But I stay where I am.
Trapped.
Pulga
We head in the direction of the store closest to Pequeña’s house. But there are several cars parked in front and some yelling. Chico and I look at each other and turn in the other direction. Even though it means a twenty-minute walk, we head to Don Felicio’s store instead, where Chico and I usually sit on the sidewalk outside, drinking Cokes and Gatorade, sometimes even setting off small firecrackers for fun. And I wonder if I can talk Don Felicio into giving us a few firecrackers to celebrate the birth of Pequeña’s baby.
Maybe because I’m thinking of this, and because Chico keeps talking about how awful it must be for Pequeña, and because my thoughts keep wandering to that day out on the patio, neither of us notices or hears the car coming up behind until it’s practically threatening to run us over. I glance at the driver. Nestor Villa. In the passenger seat is his older brother, Rey.
“Shit,” I whisper to Chico.
Nestor Villa is how Chico and I met three years ago. That kid was almost as small as I was until one day, he seemed to grow overnight and started picking fights with everyone. The day he came to school wearing brand-new gleaming white shoes, he said I kicked up dust and got them dirty when I walked by. The jerk forced me down, telling me to lick his shoes clean.
My heart was racing, but I knew I had to be tough. So I told Nestor his mother could lick them and he pushed me down to the ground.
That day, when I saw Chico out of the corner of my eye, a big guy I figured was probably pretty tough, I called out to him for help.
I looked up from Nestor’s pretty shoes, his hand tight around the back of my neck pushing me harder and harder into them, and locked eyes with Chico. “Punch him, kid!” I said. “Slam him to the ground!”
I spit on Nestor’s shoes, refusing to lick them, and he ground my face into the dirt.
“Eat shit!” Nestor yelled at me as grit and dust made its way into my mouth, became muddy with my saliva. I spit it out onto his shoes.
“Mess him up!” I yelled to Chico, pleading with him. But Chico looked scared. His voice trembled when he told Nestor to stop and all my hopes died. Nestor was going to kill me and then kill the kid I’d brought into this.
Except that’s not how it happened. Just as Nestor jammed one of his new sneaker–clad feet onto my head and started stepping on it, crushing my head into the ground, out of nowhere I heard a thwack! And suddenly I was free. I scrambled away from him fast enough to see him hit the ground and saw Chico standing over him, almost looking sorry, like he didn’t mean to do it. He’d smacked the hell out of Nestor. And Nestor, tall but still slight, had toppled over like a makeshift bowling pin. I swear I heard his teeth clack together as he fell, like those little wind-up toy teeth and it made me laugh like crazy from relief.
Chico and I ran away, me hooting and hollering and slapping him on the back. That’s the moment we became best friends.
“You just knocked out Nestor Villa!” I held up his arm like he was legendary boxer Julio César Chávez. “You did it! You fucking saved me!” I felt tough, like we were both champions. I felt stronger with Chico around. And when he smiled, I could tell he felt it, too. Neither of us, it turned out, had siblings or many friends, and that day it felt like we were two missing puzzle pieces that had finally found each other and locked into place. So when his mamita died the following year, he came to live with us. The day we took down Nestor was the best thing that ever happened to Chico and me.
It was also one of the biggest mistakes we ever made.
See, the person who gave Nestor those brand-new shoes I spit all over was his big brother, Rey. Rey, who had done a few years in a United States prison for some kind of robbery. Rey, who had fallen in with some gang members in that prison. Rey, who, upon his release, was deported back to Guatemala, where he stayed true to his new gang family and ran with them in Guatemala City. Rey, who Nestor had called that night, giving him the rundown on me and Chico. Rey, who took the bus from Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios, ready to fight.
The sound of a horn, long and loud, brings me out of my head and back to the present. Chico and I hurry over to the side of the road so the car can pass us by.
Nestor’s hair is longer than it used to be, and he looks older. I haven’t seen him in a while, ever since he stopped coming to school just a few months after we heard Rey had moved back here.
