Arbo and I hop out of the truck bed. We walk slowly.
We step in front of the headlights, and our tall shadows loom before us, ominous, as if they might rise up and strike us down.
“What if he has a gun?” Arbo asks.
“Then we quickly remind him who we are.”
Arbo’s question rattles around in my head with each step, along with others that I opt not to share with him.
What if Sr. Ortíz doesn’t remember us? What if he doesn’t even live here anymore…and somebody else does?
I hadn’t thought through our arrival until now, and as we creep through the dark, I’m scared—and becoming more frightened the closer we get. I’ve seen what guns can do. And I doubt Sr. Ortíz gets many visitors, let alone unexpected ones late at night. No lights were on when we pulled up, and no lights come on as we approach. I don’t like that we’ll be subject to his gut reaction as he’s startled out of bed.
We step in front of the headlights, and our tall shadows loom before us, ominous, as if they might rise up and strike us down.
Arbo looks at me as we reach the door. I can’t tell if he’s shaking or if my own trembling is skewing my vision.
“I guess we knock?”
Arbo nods.
I tap at the door.
Nada.
I tap again. Harder this time, but not so hard as to seem aggressive.
Again, nothing.
I press my ear against the door. Still nothing.
I scan the area again. The house looks occupied. A small bucket sits several meters from the front step. I walk to it and give it a light nudge with my foot. It shimmers. Water. My stomach drops.
I go back to the house. We need the help of whoever is on the other side of that door.
I knock louder.
“Sr. Ortíz, it’s Pato and Arbo. We were here about two years ago with our teacher, Sr. Valle. Do you remember us? We need help.”
No response.
“Sr. Ortíz, está allí?”
Stronger knocks and louder words still go unanswered.
We go back to the truck.
“Is the door unlocked?” Marcos asks.
“I don’t know,” I confess.
“Try it.”
“We can’t just walk in there. It’s his house.”
“Then give me a better option.”
I can’t.
“If he slept through your pounding and yelling, he’s not going to wake up when you walk inside,” Marcos reasons.
“Then how do we wake him?”
“Carefully.”
Neither Arbo nor I move.
Marcos steps out of the truck.
“Wait, he doesn’t know you,” Arbo says.
“Then you go.”
After a brief standoff, Arbo says, “There’s a flashlight in the glove box.”
Gladys finds it and hands it to Marcos, and with reluctance, Arbo takes it.
We return to the front door. I try to remember what it looked like inside, as if that might somehow prepare me to go in. I recall it being a simple, two-room interior—a kitchen/living room in the front and a door to what I assume is a bedroom in the back.
I take a deep breath, grab the knob, turn it, and push. A long squeak fills the silence as the door swings inward.
I can tell from the smell why our knocks went unanswered. A pungent, putrid odor seeps into my lungs, making me nauseous.
Arbo points the flashlight inside, swinging the beam across the kitchen in front of us and into the living room to our left. There, my suspicions are confirmed. On the coffee table sit one empty and one half-full bottle of tequila.
“It smells like crap,” Arbo whispers.
He holds the beam on what is clearly Sr. Ortíz, lying motionless on the couch. I recognize his slender frame and ears, which slant away from his head, like they’re propped out by toothpicks. He looks more than a few years older than I remember him, as though this place, this life, has aged him beyond his years.
“Sr. Ortíz,” I say.
No response.
“Shake his arm,” Arbo tells me, as if his holding the flashlight prevents him from doing this himself.
I walk toward the old man, stopping at the farthest point where I can still lean over and touch him. I poke a finger into his arm, and he lets out a tiny grumble.
“Sr. Ortíz.”
I poke him a few more times, harder, until I finally do what Arbo suggested—I grab his arm and shake it. He jerks his limb back with an angry groan. Vile breath fills the air.
I jump. But it’s for nothing. His arm lands in a near-dead flop, and the groan ends as quickly as it began.
I point to the door, and Arbo and I go outside to regroup.
Marcos approaches, and we explain the situation.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “He’s not going to wake up.”
“Well, we can stay in the truck or we can stay in there. Either way, he’s going to wake up to four strangers on his property.”
Arbo and I look at each other, as if the other will provide the answer.
“¿Lo conocen bien?” Marcos asks us.
“Like I said, we met him once, two years ago.”
“Here’s how I see it,” he says. “No matter where we are when he wakes up, he’s going to be hungover, confused, and trying to figure out who the hell we are. I really don’t think he’s going to wake up and shoot us. But I’d rather we be in the same room with him. That’ll at least give us a chance to explain.”
“So we just wait for him to get up? Do we stay awake?” Arbo asks.
“If you can sleep, go right ahead.”
None of us respond.
“I hope he doesn’t mind, but I think I need something of his right now.” Marcos grabs the flashlight from Arbo, walks inside, and returns with the half-full bottle of tequila. He turns it upside down and takes a long pull. Then he holds the bottle out for us to do the same.
