Santiago's Road Home

by Alexandra Diaz

  The fantasy relaxed his mind. Maybe he’d eventually fall asleep. Even with the hard floor, illuminated room, and continual twittering of almost a hundred teenagers.

  Except someone let out a loud fart amplified by the high ceiling. Silence fell for a few seconds before a suppressed giggle echoed through the room. Then another, and another, before full-blown laughter erupted from all sides. A snicker escaped Santiago’s own lips. He couldn’t help it.

  “Shh,” one of the night guards reprimanded.

  The silence lasted less than a second before someone forced a huge burp, which led to an even louder burst of laughter. Another person burped, and someone else responded with an armpit noise.

  “¡Cállense!” the guard shouted.

  A chorus of bodily noises continued whenever silence lasted for more than a second. Santiago turned to his stomach and hid his head under the metallic blanket and under his arms. Still, he could hear the guards going around, shushing and kicking people to be quiet.

  “Don’t the guards know they’ll stop if they’re ignored?” Santiago mumbled to himself. His little cousins had always misbehaved more when they had an audience.

  “At least they’re not barking,” Guanaco muttered back. “The night that happened, they even got the coyotes outside to howl back.”

  “Is falling asleep ever easy here?” Santiago lifted his head from the floor and turned to face the wall.

  A slight rustling indicated Guanaco shaking his head. “Not as long as I’ve been here.”

  CHAPTER 23

  On Santiago’s second day a kid started screaming as soon as the guard delivered him into the crowded room. “Where are the phones? Don’t I get a phone call?”

  The red-faced guard on duty was the one who didn’t know, or pretended not to know, Spanish. Patterson, as Santiago heard others call him, had a special talent for ignoring anyone other than a fellow guard.

  Just as he’d helped Santiago, Guanaco set the newcomer straight. “Sorry, bróder, phone calls don’t happen here. We have fewer rights than murderers.”

  “But no one knows I’m here. How will I get rescued?”

  “Grow out your hair,” Pinocchio muttered under his breath. “Get a spoon and start digging.”

  Guanaco narrowed his eyes at his friend before turning back to the newcomer. “You’ll get an intake interview in a couple days, brodér. There you give them the contact information, and they’ll let your family know you’re here.”

  Sure, that all sounded fine. Except Santiago didn’t know how to contact María Dolores or how to find out if she was even alive. More pressing would be getting a message to Alegría. Their caravans to the cafeteria and the outside area were carefully timed so they never crossed paths with the other youths at the center who shared the same amenities (though some of the boys swore they had caught glimpses of the teenage girls a couple of times). This morning, for the briefest second, Santiago heard someone crying as his group filed toward breakfast. A reminder they weren’t alone. Somewhere within the gray walls of this building, Alegría waited for him. Now to figure out how to get in touch with her.

  * * *

  Santiago kept his head down and scuffed the hard dirt with the toe of his flip-flop. Sometimes once, sometimes twice a day they got to spend time outside in the “play” area—nothing more than a bare patch of earth surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire. No balls, and running around was only allowed while certain guards were on duty. But just like the cafeteria, this area was also used by the younger boys and the girls—a broken plastic barrette found in the dirt proved that. If he could only write Alegría’s name in the dirt, would she see it before someone stepped on it? Would she know it came from him and he meant to say he missed her and thought of her all the time? A long shot he’d be willing to risk.

  He’d just have to learn to write.

  “Oye, Guanaco, I got something for you.” A boy of about fourteen, shorter than Santiago but with broad shoulders, strutted up to them.

  “Not interested, Chismoso,” the older boy said as he did a series of jumping jacks while his friends talked with some other guys.

  Chismoso leaned against the chain-link fence. “You don’t know what it is.”

  “Don’t want to.” Guanaco continued with his jumping jacks.

  From his accent, the other boy sounded Mexican, but Santiago couldn’t say from what part. “Your days here are numbered, my friend.”

  “I knew that from the start.”

  Santiago heard Guanaco’s formal tone, saw the narrowing of his eyes at being called “friend.”

  Chismoso shrugged and strutted away. He hadn’t gone too far when he called out to another boy. “Mira, burro, we’re having spaghetti tonight. Pay up.”

  Secret messages in the hard dirt temporarily forgotten, Santiago moved closer to Guanaco, who’d stopped his exercise.

  “Is Chismoso really his name?” Santiago asked.

  Guanaco shrugged. “It’s what we call him.”

  The fact that Chismoso’s nickname meant “gossiper” shouldn’t have surprised Santiago.

  “What things does he know?” Santiago asked as a thought brewed.

  “Many. And they’re usually true.” Guanaco laced his fingers through the fence and leaned into his muscular shoulders to stretch his back. “But finding out comes at a price. I won’t deal with him. Don’t like being indebted to anyone.”

  Santiago couldn’t drop it. “If I want to find out how my sister is doing, Chismoso could do that?”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption.” Guanaco turned his back to him.

  Santiago heard the disapproval. “You don’t want me to talk to him.”

  This time Guanaco faced him. Despite the age difference, they were almost the same height. “No, bróder, I’m not saying that. People have to make their own choices.”

