So I will sweep sweep and straighten straighten. And soon, if the angels are gathered close, I will own cloud-white tennis shoes. The extra money will be mine. Of course I will give it to my family—all but some few pesitos which I will hold aside for my journey.
My last need: something of warmth if it becomes freezing on the back of The Beast.
Time passes. I measure it by the corn. We planted it some months ago. Now it is taller than me.
During all my plottings I could change my mind. I could stay to help my family. Or I could follow my now-obsession, to be with Toño. To get a job in Gringolandia to help out with money. My heart swings back and forth—yes, no, maybe so—till at last it settles upon yes.
Once Abue looks at me with love. She touches my face with her floury hands.
“You are our dreamer, Manuelito,” she says to me in her starry voice, but with extreme seriousness. “Within you, you hold all of our dreams.” That is all. Then she goes back to patting tortillas.
I hold their dreams. What does this mean?
One day I am the owner of tennis shoes. New ones. Cloud-colored ones. A miracle in itself. As I wriggle into them I think to myself about where they will take me. Please, I say to the tennies silently, keep me on a good road always. The tennies answer, We will do our best. My feet, they are completely happy with these shoes. They dance all by themselves, it seems, to show they are pleased. Of course the shoes will soon be dirty from dust of the milpita, but that is good. Maybe upon The Beast they will not be a quick thief-target.
One afternoon when I think Toño will be home, I make a secret call to him from the tiendita. So secret I take the cell phone outside, away from all listeners. “Hermano, brother,” I say all in a rush when he picks up, “I am coming to you. If you tell Papi, I am coming anyway. I will call you when I can.” I speak these words with such solemnness, I know Toño will keep still.
I keep up my tiendita work as long as I can, to add more to my little hoarded paper pesos. Not many, but they must do. For I am going now—after I get a sweater.
I have one, but I need a bigger one, to cover me when it is freezing atop The Beast. Papi’s is the one I need. He would not give it to me for my unswerving purpose. He is generous in most ways, but not this. Already he has lost one boy to La Bestia. . . .
This night is quiet. The house is quiet. Its sleeping people are quiet. Quiet quiet to escape discovery I gather my few necessaries in a morral, a bag, including the tortillas and fresh chones, underwear. The phone numbers of the tiendita and of Toño. I have written them on little papers. These small papers I stuff into the pockets of my pants, along with my pesitos.
Just before I go, with great stealth I lift with care Papi’s sweater from the hook where it hangs. I wrap it around me, his too-big sweater with many holes. Papi’s torn old sweater wraps around me like his very arms. It smells of Papi and gives me courage to leave.
Now I am a thief.
I stand outside the door of my home.
I lift a hand in adiós.
Maybe I have tears. I do not know. I am numb.
Suddenly Guapo is beside me. Quiet quiet. Smart dog. Like Abue he knows I am going. He knows not to bark, not to whine, not to follow me. Only the grillos are singing as I bend to pet dear Guapo’s big-as-a-bucket head. Only the crickets sing me away. Into the dark. Toward The Beast.
III
I walk in the dark with the grillos for company and the sweep of stars overhead.
I am alone.
I am afraid.
Will I make it onto The Beast?
Or will I die this night?
Ay Jesús what will become of me?
I hurry to where The Beast will stop, a thing I have learned from listening to talk in the tiendita. The stars help me find the way. I crouch as I go, suddenly certain that Papi is following me. One ancient street lamp is trying to light this lonely place, sputtering its life away. I shrink back from the light, hiding from imagined-Papi.
I hear The Beast roar before I see it. I feel its great terribleness. I smell the reek of creosote, the stuff that soaks the railroad ties. I smell the weeds along the tracks. I smell my own fear.
The night is cold. I wrap Papi’s sweater tight about me, the sweater with his scent. I grip tighter the morral with my food and pat the places where I have hidden the precious phone numbers and pesitos. These I hope—and the angels—will get me to Toño.
