by JJ Flowers
Juan Pablo set down his book and looked up. “Yes? Is Dolores here?” Normally Dolores fetched him herself.
“That is not your business, is it? The bus is leaving. You need to hurry up.”
Juan Pablo looked around in a panic. There were only a couple of hundred children left. Only about two dozen kids waited in his dorm now, down from eighty-seven.
They hadn’t even been called to their showers or breakfast yet.
“Where am I going?”
“Just gather your things and come with me.”
Juan Pablo swept up his backpack and swung down from the bunk. Some children said goodbye, but most of them just watched anxiously.
“Where am I going?” He asked again as he followed the woman out.
“An orphanage in Mexico has agreed to take you.”
Juan Pablo stopped with a great shock upon hearing these words. The jolt quickly gave way to a loud and long no in his mind. “I can’t go back.” He shook his head. “First, I am to see a judge and—”
“A judge has already ruled. You’re going back.” She added, “You shouldn’t have come in the first place.”
“But Dolores said—”
The woman’s hand came to his arm, dragging him forward. “Dolores isn’t in charge. I am, and you’re on the list of children to be deported today.”
“There’s a mistake. I can’t go back—”
The woman kept moving, shoving him forward. “There’s no mistake. All the Mexican minors with no parents here are going back to Mexico today.”
He was the only minor from Mexico now.
“But . . . but, then I need my iPad and my violin—”
The woman tightened her hand around his as she led him out the doors and into a foggy morning where a small yellow school bus waited at the curb.
“Please, my violin—”
“I don’t know anything about that. All I know is you are supposed to be on that bus there.”
He couldn’t believe this was happening. There must be a mistake.
“Dolores took my violin to keep it safe. It’s in the break room where they keep these things—down the hall. I can’t leave without it. I can’t live without it and my iPad, too—”
The doors to the bus opened. The driver, an enormous man, looked stern, menacing somehow, not a normal bus driver. “Darse prisa,” he said in Spanish. “I’ve got a long drive.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“Look, kid,” the woman said, her face reddening, “I don’t have time for this, believe me. If there really is some violin, we’ll mail it to the orphanage—”
“It is not to be mailed. It is very valuable, priceless even. You don’t understand. I can’t go without my violin—”
The woman’s hand tightened around his, hurting him now, squeezing. Finger pointing, eyes full of fury, she spoke slowly. “I am sick and tired of you people thinking you can just waltz into our country and take advantage of us. Well, you can’t! You are illegal. You are going back one way or another. That’s the law.”
“Please, please, if you would just call Dolores, she will explain. It is not fair—”
The bus driver came down the steps. “I can handle him.” The man was the same height as Juan Pablo, but twice the weight. Juan Pablo searched his face, but saw only anger. Why was he mad? He started to shake his head, to speak, but the man grabbed Juan Pablo’s backpack. He tried to hold on to it, but it was snatched away and tossed onto the bus.
Shaking his head, knowing something was terribly wrong, Juan Pablo backed up, but the huge man sprang forward and punched him. Hard in the stomach. The air left his body with an unnatural noise. Pain shot through him. Colors suddenly left his field of vision and he started to fall over. The man’s arms came around him and with a sick grunt and no small effort, he lifted Juan Pablo onto the bus. With a hard shove, he pushed Juan Pablo onto the floor.
The driver barked out the Spanish words, “Sit down. And I better not hear a word from you the whole way.”
“Where’s the rest of my money?” Margo called. “You’re supposed to pay me—”
The driver ignored this and shut the doors.
Gasping, feeling pain throughout his body, Juan Pablo tried to stand. He fell into a seat. His hand went to his mouth to stop from crying. His violin, his violin, his violin, he was losing his violin. He suddenly understood a fate much worse than even the man with red boots. He would be nothing and no one.
He called out to the Sky People for help.