Gladys reaches for it, which surprises me. I don’t know why. I don’t know her well. Like Marcos, she hoists the bottle in the air, but there is something tremendously sad in watching her do it. I’m probably being machista, but where Marcos seemed defiant, her turning the bottle skyward is like a surrender.
Like I’m in any position to judge. I’m next in line.
I’m not uptight, but I don’t drink. I’ve tried it—I just never liked it. Especially tequila. It tastes awful, it burns, and I don’t have much stomach for it. But tonight, under these circumstances, I can’t find a good reason not to drink. I don’t take the bottle because I like alcohol—I take it because I want punishment. I don’t know why I survived when so many others died, so I might as well suffer. And if the tequila somehow dulls my senses, that would be a welcome change.
I get the hurt I was looking for. Less than a minute after muscling down the drink, an even greater force launches it back up. I turn and spew what little remains in my stomach. Then I step outside the reach of the headlights and drop to my knees. I flop to my side and surrender. I cry tears I didn’t think I had left in me. I cry for my mom. For my dad. For me. For Arbo. For my aunts. For my uncles. For my cousins. For so many people. I try to remember who was there and who was not. I cry for not having mentioned anything to anyone about that damn car. I cry for the “surprise” my dad will never be able to tell me about. I cry for a world where something like this could happen, and for a future where I’m stranded alone in it.
Arbo comes over and sits down next to me. He lays his face, wet and warm, on my shoulder. We cry together.
Arbo is my best friend, but this is not something we do.
“What are we going to do?” he asks, in snivels.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I repeat it a few more times, but I’m no closer to an answer.
“They’re all dead.”
“And it’s my fault,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw a car. When we first got to the party. A creepy, black car was parked outside the house. Someone was sitting in it.”
“Just one person?”
“I don’t know. I saw the driver, but I thought I saw someone in the back seat too. And I didn’t say anything. To anybody. Nothing! I almost did. Like that helps. And now they’re all dead.”
“What were they doing?” Arbo tenses. He lifts himself off my shoulder and sits fully upright. Our bodies are once again separate.
“Just sitting there, smoking and looking threatening.”
“Threatening how?”
“I don’t know. Just threatening.”
“You don’t know that it was them,” Arbo says, slumping back onto the ground.
“Really? Who do you think it was? The backup band?”
My sarcasm lingers in the air. Arbo doesn’t answer for a while.
“Maybe it was. Besides, what would it have changed?”
“Everything!”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could have stopped the party?”
“Because of a weird car?”
“Maybe somebody would have gone outside to scare them off,” I argue.
“Whatever. These people aren’t even people. They’re animals. Nothing would have scared them. They don’t care. You saw what they did. And there were more than two people. It was going to happen. You can’t change that.”
There isn’t a good way to respond, so I don’t.
“I’m scared, Pato.”
“I am too.”
“Why?” He stretches out the word, and I know that he’s referring to the bigger question.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand. We’re not in their stupid, crappy world. We’re not narcos. We’re good people. It was Carmen’s quinceañera. A fifteen-year-old girl…” His voice fades as he buries his face in his hands. “She was so excited. It was all she could talk about for weeks. And now… She’s gone. Forever. It was a birthday party! No lo entiendo.”
“I don’t get it either.”
“I want to kill them.”
“I know.”
“No, I really want to kill them. I’m not just saying it, like something you talk about but won’t do. I—want—to—kill—them,” he says, sitting more upright, as if each word inflates his pudgy frame. “I’m going to kill them.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s do it. You and me.”
“What? Kill them?”
“Yeah. Let’s make a pact. We kill every one of those cabrones.”
He holds out a hand. I don’t know if I’m supposed to grab it, shake it, pound it, or what. I just stare.
“Are you in?” he asks.
As if two high school kids are really going to take on a gang of drug-trafficking thugs. Narcos. It’s not going to happen. But Arbo doesn’t really mean it. I know he’s just blowing off steam, and I should let it go. Still, I can’t. There are too many thoughts swirling around in my mind to control any of them.
“What’s the point?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, who are we going to kill?”
“What do you mean, ‘who’?”
“Who are we going to kill? Who is ‘them’?”
“The hijos de putas who killed our families, who do you think?”
“But who are they?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just… I don’t see how that makes it any better. And it’s not like we’re after one person. Or even two people. You heard what it was like—it sounded like there were ten of them, twenty of them. That’s more than we can shoot.”
“So we kill five of them. That’s better than none.”
“And after that, then what?” I ask.
“Then the world’s better off.”
“Is it?”
“Yes!”
“What world? Our world? The one where we still can’t go home because we’ve killed five more of them, which only gives them five more reasons to kill us. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t solve anything.”
“Why are you standing up for them?”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. You should be saying, ‘Arbo, I want to shoot these guys between the eyes, just like they shot my mom.’”
“Screw you.” I shove him. Instantly, I regret it.
