The Border

by Steve Schafer

  I get that feeling you have when you’re being watched, that itch from the fringe of your awareness. I turn back toward the house. Marcos. His cheeks pulse as he clenches his jaws. He locks eyes with me for several seconds, then he turns and walks inside.

  • • •

  Later, in sight, but too far away to hear, Marcos and Sr. Ortíz talk. I pull my hand to my forehead to shade my eyes. Marcos throws his arms in the air. They’re arguing. I stare for a few seconds, cupping one ear to listen. I still can’t hear anything. Then they see me. Their discussion quickly ends.

  They know something we don’t. I can tell. It’s more than an argument. It’s a secret.

  Marcos says something and walks toward me. Sr. Ortíz looks concerned. I make eye contact with Marcos. His lips purse as though he’s about to say something but is waiting until he’s close enough to share it. Then, before reaching me, his intent vanishes. He nods at me and looks away, as if he changed his mind from one step to the next. He strides past me and enters the house.

  Sr. Ortíz stays where he is. I take a step toward him. He drops his head, turns, and walks to the shed.

  I let him be.

  • • •

  “You guys remind me of my sons,” Sr. Ortíz says to Arbo and me.

  The normal early evening wind is nowhere to be found, leaving the heat of the day like a blanket on top of us. Arbo and I sip some horchata that Gladys made from a cool pail of well water. Sr. Ortíz has moved on to the fermented stuff, but he isn’t wiped out yet.

  “How?” Arbo asks.

  “A lot of ways. Pato, you look like my oldest. In fact, we almost named him Patricio too. But there’s more than that. It’s the way you get along. I watch you talk. I see how you appreciate each other’s company. Your families were close, weren’t they?”

  “Our dads were brothers and best friends.”

  “I knew it. You learn how to act like that. Someone has to teach it to you,” he says, with a somber tone.

  “So your sons are friends?”

  “They’re best friends. They live together. They work together. You can’t pull those two apart with a crowbar.”

  “Where are they?” Arbo asks.

  “Far from here.”

  “In the U.S.?” I ask.

  “Farther. In Canada. They’re good boys, like you two. Always have been. Though they’re not really boys now. They’re men.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Not that old, but probably old to you. Ignacio… Iggie is, well, let’s see, he has to be about thirty-one. And that would make Mateo twenty-nine. No, wait.” He sucks in a gulp of air and chases it with a swig of tequila. “I still mix them up.” He stops and closes his eyes. “Mateo’s twenty-seven.”

  “Mix up who?” Arbo asks.

  “I have another son. No, I had another son.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “For what? You didn’t do anything. It was those cabrones who killed your… It was the damn gangs. They did it all.”

  The conversation falls silent. You don’t ask about these things. I know far too well. People tell you when they’re ready.

  “I have to go,” Sr. Ortíz says.

  He stands, leaving Arbo and I sitting by ourselves. He hovers over us for a few seconds, then sits back down.

  “No, you know what? I never talk about it. I never have anybody to talk about it with. And now you’re here and… You two, I’m so sorry to say, know exactly what this is like.”

  We nod, not knowing exactly what’s coming, but in what direction it’s headed.

  “I had three sons. And a daughter. She’s fine. She lives in Canada with Iggie and Mateo. So, four kids in all, and they were all good kids. Kids who knew right from wrong and did the right thing. Or at least that’s what I thought. Diego was the second. Right between Iggie and Mateo. He was smart—too smart sometimes. I used to tell him he should be a lawyer. He was so good with words. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to see it. I should have seen it sooner. Maybe I could have done something about it.”

  He speaks like we aren’t even here, head tilted upward, as if looking at his thoughts drifting across the evening sky.

  “You know what I hate most about telling this story? It makes Diego seem…like he was just another one of them. Another chingado gang member. He got caught up in it. I don’t know how. And I was so slow to figure it out. He always had an explanation. And I always bought it. I even took his dirty money. You never think that someone in your own family, someone you love more than yourself, could lie to you. Or could do things that you would hear about on the news and wonder what kind of parents had raised someone like that.”

  He continues staring into the sky.

  “One day, Diego never came home. By that point, I’d found out what he was doing, and he knew that I knew. We argued about it. A lot. I figured he’d moved out. But a week went by. No Diego. A month went by. No Diego. Six months. Every day, I’d sit outside at dusk and wait. I’d look out at the horizon—for hours—and scan it back and forth, sure that he’d appear. He was my son. He couldn’t just be gone. If you look out there long enough, you imagine things. I saw him come home a thousand times, but he never did. He never—”

  His voice cracks. I turn away. I can’t watch him. I’m already tearing up. From the corner of my eye, I see him wipe his arm across his face.

