‘It’s empty,’ the boy said again. He looked so sad, his bloodshot eyes begging Diego to fix the problem. The other two boys bumped into him the way Diego had seen baby goats bump into each other at feeding time.
‘What’s your name?’ Diego asked.
That was one question the boy could answer. ‘Roberto. This is my brother, Julio.’ Julio was the smaller of the two. Maybe there was a family resemblance under all that dirt. The other boy, a long, thin lad, wavered a bit, then turned and puked over the side of the truck.
‘That’s Domingo,’ Roberto said, thrusting the glue pot forward again. ‘It’s empty.’
‘Somebody is going to have to clean my truck, and it had better be you, small boy, so eager to prove yourself,’ Paolo called out to Diego over his shoulder, slamming the truck door shut.
Diego climbed down from the truck on legs made wobbly by the long journey. He turned to Mando for any ideas about how to clean Domingo’s puke off the side of the truck, but Mando was too busy trying to look tough and confident, the way Diego had seen him act sometimes in the prison.
Diego briefly considered leaving it for Domingo—after all, he put it there—but Domingo and the other glue boys were stumbling and looking very lost Besides, Diego was a taxi. He was in the business of getting jobs done.
Rock and Paolo were talking to other men in the village, ignoring the boys. Diego moved his legs around to get some circulation back into them, and took a look at where they had ended up.
All he could see was green. Even the sky had a green haze to it. They were in a small valley, surrounded by green hills. The road they had come in on was a dirt track, so full of holes that Diego wondered how he could possibly have slept while driving over them.
He noticed some houses set among the hills, but they were different from any houses he had ever seen. For one thing, they were mounted on poles, not sitting on the ground. For another, the houses were made of branches, leaves and thatch, not stone and cement like the houses in Cochabamba and his old village. Women and girls tended cookfires in the yards. Old men and children sat at tables underneath the platforms of the houses. They looked at Diego with no interest.
Still, he had a job to do. He walked up to one of them, picked up a plastic bucket from the ground near the cookfire, and tried a few words in Spanish. There was no response, and he didn’t know enough Aymara to ask to borrow the pail, so he acted out barfing and cleaning it up. They laughed and pointed to a stagnant pond at the edge of the trees. Diego splashed water on the truck and returned the bucket. It felt good to make the strangers laugh, and to get the task done.
He rejoined Mando, who was sitting with the other boys in the shade of a tree.
‘What do we do now?’
‘How would I know?’ Mando replied.
The heat of the little village was heavier than the heat in Cochabamba. Diego was suddenly very thirsty. He headed over to the little tienda. The other boys followed him.
He greeted the woman minding the little shop.
‘K’guaka?’ he asked, pointing to bottles of orange soda cooling in a pail of water, and using the little bit of Aymara he’d learned at the prison.
‘Paya,’ the woman said. Two Bolivianos.
Diego looked back at the boys behind him. He guessed from the state of their clothes that they didn’t have any money.
‘Quimsa,’ he said, holding up three fingers and handing over six Bolivianos. ‘We’ll share,’ he said to Mando.
‘Thanks, tycoon,’ Mando said, taking the first drink. Diego passed the two other bottles to the other three boys. That still left him with a bit of money.
They took their sodas back to the shade and sat down, passing the bottles back and forth.
Diego kept glancing at Mando. Mando was older, and he should really be taking charge, but he wasn’t. He kept slapping at insects and looking up at the hills.
Maybe they did things differently at the men’s prison, but Diego had sat through enough of his mother’s committee meetings at the women’s prison to know what was important.
‘We’re all new to this,’ he said. ‘We don’t know each other, but if we all watch out for each other . . .’
He let his voice trail away. The glue boys had too much fog in their heads to be part of a discussion, and Mando was too busy pretending not to be nervous.
