Borderlands

by James Carlos Blake

  “Hey, friend, any poor fool can work in the fields,” Diego said. “All you need is the strength of a burro and the brains of the same burro. You don’t want to quit a clean nice bakery to work in the fields.” He glanced at the man over his shoulder. “Pardon me for so saying, my friend, but that would be very stupid, even for love.”

  “But pickers do get paid every day, right?” the man asked.

  “Damn right we do,” Alfonso said. “We always have money in our pockets. Not like this poor fool”—he gestured at Diego—”who gets paid only on Friday and by Wednesday is broke again.”

  Diego glared at him and said, “This poor fool has a car. And my friend Luis the baker here, he has a car. The only ones I see in this car who don’t have a car are ignorant pickers.”

  “You have a car?” Alfonso said, feigning surprise. “Well, why don’t we use it next time instead of going to town in this donkey cart?”

  Diego showed him a middle finger.

  The Luis fellow turned to look at the rear window and Julio looked too, his curiosity roused. There was no traffic in sight in either direction. The man now looked at Francisco slumped against the door with his eyes closed, then looked intently at Julio as if he were trying to read his mind, then reached under his jacket and withdrew a small chrome-plated pistol. He held it in his right hand, on the side away from Julio. Julio gaped.

  “Stop the car,” the man said. “Pull over to the side of the road.”

  Diego looked at him in the rearview mirror. “What? Why?”

  The man raised the gun where Diego could see it. “Do it,” he said.

  “Hey, man, what the hell are you—” Alfonso began, but the man pointed the gun at him and snapped, “Shut up!”

  “Oh, God,” Diego sighed and slowed the car, eased onto the shoulder and shut off the engine.

  “Who told you to cut the motor, you idiot?” the man said.

  “What?” Diego said, wide-eyed in the rearview. “I don’t know … nobody. I always do it because sometimes the motor, it gets a little too hot and—”

  “Quiet!” the man ordered. He held the gun low, out of sight of anyone who might drive by, but pointed vaguely at Julio’s chest. Francisco had now come awake and seen the pistol and gone pale under his bruises. He sat utterly still against the door.

  “I don’t want to shoot anybody,” the man said, “but I have done so before, so don’t try anything foolish, any of you. Understand?”

  Diego and Esteban and Francisco nodded. The man looked at Julio and smiled tightly. “Do you understand?” he asked. Only now did Julio realize he had been wondering if a bullet from such a little gun would hurt very much. The man angled the pistol so that it pointed up at his face. The muzzle was small and dark and Julio’s mouth suddenly tasted of copper. He nodded.

  “Very good,” the man said. “Now you two”—he gestured at Diego and Alfonso—”take all your money out of your pockets. Do it now! And you two”—looking now at Julio and Francisco beside him—”hand it over.”

  Julio worked his hand in his pocket and extracted a few small bills and some coins and handed the money to the bandit, who accepted it with his left hand and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Wincing with pain, Francisco leaned across Julio and gave his money to the man.

  “For the love of God,” Alfonso said plaintively as he handed his money over the seat. “Why are you doing this to us? We are not rich. We are Mexicans, the same as you. If you want to rob somebody, why not rob the gringos? They have all the money. That’s what I would do.”

  The bandit stuffed Diego’s money in his pocket with the rest. “Oh sure, sure you would. Pancho Villa, that’s you. Now, pull your pockets inside out, all of you! Do it quick!”

  He leaned forward to look into the front seat and saw that Diego’s and Esteban’s pockets were showing whitely. He glanced across at Francisco and saw that his pockets, too, hung limply from his pants. Only Julio had not reversed his pockets. The bandit narrowed his eyes at him.

  “I gave you all I had,” Julio said. “Truly.”

  “Truly?” the bandit echoed, arching his eyebrows. “Well, forgive my lack of trust, my friend, but”—he wagged the pistol at Julio’s pockets and showed a large grin—”I insist.”

  Julio glanced down at the pistol, then stared hard into the man’s eyes. If he had been asked at that moment what was going through his mind he could not have said. But something in his face made the man lose his smile. He pressed the pistol against Julio’s right side and cocked the hammer. Julio had never heard that sound except in the movies and he marveled at its chilling effect in the world of mortal flesh. He felt his heart beating fast against his ribs.