The Beast screeches to a stop in this alone spot. From here, so close, it is bigger, darker, more frightening than the thing I have seen faraway in the distance. All of metal. Crusted with dust and grime. And horrible. A chill shivers through my whole body, like the chill of death.
There are others like me here, strangers, hiding from police who will try to stop them. Waiting, I guess, for the thing to start up again. I barely notice them, so fixed am I on this terrible train.
Before now, in the pueblito, I have asked questions with my best casualness about this train. Has anybody here ridden it? Are there polis, police? What are the secrets? What must I know to last? I tried to ask Leo, my crippled friend, but he was scared silent by his Beast experience. Still, I have learned poco a poco, little by little. But I have made one big mistake. I failed to ask, when it gets going at a big speed, how do I scramble on without losing an arm or a leg? How to get on without dying.
So here am I. Here is The Beast come alive again with a roar. Already moving faster and faster. What now? I am paralyzed with indecision. Frozen. But I must this moment jump on.
Suddenly, magically, I see shapes emerging from the tops of the cars, from the sides, from myriad hidden places. People viajando de mosca, traveling like a fly. Hanging on however they can. Dark shapes like mushrooms spontaneously arising, arms flailing, signaling me what to do. A wild chorus of voices, a complete cacophony—not soft grillos—shouts crazily from everywhere it seems, urging me forth. Oye, chavo, grab the ladder in front! Grip tight for all you are worth! Do not slip! No, no, no! Not the back! One false step and the wheels, they will chew you up! Come on, come on, it is passing you, órale, hurry, jump on!
My head is buzzing. The Beast is racing fast like a panther. The brotherhood of Beast Riders is lifting me in a huge hum of instructions, with great ferocity of purpose, with a kind of love new to me. Love that says Stranger, we are in this together.
In this moment I am inside the hum. I listen to everything of this most marvelous noise. Mostly I hear The ladder in front! So I aim for that. I am running alongside The Beast. Running running at the flank, panting. I must move now or be dragged in the gravel and left behind.
The front! The front! The ladder! The riders keep shouting. The wheels churn, as if grinding this tip out, again and again.
I look up.
I grab hold of a ladder.
Wheel sparks burn my arm.
I mumble a prayer.
And I leap.
IV
A miracle. I am aboard The Beast.
At first, by the ladder, I swing in the wind, my body thumping the metal car that I cling to. Next thing, I heave myself up and am on top, thumped all round with bravos by other riders. They are grubby and stinking of sweat and urine and filth, and prickly with beards, like cactus—except the women and children—but I do not care. I like cactus.
There is nothing to hold on to so I cling to anybody I can, seeking a place to sit. Nothing is still. Nothing is safe. I crouch to keep my balance. The Beast lurches. My stomach lurches. I pray I will not fall off and be sliced to pieces.
One man must see my fear. “Here!” He shouts and squeezes some room for me. The train noise is so terrible, you always must shout.
We are squashed together, gripping each other, on top of The Beast. Our smells, our breaths, our fears, mingling. Many grip the sides also, by ladders. The thing churns on its way, roaring as it goes, careening sometimes side to side like a drunken dragon, leaning, nearly tipping I think with horror, always screaming, while the wind hurls itself over the long and mourni
ng monster. A-hoooooooo!
Soot from the engine fills my mouth, blankets my clothes, sifts down my neck. When I spit, my spit is black. Already I want a bath.
Apart from the brotherhood of riders here, there is also here a brotherhood of rateros, thieves, swarming The Beast like rats. And gangs of asesinos. Preying on others’ misery. These would kill in a finger snap for one single tortilla. Or for nothing. They would maul me for my pesitos, then how would I get a phone card to call my home, or Toño?
I have heard these things in the tiendita. Now I learn them for real. Suddenly a voice comes from close close.
“So what do we have here?” says the guy, his eyes burning at me, and laughing in a most ugly way. “¿Un pollito?” A chick?
Apart from The Beast itself, I feel more fear leaking into my heart. So soon a thief! This one, with weasel eyes, if he was cold he would burn his own grandmother to make a fire, I believe.