“Look down, pretend you don’t realize it’s them,” I tell Chico, and he does what I tell him. But I can feel Nestor’s gaze, and I’m the one who looks up at the last moment as we lock eyes. A slight smile creeps across his face like he knew I’d look up, like he knows everything. He and Rey laugh and the next thing I know, the car speeds off out of sight, leaving us in a cloud of dust.
Chico turns to me and says, “Let’s just go back. I’m not even thirsty anymore.”
I’m about to agree with him, but I stop myself. One, because we’re almost at Don Felicio’s store. I can see the rusty tin roof from here. Two, because Nestor and Rey are gone. Three, because Chico’s a bad liar. His lips are cracked and little beads of sweat cling to the dark peach fuzz that has just started to come in on his upper lip. There’s nothing he’d like more right now than the coldest Coca-Colas on earth from Don Felicio’s store or the banana topoyiyo his wife makes, those little frozen plastic bags of icy sweetness. And four, because I feel like an asshole for cracking on Chico’s shirt this morning and teasing him just last week about looking like Cantinflas with his baby mustache. The least he deserves is a fucking soda when he is thirsty. Besides, I refuse to let a look from Nestor and Rey force us into changing our plans.
“We’re almost there,” I tell him. But Chico has stopped in the middle of the road and he is looking back and forth from Don Felicio’s store to the direction of Tía Lucia’s house. “Come on,” I plead. “You saw how he took off. Besides, I’m gonna get a couple firecrackers, too. For when the baby is born.”
He smiles at this, then begrudgingly starts walking in the direction of the store. “Fine, but let’s hurry.”
I feel a little guilty. I hate to make Chico do what he doesn’t want to do. I mean, I’m the one always telling him to stand up for himself, but then when he does, I still convince him to do what I want.
“Diablo, man, what’s up with this heat,” I tell Chico as we walk. I don’t know if it’s running into Rey or the sun overhead, but it feels like the hottest day of the year suddenly. I try to take a deep breath, but the air feels thick and wet and suffocating. I take small shallow breaths instead and pull my shirt away from my sticky body, keeping in mind the taste and feel of an ice-cold soda.
“Why do you think he came back to Barrios anyway?” Chico asks as the sun beats down on us.
“Who? Rey?” I shrug. We’d all heard the rumors of how Rey missed being a big fish in a small pond so he left Guatemala City. But really, who knew. “Forget it,” I tell Chico, not wanting to think or talk about Rey anymore.
But I can’t forget what happened.
Rey waited for Chico and me outside school the day after our fight with Nestor. He walked toward us, and my heart, with each thump, felt like it could take no more. Each of Rey’s slow steps in our direction felt like my last breath.
But I didn’t show my fear.
When he finally stood in front of us, what he did was stare at us for a very long time. Enough time for me to notice how his eyes were so black you couldn’t even see the pupil. Enough for me to notice the scar that ran from his cheekbone to his chin on the right side of his face. And the way his two front teeth overlapped slightly.
The intensity of that stare, the way he held my gaze, reminded me of a snake charmer. He circled us, his eyes never leaving ours, stalking, like an animal does its prey.
And then I felt an explosion in my head, a simultaneous darkening and brightening in my mind. A flashing, pulsing
light against a dark, dark night.
I thought he’d shot me in the head, that’s how hard he slapped me. I staggered backward, fell hard on the concrete. And then I heard Chico, yelping like a wounded animal.
“You get slapped, because you two are little bitches,” he said, towering over us. “This is a warning, because I’m a good person. And because this bitch”—he gestured toward Nestor—“should’ve done this to you instead of calling me.” Nestor and his friends, who had witnessed the whole thing and had been hooting and hollering the whole time, suddenly stopped. I’ll never forget the cold, meaningful look Rey gave Nestor. Or the look of shame that passed over Nestor’s face before he looked down.
I almost felt bad for Nestor then. But it was hard with my face burning and throbbing the way it was. Either way, I think that was the exact moment Nestor decided he would sell his soul and do anything to impress Rey, to prove himself to his brother from that day forward.