  Santiago glanced at Chismoso, still talking with the guy he’d called Burro, a nickname that kid surely hadn’t given himself. “Chismoso’s the one who started calling you Guanaco, isn’t he?”

  “Ten other guys were here from El Salvador when I arrived, but yes, I’m the one who got the ethnic slur.”

  What name would this gossiper give Santiago? It would be something Santiago wouldn’t like. Except Chismoso wouldn’t know there were few things that Santiago hadn’t been called already.

  Santiago’s voice softened in sympathy. “Can you do me a favor?”

  But Guanaco shook his head. “I don’t run that kind of operation.”

  “It’s only”—Santiago shuffled a flip-flop back and forth—“to ask if you can write my sister’s name here in the dirt? Maybe she’ll see it and know I’m thinking about her.”

  Guanaco’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yeah, okay, I can do that.”

  “Gracias.” And even though he didn’t know what the word meant, he added, “Bróder.”

  “Alfaro!” Patterson, the guard who never spoke to the inhabitants, called across the yard.

  Guanaco straightened up his shoulders and let out a deep breath. The other ninety or hundred teens outside stopped their chitchat and games. The smug look on Chismoso’s face screamed, I told you so.

  A crowd formed a few meters behind Guanaco as he headed toward Patterson.

  “¿Voy a salir?” Guanaco asked the guard, and then switched to English. “I’m free?”

  But Patterson just jerked his head toward the door in response.

  The muscles around Santiago’s face twitched. Guanaco was leaving. Santiago wished Guanaco could stay or, better yet, that he could go with him. He swallowed and offered the older boy a hand; Guanaco shook it.

  “No touching!” Patterson yelled in English. Not knowing what that meant, Santiago dropped Guanaco’s hand.

  “I hope you find your girlfriend,” Santiago whispered.

  “Me too.” Guanaco’s regular confidence faltered. He turned and waved at Pinocchio, Mosca, and all the other boys, giving them a smile that didn’t reach his gr
een eyes.

  Santiago swallowed harder this time, watching his only friend follow the guard out. Whatever decision the government made for Guanaco, Santiago hoped it’d be a favorable one.

  CHAPTER 24

  Once Guanaco left, Santiago kept to himself. Pinocchio and Mosca let him sit next to them during meals, but Santiago declined. He didn’t have anything to say to them. He still didn’t know how to talk to kids his own age. Besides, eating alone gave him a chance to plan.

  When the guards called time, some of the boys left their food trays on the long tables. It took Santiago a few extra seconds to pile the remaining trays and take the stack where it belonged. Not too different from what he’d done in Capaz. The second time Santiago did this, the lady who came out at the end of the mealtimes to clean up accepted the trays from his arms.

  “No tiene que hacer eso.” She whispered her gratitude with respect.

  “Ya sé,” Santiago whispered back. Except he did have to help her.

  During an evening meal, he introduced himself as he threw away wrappers that had fallen next to the trash. “Soy Santiago.”

  “Y yo Consuelo.”

  He wanted to say something more, but Patterson yelled at him to stop wasting time and get in line to return to the main room. That much English he’d learned.

  The next day at breakfast, as soon as Consuelo came out, he took his bowl of milky cereal debris and orange peels to the trash. Except he “accidentally” tripped on his flip-flops, spilling cereal mush all over the floor.

  “¡Ay, perdóneme!” he apologized, then grabbed a couple of napkins to help Consuelo clean up the mess. Their heads together, he whispered, “Can you find out about my sister, Alegría? She’s five and wears pigtails.”

  Of course, María Dolores had styled her hair like that. He couldn’t imagine a guard doing that here.

  “I’ll ask around,” Consuelo murmured without hesitation. “Do you want me to give her something?”

  Something? What could he give her? All he had was a toothbrush and a metallic blanket; all that remained in the dining room were spilled food and trays. He glanced at the guards. A long line still formed to leave the dining area as each boy was searched to make sure he wasn’t sneaking out food.

  Consuelo tapped him on the shoulder, then handed him a wrinkled piece of paper and a pen. But he couldn’t write. Not even his name. Not yet, at least. But he’d change that very soon, now that he had a motive. For today, he’d make do. He drew an animal’s head that would have been mistaken for a cow or lizard if he hadn’t added a flowing mane and a single horn between its ears. Good enough.

  “Hurry up, kid,” a guard called to him from the door. Consuelo pocketed the scrap paper as Santiago gathered the sodden napkins from the floor and threw them away before rushing toward the door. For the first time since arriving at the center, he smiled.

  * * *

  The center provided school for them on Mondays and Thursdays. Each boy was supposed to attend two hours a day either in the morning or afternoon, but depending on the guard on duty, sometimes as many as half the boys stayed watching tele instead. Lessons took place in another small room off the main one. Long, white plastic tables with four or five folding chairs along one side worked as desks. A whiteboard stood on an easel at the front next to a small, square card table the teacher used. No pens were allowed—nothing that encouraged drawing on bodies. Even the dry-erase marker dangled from a cord around the teacher’s neck—black, because blue and red were historically associated with gang colors.

