Just in case.
But I don’t like the terrified look on Chico’s face. The one that confirms what we are both afraid to believe.
I shake my head. My heart is racing and it feels hard to breathe, but I tell myself it’s just the heat.
“You know what? This baby has Pequeña all messed up,” I tell Chico. “That’s all. She’s not herself. All we have to do is act normal.” The lies spill from my mouth. But they taste better than the truth.
He closes his eyes and tears stream down his face.
“Even if Rey thinks we saw something,” I continue, “or know something, he’ll keep an eye on us. And when he sees we’re acting normal, that we haven’t told anyone anything, he’ll leave us alone.”
Chico opens his eyes. They’re red and watery and unconvinced. He wipes at them roughly, but tears keep streaming down his face. I sit down next to him on his mattress, put my arm over his shoulders.
“It’ll be okay, Chico. I promise.”
“But, Pulga . . .”
“It’s all going to be okay . . .”
He stares at me for a moment, and I will myself to believe it so he will, too. Maybe I can believe it. Maybe if I believe it, it will be true.
“Come on, you trust me, don’t you? I promise you it’ll be okay.”
After a while he says, “Okay.” Guilt washes over me, but I push it away. “If you say so, Pulga, okay.”
“All we have to do is act normal, okay?”
He nods again. “Okay.”
“We saw nothing, Chico. Just remember that. We went there, we grabbed a soda, and we headed back home. By the time what happened happened, we were far away from there. We were never there, Chico. We saw nothing.”
He takes a deep breath. “We saw nothing.”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “We saw nothing.” I grab hold of these words so they will force out thoughts of running. Maybe I can put my faith into these words instead. Maybe I can will these words to save us.
The fan whirs and catches our words.
We saw nothing.
We saw nothing.
We saw nothing.
* * *
~~~
Those words circle around us the day after Don Felicio’s funeral. And the day after that. And the day after that. For over a week Chico and I go on as normal. We head to school even though all I do is watch the door, waiting, barely able to tell one day apart from another.
We saw nothing.
We take no detours. We look over our shoulders every five minutes.
We saw nothing.
We repeat those words in our heads so much that we hear them in the thud of our steps on the way home from school. We hear them as we walk past Don Felicio’s store—which doesn’t even exist anymore, all boarded up the way it is.
We saw nothing.
We repeat them so much that we almost believe them. And we start to think maybe, maybe we’ve escaped. Maybe we’ll be okay.
But then one morning we’re headed to school. And my breath catches.
I see that car.
Barreling toward us once more.
It grinds to a stop too quickly, spraying dirt and dust on Chico and me. The same car Rey and Nestor drove the other day.
“Get in,” Nestor calls to us as we try to wave away the dust from our faces. It gets caught in my lashes and I can taste it. Nestor is alone, but he’s positioned the car to block our way.
“No, we’re okay. Thanks,” I say, grabbing on to Chico’s shoulder and starting to walk around the car.
“You think I’m offering you a ride? I said, get in.” He puts his hand on a gun lying on the passenger seat.
I look at Chico and he looks back at me. His eyes are frantic and I think Chico might run. I can feel my own legs wanting to run, but there’s something else in my brain holding me back, not letting me move.
Maybe it’s remembering how Nestor picked on everyone as soon as he grew a few inches. Maybe it’s the way he looked at Rey years ago when Rey said he should have taken care of me and Chico himself. Maybe it’s knowing how eagerly Nestor is trying to prove himself.
I look back to see if anyone will see me and Chico getting in the car. People talk about how Nestor is following in his brother’s footsteps, and the same is thought of anyone seen with either of them.
“Go ahead,” I say quietly to Chico. I can see the fear threatening to choke him. I can feel it rising in my own throat, like bile. But we both get in.
And that’s when I know this isn’t going to go away. Rey and Nestor found out somehow. They know we know it was them at Don Felicio’s store. And now they’ve come for us.
Fate is fate. And this . . . it turns out, has always been our fate.
The thing is, I guess I’ve always known it would be. And still, I lied to myself.
Even if Mamá thinks I have an artist’s heart, even if I try to see the world in color, even if I dare to dream—it doesn’t matter when your world keeps turning black.
Pequeña
It’s been nine days since that baby slipped from my body. Nine days of hearing him cry and being forced to hold and feed and take care of him while Mami’s at work. Nine days of whispered lies to Rey, who forces his way into the house when she’s at work and makes me prepare lunch for him. Nine days of him telling me this is what our life will be like—a family, together, forever—as he licks his greasy lips and smiles.
They invade everything—my thoughts, my body, my house. I hear the baby cry even when he doesn’t. I feel Rey next to me even when he’s not.
I stand in the shower wishing I could slip down the drain.
“Let me go to the market for you, Mami. Por favor . . . por favor . . .” I beg on her day off. I hold Mami’s hand and put it on my cheek. I beg like a small, desperate child. I beg until she gets tears in her eyes.
“Fine,” she says finally, caressing my hair. She stays like that a moment and I can almost hear how her heart cries for me. But in the next breath she’s handing me a list of what she needs and she says, “Feed the baby first.”
