by JJ Flowers
Juan Pablo slowly zigzagged this way and that, but moved steadily north.
He tiptoed straight ahead, counting plants as if notes on a musical score, creating a chaotic imaginary maze.
The sweep of machine-gun fire sounded from a great distance away. The painfully familiar sound continued for several long minutes. Juan Pablo never looked back. He knew what it meant.
The Hunter was desperate. He had no idea where he was.
Juan Pablo headed in the opposite direction. He started running, unmindful of disturbing plants because he was so far away. The occasional machine-gun fire sounded further and further away.
After a half-hour or so, Juan Pablo stopped and listened.
Nothing and no one stirred. Giant marijuana plants shot up to the sky in neat rows as far as the eye could see. Breathing heavily, he tried to think what the man with the red boots would do now.
He would probably return to the Cadillac and begin circling the fields. He would search for the slightest sign or color among the green.
He tried to think what to do. Which direction was safest?
Ignoring his growing thirst and hunger as best he could, he waited—he didn’t how long he sat there in the middle of the marijuana field, a half-hour, maybe more. But at some point he stood up. Just in time to see a butterfly floating northwest.
He started off. He walked through the endless fields for hours. Roads appeared and he dashed across, disappearing into the sameness on the other side. Kilometers of marijuana fields.
He spotted the people in the far distance, farm workers in a field. He turned away and put a meter of green plants between them. At last he reached the end of the field, marked by a chainlink fence crowned with barbed wire. He walked alongside it for another kilometer and then turned back inside the protection of the green sea.
Fighting a terrible thirst, he finally noticed the sun had begun sinking toward the horizon and the shadows of the plants lengthened. Occasionally a dirt road interrupted the endless rows of plants, but there was still no end in sight. One marijuana field could not be this long, could it?
He eventually came to a slight incline, like a gently rolling hill. The marijuana plants climbed right up. He considered following them, but there was a danger to standing on a hill and looking across. So he turned right instead.
At last the rows of plants opened onto a wider dirt road. The green fields continued on the other side. He looked up and down. Empty. Keeping hidden in the plants, he followed the road toward the setting sun.
He heard the noise before he saw it. An old yellow farm truck headed toward him. He stopped to watch it pass. Field workers sat in the back of the old truck. He heard them singing before they passed. He knew the folk song well; his abuela loved to sing it when she was working.
Love, love, love
born in you, born in me
from hope
Love, love, love
born of God, for two
born from the soul . . .
Juan Pablo took it as a sign. He stepped out. The song stopped with the truck.
The driver looked ancient: old, weathered brown skin, gray hair. Bent over the steering wheel, he squinted at the boy.
“Amigo, what the heck are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” The old man’s voice was surprisingly cheerful. “Stealing a little zacate?”
“No, no.” He tried to think of a plausible lie, but nothing came to mind. Fatigue threatened to pull him under, far greater than his monstrous thirst. Just this morning he was safe at the shelter in America waiting for Dolores to show up. Then he was thrown on a bus, forced to leave his violin for the first time in his life, taken back to Mexico, and handed over to the man who would see him killed for saving Rocio. He escaped with his life, dodging bullets and a man with supernatural powers to hunt people.
Exhaustion and worry claimed him. He could barely stand. He felt suddenly close to tears. Too tired to lie, he uttered the strange and awful truth. “I am running from a man who wants to kill me.”
The old man absorbed the veracity of the simple statement in an instant. They all were familiar with this hard reality that claimed so many innocents in these troubled times. He glanced uncertainly back at his friends. Another man asked reasonably, “Why would someone want to kill you?”
Juan Pablo no longer wanted to be separated from the truth. “His men were responsible for my abuela’s death and my best friend’s abuelo’s death. They were going to hurt her, Rocio, whom I love, who I have always loved. I couldn’t let them. I poisoned them and they died. Now, they want revenge.”
“El cielo te ayude,” the old man muttered.
Heaven help him indeed.
The other men cursed, spit, shook their heads. One swore, “La maldición del dios banditos.”
“We can get you to Tijuana,” the old man said, motioning to the others. Two men, younger, brown, and lean from a life of fieldwork, reached strong arms down. Juan Pablo felt himself lifted onto the truck. Two other men parted and made room for the boy on one side. They asked for his name and he told them before collapsing into the small space offered.
Another man offered a bottle of water.
Juan Pablo barely managed a heartfelt gracias before he drank it all. Water had never tasted so sweet. Then, his head came to rest on bent knees.
As the truck took off, he knew a profound gratitude.
The men resumed their song.
Juan Pablo tried to think of a plan. If he could somehow get across the border again, he could find his way back to the shelter and hopefully be reunited with his violin. This was most urgent. But he could no longer involve anyone else in his struggle with this terrible man. To involve anyone put their lives at stake and he did not want to do that.
Even Rocio. Especially Rocio.
The sun was poised to set on the distant horizon. The air was still. The truck kicked up a cloud of dust behind it, obscuring the fast-receding landscape of uniform green. They at last turned down the wider lane leading off the farm.
“Javier, slow down,” a man called out. “Juan Pablo, is this man driving a Cadillac?”
