Not a thing to worry about. I wish.
“You two are in the back,” Amanda says. “Sorry—last-minute purchase. You know how that goes.”
“We’ll be here in the exit row if you need us,” Sally says, studying both of our faces carefully. I think maybe she’s trying to determine which one of us will come unmoored first. I tug on Phoenix’s hand and we head to the back of the plane. It’s a small plane, and our side of the aisle only has two seats. I slide into the window seat, and Phoenix sits down beside me, silent. We start to buckle our seat belts.
It feels good to be nestled here between the window and Phoenix, away from all those people. Phoenix, though, he’s not doing so well. He’s sweating a lot, shaking a little, and barely able to speak. He’s also tugging a little too vigorously on his seat belt strap. In other circumstances, with a different person, I would make some joke about how, if this plane goes down, that seat belt will do absolutely nothing to keep us from meeting our demise. But it’s Phoenix, and he’s close to losing it, and I’m wondering for the thousandth time today whether all of this was a good idea.
He wipes his forehead with his hand and then starts fidgeting with the air vents. “I wish there was, like, a window we could open, or something,” he grumbles.
Which reminds me to pull down the shade. Phoenix does not need to see liftoff.
The jets fire up, and a loud noise overtakes the plane. Phoenix actually jumps a little, straining against his already-too-tight seat belt. His hands fly to the headrest of the seat in front of him.
“I can’t do this.”
I put my hand on his leg.
“Oh, Jesus, Gretchen. I need to get off.” He’s gripping the headrest so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.
Then the safety video comes on, and he turns to look at it. I need to do something to distract him. If he sees the part when those yellow emergency air masks drop down from the ceiling, this will all be over.
I make a split-second decision.
“Hey,” I say, leaning into him. “I just want you to know that, under normal circumstances, I am so not into PDA.”
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
I loosen the strap of my seat belt, put one hand on Phoenix’s leg, hold the back of his neck with the other, and lean in to kiss him.
He pulls back. “Uh, Gretch—”
“Just kiss me,” I say. “It’s for your own good.”
“We can’t—”
I wrap my hands around his face and make him look directly at me. “Yes, we can, actually.”
So we do.
The engines are starting to roar and the plane lurches forward. It’s gaining speed, vibrating, and Phoenix’s arm is reaching around to pull me closer. We’re in the back row, so it doesn’t really matter. I guess the people across from us could watch if they wanted to, but I don’t even care. All I care about is feeling him next to me, his hand on my cheek, my neck, my back. We touch softly, kiss slowly, like we have all the time in the world.
When the pilot’s voice comes on to tell us we’ve reached our cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet, he pulls away and looks at me. “That’s it?” he asks. “We’re in the air?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, smiling wide. “It’s smooth sailing now.”
“Damn.” He tugs on his lower lip. “That was a lot easier than the first time.”
“If only you had known back then—you could have just made out with the person sitting next to you.”
Phoenix laughs. He’s rubbing my leg gently. “Wouldn’t have worked with anyone but you. And then there’s the whole problem of the handcuffs.” He lifts both hands and crosses them at the wrist.
“What? You were handcuffed?”
I don’t remember him saying anything about handcuffs, but it feels so long ago—the day we met in the Place Without a Soul, back when the garden was just a few stacks of two-by-fours and a lot of red clay.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says. “It’s not really something you tell a stranger—you know? That you were being transported from one prison to another in a plane full of handcuffed guys.”
“Don’t call it prison,” I tell him. “It’s detention.”
Phoenix shrugs and smiles. “I’m pretty sure that distinction is lost on most people—including all those guys in prison jumpsuits and handcuffs.”
“But they aren’t criminals. You’re not criminals.”
Phoenix’s eyes dart away from me, and when they come back to meet mine, something is different about them. They’re not as bright. It’s like the lights inside of them have dimmed.
“Some of us are”—he looks up at the air vents—“criminals, I mean.”
Phoenix starts to fiddle with the vent above his seat again. Then he reaches over to mine.
“Can I?” he asks.
I nod and he turns it so that more cold air blasts into his face.
The flight attendant arrives to ask us if we’d like drinks. Phoenix and I both ask for ice water. Phoenix gulps his water down while I try to find something for us to watch on the little screens built into the seats. There aren’t any good movies, so I go with an old crime drama. Anything to keep his mind off the fact that we are cruising at thirty thousand feet above sea level.
* * *
When the credits start rolling, he suddenly blurts out: “There’s stuff you need to know.” He’s looking at the back of the seat in front of him, but it’s clear he’s talking to me. “It’s just that, uh, if you are coming to court with us, you’re gonna hear a bunch of—it’s just—there’s some stuff I think I need to tell you first.”
I study his face—his jaw clenching and unclenching. I guess the TV show hadn’t distracted him as much as I thought.
“Okay, Phoenix. If you need to tell me, then tell me.”
He still won’t look at me. “I need to explain why my asylum case was denied—why I got a deport order.”
“Didn’t you say that everyone’s case is denied—or almost everyone’s?” I ask.