Diego decided not to worry. Sure, the other boys were bigger, but they didn’t seem like bullies. Even if they were, he’d seen his parents deal with bullies in prison. ‘Don’t try to be stronger, and don’t let them think you’re weaker,’ his Papá told him. ‘Be proud to be yourself. Bullies don’t know how to deal with people like that, and they will leave you alone.’ Diego was pretty sure he could handle anything these guys might dish out to him, if their brains ever cleared up enough for them to make trouble.
‘Did we bring you all the way out here to sit on your backsides, or are you going to work?’ one of the men shouted at them.
The boys all got to their feet—Diego and Mando jumping up, the others rising in a sort of stagger—and headed over to the truck where the men were standing. Diego gathered up the empty bottles and ran them over to the woman in the shop.
‘I see we have a little gentleman with us,’ Rock said. ‘You’re not too refined to do a little work, are you?’
Diego grinned and showed his muscles. It wasn’t that funny, but everyone laughed, even the men.
‘Three hours of daylight left. Let’s not waste them,’ Paolo said. Everybody got back into the truck. Diego stood up, clinging to the roof. He wanted to see where they were going, not just where they had been.
The road they turned down didn’t even look like a road, but what did that matter? Diego was with his friend, and the sheer joy of movement made him laugh and laugh, even when leaves hanging down across the road slapped him in the face.
The truck came to a stop moments later, at a clearing where local coca farmers had spread their coca leaves out on big sheets to dry in the sun.
‘It’s like coming home,’ Diego said, grabbing Mando’s arm. ‘My parents did that! I used to help them.’
He remembered the way they would talk while they worked, imagining what to buy with the sale of their crop—shoes and school books, warm blankets, a few more chickens. Diego would help his mother spread the leaves, and his father would do the heavier work of bundling them for the market.
Now Diego was doing the heavy work. He threw himself into it. Mando tried to keep up, fumbled a lot. The glue boys were hopeless. Rock had to keep screaming to get them to do anything.
‘Faster, faster!’ the men kept yelling. ‘The sun’s going down!’
Diego and the others worked faster, tying the leaves into bundles, tossing the bundles onto the truck. The pile of bundles got higher and higher. Rock told Domingo and Julio to climb up onto the bundles, and the other boys tossed the sacks of leaves up to them.
‘Here is your payment.’ Diego’s eyes grew as wide as supper plates as Rock took a large roll of Bolivianos out of his pocket, peeled off a chunk of notes and handed them to the cocalero.
He was putting the money back in his pocket when he saw Diego staring.
‘You want this money?’ he asked, coming closer, holding out the wad of bills. He pushed the money right into Diego’s face.
Nobody else moved. Even the birds seemed to stop singing.
‘Go ahead, tough guy, try and grab it. Or maybe you think you’ll try to steal it from me in the middle of the night?’
‘I was just admiring your success,’ Diego said, as calmly as he could. He looked straight at the man’s face. To look away would show he was afraid. Never show bullies you are afraid.
Rock slapped Diego on the nose with the wad of money.
‘Smart boy,’ he said. ‘We don’t need smart boys. We need stupid boys with strong backs and strong legs.’ He put the money back in his pocket. ‘My name is Rock,’ he said, ‘because I will land on your head like a rock if you try to cross m
e. Let’s go!’ he yelled.
‘Rock?’ Mando whispered to Diego. ‘More like pebbles.’ Jokes about manhood were common in the men’s prison.
They got back to the clearing where they had started out. The sun was going down behind the hills. The noise of the jungle insects was deafening. Diego wasn’t used to such darkness. At night in prison, lights in the courtyard and hallways were always on. The only time it got really dark was when there was a power failure.
The only light in the little valley came from the cookfires and kerosene lanterns hung from the stilt-houses. Diego’s body ached from the hard work, and the long day. He was looking forward to sleeping.
‘Where are we spending the night?’ he asked.
‘In the jungle, smart boy,’ Rock said. ‘Everybody grab a sack.’
‘In the jungle?’ Diego didn’t understand.
‘Let’s just do what they tell us,’ Mando said. ‘They have the money.’
