Beast Rider

by Tony Johnston

  He slips down down, to be eaten alive by The Beast.

  Now The Beast is gone from there. And the torn man? Who knows? A vision of the boy who died in our milpita comes to me. I lie on my panza, belly, on the boxcar, trembling. For a long time, in my deep heart, I hear the moans of the boy, I hear the cries of the man.

  In our village my friends and I used to shout a gruesome goodbye. ¡Adiós! ¡Que te vaya bien! ¡Que te machuque el tren! ¡Que te remuela bien! Go well! May the train smash you! May it grind you up well!

  Never will I say that again.

  As The Beast roars on, my wounds become warm. I feel a throbbing. Already, I believe, they are festering. I must do something for that. Even though I know there is nothing there but the too-small-to-steal phone numbers, I dig my hands into my pockets.

  What is this? I feel something strange in one, something brittle and crumbly wrapped in paper. In my panic at being robbed, I missed it. I pull out a pinch and look at it. But it is not the looks that give it away, it is the sweet scent. I was right. All along Abue knew my plan. She has hidden here a curing herb for me. When my journey began the leaves must have been whole. Their dust will help me still.

  Along with the curing leaves there is a note. Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you. And I do. Ever ever I hold on to Abue’s hand.

  “Water, please,” I beg from a lady nearby, pointing to my angry scratches. I need water also to drink. My thirst is great. By now I know that Beast Riders, mostly they help each other. And she helps me. With a look of concern, from a plastic bottle she pours precious water into a small empty can. I sip this gift, slow slow. Water is hoarded gold.

  What I do not drink I guard carefully. When the sun heats it, I sprinkle in some of Abue’s precious herb crumbs. I touch the hot leaf paste to my face, my arms. “Que Dios la bendiga,” I say to the lady. I whisper a prayer of gracias to my Abue. And to Dios.

  I am grateful that I will be healed. Still, I fear that at night the cold will get to me. Hot days. Cold nights. What will I do with no sweater?

  While plowing our milpita I have often watched beetles in the fields. These are the ruedacacas, rollers of dung. Their one big concern is caca. As soon as Guapo or Trini shits, the ruedacacas are there, gathering the warm dung. Rolling it into marble-size balls, then moving it with their small might toward their far tunnels. I love to see them working, so faithful to the task. Sometimes I pause just to study their toilings. I know I should keep on in my own toilings, but these beetles are so enchanting.

  If they have success and roll the caca home, all year they can feed upon caca balls. If they lose it, or it is stolen by another beetle, they will have none. But always always they keep laboring. Seeking out dung. Fighting for some, the precious popó. Rolling rolling the dung. That is the way of the ruedacacas.

  Here am I on this terror train thundering to The North. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am tired. I am scared. I am wounded. Though crushed against many other people, I am lonely to the bone. In this moment I want to quit. To stop someplace. Anyplace. Then somehow struggle myself home. But then I imagine the lowly ruedacacas, working working. They become my example. I feel my spirit rise. I have good new resolve. Like the ruedacacas, I will keep going.

  Dimmest dawn. January is fleeing away. This day, in my deep heart I feel it is my birthday. For my best wish I would be with my family. Though I am too old for such a thing, I wish for a piñata to comfort me. A little donkey. Blue. Like when I was young. For all my strong wishings, these things do not happen. With nothing, I turn thirteen.

  Long scary days and nights flow one into another. I think of home. How I would love to call my family, but I have no money. And I fear their dear voices would convince me to return.

  Now Abue will be patting out the tortillas of desayuno, breakfast. Now Papi will be trailing Trini through the furrows because I am not there. And little Belén and Javier will be doing my chores for me. Guilt grabs my heart.

  I clutch the lurching spine of The Beast. Night and day, people—dirty, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, scared like me—press against each other, people from all over. They sprawl on whatever space there is and pray. To stay on, to keep warm, I lean against others huddled there. They lean against me. Sometimes it is freezing. Sometimes the heat is of ten thousand devils. Nights, I hug myself against the cold. I rub my injured arms to try to keep warm.