“Most people from El Salvador, yeah.” He’s running his finger along the rim of his cup. “But sometimes there’s a chance on appeal, and it looks like I’m not going to have that chance.”
I don’t want to hear this.
“Amanda and Sally are offering to pay for the appeal, and all I can think of is: Why me? There are so many guys in that place. And some of them are assholes, sure. But some of them, Gretchen? They’re really good people. They’ve never done anything wrong in their entire lives. They’re killing themselves to stay out of trouble. And then there’s me—”
“What are you trying to say, Phoenix?”
“I’ve done some stupid shit, Gretchen. I guess it was a long time ago, and I was a dumb, scared kid, but I did it. And I think maybe I don’t deserve all this, you know?”
I lean in to rest my head on his shoulder. “Whatever you did,” I whisper, “would you do it again?”
“Never,” he says into my hair.
“Then leave it behind; don’t let that stuff from your past tell you who you are.”
He pulls back and looks at me. “But I think you should know—”
I reach around his neck and pull him in. “You think I should know what? How much you’re looking forward to a bumpy landing, so that I’ll kiss you again to distract you?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Well, that too.”
The captain comes on to tell the flight attendants to prepare for final descent. I whisper and chat with him about nothing, trying to keep him focused on our conversation. It’s going pretty well until the end, when the plane starts to swerve a little, left to right.
Phoenix grabs the armrests and lets out a deep groan.
I tell him that it’s totally normal, that everything’s fine, and he nods while grasping my hand and squeezing the life out of it. The wheels touch down, and the plane jolts from side to side and then bounces back into the air.
“Puta madre,” he calls out. I don�
�t know what it means, but I can tell by the way he says it that it’s bad. So can everyone in the rows in front of us. I see their heads swerving to see who’s calling out in the backseat during a perfectly routine landing.
The breaks engage and we both lurch forward. The plane jerks and jolts down the runway, turns, and then it comes to a complete stop.
“It’s over,” I say.
The cabin fills with the clicks and thumps of seat belts coming unfastened and overhead bins opening. It’s impossible not to notice that everyone in front of us stands up and immediately peers back to get a glimpse at the crazy person in row forty.
Phoenix crouches forward, trying to avoid the stares. “Coño,” he murmurs. “I am such an idiot.” He looks like he’s in one of those videos we used to watch in school—what to do in case of a tornado.
“Hey, Phoenix,” I say brightly, leaning down so I’m crouched next to him. “A cute boy once gave me some great advice when I was in a similar situation.”
He turns his head to show me his raised eyebrows. “A cute boy?”
I wrap my arm around his shoulders. “Yeah. Wanna hear it?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not really, but I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
That makes me smile. I lean in close to him and whisper in his ear: “Fuck ’em. They don’t know what you know.”
And it’s true. None of these people know what we know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PHOENIX
WE’RE WALKING ACROSS a big patch of dying grass, toward the shelter where Ari is staying. It’s a huge concrete building—up on stilts, with a covered patio underneath. No one is out on the patio, except for a couple of security guards standing around on the grass and lounging on benches in the shade.
They’re hanging out, not acting particularly threatening or anything. I stop before we get to the door and look up at all of those thin slits of window that look like they need washing. No one is looking out of the windows, either. Maybe because they’re so small, and so high up.
It’s an ugly building, but at least there’s no barbed wire—there aren’t even fences.
An airplane is taking off somewhere nearby, which I guess makes sense, since this place is supposed to be an air force base. Sally told me it used to be a barracks for people in the air force, but now it’s a temporary shelter for the kids coming across the border. She said there are almost a thousand kids here, from Central America. I’m sort of wondering how we’re gonna find Ari, with so many kids staying here.
Sally walks up to one of the security guards and asks him where we can find the main entrance. He smiles and points us toward a metal door. It looks exactly like all the other metal doors lining this building.
“Reception’s just through there, ma’am.”
Reception—like this is a fancy American hotel, or something.
It’s kind of a relief to walk into that door and hear kids’ voices—and music, really loud Tejano music, which is strange. I smile, feeling sure that this place is nothing like that hellhole I was sent to. Or maybe hoping.
A receptionist checks us in. She speaks with us in English, but she looks likes she speaks Spanish, too—she’s probably Tejano, like the music. She tells us that Ari’s group is in indoor recreation time, and asks if we’d like to join him in the lounge.
The lounge. Yeah, this place is a little different from the hellhole. The only thing there that remotely resembled a lounge was the cluster of plastic tables next to our bunk beds. It wasn’t exactly relaxing to hang out at those tables, since the benches were attached, and since there were always guys taking a dump right next to them. That place had no walls; the sleeping area, sitting areas, showers, toilets—they all were right up next to one another, which was really messed up. No walls—that was only one of the many really messed up things about being in detention.
We wait for a few minutes, sitting side by side in molded plastic chairs. Gretchen and Sally are quiet. I think they know me well enough to know that I’ve got nothing to say right now. Or that I need to save whatever I’ve got for what’s about to happen. Right now I’m using all my energy to push that image out of my head—the way Ari’s eyes looked when I left him in the heladera—that freezing cold room near the border, where they kept him when they took me away, handcuffed. That was the last time I saw him, the last time he spoke to me. I guess maybe it was the last time he spoke at all.