Still, like blood from a wound, hope drained from him with each passing mile. The driver never looked at him, never said a word. The cities fell away in a blur of concrete and green and white freeway signs: Ventura, Oxnard, Los Angeles, Long Beach. He caught sight of the Disneyland sign and his heart sank further.
Rocio. He closed his eyes and pictured her with her mother. They would be strolling in a park, making plans. Fantastic American plans. A good school, books, and new clothes, all signaling a happy ending. He tried to focus on this, on Rocio’s happy ending.
If he could just talk to her now. She would move heaven and earth to see that his violin was safe, to see it returned to him. She alone knew what his violin meant to him. It was his life.
Somehow, someone would help him contact Rocio.
He felt even this small hope disappear as the bus crossed the Mexican border. The border guard waved them through the crossing. The bus sped up, crossing lanes to the right.
Where America was sparkling and orderly, Mexico’s boisterous pandemonium was colorful and chaotic. The sights of Tijuana came as an assault to his senses. The brightly painted buildings, the crowded streets, the famous bull-fighting ring. To the left el gueto—the ghetto—spread over the hillside like a haphazard collage of building frenzy, cardboard and metal siding put together in a jumbled collection of dwellings. To the right dozens of auto repair shops and dentist offices that served mostly American customers bravely looking for a bargain.
Less than a hundred meters from the border, the bus pulled over and came to a stop on the side of the freeway. Juan Pablo stared at his awful fate. There was no orphanage.
The man with the red boots waited for him.
“No, no,” he whispered as a terrible fear engulfed him. He backed up even as the bus driver rose and turned to get him.
“Vamoose!”
But he was too frightened to move, except to back against the window, shaking his head.
A large, thick hand came to his arm and he was roughly pulled forward and pushed hard. He fell to his hands and knees, hitting his shoulder. Pain shot through his upper body, but it was nothing when laid alongside his fear. The big man reached down, pulled him up, and shoved him down the short flight of steps. Juan Pablo fell hard on his knees. He scrambled to get up.
“Don’t even think of running, amigo.”
Juan Pablo slowly stood. The loud ringing in his ears drowned out the noise of cars whizzing by. He drew the fumes deep in his lungs. His heart thumped too fast, as if trying to escape the small confines of his chest. He felt the tremble in his upper lip. It shot down his arms and hands as he clutched at the pain shooting from his shoulder.
The bus driver tossed his backpack out of the bus. It hit the wire fence and fell down.
Juan Pablo’s gaze went from the red boots, to the Levi’s, to the blue work shirt and tan hat. The man had no facial hair and a large unsmiling mouth. Dark glasses hid his eyes. Up close, he looked surprisingly ordinary.
Juan Pablo knew this was a deception. Still, he thought to explain. “I didn’t mean to kill them. They were going to hurt my friend. I had to stop them. I had to. The poison, it was too much, but . . .” He didn’t mean to kill them. He had only wanted to stop them. “I had to stop them.”
The Hunter nodded as if he understood. “And now you have to pay the price.”
Juan Pablo shook his head. In a whisper, “I don’t want to die.” As he said the words, he felt how true it was.
“It always amazes me how desperately people cling to it.” His gaze swept their dismal surroundings. “This absurd sweat and struggle over hollow crumbs.”
These words were said with a soul-numbing disgust. Juan Pablo didn’t understand. “But . . .” He grasped for a reason, for something to make sense. “Why—”
“Why?”
Juan Pablo sensed but didn’t see the man’s sudden bemusement this question posed. “There is no why,” he explained. “That’s the whole point. I just deliver people to their destination a bit sooner than expected.” He looked at the black Cadillac waiting by the side of the road. “If you want to take that, pick it up.” His head motioned to the backpack.
Juan Pablo’s gaze went to his familiar backpack. His heart was pounding crazily and he could barely think. The only things in his backpack were the milkweed seeds for the . . . “Butterflies . . .”
“Butterflies,” the man repeated mysteriously, as if it were an unfamiliar word being tested for the first time.