  When I look at the faces of these other riders, I see tiredness, loneliness, sadness. As though the light has gone out of them. I wonder, Has it also gone from me?

  Always I watch for gangs, I try to keep from falling from the train, I search for any speck of shade—to keep from shriveling up and becoming a momia, like a Guanajuato mummy, so famous. I dare not enter a boxcar for fear of somebody slamming the door. In the heat I would cook in there.

  We riders of The Beast try to blink ourselves awake. But if we cannot, we guard each other. The worst thing is to fall asleep and be attacked—or fall off. I am filthy beyond filthy, both soot- and sweat-covered. Apart from family and food, what I most long for is a bath.

  With the steady roar of The Beast, I become less watchful for danger—or maybe just more exhausted. Whichever it is, one evening when I am darting from a hiding place back toward The Beast, two shots whine by my head. I freeze. I am captured by a poli.

  VII

  This poli has no big-tooth dog, but alone he is scary enough. A bulk bristling with weapons. His huge fists keep bunching and unbunching, as if getting set to hit me. Instead he drags me to the police station, kicking me and spitting out bad words like bullets, probably angry that I have nothing he can steal.

  “¡Pendejo! ¡Idiota! ¡Cabrón!” Words we would never say at home. Ours is not a bad-word family.

  When this guy has hurt me enough, he orders me back to where I come from. The milpita. The time I will lose! And the spirit to go on! For sometimes my urge to go home, it is great, though not as great as my need for Toño. In these weak moments, I think of the ruedacacas, never quitting their toiling. In my head I say, I am never quitting my goal.

  Besides, I cannot leave my dear ones again. It would be a heart-tearing thing. So I do not go home, but to a nearby village of no consequence. I have no idea where I am. The trees are different here than the few we have. I do not know their names. And there is not so much cactus. I hope I am close to the border, but truly I do not know.

  I must find food. On The Beast I have begged and been fed. Still, with many meals missed, my bones—like those of a starving animal—are nearly poking through my skin. And with thirst my tongue is dry as a dead leaf. I am cramped with hunger. So here I go begging from house to house.

  “Do you have a little food? A little water?” I ask humbly at one place.

  “We have little enough for ourselves, you nasty boy!” The lady yells. “Go away!”

  She slams the door so hard, the ground shivers where I stand.

  I go on.

  “A little something? I am hungry.”

  I am turned away.

  By nightfall I am ferociously hungry. Dizzy. And thirsty. Feeling desperate. When I find water in a ditch, I strain it through my ragged shirt and drink drink. Then I keep going. Finally I come upon a garbage heap, outside of a cantina. The reek of the mound is great, and at first though my belly is empty, I retch. Others, maybe Beast Riders like me, are already scrounging there for bones, moldy fruit, anything. Dogs like skeletons are also nosing nosing. And rats.

  Suddenly a poli strides up, to arrest us, I think, sending a panic-ripple through me. I tense to run. But he seems not to have the heart for this. He just walks on. A poli with a heart! Ay!

  Some people try to scare me away, to keep these few scraps for themselves. But I persist. I find enough food, though a little bit rotten, to get me through this day. This night I give gracias for the little I have found.

  I wonder, Like a rat did Toño on his journey eat garbage also? I know he did.

  With no pesitos I must find work. Next day, ag
ain, I ask for food. I look and look for work. At last, when the sun is high and everybody is enjoying lunch—everybody but people like me—I beg once more, in a cracked voice. One man takes pity and says softly, “Pásale.” Come in.

  After the time on The Beast, with so many rateros, I trust nobody, at least not at first. I hang back in case the man pounces upon me for the little he imagines I have. Or turns me in. I am ready to run.

  I have learned to read people—friend or enemy—by their eyes. But this guy is standing so that I cannot see his. After all, I do not need to see them, for there is a goodness-shimmer surrounding him. This man he knows I am starving, for, when we are inside his small kitchen, without a word he offers a taco from his own plate. And water. Bless him, I say in my heart. I give him gracias—also to God—and try not to eat like a wolf.

  The next thing I get is a bath. Oh to be clean again!