Juan Pablo looked up with alarm, but the men were already moving. A large wooden toolbox rested beneath the window of the truck’s cab; it was lifted. Tools were withdrawn and one of the men motioned for him to get in. He fitted in. The lid shut. The truck had never stopped and the men, once again, resumed their song.
The men’s boss stood in the road and waved them to a stop. Parked off at the side, the man with the red boots leaned against his Cadillac, smoking a cigar. He approached the truck to look in the truck bed.
Juan Pablo did not see this, but he didn’t have to. Tense with renewed fear, he held his breath. He asked the Sky People for help.
“Some kid is hiding in the field.”
“Ah, someone likes his zacate, sí? He is stealing from us, no?”
“He is wanted by the boss. There’s a big reward if any of you work extra hours looking for the package.”
“A reward?” Javier asked. “How much?”
“Five hundred pesos if you find him,” the boss said.
Juan Pablo froze, afraid to breathe. He could not believe this sum. A month’s worth of wages for working men.
“Help should be here any minute,” the boss continued.
An animated conversation emerged from the men. Some wanted to help look, but one man reminded them that his wife was in labor and he needed to get back tonight. Another man had a beautiful woman waiting for him in Tijuana. No amount of money could induce him to stay, not even 500 pesos. This solicited warm teases and jealous catcalls from the other less fortunate men.
Meanwhile, the cigar-smoking man looked in the truck bed; his gaze went slowly from man to man. One of the men asked if he had an extra smoke. This was produced from a shirt pocket and handed over.
Ultimately, the men declined this generous offer.
The truck moved on.
Juan Pablo’s relief, keenly
and intensely felt, burst through his mind in a symphony. Not just any symphony, but his mother’s and abuela’s favorite one. He imagined holding his beloved violin; he harmonized every triumphant note of that transcendent music. He vowed to play it soon in Pacific Grove.
He had escaped.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The symphony lasted until they reached Tijuana and he gave his heartfelt thanks to the men who had saved him. “He will not get you again,” the old driver said.
“No. Never again,” Juan Pablo repeated with feeling.
Darkness came slowly in the summer as Juan Pablo made his way through the side streets back to the border crossing. He was emotionally and physically spent; he had no thoughts beyond that he had escaped, that he was not to die today. At last he reached the freeway off-ramp. Facing the fast-moving lights, he walked toward the oncoming traffic until he found it.
Resting inconspicuously against the chainlink fence, amidst a river of litter, his backpack waited. He swept it up and began walking to the main boulevard. The turnoff put him ever closer to the border crossing. As he was about to leave the freeway, he stopped and stood for several moments noticing the people hawking wares at the border crossing on the other side of the freeway: trinkets, souvenirs, candy, even ponchos and purses and Levi’s.
He could sell his milkweed seeds here.
It would be perfect. He would make enough money to eat while he discovered a means of crossing the border again.
He waited and watched the people. Most wore lighted, colorful hats as they weaved up and down the lanes. He looked across the endless stream of headlights. Stands packed with a colorful array of goods lined the freeway on one side.
He watched an older woman selling maracas and ridiculously large sombreros—these, he reasoned, must be decorative. Wearing a funny hat with blinking red and white lights, the short, squat woman moved slowly, indifferently, as if she had been there all her life.
He moved toward her, crossing two lanes of stopped traffic. “Pardon, señorita?”
The warmth in her smile surprised him. The bright and shining false teeth were incongruent with her lined face and heavy jowls, but she showed them off like a pleased child holding a carefully drawn self-portrait.
“I am looking for work,” he first explained, after answering with his own smile. “I was wondering if you can tell me how I might work here, at the crossing.”
Her eyes made a brief study of him. “Your eyes. Very pretty.” She laughed. “They are wasted on a young man.”
Juan Pablo smiled back; he supposed this was true.
“You remind me of my son Gabriel, God rest his soul, for no reason I can say. So,” she changed tones with the subject, “you want to rent a lane?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
The smile dropped. “This is no easy feat,” she said, shifting the pile of ten straw sombreros to her other hand.
“Oh? Why is that?”
“A thousand people want to rent a lane,” she exaggerated, but not by much. “When there is an opening, the man in charge has a list. People pay him just to be on this list of one hundred names. Even if you had the money, you would have to wait years.”
Juan Pablo paused as a car honked its horn and she attended to the sale. He watched as a large hat disappeared inside a Buick and the money slipped into the pocket of her apron.
When she returned to his side, he asked, “Who is in charge of this list?”
“Felix. He controls the list and all vendors.”
“Where can I find him?”
“He’s often found at the Rancheros bar on Avenida Revolución. But you should not bother. He will turn you away.”
“How did you get a spot?”
She laughed. “Felix is my other son. He better give his mother a spot!”
Then she moved on, walking in front of the waiting traffic.
Juan Pablo stood there, blinded by the sea of bright headlights.
He would not give up so easily. There must be a way to get a spot. He chased after the old woman. “Uno momento, señorita.”
Stopping, she waited for him to catch up.
“There must be some way, a secret way, to leap to the top of the list.”