The red boots walked over to the waiting car and he opened the trunk, motioning for Juan Pablo to get inside.
The boy started to shake his head.
“I can deliver you dead. Less pay, but probably less trouble.”
The simple statement stopped him. Poised for flight, but held to the spot by the warning. Juan Pablo studied the fast-moving cars. I can deliver you dead . . . This couldn’t be the end. Would anyone notice a boy being forced into a trunk? Would it matter if they did?
No, he realized, and the Hunter knew it.
The first tenuous step felt as if it covered the distance of a mile.
He stumbled with the second step, hating himself for it. He struggled to get up.
He heard the click of the revolver over the irregular pounding of his heart, the warning roar in his ears, and the deafening thunder of the traffic. He slowly stood. He forced each foot in front of the other until he stood at the back of the Cadillac, staring into the trunk.
The blow came hard and swift, knocking him face-down into the trunk. In one swift movement, the man lifted his legs into the trunk and shut the lid.
No one heard Juan Pablo’s shocked cry into the dark.
He felt the motion of the tires beneath him as the car gathered speed. Pain continued to ricochet through his shoulders. He shook uncontrollably. All he could think was he did not want to die.
He was not ready to join the Sky People. Not until he had heard the London Philharmonic play Beethoven’s Seventh. Not until he witnessed Dudamel conduct Mahler’s Fifth or had seen Joshua Bell play again. Not until he had mastered all the great music on earth. He wanted to go to a music school with other young musicians who were like him, who were born with the music inside like butterflies in their pupas.
He wanted so badly to live.
There were so many other dreams screaming for attention, protesting this fate. Rocio and he were forever creating and adding to a long list of all the things they wanted to do. Travel to all the great cities, go to university, learn how to scuba-dive, ride a hot air balloon into the stratosphere, climb the tallest mountains on each continent and the tallest buildings in China and America. They wanted to rescue elephants in Africa, turtles in the Galápagos, homeless dogs in Mexico City. They wanted to eat in Google’s employee café and at the top of the Eiffel Tower, tour Chartres, witness the northern lights, visit Stonehenge, and stand at the southernmost tip of Chile, where Rocio swore they would dance with penguins.
These thoughts passed too quickly to fully grasp. Fear fueled his pounding heart, quick breaths, and shaking.
His abuela’s voice sounded in his mind: The poor old man was literally shaking with a terrible fear. A fear of dying.
He felt a prick in his side and reached down to feel his pocket. With no small effort he managed to remove his abuela’s treasured butterfly pin. He held it tightly.
Help me, Abuela. Please help me.
Fear is only good when it keeps you from danger. Once the danger is upon you, it turns on you and hurts you.
But how can you stop being afraid if you are afraid?
Oh, there are many tricks. You can accept the worst that will happen. Once you accept the worst, the very worst, the fear abandons you.
Death. He was going to die.
Just as death is not to be courted, it is also a foolish thing to fear. Especially for those souls who understand that this life is a temporary shell that was borrowed for a short time on earth before we return to our place among the Sky People. But death is not to be feared even for those ignorant of the Sky People, those who believe death causes you to just cease. Think of it this way: billions upon billions of people have done it; it cannot be that bad.
Juan Pablo confronted his death.
If he simply ceased to be, if he just went kaput, he would no longer know all that he missed. His imagined future would cease to exist, too, as if it never were. There was no pain or suffering or anything. There was nothing.
Or, he would be joining the Sky People . . .
Do the Sky People have music, Abuela? he once asked.
His abuela threw her head back and laughed. Music is how God talks to us. You, of all people, know this, Juan Pablo. Music surrounds the Sky People.
As if on cue, he suddenly became aware of a distant symphony. Not just any symphony, but Mozart’s Forty-First Symphony, a favorite. It seemed impossible, but the music emanated from the car—the Hunter was listening to Mozart.
Or was he? Was this just his imagination?