  This quiet-voiced man is Señor Santos, I soon discover, whose wife has recently died. A small, round person with a big, round laugh, neat in all ways, he is a maker of tejas, roof tiles, the kind I sometimes helped Papi make. To keep our house whole when wind and rain and sun crumbled the old ones. Or they, from tiredness, slid off. Few people make their own tiles anymore, but Señor Santos still does. He wants to put a part of himself into each one, I believe.

  Señor Santos gives me a job as his tejas helper. He gives me also a cot to sleep on and a fresh shirt and chones and a sweater. When I pull it on I think of Papi and I force away tears. These items, their cost will be taken from my pay. My old pants I keep. I can use them still, till they get more holes. A bed! Clean clothing! Money! Miracles and miracles and miracles!

  This man, when I am clean from a bath, he appears. Armed with scissors. With absolute purpose he goes for my hair. After many whackings and mumblings, he circles round me, clicking the still-hungry scissors in the air, pulling, poking, checking his work.

  “Ha!” cries Señor Santos, admiring the result, “You no longer resemble a boy of the wild.”

  I am proud to work beside him. He teaches me what he knows. Mostly the proper way to mix the clay, the proper way to form the tiles and smooth the dry ones, so that through wind, sun, rain they will last and last. “With care,” he tells me, “this is the proper way. Your work—in even the smallest things—it is a mirror of you.”

  I do not tell him that Papi has taught me all this. It does not hurt to learn good lessons twice.

  At the end of each day, we leave the tiles we have made stacked against each other, ready to bake in tomorrow’s sun. Sometimes in the night a rooster or a cat walks upon a damp tile and leaves its track, like signing its name. The track is baked into the tile. It says I am a rooster. I was here. I love that.

  When we enter his home, Señor Santos and I both smell like red clay. A good and honest smell. I do not hurry to bathe it away.

  When I am at work making tejas and coated with the red clay and dust under the good warm sun, again I think of Papi. And the roof which we repaired often, together. I think of him when I bend a piece of clay over my knee to form a tile in the olden way. I enjoy seeing my work, a mirror of me, tile upon tile stacked up, knowing that the shape of my knee will one day give shelter to somebody.

  With my savings I get a telephone card, to phone home. In town Señor Santos helps me buy one and helps me make my call.

  Since last I spoke with my family, many things have happened. My life has changed. I have changed. My voice has changed. I no longer fear that their dear voices will pull me home. For my resolve to go on is stronger. But now I worry about something else. Will they recognize me or hang up? I am so excited to talk with them I can barely stand still. I try to think what I will say. I will not have much time.

  “Cálmate, cálmate, little grasshopper,” says Señor Santos gently, watching me jump around.

  I try to calm down, but simply cannot. I dig into my pocket for the telephone numbers so important to me. The one link with my family. My heart drops suddenly like a rock. The little papers with the numbers, they are not there!

  VIII

  The tiendita phone number has been stolen. And Toño’s. I am holding a phone card in my hand, but I cannot call home. I feel myself lost in the world, like a feather floating floating.

  I think again. Maybe I somehow lost them myself. From a torn pocket. The wind? But then I worry that they will be found. A bad one could call my family and lie that I am captive and demand ransom. From my family who has not a pesito to spare. My family who has only themselves and dirt and corn.

  “What is it?” asks Señor Santos, his voice with deep concern.

  “Their telephone number, it is gone.”

  “Cálmate, cálmate,” he says again. “There must be something we can do.”

  He is like that, he says “we.”

  In my mind, in this moment I see a dung beetle, working with all its small might. I start working my brain with all that I can. I think. I think. Then—the number it is not gone. My time in school comes back to me. And the teacher who called me “Manuelito Memorizer.” The number has been here in my head all along. Toño’s also.

  I make the call. I know that Señora Crispina, of the tiendita, sends somebody running running for my family. We all sound as excited as grasshoppers. First thing they say: “You are well?” First thing I say: “Sí.” They pass the phone like a hot tamal and I speak to everybody. All of us are older. But all the love is still there. Stronger. They will pass my news to Toño. I will call Toño when I am closer to him. Fast fast we speak. Then our voices become full of tears, and slower, as if to hold on to each other. The hardest part is saying adiós. Before they go, they sing me “Las mañanitas,” the birthday song.