I’m thinking about how cold it was in that room, and how Ari was shivering like crazy. Thank God it’s warm in this place, not like in that hotel where we are staying. When you walk into that lobby, the cold air blasts into you. They must keep the air conditioning at, like, fifteen degrees Celsius. When we dropped our bags in the room, I found that little box to turn off the air conditioner. Then I tried to open the windows, but they don’t even open.
A different lady comes up to us and introduces herself. She’s talking to Sally and Gretchen, but I’m having trouble concentrating on the conversation. I think maybe she’s asking them where we came from, and how our trip was, and stuff like that. She leads us through another metal door and up a flight of stairs. We go through a big set of swinging doors and then we’re in what I guess is the “lounge.” Long strings of Mexican paper flags are draped across the ceiling and there’s a piñata hanging in the corner—the kind with a burro wearing a sombrero. With the Tejano music blaring, I’m starting to wonder whether we’re back in Mexico, or maybe I’m wondering why the hell they would want to remind all these poor kids of that place, since I’m guessing that most of them don’t have really fond memories.
I know Ari doesn’t.
A bunch of kids are sitting around on couches, and a few are crowded around a pushcart, where an old Mexican guy in a baseball cap is passing out free paletas. A few of them look over at us when we come in, and a couple of the kids are checking Gretchen out. I grab her hand and pull her in toward me a little. I’m scanning the room, looking for my little brother, but I don’t see him anywhere.
Some guy is standing at the front of the room, talking on a microphone, like this is a big blowout birthday party or something. I guess he’s an employee.
“Y ahora, damas y caballeros,” he says, “comencemos con la piñata!”
He’s grinning really wide, and his voice is all animated. But I don’t see any damas or caballeros in here, just a bunch of shell-shocked kids trying to figure out why the hell this guy is asking them to play piñata games.
“Do you see him?” Gretchen whispers.
I shake my head.
“He may have stayed in his dorm room,” says the lady who brought us in here. “They’re allowed to do that if they’re not feeling up to this.”
Up to what? A party? Christ, this place is strange.
“We’ll go and see,” she says. Then she gestures toward the Mexican guy and his paleta pushcart. “Would you like to take him a Popsicle?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, shrugging. “Sure, yeah. Thanks.”
The four of us walk over to get a paleta, and the kids move out of the way to give us room. There are only three flavors: guava, coconut, or cookies and cream. I pick cookies and cream.
“Gracias,” I tell the old man.
He nods and looks at me with sad eyes. “Que Dios te bendiga,” he says.
“Would you all like one?” the lady asks. She’s trying to be nice, welcoming, but it’s all so messed up. I’m not sure what to say.
“No, thanks,” Gretchen says.
“We’ll save them for the kids,” Amanda tells her.
I’ve got the Popsicle dangling from my hand while we walk through an empty hallway. We come up to another metal door. The lady opens it and ushers us through.
“There he is,” she says brightly.
I look across a long row of black cots, all of them empty but one. At the end of that row is my little brother, stretched out under a thin white blanket, legs crossed at the ankles, reading a comic book.
I br
eathe in deep, put a smile on my face, and step in.
“¡Oye, bicho!”
I’m walking toward him with purpose, before I lose my nerve. He looks over at me, eyes peering across the comic book.
He looks tired. And skinny—his cheeks are sort of sunken in.
He sits up in bed, puts the comic book down, swings his legs slowly to the side.
“What’s up, you little pissant?” I say in Spanish. I sit down beside him and nudge him in the shoulder. “What are you readin’?”
His scrawny little arms wrap around me, and he rests his forehead on my shoulder.
He’s so still.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to talk to him, how to hold him.
I grab his bony shoulder, squeeze a little, and pull away from him. “I brought you something,” I tell him. “A paleta.”
He takes the Popsicle from me and studies it, turning it over in his hands. He doesn’t smile.
“Yeah.” I keep my arm wrapped around his shoulders. “It was free. You didn’t expect, like, a real present did you?”
He looks at me, right in the eyes. I wish I knew what that look was trying to tell me, but I haven’t got a clue.
“Because I’m flat broke,” I say.
He shrugs and looks away, toward Gretchen, Amanda, and Sally. I watch him, looking at them. I don’t really want to see their faces right now.
Because my stupid fucking heart is breaking open again, and I can’t handle watching them watch it happen. Not even Gretchen. Maybe especially not Gretchen.
Since I’m talking to Ari in Spanish, I know only one of them has a clue that I’m talking about pointless shit like Popsicles and comic books, and not about what really matters, like—
Damn. I miss this kid.
“You should eat that, flaco,” I tell him. “I mean, you’re getting a little skinny.”
He starts to fool with the wrapper, but his hands are shaking and he can’t get it open. I take the Popsicle and use my teeth to rip the top. I pull it out and hand it to him.
Gretchen steps up to the bed.
The Radius of Us Page 19
