid somewhere. Hey, I’m not supposed to mention this, but some shirts were asking around about you.”
“Me?” BK asked.
“Wanted to know . . . how well you interact with the passengers. I guess there was a complaint about how the cards fall at your table. Numbers not adding up or something.”
“Geezus,” BK swore.
“No worries,” Julio said. “It didn’t seem serious. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
They talked about the new contracts for a few minutes before BK headed quickly to his cabin. Juan Pablo jumped out of the cart. “What was it? What did he show you?”
BK ran his hands through the slicked-back red hair. “It was . . . well, it was like a wanted poster.”
“With my picture?”
BK nodded.
“Do you rea
lly think he was telling the truth? That he didn’t tell them where I am?”
BK grimaced. “I don’t know. Uh, actually, I don’t see that one walking away from two grand. But geezus, I might have my own problem.”
Juan Pablo fell to the floor and dropped his head in his arms, trying to think what to do. He didn’t know. If some crew member saw his picture, how many other people saw it? How long before he was caught?
BK withdrew a small bottle of liquor from a drawer. He drank it in one swallow, and for several long minutes, he was lost in his own thoughts before he noticed Juan Pablo again.
“Hey, hey. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Juan Pablo made no response.
“Look. Here’s what you do, kid.”
He looked up, eagerly awaiting this advice.
“Tomorrow I will roll this cart to a cab and put you in it. You’ll go to the bus station.”
“I have no money—”
“I’ll buy you a ticket to—” He suddenly wondered, “Where are you going anyway? Do you know?”
Juan Pablo nodded. “I am meeting someone in Pacific Grove, California.”
“Someone who will, like, look after you?”
Juan Pablo swallowed a small lie, nodding. Maybe it was someone who would look after him. He couldn’t imagine who this would be, but he trusted Abuela. If no one was there, he would head for Rocio’s mom’s apartment in Arizona. Rocio’s mom would help him, he knew.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll buy you a ticket to Pacific Grove. Should only be eighty bucks or something. You get on the bus. You don’t look back.”
“Will you? Gracias, gracias. If only I could get there, I—”
“Hey. You’re a special kid. No way I’m gonna let some group of thugs get their hands on you.”
He patted Juan Pablo’s shoulder. “Okay. Let’s hit the sack, kid.”
Juan Pablo soon fell into a troubled sleep. Three times he was awoken by a racing heart, the warning buzz in his mind, and strange dreams involving policemen.
He awoke to a burst of noise.
“Kid, get up!”
Juan Pablo started to get up. BK grabbed his arm and pulled him out from under the bunk, lifting him to his feet. “You got to get out of here!”
“But—”
“Go. Some shirts are coming. Someone complained.” He snatched up Juan Pablo’s violin and his backpack. “Said I cheated them. They’re coming to search my cabin.” He shoved the possessions into the boy’s chest even as he pushed him to the door. “If they find you in here, we’re busted. We’ll both be history. Go, go, go. I’ll catch up with you.”
The door shut behind him.
Keeping his head down, Juan Pablo rushed down the main corridor, the I-95. He raced down the hall to the stairs. The corridor was crowded with crew members who stopped to stare at the young man rushing down the hall.
“Hey, kid,” someone shouted behind him. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Juan Pablo didn’t stop. He reached the staircase and flung open the door. A sign read CREW MEMBERS ONLY, but he ignored it, taking the steps two at a time. Reaching the top, he stepped into the familiar hall of the cruise ship. All around him, passengers wandered down the hall, rolling suitcases over the carpeted floor.
The cruise ship had docked at San Diego’s port. He was in America.
He quickly made his way to the main dining room. It was empty. He rushed out the hall and into the restroom.
It, too, was empty.
He tried to slow the race of his heart.
BK was in some kind of trouble, but it was not about him. No one knew he had been in BK’s cabin. Any crew member who saw him probably thought he had just taken a wrong turn, maybe in his haste to disembark.
Everything was okay. He would just wait topside until BK located him. They would figure out how to get him into the cart and off the ship. It shouldn’t be too hard.
It was okay, he told himself over and over.
His heart settled down. He used the toilet and as he brushed his teeth, he noticed that his hair was getting longer without his abuela’s handy scissors. He smoothed it down. He looked normal again.
He found his way to the main deck. A long line of passengers waited to disembark. He went to the window to stare at his first sight of America.
A cloudy blue sky met the gray waters of the bay. Their giant ship docked in front of the modern blue and white cruise line building. He watched passengers meeting loved ones on the dock. Two policemen, wearing the navy blue uniforms of American police, stood on the dock. Arms folded and laughing, they, too, watched as the stream of passengers disembarked.
Juan Pablo marveled at how shiny and big and blue and clean everything looked. He turned back to the line. He watched the passengers pass by the ship’s officers, nodding, saying goodbye, and moving on. Each passenger handed the officer an electronic card, which was swiped as they passed.