Chico and I went home wearing our pain. Our faces were bruised. Mamá noticed and questioned us relentlessly, our story constantly changing until finally, we admitted we’d been in a fight. A stupid fight in the school courtyard because someone made fun of Chico’s mother, we said.
We didn’t tell her about Rey. And Chico and I steered clear of Nestor after that. When Rey suddenly moved back to Puerto Barrios last year, we steered clear of him, too. Because I never forgot that slap. Or the nights afterward that I spent pressing into my bruised cheek, staring at the darkness of my room, mad at myself and wondering what kind of guy takes a six-hour bus trip to Puerto Barrios and a six-hour bus trip back to Guatemala City just to issue a slap to a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old boy.
A wolf—that’s who.
* * *
~~~
Don Felicio smiles and calls out to us as soon he sees us coming up the road. He’s always standing at the counter, waiting for someone who wants a soda, or ice, or batteries, or gum. The old man barely inflates his prices, even though he could. A lot of the neighborhood store owners do since it saves people a trip on the bus all the way to the market. Don Felicio, though, he’s too nice. He doesn’t have the heart of a businessman.
“¡Patojos!” he says, calling out to us affectionately and flashing his yellow-toothed smile. “Come, come, keep an old man company! Business is slow.”
I look around, realizing there aren’t as many men around here as there used to be—the ones I would listen to carefully as they talked about how they were planning to leave for the States. Or how they had already made the trip once and were headed back there again. How they crossed a river. How they rode La Bestia or paid a pollero. How they followed a coyote through the desert. Sometimes I’d even get to ask a few questions before Don Feli would look at me with a sad smile and say, “Don’t even think about breaking your mamá’s heart like that, Pulga.”
I look at the old man now. “Bueno,” he says. “¿Cómo están?”
“We’re good, Don Feli, but poor,” Chico answers as we step up to the counter. He takes out his money and asks for a Coke.
“Just one?” Don Felicio asks, looking at me. I shrug.
“I tell you what, I got a big shipment of drinks after Semana Santa last week—the celebrations around here wiped me out—so there are some sodas in the back I need put in the big cooler. You guys stock all those pallets I got back there, and I’ll give you two sodas for the price of one.”
Chico grins.
“Or . . . a pack of fireworks instead?” I ask. I feel guilty taking advantage of the old man’s good-heartedness, but I also want Pequeña to someday tell her child, Tío Pulga and Tío Chico set off fireworks the day you were born. I want the kid to know we celebrated, and I can tell him or her about that. By then, maybe my memory of how much Pequeña didn’t want this baby will have faded. “Pequeña is having her baby,” I explain to Don Felicio.
“She is? How wonderful!” His eyes light up. “Well, of course, of course,” he says, grabbing several packs of fireworks and pushing them across the counter toward me. “These and two Cokes for the price of one for a little muscle seems fair to me.” He winks.
“Gracias, Don Feli,” I say.
“You two remind me so much of Gallo,” he says as if explaining.
He’s not just one of the nicest old guys in the neighborhood. He’s also one of these guys who says the same thing every time he sees you. Gallo was Don Felicio’s son who left Puerto Barrios ten years ago when he was eighteen and hasn’t been back since because he doesn’t have papers. The old man talks about Gallo every time we come by. Shows us pictures of a grandson he has in Colorado or someplace, too.
“I just got a new picture of my grandson. I’ll show you when you’re done.” He smiles a melancholy smile.
“Sure, Don Feli,” I tell him, even though I don’t want to see pictures for the millionth time of the little kid whose hair is as unruly as Gallo’s. Even though it’s boring, and heartbreaking to see Don Feli’s face go from glowing to crushed when he finally puts away his phone and takes out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes, it’s the least I can do for the old man. “And don’t worry. You’ll see them again.”
He dismisses me with his hand but nods, like a part of him knows it’s not true but another part of him has to believe it is.
