“Shouldn’t be here. What the fuck are we doing here?”
“Shut up. Just show me the way.”
“Get ready to bail.”
“They won’t hurt us. I’m telling you. They won’t.”
“You never been inside.”
“And I never will again.”
“Where is he? This is where they usually eat… right here.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s it. That’s two of them.”
Scuffling feet were coming closer. The rescue workers were standing over him.
It was over.
“Hey, Boss. Boss. You awake?”
Macon peered up into the faces staring down at him. One face was full of scars, as if burnt, and seemed permanently scabbed in the shadows. The other was mostly shadows from a baseball cap.
San Diego Padres. Padre was here.
They started to speak in a weak whisper.
“Sorry about that back there, Boss,” Padre said. “You’re messed up now. I know. I know that.”
“Untie the rope. Let me loose. They’re cutting me up. And those kids.”
“Yeah, Boss, sorry about that too. But that’s not why we’re here.” Padre leaned closer, and the thought of a head-butt flashed through Macon’s brain. He could smash his already crushed-in skull against Padre’s.
“My friend Blackie here, you see, he’s been here before. But then they let him go. He says he got free, but we know they let him go. A few scars on his face, but nothing too bad. That’s not going to be you, Boss. You’re not going to be let go.”
“You shoulda just paid,” the man called Blackie said, “just paid the man and moved on. Just paid.”
Blackie couldn’t stop scanning the flashlight up and down the tunnel, and with every shadow, Macon thought he saw a man approaching, but it was just visions or shadows of memories.
“I tried. I wanted to. My girls. Where are they? Where are they now?”
“Hank feels read bad about that. Fucked up, Boss. This place is fucked up. Got to get out of here. We got to go, got to go. But we can end things for you, right now. Right now, it will end quick and be over. Game over—no more pain, no more nothing. Just go to your heaven.”
“Just let me go. Why don’t you just let me go?”
“Living ain’t free. Got to survive, and the supply line is good living when Hank feeds the family. We just trim our fat and bring them here, and supplies come from the outside. You weren’t supposed to be here, so we got a way out for you. You think the poor son of a bitch next to you got this option? Nope. He didn’t.”
Padre then reached into his boot and pulled out a blade, a long one—longer than the little knives that had cut into Macon already.
“We can spill you right here real quick. Why bother fighting one second longer to survive when you can go straight to heaven and get everything you need?”
Grunts instead of intended words came from Macon’s mouth, and he started to shake but had nowhere to move to. Blood pounded harder through his head from his booming heart. If only pain and anger could break through his ropes.
“Think, man. Think about it,” Blackie pleaded. “They’ll keep ya here and skin you a bit and bleed you a bit, but they won’t kill you—not right away. They try to keep ya alive; kept me alive, and I escaped.”
“And I ain’t even seen your li’l family, so they may be gone anyways. But we ain’t letting you go and telling everybody about what’s going on down here. So, what do you say?”
“We gots to go now, anyway,” Blackie said. “Let’s just do it. It’s the best. Just cut him in his neck, and we’ll be gone. Damn, but what if they find out we did this? Maybe we can make it look like he did it to himself. Yeah, that’s it.”
The end game, Macon thought. How nice it seemed. He would feel no more, and all would be numb. Like a permanent morphine pump, the pain would be taken away. His body would eventually sink right down into this tunnel, permanently a part of the underworld, never to be found.
Just jump off the pier and fall into the beautiful, dark black and sink.
They weren’t here to kill him. These were his gravediggers. He was dead already. Why not let himself be buried?
No, I’m not done yet. Miles to go before I sleep.
Time to yell and shout and squeeze what was inside of him. “Heyyyy! They’re here. They’re here! Can anybody hear me? They’re here!” Macon screamed.
“Fuck it. We’re gone,” and his gravediggers left him.
Alone again.