A thousand needles of resentment prick my heart.
“Can’t you just give him a bottle, please?” I ask.
She lets out a breath. Exasperated. Annoyed. “Pequeña, you really want to put that on your tía?”
Fresh guilt washes over older guilt. Tía Consuelo came over with a canister of formula the day after the funeral and told Mami she would be in charge of buying it for the baby. I nearly wept with relief. But Mami, she didn’t want Tía to have more worries on her shoulders. So she made me keep feeding the baby during the day and used the formula only at night, so I could sleep.
“If you just get used to it, there won’t be any need for your tía to buy formula,” Mami says. “And I know she means well, but what if she can’t afford to help after a few months? We don’t have money just lying around and then you won’t have any milk and . . . it’s tough already with the expense of diapers . . .”
I want to tell her I have money. That in my dresser, I have the bills Rey peels off a roll each time he visits. That even this he forces on me, even though I refused at first because it felt like I was being bought. But he insists, because I’m not like most men, Pequeña. I’m going to support this baby. So I accept.
But I can’t give the money to Mami without explaining.
And I can’t explain.
“Here.” Mami hands me the baby. I take him in my arms and put him on my breast. I close my eyes as he latches on because I can’t look at him. When I do, I see he needs to be loved. And I don’t think I can love this baby. So he will grow up unloved—become just like Rey. And that fills me with shame. And fear.
I fill my mind instead with how I will get away from here—with Rey’s money. People will talk when I go. What a terrible girl I am. What a terrible mothe
r. What a terrible daughter. But I don’t care. Because at night, when I pray for this to end—for my milk to dry and for the baby to somehow disappear and for Rey to die—nobody hears me. So let everyone talk. I won’t hear them, either.
I’ll be too far away.
The baby’s lips release my breast and I pull him away, hand him to Mami.
“Don’t be gone too long!” she yells as I rush out the door. “You hear me, Pequeña . . . ?” But I’m already running.
Fast. Then faster. And her words get lost in the distance and the wind.
I don’t hear her.
I don’t hear anyone but myself.
Run, I say, run away from here.
Run as fast as you can.
Pulga
Nestor drives fast and without any care, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting off motor scooters and running them off the road. We hit countless potholes in the road, feeling like our bones and teeth will crack with every violent dip. My mind flashes with white. I picture my skeleton under my flesh, my skull bleached by the sun years from now if I’m ever found.
“Where are we going?” I ask him. Nestor doesn’t answer and instead turns up the music in the car.
Where we end up is a little abandoned building not very far from our school.
I can see some of our classmates in the distance in their pressed white shirts and checkered blue pants or skirts as they pass through the gated entry. Some are laughing.
Nestor gets out of the car. I’m frozen in my seat. Chico is pale.
“Come on,” Nestor says, motioning toward a large wooden door, the gun casually in his hand.
Chico and I get out of the car and follow him.
The door hangs slightly off center so it doesn’t close all the way. My eyes immediately fall to a lone tiny yellow flower that has bloomed in the crack of the building’s wall. A weed really. But bright and unreal and for a fraction of a second, I marvel that it exists, even as my mind fills with exactly how I will die.
I have been close to death before, bodies and blood and gurgling last breaths. But this time, it feels like it is on the other side of the door, unsettlingly quiet. Waiting. Ready.
Nestor tells us to go through the door. Chico begins to cry and I smell urine. When I look at him, I see the dark, wet patch on the front of his pants. Nestor laughs.
“Let’s go,” he says, and bangs the door open. Chico and I enter slowly, trying to adjust to the darkness.
I wait for the round of bullets. I wonder if I will hear them before I feel them.
But we enter and there is only silence. A room black and dank, a room that smells of blood, a mixture of sweet and sour. A room that smells of the odor of humans keenly aware they are about to die.
Or maybe it’s me who smells like that.
Then, suddenly, a voice. “¿Qué pasa, muchachos?” Rey asks us what’s up before I see him. But then he becomes visible, sitting on a chair in the corner, his feet up on a table in front of him, smoking a cigarette. Two other guys I don’t know or recognize are sitting on either side of him. One of them wears a large gold ring in his nose.
Nestor nudges us toward the table. Rey takes a long drag as we make our way over. He lets it out as we stand in front of him.
“Look at this one,” one of the guys next to Rey says. “He fucking pissed himself.”
Rey looks at Chico, from head to toe. Then he turns to me. “You remember me, don’t you?”
I don’t know whether to say yes or no. But the way he stares, the only choice seems to be to tell him the truth. He waits, unnervingly patient. And I nod.
He smiles and takes another drag. “It’s been a while since that day at the school, hasn’t it?”
Again I nod. He puts out his cigarette on the tabletop and then says very slowly, “But not so long since that day in the old man’s store . . .” He smiles, his eyes crinkle.
I freeze. He waits.
I can’t swallow. It feels like a rubber ball is blocking my throat. I try and try to swallow, but I’ve completely forgotten how, my body won’t work. It makes it impossible to breathe. Panic sets in and I feel like I am suffocating, right there in front of Rey, as he stares at me with that terrible smile on his face.