I can hardly speak. But finally I struggle out in answer, “You have a Flores,” gathering my family name up for courage.
“Flowers!” The guy roars with evil. “A ramo of roses! How sweet!”
He has friends who jeer along with him, as if he is the boss. My heart is thundering as with his grubby hands he roughs me up. Inside myself I shriek, Toño! But I am a Flores, so into the night not a peep do I make.
“He is a boy. Leave him be.” An ice voice speaks.
The thieves and I turn to see a thin man appear from nowhere, one who looks like he is made all of wire. He is the grubbiest person I have ever seen, his skin dark with the dirt of years it seems. His eyes, deep green, are as cold as his voice, and look ancient ancient, as though he has traveled this earth since time and time. In his hand he holds a machete—blade bitten from who knows what terrible deeds—which gleams with the light of the stars.
My attackers must feel like I do about this guy. That he is from some Otherwhere.
“Okay okay,” the boss-one mumbles. He and his pals slink away. Nimble as rats they jump from car to car, into the deepening dark. And I am left alone with this cold personage holding the machete. Even in Papi’s sweater, I shiver. I grasp The Beast, balancing the best I can. And I hold my breath, believing in spite of his words to those bad ones that this guy may be Death.
“I am Gabriel” is all he says.
“I am Manuel,” I whisper. “Gracias.”
“Come, let us eat.” His eyes now hold a kindly look.
My terror melts—mostly.
“I have tortillitas,” I say, still finding my breath. I look for my bag, to share with him.
It is not here. I look up again, horrified. “I am sorry,” I say bleakly, “I can give you nothing. My food, it is gone.”
V
“That maldito with his pawing hands, he has stolen my tortillitas!” I pat my pockets quickly and feel only the little phone numbers. In my panic the words burst out. “Also he got my pesitos!” I shout. When The Beast stops I cannot buy food. Or water. What will I do?
I must sound wild with worry for Gabriel at once calms me.
“Fear not, Manuel. I have food.”
So atop The Beast, while I struggle to stay on, we eat. Cold beans and rice. And it is good. Inside myself, like Papi would, I give thanks.
“Your age?” Gabriel asks.
“Twelve.” For politeness reasons I do not dare ask his age. But I think it is in the thousands.
“A runaway?”
I realize suddenly this is true. All I say is, “I am going to find my brother.”
“Ah,” says Gabriel, his ancient eyes boring into me. “Brothers, they are a pull. They tug at the heart.”
Suddenly, I feel tired tired. And achy from the shaking of The Beast. I want desperately to sleep, but the dead boy ghosts into my mind once more. I have a deep fear of falling to the tracks. I struggle to keep awake. I sway.
“Sleep,” says Gabriel in his chopped speech. “I will see that you do not fall.” He is hunched in such a way that beneath his shirt his thin shoulder blades have a certain lumpy look. In my exhaustion I wonder stupidly, Wings?
I must be out almost at once, sleeping deep like a fallen tree. In dreams I think of chiles and beans, and home. I see the faces of my family. In dream-thoughts I wonder, Will I ever see them for real again?
When I awake Gabriel has vanished.
The stars too have fled to somewhere else. Like watery ink, the dark is now thinned.
Where am I? I wonder at first, still drugged with sleep. Are we there yet? I ask myself with hope.
I find myself tied with a rawhide cord to a small pole at the end of the train car. So that I stay on top of The Beast. Careful not to fall, I untie the cord and place it in a pocket of Papi’s sweater. For when I sleep. One last kindness from Gabriel. With that thought comes a clench of my stomach. Now I must look out for myself.
Lying there I listen carefully to the sounds that wrap round me like a shawl—the laughings, the cryings, the songs, the prayers of the many voices of the people bunched so close. I listen also to the loud train sounds. And I remember something I learned in school, a trabalenguas, tongue twister, with lots of rs: Rápido rápido corren los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril. Fast fast race the train cars over the rails of the train. I say this over and over above the noise, to calm my fears.