The dark returned. Only a trace of light remained from a wayward lantern, and Macon was now resting in his tomb. Turning, he saw the shadow of the man next to him, who was now his brethren. Both of them were homeless and without a soul who was looking to help. This was not how it should be. I’m not done yet—not done yet, Macon kept telling himself, but he was pulled back by a deep slumber of gravity in the back of his head. Woozy thoughts made his brain feel weighted, and his eyes grew heavy.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” and they were calling for him, calling for him. He pictured the words of this poem where he had inked them on the round of Erin’s calf, just below the tiny wings.
“But I have promises to keep”
Promises to Lyric. Her face looked up at him in his mind’s eye. She was standing at the hotel pool, with ocean-blue eyes, alone and cold, waiting for her daddy to arrive before she jumped in. Then it grew dark, nighttime. The ocean was behind her, and she was huddled in the corner of the pier nibbling on fish bait.
“And miles to go before I sleep.”
Sleep, how much it called for him. The heaviness in the back of his head pulled at his eyelids, and his head melted into the ground.
“And miles to go before I sleep.”
Sleep, it seemed so soft and promising. Cuts all over him burned, bleeding, and he knew if he didn’t move he’d go black and stay there forever. Feint yellow light from a fading electric lantern played in the distance.
I’m not done yet—not done yet.
With a grunt he turned to the man next to him, who was also stuck, maybe dead, certainly dying.
With another grunt he rolled onto his stomach, hands behind his back, and his open wounds felt the sting of dirt and rocks from the ground. He spun again, but couldn’t get enough momentum to flip back over. Still, he was moving and felt victorious and alive. He rocked back and forth and felt his brain bouncing against his skull. Nobody was there to hear his moans, but there was a man next to him, so he made himself roll again, but this time did a full rotation with the momentum. He heard his own grunts echo in the tunnels, but got close enough to feel the heat of the body.
Alive. The man was alive, breathing like a respirator that needed oiling, like steel wool lined his nasal passages, but alive. The man was rail-skinny and his shirt had been torn loose, his abdomen gutted. Streams of the yellow light strayed onto bits of him that had been torn open, like a vulture had had its way and moved on.
“Hey, hey, can you hear me?” There was no response, so Macon gave the man a nudge with his shoulder. The body shook, just a bit, but still nothing—no response.
Macon was about to be buried next to this man, who was led here to his death, just like Macon, and smoked his last cigarette without finishing it.
The man’s a smoker.
Macon flipped to his side, lined up his tied hands with the man’s pockets, and with his free fingers searched the front pocket of the man’s pants.
Papers, folded-up papers.
With grunts he was uncertain came from his mouth or out of his pounding head, he managed to position himself until he could feel the pack of cigarettes in the man’s back pocket. He slid one finger into the pack of smokes, put pressure on it, and slowly lifted the finger out. The pack of cigarettes slid out along with his finger.
It was nearly empty, with only three sticks left to smoke, but inside the pack was what he was looking for: the lighter.
Fumbling for the light
er with his hands tied behind his back was like driving a car backwards with everything in reverse. His shoulders were both numb, yet ached from being stretched, and nerve transmissions seemed to be broken like his tendons were split cables. His fingers were slow, deliberate, and shaky. With his thumb, he located the jagged metal of the lighter and tried to secure it with the other hand. His wrists pulled and stretched against the rope, but the circulation was cut off and his hands felt frozen with less blood flow.
And with every move, his head pulsed and clouded. Blood seeped out through the slices in his flesh, but he wouldn’t give up.
Click, click, click…
He flicked his thumb, but no flame.
Click, click.
The fire came forth, but he couldn’t keep pressure on the bottom of the lighter. It fell to the ground.
His fingernails scratched and reached out, all behind his back, until he felt the plastic again.
Before he tried another click, he used four fingers to hold the lighter in place.
Click.
Fire. Right away there was fire, and he felt the heat against his wrists. All was still, silent, except distant echoes coming from the tunnel, or perhaps from his own head.
Macon turned the lighter to the rope. It burned his skin, and his fingers involuntarily let go. He heard the plastic fall to the ground and bounce. One, two, three pitter-patter bounces away from him.