  “My friend …” the bandit said softly, almost sadly.

  A van with dark-tinted windows whooshed past.

  Julio pulled his pants pockets out and the rest of his money fell on the seat.

  The bandit looked at the clump of bills and then at Julio and then gathered the money with his free hand. “Oh, truly,” he said in a mimicking voice. “That’s all of it … truly.” He laughed and hefted the fistful of money as if trying to guess its worth by its weight. Julio knew exactly how much it was. Seventy-nine dollars. Five of which he had won at the cockfights on the previous weekend and the rest was all the money he had managed to save during his time in Florida.

  “Jesus Christ, Julio,” Francisco said thickly through his swollen lips.

  “Have you been robbing banks?” Diego said.

  “Listen, man,” Alfonso said to the bandit, “the rest of us are not so rich like this one. Those twelve dollars of mine are all the money I have in the world. Leave us some little bit of money, eh? Please. Enough for a beer and a taquito tonight, eh?”

  “Is this one always so stupid?” the bandit asked as he finished tucking money into his pants pocket.

  “Always,” Diego said. “But look … can’t you leave me with some money? I’m not like these pickers, man, I have a wife, I have little children. I have—”

  The bandit shook the pistol at him. “You’re going to have another hole in your goddamn head if you don’t shut up.”

  Diego’s eyes widened and he threw up his hands.

  “Put your hands down, stupid!” the bandit said, glancing quickly along the road to see if any cars were passing by. “Sweet Jesus, what did I do to get a bunch like you? You fools think you’re the only ones with troubles? If I told you pricks my troubles we would all drown when this car filled with your tears. Now leave the keys in the ignition and get out, all of you. Out! Now!”

  Diego looked stricken. “You are not going to steal my car?” He had recently paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars for this ancient six-cylinder Plymouth, having saved the money for it over a period of nearly a year. It had not been easy. Almost every penny he earned went toward the support of his wife and seven children.

  “Steal it?” the bandit said. “Listen, fool, I wouldn’t steal a piece of shit like this. I only steal cars my sainted mother would not die of shame to see me driving. I wouldn’t stoop so low as to steal this stinking car.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” Diego said, looking both relieved and somewhat injured, “even though I don’t think you truly realize what a good car this—”

  “I’m just going to borrow the damned thing. Now get out—everybody! Start walking back the way we came. Move!”

  They got out and began walking. They heard the motor grinding as the bandit tried to start it, heard his faint cursing of the recalcitrant engine.

  “The son of a bitch is going to have to hitch another ride to make his getaway,” Francisco muttered.

  “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot,” Alfonso said, “and the mechanic’s car needs a mule to pull it.”

  “You shut up,” Diego said, pointing a finger in Alfonso’s face. “Don’t say another word—not you!”

  Alfonso put up his palms defensively and backed away.

  The motor finally clattered to life and they st
opped walking and turned to look. A single headlight beam poked out in front of the car into the gathering gloom and then the transmission shrieked as the bandit worked it into gear. Diego groaned and said, “Doesn’t that bastard know how to drive?”

  The Plymouth lurched onto the highway and began a ponderous acceleration, trailing a thick plume of dark smoke and grinding loudly every time the bandit worked the column gearshift. Then the car went around a wide bend in the road toward Immokalee, still some fifteen miles away, and the taillights disappeared.

  They spoke little as they trudged along the shoulder of the road. Except for Diego, the only legal citizen among them, they all ducked down in roadside ditches or ran into the pines to hide every time headlights appeared on the highway. One never knew when those lights might belong to la migra.

  Diego put his thumb out to every car and truck that came flashing up from behind them. But the Sunday evening traffic was sparse and none of it even slowed down for him. His rage increased with every vehicle that sped past. He shook his fist at the shrinking taillights and bellowed, “Bastard! God damn you! Are you afraid I’m going to rob you, you son of a bitch? God DAMN you!”

  He swore as fervently every time he caught sight of Alfonso, who was keeping a careful distance behind all of them.