The Beast rushes through the land. On the way I try to make myself look sympathetic, so that people as poor and desperate as I am will give me food and protection. A tip from Toño when Papi was not near the phone: Because you are young they will help you. It shames me to do this, but it is the only way. Now that I have no money, eyes pleading and big, I beg.
We pass milpitas, and big spiky maguey plants with white sheets and colorful laundry drying upon them. Heart stabs of my home! I imagine those who wash our clothing and bedding then carefully drape it over magueys to dry. Once Mami and Abue, now Abue alone. All of a sudden I feel a big sadness, so far from my family.
I am on a strange train bound for a strange land, among strangers, many from far places, with nobody who truly cares for me. I Manuel Flores am on my own.
The wheels scream and the wheels scream and things happen. I Manuel Flores am wrapped in the unholy noise and wind from this unholy train.
Soon the motion of The Beast feels different. It is slowing! A stopping place is coming with big buildings—and polis with fierce dogs that can smell even fear. This I have heard at home. And here also, from other riders. If I am caught I will be sent back. I cannot face that.
Knowing they have customers clinging to The Beast, suddenly vendors burst forth from nowhere, selling tortas, cacahuates, chips, bottled water, Coca-Colas, diapers, soap, you name it. But right now nobody cares about vendors. Everybody swarms for the ladders in a crazed rush to evade the police.
Somebody nearby shouts at me, “Chavo, the moment you can, scramble down a ladder!”
And another, “Run fast for the bushes!”
“Duck down! Do not move!”
“Quick! Follow me!”
The faithful tennis shoes and I make a dash for it.
Next thing I am crashing through brambles, patches of briars, being lashed, stifling my cries against the whips of wicked branches. Then I squat behind a bush, panting panting. While the polis beat every plant in sight and shout, I crouch with the guy who called for me to follow.
I have planned so carefully. I have only started my trip. I cannot get caught so soon. In this moment this is what I think.
I am not caught by polis or dogs, not this time, but by this man who has tricked me. A hard lesson. With no sound, but with a big yank he snatches my sweater with the rawhide cord and the smell of Papi. Before he bounds away he yells, “Trusting fool! You will never reach the border!”
Inside myself I say, The little chicks, peep peep peep they go when they are hungry, when they are cold.
VI
I feel blood. Mine. Sticky. On my face and arms. They sting from the slashes of the branches. But I cannot cle
an my wounds. I have no water.
When I was little and I got the slightest injury, Mami, Papi, Abue, Toño—whoever was closest—patted my hurt and said to me this: Sana, sana, colita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana. Get well, get well, little frog tail. If you do not get well today, you will tomorrow. There is nobody to sana, sana me now.
You never know when The Beast will come alive again, I have learned, so you should not go into the cities. You have to stay close to the tracks. You may wait for hours and hours. The signal is when you hear the clanks of the cars linking up. That says The Beast once more, with a jolt, is leaving.
A train is leaving right now. I hear the link-ups. So must everybody else for they all run to jump on again. The wheels begin screaming. Then out surge hidden police, their big dogs straining on leashes, lunging for people and barking.
“¡Alto! ¡Alto!” The polis yell. “Stop! Stop!”
But nobody does. While the train gains speed everybody rushes for the ladders and scrambles for a safe place where they cannot be grabbed and forced back from their goal of El Norte.
This is not the same train as before, and it is not so crowded. But still it is on the same tracks. Different people have scrambled aboard. Different Beast Riders with their many hopes. If they could take the bus they would. But buses cost . . . Looking out for each other as best we can, the unspoken Brotherhood goes north.
I make it to a boxcar top, but one guy near me does not. His pant leg is ripped by the teeth of a police dog, not as fierce as my Guapo back home, but scary-fierce anyway. The teeth clamp the man’s leg like a trap and he is bleeding bleeding. He screams frantically and tries to break free. But he cannot escape.
“¡Socorro! Help me!” He yells and yells. The poli yanks his straining dog back from the too-close train. Somebody reaches down for the man’s hand and begins to pull him up. But he is too weak. The leg . . .
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