  For today is my birthday. I did not say this to Señor Santos. It would give me pena, embarrassment. As if I were asking for a fiesta. And for somebody to be with joy that I was born. Like a child, I wish for a piñata like I always had before. A little donkey. Blue. A little blue donkey piñata does not appear. It does not matter. I know my family is with joy that I was born.

  I have stayed in this place of safety for far too long. I have to keep going. Toño is in The Angels, waiting. My savings are enough now to travel on. But I do not leave without telling Señor Santos my plan and thanking him. This man who gave me a place in his home. Nearly a year I have stayed with him. Nearly a lifetime, it seems.

  The evening I go, the grillos are singing their creaking song. I remember when I left home. I close my eyes to imagine the voices of those I left behind. I imagine I hear corn shuffling in wind. My heart tugs to go there, but Toño’s tug is stronger.

  Señor Santos and I, we share un abrazo.

  “I will always remember you.”

  “And I you, Manuelito. Que Dios te bendiga.”

  “Que Dios lo bendiga a usted,” I say to him.

  Truly I hope that God will bless always this kind and noble man—and me.

  I turn and slip into the pocket of the dark.

  IX

  On my way again. Since leaving Señor Santos I have been heading for The North, always always. Heading for another place along The Beast route. Another place to jump aboard.

  It is night. In the distance I hear the growl of The Beast. I am older now. Tougher. Wilier. Still the train sound brings back my fears. I do not know what lies ahead. Blending into the dark—mouse gray, mouse still—as The Beast approaches I bunch myself to jump.

  I am not wily enough. Before I spring, instead I am sprung upon. Ambushed and dragged away from the tracks. Away from the other hidden riders. Just days since I left Señor Santos’s place of safety! My blood freezes. My heart forgets to beat, then bangs crazily. A pack of men. Animals all. A famous gang, famous for drugs and liquor. About five of them armed with many rough old-time weapons, mainly machetes to hack you up, surround me. I know them right off, by their black T-shirts that blare, LOS BANDIDOS. Toño warned me.

  I twist from the filthy grasp of one, only to be snared by his comrade, his grip as
fierce as my dog Guapo’s jaws. Like a stringy rooster I am tougher than I look, but not tough enough to fight all of them.

  “A rabbit!” one of them shouts in a drunken way. “Let’s roast it.”

  Inside I quaver like a crouched rabbit, but, as before on The Beast, I do not show it. I am a Flores.

  Toño told me that these guys work for the police for privileges and for part of what those guarros rob from Beast Riders. They also steal on their own. And when they catch somebody . . . I begin to sweat.

  “Good idea,” one snarls with evil bravado. “Start the fire.”

  And they do. First they plunge around in the dark, shuffling and cursing, grabbing up leaves and sticks, lurching, stumbling all over the place because of the liquor they have been drinking. Their breath. How it reeks.

  One is guarding me, striking me, stomping me, raining punches down upon me, grinning all the while in a crazed and chilling way. I look wildly around. There is no escape. Though I have tried hard to hide it, by now I must smell of fear. I am afraid. Sorely.

  A small fire is crackling. These devils are laughing, their murderous eyes burning down at me. They are holding me so that I cannot squirm, shoving into my face a hot branding iron. I call up my family, all the people of Flores, to give me bravery. I clench my teeth tight tight. I will not whine for mercy. I will not bleat out my fear. I will not scream. I clench so hard, I feel a tooth crack. I pray as never before.

  “Look, cabrón.” The vicious leader says, all slurry. “With this brand, you will be of a gang too. The mangy, scraggy, sorry gang of Beast Riders.”

  They bark like mad dogs as four pin me down. “You will not crush me!” I shout. I twist and lash out with full-blown fury. But no matter my wild thrashings, with relish the loco leader slowly presses the brand into my hand. I hear the skin sizzle. I smell the smell of my own flesh melting. I do not cry out, though there is searing pain. Pain beyond pain. Then nothing.