But how can I accept death when I want so badly to live?
What if the poor earthbound pupa knew he was becoming the butterfly, that his destiny waited in the endless bounty of the sky? All worries and fears would be replaced by a great and powerful joy and freedom.
Comforted by his abuela’s words, he tried to focus on the distant hint of Mozart’s symphony. He pictured the music rising in notes to the sky. He had played the violin’s concerto many times. He imagined playing it now . . .
In his mind’s eye, as if to save him the terror, Mozart carried him to a place far beyond thought, a place of pure feeling. Time disappeared completely.
He was saved.
Just as the last crescendo rose and Juan Pablo felt his fingers stretch and lift and flex over the last chords, a screech and a boom burst upon the small space. The Cadillac took a sharp swerve. He was thrown against the back. He jolted into a renewed panic.
The buzzing returned with a vengeance.
Juan Pablo froze, waiting for what would happen next.
The car door opened and shut. Juan Pablo heard boots against gravel.
The trunk opened. Sunlight assaulted him and forced his eyes shut. When he opened them, he found himself staring at the Hunter. “Out.” He motioned with a flip of his head.
With no small effort, Juan Pablo got out.
His thoughts tumbled into confusion before supplying an understanding of the scene before him. The Cadillac had a flat tire. The Hunter rifled through the trunk, lifting a latch to get at a spare and a jack. He said nothing, but then there was nothing to say. It was merely a brief stop on the way to ending his short life.
The car rested on the side of a huge field of tall green plants six feet high. A strange pungent scent filled the air, familiar but not. The field of emerald stretched in all directions on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. A small mountain chain rose in the far distance on the other side.
They could not be far from Tijuana. How long had he been in the trunk? Not more than two hours, maybe less.
A chemical smell mixed with the strange scent of the plants. Pesticides. Killer of butterflies and everything else that lived in the sky or crawled on the ground. Every year there are fewer butterflies, but also other insects. I don’t think the farmers realize what kills one insect, kills everything, including finally the very crop they are trying to protect . . .
The Hunter removed a jack, a crowbar-like tool, and a much smaller spare tire.
Juan Pablo might have been a suitcase for all the attention he got. The man let the tire and the crowbar fall at Juan Pablo’s feet and took the jack around to the flat tire on the other side.
The buzzing in Juan Pablo’s ears grew louder, warning him of danger—which was not necessary. He could not be more aware of it. His heart beat in a slow, steady, and very loud beat, like the beginning of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Was he supposed to just stand there, waiting to be put back in the trunk and carried off to his death?
He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked across the field of leafy plants stretching up beneath the arch of blue sky. He realized even before he saw it, the signal to run, because his body was so tense, poised for flight. He gave no clue as the Hunter went about the business at hand and one side of the car began to lift up.
A butterfly floated slowly across the road and flittered invitingly over the tall field of marijuana plants. His heart leapt. He almost laughed. He did not run. He quietly—in the same way he managed not to wake his abuela while she slept—oh so quietly, disappeared into a field of green.
However it came out, like a butterfly to the warmth of a summer’s sun, he was moving to freedom.
The Cadillac lifted and the Hunter went to retrieve the spare.
The young man was gone.
A gun manifest in his hand, he gave a low, amused chuckle. The Hunter jumped up onto the roof of the Cadillac.
The sun, sinking in the west, blinded him. Shielding his eyes, the Hunter watched and waited.
The boy was unnaturally smart. There was no sign.
He aimed where he imagined the boy was.
A bullet shot passed Juan Pablo’s ear. Juan Pablo froze, holding perfectly still for several tense moments.
The Hunter was just guessing at his location.
Head lowered, he moved with quiet, stealthy deliberation through the tall plants. The Hunter would look for the slightest disturbance in the field. Ducking between plants, careful not to brush so much as a leaf, he crept forward. After twenty plants, he turned left again. He counted nine plants before turning forward again for twenty. Then thirty-two plants left.