The sound of Chico whimpering louder snaps me out of it.
“No, not so long . . .” I say finally.
“Ah, good!” he says with a bigger smile on his face now. “I didn’t think you’d try to lie to me, but, pues, you never know.” He studies my face. “What? Are you surprised I know? That I didn’t go after you right away?”
I watch as his eyes light up, like he’s enjoying this.
“If I’d killed the old man that day and the two of you, I’d get too much heat. Authorities that want to be paid off would come sniffing around. That’s something a brainless thug would do. But not me. I’m careful. Thoughtful. I’m building something here. And I need live, young bodies for that.”
He rubs his chin and then points his finger at me. “See, I knew I was right about you. What impresses me even more than your ability to stay quiet is that I know you and your mamá helped the old man’s wife.” He studies my reaction and I keep my face as expressionless as possible. “You liked him . . .” He waits. A flash of Don Felicio standing at the counter of his store, in the midday heat, looking into the distance and smiling when he saw us coming, fills my mind. I wipe it away and stiffly nod again. “And still, you knew to stay quiet. You’d be surprised how many guys still try to do the right thing. Like that’s gotten anyone around here anywhere but the grave.” Rey raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“Well, enough of that.” He removes his feet from the table and sits up. “Why I brought you here is because you’ve proven you can be of use to me. What you’re going to do is be my little gophers for a while.”
It is at this moment that Chico does the worst thing he can do, even worse than crying and pissing himself. He vomits.
“Fuck!” the other guy next to Rey yells, as he pushes his chair back and looks at the vomit that has splattered his feet. “Este repisado, man!” He flings the insult at Chico. “What he deserves are some vergasos!” The guy’s fists ball up like he’s ready to deliver the pummeling he thinks Chico deserves.
Stand firm! I want to tell Chico. Be strong! But Chico just wipes his mouth and shrinks back. Rey fixes his eyes on him. He twists his mouth back and forth, as if weighing the pros and cons of Chico.
Then he looks at me again. “What we have here,” he says aloud, “is the brains, and the muscle. You,” he says, pointing to me again, “you have street smarts I could use. And you,” he says, pointing to Chico, “do anything he tells you.” Rey keeps sizing us up. “Would he do anything you tell him?” he asks me.
I nod. “Of course. We’re brothers. He’ll do whatever I tell him, anything.” I know Rey needs to see the use for Chico to keep him around. I don’t exactly know what not keeping him around would mean, but I can guess.
Rey’s eyes light up. “Let’s see. Let’s have him . . . beat the shit out of you.” Nestor and the other guys start laughing. “Can you do that, gordo?” Rey says, looking at Chico. “Can you prove you’re the muscle and you’ll do anything this one tells you?”
Chico won’t look up. He stares at the floor and I can see snot and tears dripping from his face.
“I don’t have all day,” Rey says.
I turn to Chico. “Come on. Just a few punches. You know I can take it, come on.” But he won’t move. It’s like he can’t hear me.
“Chico,” I say again. “Fight me.” But he’s solid as a statue and doesn’t move. Out of all the times I need him to listen to me, he chooses the most important time, when both his and my lives depend on it, to do this. The panic shooting through my body, through my veins, doubles, like some kind of shot of adrenaline, as I realize if we don’t perform for Rey, he will ge
t rid of us. One way or another.
“Fuck, Chico, I said fight!” I yell at him. I plow into him. “Come on!” My voice cracks and the guys around Rey laugh harder, but Rey doesn’t laugh. He looks at Chico and me like he’s reassessing whether we can really be of any use to him.
“Damn it, Chico!” I yell. My heart is beating harder and I’m sweating as I start punching him. “Fight back! I said fight back, you fucking puerco!” I slam into him with my whole body.
When I call him a pig like that—like he’s nothing more than a filthy animal, a fat boar—he looks at me with such hurt on his face. And I realize it’s only these kinds of words, hurtful and terrible, that can pierce the fog of fear he’s in. So I call him a fucking pig again, even though I feel something in me break when he looks back at me again, eyes full of betrayal, like he can’t believe I’m saying what I’m saying. “That’s right,” I say, “let’s go.” I reach up and slap him across the face. He pushes my hand away roughly. I do it again and again.
“Stop,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Come on,” I say, circling him.
I know him best. I know every insecurity he has. I know how he feels about his weight. I know the sacred love he has for his slain mother. I know about her past and how she sold her body to survive and provide for her and Chico on the streets when he was little, and occasionally when he was not. And because I love him, and because I need to hurt him so he will hurt me, I use it all. All of it. I taunt him and taunt him, until I see the anger building behind the hurt in his eyes. Until finally, he lets it all out.
Chico’s fists are harder than I expected. And he’s stronger than I or anyone would have guessed. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore, as I yell and try to unleash as much rage inside him as I can. All I hear is his screeching, like a pig being slaughtered, as his fists rain down on me along with his tears.
We Are Not from Here Page 7