We hop the counter and go through the door to the cramped back room, where we’re greeted by the smells of sour milk and overripe produce. Chico starts singing a stupid song we made up when we saw a dog in the street with a bum leg that made him look like he was dancing. We’re always making up songs, for the day I’ll finally buy a guitar and put music to lyrics. For the day I’ll get a band together and be a musician. Just like my father—the cool bass player from California. The Chicano who drove a slick black El Camino with red leather interior. The guy who was gonna make it big, who promised Mamá the world but didn’t deliver because some drunk crashed into him one night, and crushed him, that car, and all their dreams before either of them knew about me tucked away in Mamá’s belly.
Chico hands me the last two grape Fantas. We’re almost done when we hear the sound of a car pulling up to the store. Voices grow louder just beyond the stockroom. We both freeze as Don Felicio’s voice calls, “Give me more time! You have to understand, I—” His voice is cut off so abruptly, so suddenly, it sends a chill through my body. Even before the sound of the loud thump that follows.
Chico looks at me, his eyes as wide as I’ve ever seen them. His chest already rising and falling faster as his breath quickens. I shake my head.
What I mean is, don’t move.
What I mean is, don’t make a sound.
We stand there for who knows how long, Chico kneeling on the floor where he was handing me the sodas, me with those two grape Fantas still in my hands. I hear the rush of my own blood, and the thump of my own heart, and Chico’s breathing. I hear the sound of the register opening, two car doors slamming, car tires rolling.
And then an eerie silence, and the phantom echo of Don Felicio’s voice before it abruptly stopped.
“Pulga . . . what . . . what just happened?” Chico says, his voice trembling.
“I don’t know.” Whatever happened, we know it’s bad. Really, really bad.
We need to get out of here. But first, I have to check on Don Felicio.
I hand the two bottles to Chico and hurry to the door, open it just enough to see if anyone is there, then push it open when I’m certain no one is. “Be careful,” Chico whispers.
I nod.
“Don Feli?” I call. But I don’t see him. I look all around, my brain trying to make sense of what happened, when I hear a gurgle.
And that’s when I see him on the floor. His feet come into view first, his old but freshly polished shoes, his dark socks and frail old-man legs between the top of his socks and the cuff of his pants. My body goes weak as the strange gurgling continues and fills t
he air. I move closer, taking in the blood on the counter, on the floor. The blood pooling around his torso.
And then I see Don Felicio’s face.
His hands are clasped around his throat, trying to stop the gush of blood that is seeping from it as it pours through his fingers. He looks at me with eyes bulging, so terrified, they seem like they might pop out of his face.
My mouth goes dry and I hurry to him, calling his name, slipping on his blood.
“You’re okay,” I manage to choke out, even as my voice cracks and something inside me feels loose and wild. A scream gets caught up somewhere in the back of my throat. “We’ll get someone!” I tell him as he gurgles and wheezes and keeps holding his throat.
I hear Chico crying and saying something and I know I have to run and get help. Run, I tell myself, but I can’t move. I can’t leave the old man here like this, not when the blood is rushing out that way, oh my god, it’s rushing out so quickly, pouring out of him like water, encircling us both.
I’ve never seen so much blood.
His lips come together, like he’s trying to say something, like he’s trying so hard to say something.
Kkkk kkk . . . His body jerks forward, like he’s trying to get up. Each effort makes more blood gush forth.
“No,” I tell him as he struggles. My mind races with what to do. “Don’t worry, help is already on the way, Don Feli! I promise!” I tell him he is going to be okay, as his eyes go from my face to the ceiling. I tell him that his son will be here soon, too, that he figured out a way to come from the States and that he is bringing his grandson this time.
Do you see them, Don Feli! Do you see them! I cry.
He nods.
I tell him his wife is on her way, too. And that soon he will see all their faces. That soon they will all be together.
It’s all lies.
The old man’s eyes are full of tears. They slide out of the corners as more blood gushes from his neck, as life drains from him. His eyes roll back so only the whites are visible and then roll forward again, trying to focus on me. I want to look away but I don’t, and then suddenly, the strange wheezing and gurgling stops. His head relaxes so that it’s turned toward me. So that his eyes meet mine. And I see it, the very moment he dies. I see it, right there as his eyes go vacant.
We Are Not from Here Page 3