  Their teacher, Señor Dante, came from Honduras. Young, tall, and slender with round glasses, turned-up skinny jeans, and a loose tie, he pranced around the classroom unable to stand still for a second. He taught Spanish, English, math, and a little bit of everything else.

  Math was the easiest for Santiago, especially since Señor Dante taught it in terms of money. (“If you have twenty-one pesos, and the candy costs one peso and fifty centavos, how many can you buy?” Before the teacher finished asking, Santiago had answered, “Catorce.” Easy.) But reading and writing, in any language, he’d never learned.

  Except now he had to. For Alegría.

  From his desk Señor Dante picked up a stack of magazines and began passing them out. “Find an article that gets your attention, read through it, and then tell us what it’s about.”

  Santiago grabbed a magazine with a sigh. This would be harder than he thought.

  “Con permiso,” said Pinocchio. “I can’t read English. Can I get a Spanish magazine?”

  “Nope.” Señor Dante grinned while he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Try to figure it out. See what words you recognize, and use the pictures to understand what’s happening. You have five minutes.”

  Santiago now thumbed through the magazine eagerly. Making up stories based on the pictures? That’s how he always read!

  “This is stupid.” Pinocchio ripped his magazine in half. “You can’t learn to read if you don’t even know the language.”

  “I understand your frustration,” Señor Dante said. “English is a hard language to read. I’m here to work with you, but please don’t take it out on my magazine. If the pictures don’t help, notice the letters that form the word and the other words around it.”

  While Señor Dante worked with Pinocchio and the other boys who found the assignment too hard, Santiago made up a story from a picture about two boys close to his age holding a plaque and a comic book. According to Santiago’s imagination, the boys had won an award for the comic book they’d written together. The boy with the dark hair looked Central American. Judging by the two colored pencils sticking out from behind his ear, Santiago labeled him the artist and the blond boy with the lead pencil the writer.

  “Fantastic! That’s exactly what the article says. These boys live here in southern Nuevo México, and their school granted them an award for the comic book they wrote together. Muy bien.”

  “That’s cheating,” whined Pinocchio, making Santiago glad he no longer sat with him at mealtimes. “That article is in both English and Spanish.”

  “Not at all cheating,” Señor Dante corrected. “Our friend here used the clues accessible to him to figure out what it said. That’s exactly what I asked.”

  Santiago beamed. The words had just been smudges on the page; all the clues had come from the picture. He couldn’t even figure out which section was written in English and which in Spanish. He picked out a few words that looked similar in both languages, but had no idea what the words might mean.

  When Herrera, the pimply guard who had kicked him the first morning, opened the classroom door to release them back into the main room, Santiago couldn’t believe they’d spent two hours in there. Even though it broke a million rules, he stayed behind as his classmates shuffled out.

  “I need to write my sister letters, but I don’t know how. Can you teach me?” Santiago pleaded.

  Señor Dante didn’t look surprised at his revelation. Instead, he beamed. “Definitely, that’s my job. Just wanting to learn is the most important part.”

  “García!” Herrera yelled, making Santiago jump. He had no idea the guard knew him from fulano.

  Had it been Castillo, the nice, bald guard, Santiago would have corrected him—he’d prefer to be called Reyes instead, Mami’s last name. But as it was grumpy-pants Herrera, better to not get on his bad side.

  “Take this book today, and we’ll talk more next time.” Señor Dante quickly handed over a large book with a hard cover. It looked beautiful, with drawings of birds and animals on the front. Santiago sighed and tried to hand it back.

  “I can’t. It might get lost or stolen.”

  “Then that person obviously needs it more than you.”

  The guard waved his hands to make him hurry up, but Santiago ignored him. He opened the book as he walked. Each page had an animal, bird, or insect and then a large word followed by smaller words all clumped together. He could copy some of these for Alegría. He remembered w
hat Señor Dante had said about using the images to figure out the words. Along with the picture of a horse, he found a word he recognized. His Tío Ysidro always went to the tavern called El Caballo Entero. Now he’d know whenever he saw this word, caballo, that it meant horse.

  He sat against a corner in the cold main room to look through the book more carefully, focusing on the large words. He started to notice similarities in the words and patterns, just as Señor Dante had said. For instance, serpiente started with the same sound as Santiago. He didn’t know how to write his name yet, but the two words probably started with the same letter. He’d have to run this theory by Señor Dante.

  After lunch, when the second school group got called, Santiago joined the line, holding the animal book to his chest. Patterson held the door open and didn’t bother checking to see who had afternoon school.

  Señor Dante smiled at the sight of Santiago but didn’t make any comment about his repeated presence. The teacher just made sure Santiago received a different periodical for the story deciphering.

  CHAPTER 25

  At the end of dinner that night, Consuelo came out with a rag to clean the stand that held the empty trays. Santiago quickly stuffed the mini muffin they’d gotten for dessert into his mouth and walked over with his empty tray.

  “I asked a ten-year-old girl to point out your sister,” Consuelo mumbled. “Though I should have guessed. She’s got your ojos.”

  What? Really? He brought his hand to his eyes. Long lashes tickled his fingertips. Was their shape similar too? He turned to the long serving table, but the stainless steel only distorted his features.