  “‘Stop for him, he’s a Mexican!’“ Diego mimicked sarcastically, glaring back at Alfonso. “You are a stupid shit!”

  “I think we ought to hang him from one of these trees,” Francisco said, and Alfonso dropped a few feet further behind. He was keeping uncharacteristically mute in the face of his fellows’ rancor.

  VI

  The sky was gray with dawn light when they at last reached the town limit. A couple of ragged men sat on the curb in front of a convenience store and looked upon them with curiosity as they walked by. Julio glanced back just as Alfonso slipped away into the shadows of a side street and disappeared. A little farther on, Francisco said, “Look!” and pointed down the block to their right. The Plymouth was parked at the end of the street. Diego let out a whoop and jogged toward it.

  “Good,” Francisco said as he and Julio followed after him at a walk. “Now he can give us a ride to the market.”

  When they got to the car Diego was staring in horror upon the freshly crumpled right front fender. “Look,” he said, pointing at the damage. “Just look what he … what that dirty prick … look how he did. He steals my good car and can’t drive it twenty miles without wrecking it. That son of a bitch should be in prison. Look!”

  Julio could not help thinking that the right fender now resembled the left one more closely than it had before, but he did not think this a good moment to mention it to Diego.

  And now Diego discovered a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. He snatched it up and gaped at it in disbelief. It cited him for parking in front of a fire hydrant. He shivered as if suddenly very cold. He whimpered lowly. He crumpled the ticket in his hand and raised the fist to heaven and shook it as though he would demand an explanation from God Himself.

  “What kind of son of a bitch—” he began, then started choking on his bile and outrage and fell to a harsh and prolonged fit of coughing that raised the veins starkly on his forehead. He slowly recovered, hacking and spitting, wiping the webs of mucus from his nose, the tears from his eyes. “What kind of son of a bitch …” he said breathlessly, brandishing the ticket at his friends, “would give a man a goddamn ticket… in the middle of the goddamn NIGHT!” He turned his face up to the sky. “Oooooh God,” he moaned, “what bastards! What injustice! What injustice this stinking world is full of!”

  The town was coming to life all around them. Several cars and trucks rolled past, their occupants staring out at them—some with amusement, some with indifference, some with disdain. Diego glared balefully at the hydrant, at the car, at Julio and Francisco, then whirled and went to the driver’s side and got in and slammed the door shut with such force that the driver’s side window shattered and showered him with broken glass.

  He let a furious howl and pounded on the steering wheel with his fist. His curses rang in the streets.

  The engine cranked laboriously as Diego worked the ignition key, then it began to sputter, then abruptly roared into action and poured black smoke from its exhaust pipe. He wrestled with the shift lever in a series of horrific metallic shrieks until the transmission at last surrendered to first gear. The engine still racing furiously, Diego released the clutch pedal and the Plymouth shot into the street with tires screaming and veered wildly for a moment before he had it under control. He fought the transmission through the rest of the grinding gearshifts as he drove away in a clatter and a cloud of oily smoke, heading home to a wife and seven children who would shriek and squall the whole while he got ready to go to work, sleepless and empty of pocket.

  Julio and Francisco watched him until he rounded a corner and was gone.

  “We should have asked him for a ride to the market,” Francisco said.

  Julio yawned hugely and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not this time.”

  As they were walking to the Farmers Market Francisco said, “At least the son of a bitch left the keys in the car for him.”

  “That’s right,” Julio said. “Diego should be thankful, shouldn’t he?”

  Francisco looked at him and started to laugh—and then winced with the pain of his battered face.

  VII

  The matter was quite clear to them all: Alfonso de la Madrid was to blame for the robbery. He had been the one who wanted to pick up the hitchhiker and then the hitchhiker had robbed them. The matter was clear enough. Diego had made it known that he did not want to see Alfonso ever again—and if he did see him, he would run over him with his car and then drive back and forth over him until there was nothing left but a stain in the road. Francisco, too, would get narrow in the eyes at the mention of Alfonso’s name. None of them had spoken to Alfonso in the several days since the robbery and Alfonso was keeping his guarded distance from them all. He had not even shown his face in the Rosa Verde.