He scrambled and fumbled for the lighter again, inch-worming a bit. With each movement, the rope was both loosening and tightening and would not let him free.
His fingers did a radius scan of where the lighter dropped and found it again.
Try again. Breathe. The metal of the lighter was burning hot. He flicked again. The flame burned the flesh of his wrist, and his fingers again reacted, loosening their hold. Sharp pain ripped through him, and he had no choice. The nerves fired on their own. Must force myself into the pain. Run into the pain.
This time he waited for the ache, then the burning agony to hit, and endured the flame at his skin with clenched teeth and groans from his chest. Was the rope burning? Was that smell the rope?
Moving the lighter left and right made the skin burn less, but was like roasting himself alive. The rope was burning too, though; he knew it. Burning the rope was his only hope.
His fingers were losing their grip, shaking and without strength, and the nerve cables were too severed to work any longer.
My legs. Maybe he could reach down for his legs. The rope was wrapped around him like the arms of an octopus, but he arched his back and reached down.
Click, click.
The flesh of his thigh was tender and burned with the flame. He couldn’t reach far enough to burn the rope. Freeing his legs wouldn’t be any easier.
Boom, boom, boom. The sounds of heavy boots were coming his way.
“Face—take it off. Take it off!”
The tweaking creature had returned.
Chapter Sixteen
“Cover your ears with your hands and close your eyes.”
Erin whispered into Lyric’s ear, and like a snake trying to protect its eggs, curled around her. Her imaginary arms grasped and hugged her daughter desperately, but her real arms were tied behind her back, and she could do nothing, or at least not enough, with just her legs free. Her temples felt tight around her head and her sternum tight upon her heart. She was with her daughter at last and nestled close, but still trapped and now deeper inside this dungeon.
The area was squared off into a room, maybe twenty-by-twenty feet, and a completely dark tunnel led off in the other direction. Candy-bar wrappers were scattered on the floor, tiny, ripped-up bits of Hershey’s, Snickers, Milky Way, Twix, and empty Chicklet packets. A water bottle made from clear plastic that had faded and turned to grey sat mushed as if trampled on for many months. Erin gazed at the entrance and then down the dark tunnel that led to oblivion. She watched and waited for someone to appear, but nothing. Where did this lead… to Tijuana?
They won’t hurt us. Why would they? This will be over soon. We will survive this. We will live.
She knew she’d do anything to let her daughter live, but there were some things Lyric shouldn’t live through.
Macon. Where was he? Besides him, the hotel clerk was the only one who knew she was here.
This woman, this mother of two who sat before her, who had lived in this underground tunnel and wanted to talk, was full of envy. Erin could feel the twisted admiration, but it was laced with hate, and her tenderness for Lyric was full of sickness, sadness, and insanity. How to win her favor?
Scrapes and bruises on Erin’s body from the fight were like fire ants crawling all over her, and she didn’t have enough air in her head to think. She breathed in deep, filling her chest and hoping to clear her mind. Think here. All that came into her lungs was a thick stench, like rotting meat. There was moisture in the air with thick chunks of dust that tugged at her throat and made her want to throw up.
Scrapping noises from the sound of rock grinding on wood came from the top of the ladder, followed by chatter.
“Go. Get! Go, go, go.” It was the wretches’ voice.
Light shot down from the entrance to the cavern, followed by the two children, who plopped down and then scurried over to be by their mother’s side. The man followed, walked with nervous energy to the side of the wall, smashed over a crate, and then muttered as if he was speaking in dark tongues.
“Salts. Salts, Momma,” came the girl’s voice.
“Low-low-lots. Lots of salts. And the man punched him.”
“Q doesn’t know how to talk. Dadda’s face got mushed up.”
They were whispering. Their clothes were stuck to their skin in filth that acted like papier-mâché. Their pinhole eyes stuck out of sunken cheeks, and both of their stained faces glistened with the moisture of their last meal. Blood was on the lips of both children. Neither one had shoes, and the bottoms of their feet were the color of stone. Their toenails were like the claws of a dog. The outline of their elbows and fingers were clearly defined in their flesh, and when their mouths slackened, opening in wonder, the dark-yellow stains of teeth broke free in the feint light.