  “You know what’s funny about when I would imagine him coming home? It was always as a little boy. He used to drag his feet and kick up dirt as he walked, no matter how many times I asked him not to. That’s what I’d see. Little puffs of dirt coming closer and closer until I could almost hear that little kid talk, and talk, and talk. I guess that’s how I thought of him. Or how I wanted to think of him—as my innocent little boy. I couldn’t think of him as a nar…as one of them. Knowing what he was… It’s a curse. It’s my biggest regret. I couldn’t change him. I tried. I wish I’d never found out. Do you have any idea how awful it is to have your memories spoiled? It’s like losing him twice. I don’t want to think of him that way. So most days I don’t. He’s my little boy who will never come back. Mateo and Iggie tried to find him. They got shot at three times, and the last time, they were warned to stop looking and to leave Mexico.”

  He refills his glass with a hefty pour.

  “So they did. They left. Within a year, I lost all my sons. And two years later, my daughter, Lupe, went to join them in Canada. She said she couldn’t stand living in a war zone. I don’t blame any of them. Once this hits home, it’s never home again.”

  He swirls his drink around in his glass.

  “My wife died a year after Lupe left. They said it was a heart attack. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me it was her heart. Now my kids want me to move to Canada, but I know what they went through to get there, and I’m too old for it. No, actually, I’m not. I’m too stubborn. This is where I’ve lived my whole damn life. The narcos stole so much from me already. I’m not going to let them take my home. What’s left of it anyway.”

  I put an arm around his shoulder. Arbo does the same.

  I want to ask him about his argument with Marcos, but he didn’t want to talk about it before, and I’m not going to press him after the story he just told. I let it go. For now.

  The final traces of light dwindle, and I stare out into the darkness, wondering what’s left of my home.

  • • •

  I wake early the next morning and step outside. The sun sits like half an orange on the horizon, turning the dwarfed desert plants into a field of lengthy shadows. There is a faint beat and familiar sound coming from behind the house. I peek around the corner. Marcos is juggling a soccer ball.

  He doesn’t appear to be aware of my presence. He’s in the moment. His eyes, narrow and determined, never leave the ball. Left-left-left-right-right-right. The ball leaps from foot to knee to hea
d to chest as though this were the final cut of a how-to film on grace with a soccer ball. He’s no less of an artist than his sister, his canvas is just a soccer field instead.

  But the longer I stare, the more I see beyond the grace. I see what fuels it. With each tap of the ball, he pops a crisp and rigid breath, as if releasing a tiny sliver of anger and frustration. Soon the grace falls completely from view. All I see is his rage as he attempts to slowly bleed it dry.

  For an instant, his eyes dart toward me. The ball falls to the ground. He taps it in my direction.

  I walk-dribble the ball over to him.

  “You can do better than that. I’ve seen it,” he says.

  “You’ve seen me play?”

  “A couple of times. You play midfield, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Marcos is the star of our varsity team. I play on a much lesser team. I don’t stink, which is about as much as you can say. I’m in the middle of the pack.

  I’m surprised and a little flattered that Marcos knows even this much about my game. Where we’re from, everybody (okay, everybody except Arbo) plays soccer.

  “You’re fast, that’s a big help there. And you handle the ball well. I saw you score a goal against Dorado. That was awesome.”

  That was my shining moment of the season. My lone goal, and against our rival high school. It was a long bomb over my head from our defense, which I chased down past our offense. One fake-out later, it was only me and the goalie with a few seconds remaining in the game. I nearly bungled it by jamming it into the goalpost, but the ball ricocheted in.

  Marcos saw my goal. My chest puffs out, as if I’m holding a deep breath of confidence.

  “Oh yeah, I remember that one. Thanks.”

  “Of course you remember it. You won the game. You don’t forget those.”

  Coy never did work well for me.

  “So, let’s see what you’ve got,” he says. He pops the ball into the air, taps it short with his left foot, and then bumps it off the side of his right foot over to me.

  I knee it into my nose.

  He chuckles and I turn red.

  “Relax.”

  Again, he kicks the ball into the air toward me. This time, I receive it with my right foot and bounce it high. I tap it three times with my forehead, then back down to my left foot and over to Marcos.

  “Nice,” he says.

  After that, I relax. I even enjoy it. I feel guilty using the term “fun” with anything right now. But this moment at least feels not un-fun. That’s as far as I’ll go.

  After about fifteen minutes, Marcos drops the ball into the dirt and speaks in a low voice.

  “I don’t like you talking to Gladys.”

  “What?” I ask, though I heard it perfectly.

  “I’ve seen you talking with Gladys—a couple of times. I’m asking you, as a favor to me, to please not talk to her.”

  “We’re the only five people out here.”

  “Then act like we’re four,” he says.

  “I’m not trying to do anything. We’re just talking.”

  “Look, you’re a nice guy. I know that. And we’ve all been through a lot of… I don’t even know what to call it. But I’m the one looking after her now, and she doesn’t need any of this.”

  “What’s ‘this’?”

  “Don’t play stupid. I see the way you guys talk,” he says.

  Gladys and I have really only had one meaningful conversation. Otherwise it has been a few words here and there. But I don’t think it’s worth arguing that point.

  “I’m not trying to do anything.”

  “Good. Then it shouldn’t be a problem to stop.” He knocks the ball toward me. “I’m going to grab something to eat. You should keep playing. That’s when I get the best practice—when it’s just me and the ball.”