“Screw me? Screw you.” He jumps up and shoves me back. “What do you think our families would want?”
I don’t like the answer I’m about to give.
“They’d want us to live.”
“Like cowards?”
“Like people who stay alive.”
“I don’t give a crap. They killed our families. We can’t just do nothing. It’s not fair!”
“And I don’t give a crap either. You want to know what I wish? I wish I had been in the backyard. I wish I had jumped in front of my mom to stop a bullet, even if the next one was going to kill her. I wish I were dead. Not here, not with you, not with Marcos and Gladys, not having to deal with any of this. What do I have to live for now? The hope that I might kill a couple of bastard narcos before I die? What a happy life. And I thought I was living a fairy tale before.” I stand up and walk out into the desert. “I’d rather be dead.”
It’s not fair to lay that on him. I knew it as the words were coming out of my mouth, and that’s all I can think as I walk away. Still, I walk.
Several minutes later, Arbo follows me. I knew he would, just as I would have followed him.
“Truce,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I reply. “I don’t know how we do this. I mean, look at us. We’re in the middle of the desert and the only person in the world we can turn to is a drunk. And we don’t even know if he’ll help us.”
Arbo nods. Then he says quietly, “I’m glad you weren’t in the backyard.”
“Same.”
I wipe away tears with my knuckles and we pound our wet fists.
We walk back toward Sr. Ortíz’s house and sit down in the perimeter, where we had been before the fight, while Marcos and Gladys remain on the front stoop, with the door open to keep an eye on Sr. Ortíz. I don’t hear much of their conversation. They speak softly, so I don’t try. We give them their space, as they give us ours.
The hours pass. Like hands on a clock, conversation moves forward, but keeps sweeping back to the same places, over and over.
Sometime before sunrise, exhaustion overpowers grief, and we sleep.
• • •
“Get up,” Gladys whispers.
It’s shortly after sunrise. She points to Marcos, who is at the door.
“He’s waking up,” he mouths.
We tiptoe to the door and peer inside. Sr. Ortíz lies with his back toward us, his face buried in the couch. His shoulder tilts and his arms stretch upward. He’s going to roll over—and see us.
Marcos nods to me.
“Sr. Ortíz,” I say, in the most unthreatening tone I can summon.
He turns over with a shimmying roll. It’s not slow, and it’s not hurried. It’s unnaturally normal, as if he had asked me to wake him up at this time.
He stares at us with warm, questioning eyes, more bewildered than startled.
“It’s Pato. I came here about two years ago with—”
He holds up a hand for me to stop, then presses his fingers to his temples and squints. It’s hard to tell if he’s thinking or massaging a headache.
“Not so loud, please.” He looks to the coffee table as though he wants to reach for the bottle. Only the empty one remains. �
��You came here with”—he squints at Arbo—“this young man and your teacher. I remember you. Is this your new teacher?” He nods in Marcos’s direction.
“No, it’s my friend Marcos. And that’s his sister, Gladys.”
“So, should I ask why you’re in my living room, or is that part of what you’re about to say?”
“Sr. Ortíz, we’re in trouble. We’re in a lot of trouble…”
I let my tongue loose. I don’t hold back on anything. I give him grizzly details I don’t want to relive. Ever. But I do it because I need him to feel what we’ve been through. This is our one pitch for help. If he says no, then we’ll be cast out into the desert at daybreak, without shelter, to be hunted.
Halfway through, he moves to one side of the couch, making room for me to sit. As I continue, his eyes glaze over, and I know he sees our world through the same sorrowful filter I do.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “All of your parents… They’re all…?”
We all nod.
“I’m sorry we came here like this,” I say. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“We couldn’t go to any friends or family, because if they’re looking for us, they’ll look there,” Marcos adds. “We had to go someplace where they wouldn’t connect us.”
“Narcos,” Sr. Ortíz says in a scornful tone. “They’re not people. They’re pests. No, they’re a disease. An incurable disease we all suffer from.”
He pauses and looks around at us, as if we might inspire the right words. After a long silence, he appears to let go of what he wanted to say and settles with, “They chased my children away. You can stay. As long as you want.”
La Frontera
“I’m a drunk who lives by himself in the desert,” Sr. Ortíz says. “Nobody in that bar is going to think I’m doing anything. That would require them to think about me to begin with—and they don’t.”
Behind him, the sun has dipped into the earth, lobbing its serene glow above the horizon, catching drifts of sand and clouds that burst like fireworks frozen in the sky. From where I sit, the sunset looks as if it emerges from Sr. Ortíz’s silhouette, like a radiant spring.
We have been here for a day. An agonizing day of nothing to do but think about what happened. I’ve asked Sr. Ortíz for chores—something, anything to help keep my thoughts at bay. But he seems to feel bad putting me, or us, to work. So his respect for what we’ve been through sentences me to a full day inside my head.
The Border Page 3