Their eyes gazed up, and Erin saw something in them common to all children while they clung to their mother: safety. The two felt safe. This mother, this woman named Lupita, had given her children that.
But Erin couldn’t say the same, could she? First Max. Now Lyric. She hadn’t kept them safe; one was dead, the other near dying.
The man walked in and out of the shadows, pacing frantically. He seemed to not notice he had visitors, but at times looked in their direction… right past them.
“Funkerling face can’t be stuck on me. Tooter-tooter too many girls. Girls all about… we can getta, we can get by. Calfresh cards for everyone. Stay, stay, stay, stay in the dark. In the dark I stay… he swung, swung at my face… humper-dingerly.”
Words spun about the man and surrounded him like a cloud, and the more he spoke, Erin could smell his breath. His essence filled the room as he walked side to side, in and out of the shadows, changing batteries in lanterns and fumbling with candy wrappers. He was talking to ghosts on either side of them, oblivious, but then suddenly turned in their direction, gave a piercing wide-eyed stare, and shouted, “Listen, li’l Q, you ain’t seen nothing in this world. Close yer mouth, or I’ll close yer eyes forever.”
Then another pace, followed by, “Which one are you? Take off your face! Take it off so I can see you. I can’t stay here. I need to go.”
Erin sat still as a rock as the mother and two children looked up at her as if waiting for her to perform. Lyric’s body felt warm but shocked at her side, and Erin leaned into her. If only her hands were free. If only she could defend her child somehow. What can I do if they try to hurt me?
“Cover your ears, dear,” she whispered again to Lyric. “Yes, that’s it, cover your ears and press your eyes into me. Keep them closed.” She kissed Lyric’s forehead, and th
is made the filthy little girl named T finally speak.
“Is this person a momma?”
“Yes, this is a mother and a little girl—just like you,” Lupita answered,
“An-an-an-and they talk, Momma… say things,” said Q. “Sha-sha-should we put that thing in her mouth so she doesn’t anymore. So, so, so, so she doesn’t talk?”
“Can I do it?” asked T.
“Wa-wa-why her? I want to,” the boy volleyed back.
“Can we taste, Momma?”
“Tay-tay-taste.”
Erin folded her legs and felt the warm arms of Lyric surround her waist. The tiny limbs dug into her, the fingers and hands continually burrowing. If I was only strong enough, thought Erin. If only I was strong enough, I could break through these ropes.
But with every tug and pull at the rope, all she got was a strain in her shoulder and a deeper cramp, and the feel of rope burning into her skin.
Turtle my child. Turtle yourself. Make a shell and block this out. Let nothing in.
Erin coiled her legs and felt the muscles gaining strength, as if she had cocked her gun ready to fire. If any of them made a move toward Lyric, she would kick. A quick move and she could be on her feet, kicking these children away and then kicking the woman. She could hear the smack now and imagined their surprised look, but how would they respond? The man—the crazy man, what would he do?
“No. No sweets. Touching no. We can just look for now. Guest. They are here to stay with us.”
“Stay, yes! Stay!” the pacing man’s voice declared from the background. “Girls, girls everywhere. Two more of them inside of here, I see.”
The motley man, this insane jester, was keeping her prisoner, and he’d taken notice. His legs jigged. His mutters continued flying out of him, but became too softly spoken and swift to hear, and he sat down next to his family and examined Erin up close.
A kick or a head-butt if he touches us.
Dried blood had clotted underneath his swollen nose and filled the underside of his nostrils. His red-lined, dotty eyes stared at her. His face was not like this before. Something had happened; the man had done this to himself perhaps. His head cocked, he looked into her, and they sat hypnotized for a bit. Then he scanned Lyric and turned to look at his own children, first the boy then the girl. Wirey fingers scratched the back of his head. He wiped his nose with his arm and then reached into his pocket.
On the Lips of Children Page 14