  Only moments before, it had occurred to me that I could learn to like Marcos. That feeling vanishes.

  He nods as if he hasn’t asked me for something ridiculous, then strolls back toward the house.

  “What were you and Sr. Ortíz arguing about?” I call after him.

  “Lunch.”

  I punt the ball over his head to the other side of the house.

  • • •

  “I need for each of you to grab a leg,” Sr. Ortíz says, as calmly as he would ask us to hold a glass of water.

  I’ve been rehashing my conversation with Marcos most of the morning. This quickly pulls me back into the present. The cow lies on her side, panting heavy puffs of snotty air. Arbo and I gawk at the gooey hooves poking out from under her tail.

  “Come on, you can do it,” Sr. Ortíz says, running his hands in long, gentle strokes along the cow’s belly.

  As I grab a hoof, I notice the calf’s black nose, like a turtle’s head, slowly sliding outward from sloppy folds of what look like guts. ¡Qué asco! I look away. But as my face twists and my stomach churns, a voice inside my head chides me. I’ve seen the gruesome end of life, which I will never forget. I might as well give myself the chance to see, in gory detail, the beauty of how it begins.

  I look back down and firm my grip.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “Sí,” Arbo says.

  “A short, smooth pull,” Sr. Ortíz says. “It’ll take a couple of times for him to come out.”

  With each pull, the calf glides outward. Not at a steady pace, but in spurts, punctuated by squishing and slurping sounds. A thin, milky film runs across the calf’s partially exposed body like a torn blanket. Everything is slimy. And stinky.

  On the fourth pull, the entire back half of the calf emerges with a gush of internal juice that hits my leg so hard it splashes up to my shirt.

  The calf opens his eyes and lets out a tiny squeal.

  My nausea is gone. This isn’t revolting. It’s amazing.

  • • •

  “Quick, get inside!” Marcos shouts.

  “Why? What happened?” I ask.

  “Someone’s coming! Get inside!”

  “Shouldn’t we drive away?” Arbo asks, panting midstride. “I thought that was the plan.”

  “Gladys is sleeping. There’s no time!” Marcos barks back. “Get inside. And hide!”

  We zip by the side of the house near the garden and fly through the front door. As we do, I see the trail of dust in the distance. A car is approaching. It’s still far enough away that I question whether we could have been spotted.

  Sr. Ortíz goes outside to meet the car. We wake Gladys and take turns peering through a small crack between the door and wall. Although we can’t all see what’s happening, we can hear it quite well.

  “Pablo, how are you?” the man asks.

  “Good. I was hoping it might be you,” Sr. Ortíz says.

  “You been playing soccer?” he asks.

  “No. Why?”

  “I saw a soccer ball.”

  “Oh, that. Um, well, I found it…out in the desert. And it seemed like a waste. So I brought it back.”

  “Okay. I thought maybe you had visitors. I thought I saw somebody else as I was driving up.”

  “Somebody else here? No, no. Must have been a skinny cow.”

  “Yeah, must’ve been. Did you get a new pickup truck?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, I did,” Sr. Ortíz stutters. “I’ve been thinking about building onto the house and I needed something to haul materials.”

  “It’s nice to have that gringo money coming in.”

  “My family is good to me.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, I feel fine. Why?”

  “You seem a little on edge.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m excited every time you show up and bring me something.”

  “I won’t hold you in suspense any longer then. I’ve got
two for you this time. One came in a few days ago and the other one came yesterday.”

  They chat a bit more before the man departs.

  Sr. Ortíz comes inside.

  “He knew we were here,” Marcos says.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sr. Ortíz answers.

  “He knew someone was here. I don’t like this.”

  I don’t often agree with Marcos, but I think he’s right this time.

  “He’s a nice man. He stays and talks with me every time he brings me a package. He doesn’t have to do that.”

  “How long does he normally stay?” I ask.

  “Twenty minutes maybe. I usually ask him inside for some horchata.”

  “And this time, you didn’t,” Marcos says.

  “No, but—”

  “He knows something is different,” Marcos interrupts. “The question is whether he puts it together and if he talks about it. And we’re not sticking around for that. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “It’s too soon,” Arbo says. “Our pictures were in the paper two days ago.”

  “Do you want to wait here until the next car drives up? How quickly did we escape? Because that was the plan, remember? And we didn’t. There wasn’t time. We hid, and we didn’t even do a good job. If we try that when the narcos come, it’s over.” He stares at Arbo, then me. “Gladys and I are going. You guys need to decide by tonight if you are coming with us.”

  • • •

  I knew—we all knew—this moment was coming. The visit this afternoon only triggered the inevitable.

  Arbo and I shuffle away from the group silently, toward the truck. Neither of us want to be the first to speak. As I scoot onto the edge of the truck bed, Arbo picks up a small rock and points to a cactus about ten paces away.

  “If I hit it, we go. If not, we stay.”

  He hurls the rock. He comes closer to hitting me than the cactus.

  “Maybe you should try,” he says.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask.

  “What do you want to do?” he asks back.

  We both know the answer and neither of us like it. We catch each other’s gaze and look away.