The old woman did not want to send him off with false hope, but somehow she could not resist answering.
The key, she explained as the cars moved slowly past them, came with a brief lesson in border-crossing economics. Over the decades, her son Felix (as had his father before him) experimented with selling every kind of trinket here; a list that included the top 100 bestselling items in a pharmacy. Over these long decades, they had discovered their bestselling items fell into one of two categories: viejo como un anciano, meaning Mexican souvenirs, wicker baskets, colorful clay pots, and cheap lanterns; or cheap cigarettes, candies, and gum.
“My son is a smart businessman.” The dazzling smile showed up again as she explained this. “So, if say, you came up with something new, an item that he has not yet tried, something that was novel and cheap, something that caught his attention, he might give you a two-day slot. To see if it sells.”
A heart-stopping look of happiness appeared on Juan Pablo’s face; she might have just told him he won the lottery.
“Gracias, señorita. Gracias.”
And he disappeared into the lights.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A warm haze spread over the main avenue in Tijuana. Avenida Revolución. High-end stores competed with souvenir shops for the ever-dwindling tourist dollar. Homeless now, Juan Pablo spent the night with half a dozen other homeless kids behind a leather goods shop. In a group they headed to a church for food in the morning. They had to go early, as there was never enough for everyone. “Look sickly,” a boy, Pedro, advised as they stood in line, “or the sisters will pick you out to work.”
The sisters, though, took no notice of the swarms of young and old lining up outside the gate surrounding the modest church. Or so Juan Pablo thought. “You,” a voice called from the church steps.
Everyone turned to look at him. A few of the other boys snickered at his poor luck.
“Me?” Juan Pablo pointed.
The sister nodded. “Can you help in the kitchen?”
Juan Pablo stepped forward. “I am happy to help.”
The sisters smiled at him as he was led behind the church to the nearby rectory kitchen. The fair-sized room was made of wooden floors. A modest cross hung on the walls near the brick oven, which already warmed the room. Five sisters—all clad in traditional habits, but worn, thin ones—were busy over pots of oatmeal, loaves of cornbread, and bowls of jam. One of the sisters directed him to sit at their small table.
“And what is your name, young man?”
“Juan Pablo.”
His name solicited warm smiles all around. Catholics always assumed he was named after the famous pope.
“Pope John Paul’s favorite song is ‘Pescador de Hombres.’ Maybe it is yours too, Juan Pablo?”
Before he could answer, the sisters’ voices rose in song.
Juan Pablo smiled as a giant bowl of oatmeal, a slice of cornbread, and water were set before him. One sister patted his shoulder before pouring a generous heaping of brown sugar serendipitously into his bowl. He tried to slow down, but he had never been this hungry or thankful for a simple meal. The sisters never spoke after that, beyond directing his labor, as there wasn’t time.
Instead they sang or hummed as they worked and Juan Pablo was reminded how much music sustained people. In the next few hours over 200 hungry people were served a good breakfast. He spent the rest of the day scrubbing plates and pots and sweeping, all the while working out his plan. At last everything was done, ready for the sisters to begin a new day.
Then he was thanked, kissed, and sent away.
Once free, he spent two hours working on his sign.
Finally, as the day wore down, he found himself on Tijuana’s infamous main boulevard. The Avenida Revolución used to be swarming with ric
h Americans on a brief shopping holiday. Now, due to the ever-ominous presence of the cartels, only the foolish or the brave made their way across the border just to shop. Fewer Americans came every week. The once glittering streets had fallen into disrepair, doors were shuttered and stores boarded over. Only a few bars serving working people were able to remain open.
Juan Pablo moved from the dwindling light of day into the darker cavern that was the Rancheros bar. Empty tables rested on a sawdust-covered floor. A thick cloud of smoke hung motionless in the air. A handful of men sat at the bar, beers and tequila shots placed in front of them like a uniform table setting.
“Excuse me,” Juan Pablo said as he approached the bar.
The bartender, a small, compact man, looked over.
“I am looking for Felix.”
“Ah. All the world is looking for Felix. He only sees people on Mondays.”
The two men at the end of the bar held cards in their hands, emitting drunken laughter as they played blackjack. Two other young, strong-looking men sat between a heavyset man who spoke rapidly into a phone. No one gave him a moment’s attention. One man watched the front door and the other kept his eyes on an open side door.
Juan Pablo guessed they were bodyguards for the heavy man in the middle.
“If you direct me to him, I would be very quick,” Juan Pablo offered politely.
The bartender glanced at the heavyset man in the middle.
The man returned his phone to his trousers. “I’m not taking any new vendors, amigo,” he replied. “Try again in a couple of months.”
Juan Pablo found himself staring at the very large dark-haired man in between the two bodyguards. He had a long, black mustache and wore a large red and white Mexican poncho, the kind found in any tourist shop, the kind, in fact, sold at the border crossing. The colorful poncho draped over a white T-shirt and black jeans. His amused and intelligent eyes gave Juan Pablo a quick look-over.
“I believe I would be very successful.”
“Ha. You and a thousand others.”
“I would also take any time slot, señor. Even in the slow hours of night and early morning.”