He did not have a card.
The line was getting shorter.
He returned to the empty hall.
He looked around nervously for BK.
Since so few people were left, he made his way to the stairs leading below deck. He cautiously made his way down and opened the door. The stairs opened to a narrower hall that fed the main corridor. The passageway was much quieter than normal. He peeked around the corner. Two crew members passed carrying piles of linen, that was all. He heard BK before he saw him.
“I can explain everything. I always carry that much cash—”
“You can tell it to the boss.”
He could only see their backs. Two officers escorting BK down the hall.
Juan Pablo pressed against the wall before turning and heading up the stairs again. He opened the doors and stepped into the empty hall off the main deck.
He returned to the main deck where passengers were still lined up to disembark. Only thirty people left. He had no choice and nothing to lose.
He was last in line.
Nervously, looking this way and that, he caught sight of Cory and Rory running ahead of their parents. “Juan Pablo,” Cory said. “Hey!
Cory reached him first and stepped in line behind him.
“Are you waiting for us?”
“Yes,” Juan Pablo said. “My grandmother went to get the car.”
“Cool,” Rory said, pulling a purple suitcase.
Cory and Rory’s parents joined them. “Ah, Juan. Look at this. We are last off the boat. If you two ever woke before eight without sirens going off, I think I’d have a heart attack.”
The twins’ dad was tall and less overweight than just large. Big shoulders, a pleasant round face, and short-cropped hair.
“It’s Juan Pablo, Dad,” Rory corrected him as they moved up the line.
“Where’s your grandmother?” the mom asked, looking around. “I want to congratulate her on raising a nice young man.”
“Oh, she . . . well, she is up ahead already.”
It seemed suddenly everyone was talking, but by this point, with only two passengers ahead, Juan Pablo couldn’t hear, let alone comprehend any one word above the pounding of his heart and the loud buzz in his ears. Suddenly, he was staring at the officer’s hand.
The officer waited for his card.
“I lost it.”
“We can vouch for him,” the twins dad said. “His grandmother has already gone off. He was waiting to say goodbye to the twins.”
The two officers exchanged looks before moving to Rory and Cory, who both had their hands out.
“Do we get some kind of prize for being the last off the ship?” their dad asked as they went through the gate.
Juan Pablo stood on the other side. He stood in America.
Following Rory and Cory and their parents down the ramp and onto the dock, he almost laughed for his sudden joy. They passed the two policemen, who took no notice of him.
Everyone thought he was American now—that he belonged here.
A small group o
f people collected in front of the cruise building.
He spotted the boots first. The red boots.
His life came to a sudden, cruel end. He froze, waiting for an axe.
“Well, goodbye, Juan Pablo,” Rory said. “We’ll be looking for investors.”
“I wish I had the money,” Rory’s dad added. “A hide-and-seek app. You’d swear there’d be one by now.”
“Honey, can you get the car and bring it around?” Cory’s mom said.
Juan Pablo looked at the two policemen.
The man with the red boots followed his gaze. He shook his head, as if to caution Juan Pablo not to do it, but the man with the red boots was not someone he listened to.
Juan Pablo headed right to the policemen.
He swallowed. “Excuse me, Mr. Policeman,” he said, interrupting their conversation, and then said the hardest English words he could imagine: “I am Juan Pablo from El Rosario, Mexico, and I do not have the proper papers to be in America.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Abuela, you never told me . . .
This wasn’t true, Juan Pablo realized as he sat surrounded by a thousand desperate children eating breakfast in the huge auditorium. She had told him many times. Juan Pablo, no matter where you are in the world, you will find many people who are struggling, for no reason of their own making. You must always reach out and like I said, try to ease their burdens. He just hadn’t truly realized what she meant until now.
Most children ate silently, afraid to talk, not wanting to get in trouble with the adults watching over them. The adults seemed nice, but few spoke Spanish.
Housing over a thousand children, the shelter had been hastily set up by the government for some of the thousands and thousands of children crossing the border from Mexico into the United States.
“All of them, every one, desperate, young, and scared,” he overheard a social worker lamenting.
Last night, Juan Pablo had slept in a bunk with another boy, Martin, from Guatemala. Quiet and shy, Martin had started praying in a whisper when the lights went out. Juan Pablo asked what was wrong. Trying to hold back tears, the story came out.
After losing both parents to pandilleros, or gang members, these bad men had given him the choice of either working for the gang killing rivals or being killed. Martin and his older brother, Lucus, had no option but to set off to find their grandfather in Los Angeles. They had no money or food, and they had to beg. Sometimes people were generous, sometimes not. Sometimes they had food, but often they didn’t. One night they had fallen asleep behind a small auto repair shop in Oaxaca. When Martin woke, his brother was gone. He spent two weeks looking for him. He prayed with all his heart that he would find his brother waiting for him at his grandfather’s in Los Angeles.