  Sitting in the shade of the mimosa, Julio watched Alfonso buy his lunch and then hurry away to find a place to eat it, well removed from Julio’s sight. The fool knew damn well it was all his fault.

  And yet…. Furiously chewing the last of his sandwich, Julio knew that his lingering anger of the past few days did not entirely have to do with Alfonso. It was rooted in something deeper. His friends had attributed his low spirits to having been robbed of more money than they had. He was the only one among them who had managed to save any money, and he had given up every dollar of it. What man wouldn’t feel sour about that?

  But that wasn’t it, either. No. What was eating at his heart, Julio knew, was something else.

  It was this: he had done nothing to resist the bandit. He had sat there and let the man rob him.

  Why had he not tried to take the little gun away from him? It was a question he had been asking since the robbery.

  The robber had let his guard down several times. He had been laughing, enjoying himself, loose with his attention. He had been within easy reach.

  He could have grabbed the gun from the man. He could have grabbed it and forced it from him. The man had not looked very strong. He could have taken the gun from him and shoved it up his nose and made him beg for mercy, made him weep with regret for having tried to rob him.

  Why didn’t he at least try it?

  Had he been afraid?

  Well, now … of course he had been a little afraid. The fellow had a gun, didn’t he? Show him a man who was not afraid of a gun arid he would show you a fool.

  Ah? And why would such a man be a fool?

  Why? Mother of God, the question was more than foolish. Because a gun can kill you. Kill you quick.

  His rage tore through him.

  Sweet Jesus. Was that what he had been afraid of? Of being killed? Of being killed quick?

  The realization made him laugh out loud—and the laughter burned in his e
yes.

  THE HOUSE OF ESPERANZA

  I

  The house of Esperanza was a small concrete structure near the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Immokalee, a small rugged town in the winter produce region of southwest Florida. The detail work on the house had never been completed: three of its outer walls lacked stucco; pipes and wiring were exposed throughout the interior, and several windows were still without glass. The roof had been tarred but remained unshingled, and every hard rainfall produced a new leak. Esperanza had informally inherited the house from Salvador Escondido, its builder and her husband by common law, who one morning kissed her goodbye at the front door, left for work in the produce fields and never returned. That had been almost two years ago. The most popular rumor was that he had run off to Chicago with an Anglo waitress from Fort Myers.

  II

  Chuy came to Florida in a truck crammed with fifteen other Mexican laborers illegally smuggled into the U.S.—wetbacks, they were called in Texas and sometimes called each other. They’d been led across the river one dark night by a smuggler who guided them into the Texas desert and to the waiting truck. Some of them had been taken off the truck in an orange grove somewhere in central Florida. The others, himself among them, had been brought to Immokalee.

  He’d been in town almost three months when he met Esperanza while buying beer in the Mariposa Market in the company of his friend Esteban. He saw her at the far end of an aisle, leaning on a shopping cart and contemplating the shelves of canned soft drinks. He thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  Esteban saw the way he was gazing at her and said, “Forget it, man. That one, she used to do it for twenty dollars—too damn much! Some said this one was worth it, but I never had the twenty dollars to find out. I wouldn’t pay twenty dollars for it anyway, not with any woman. Well … with Isabel Vega maybe, you know, the movie star—but not with this one. She’s too damn snooty, this one. They say she would not do it with you if she did not like you, the way you looked or talked or smelled, anything. If she didn’t like something about you, she’d say no and that was that.” Esteban habitually spoke as fast and voluminously as a man on the radio. “Listen, somebody once offered her thirty dollars to do it, a man she didn’t like, so she said no. All right, the fellow said, make it thirty-five. No, she says, go away. Forty, the fellow says, and he holds up twenty dollars in each hand. She slammed the door in his face so hard she nearly broke his nose. A pair of fools, the both of them—him for offering so much, her for turning it down. Anyway, she got on the welfare and stopped doing it anymore. Now her nose is like this”—Esteban tilted his head back and pushed up on his nose with his forefinger—”like she’s looking down at the world and every man in it. Bah! She’s a strange one, that whore!”