It made no sense, but Diego complied. He knew from moving flour bags how to carry a sack. He backed up to the truck, grabbed the sack and moved away. The bundle of coca leaves slapped him on the back. It was big, but not heavy, not compared to the flour. The other boys followed his example.
‘That will get you started,’ Rock said. He nodded his head toward the forest ‘All right, don’t stand around like a bunch of goats. Smart boy, you go first You can scare away the snakes.’
A path led up through the grass beside the stilt houses. It led to the edge of the forest
‘Into the bush,’ Rock said, bringing up the rear with a couple of other men.
‘What? Where?’
‘There’s a path. Move it. We’ve got work to do.’
Diego didn’t move. He still didn’t see any path.
‘You want our money, smart boy? You’re going to have to earn it.’ Rock pulled away a low hanging branch. There was just enough moonlight for Diego to see a bit of a pathway. ‘In,’ he ordered.
Snakes, thought Diego, and plunged ahead.
EIGHT
For the next two hours, Diego walked almost blindly through the jungle. The nightmarish screams of monkeys and the calls of tree frogs came at him from the dark.
He had never been in the jungle before. He’d lived with his family high in the hills and then he was a prison kid, a city kid. His nights were bare lightbulbs burning, women and children crying, guards yelling and keys clanging. He hated it, but it was what he was used to.
He almost wished he were back there.
‘Mando, are you there?’
‘Right behind you, tycoon.’
‘Did you know about this?’
‘No, but it all leads to money. Is it too hard for you?’
‘I’m just worried about you.’ Diego adjusted his grip on his sack of coca leaves. ‘I’d hate to have to tell your father that you’d been eaten by, well, whatever there is out here to eat you.’
‘You won’t have to tell my father anything, tycoon. It will be me bringing what’s left of your body back to your mother in a little bundle.’
‘Still alive up there, smart boy?’ Rock called from the back of the line.
‘I’m alive, but I don’t know where I’m going,’ he called back.
‘Just follow the path.’
‘How do I know if it’s the right path?’ Diego asked. ‘I think I saw another path branch off this one. Are you sure you want me to lead?’
‘What? Hold it. Everybody stop.’ Diego heard Rock coming up through the line of boys and bundles. ‘You saw another trail?’
‘I think so,’ Diego said. ‘It’s hard to tell. Why can’t we have flashlights?’
‘Why do you think, smart boy?’
Because you’re too stupid to carry one, Diego thought, but he knew the real reason. They didn’t want to be spotted by the soldiers who patrolled Bolivia looking for drug producers and smugglers.
The air of the jungle was hot and heavy, but Diego felt a chill run through his body.
‘No, this is the right way,’ Rock said. ‘It has to be. I’ve been on this trail many times during the day. Guess you’re not so smart after all, are you, smart boy?’
‘I guess not.’
Rock started walking. Diego and the others kept up behind him.
Now who’s scaring away the snakes, Diego thought.
Behind him, the glue boy at the back started to whimper. The men at the rear told him to shut up, and gave him such a hard shove that all the other boys were shoved, too.
The bag of leaves started to feel heavier, and it was awkward to carry. Diego’s shoulders began to cramp. The bottle of soda he’d shared with Mando was a million years ago.
Worst of all were the bugs. With his hands busy hanging on to the coca, he couldn’t brush or wave away the bugs from his face. Mosquitoes bit his flesh and buzzed around his ears, and tiny bugs flew into his eyes, making them tear up.
Just when Diego had begun to give up hope that they would ever arrive anywhere, the jungle trail opened up to a small clearing. Several men were already there, sitting at a table under a dark tarp slung from tree branches. A few lanterns hung under the awning and gave the clearing a bit of light.
‘Home sweet home,’ Rock announced.
The boys dropped their sacks of coca leaves and made circles with their arms and shoulders. Diego wanted to drop to the ground and sleep, snakes or no snakes.
‘We need a pit dug,’ Rock said.
‘Can we rest first?’ Diego asked. ‘Just for a little while?’
‘You can dig or you can turn around and walk back to Cochabamba, prison boy.’
Diego wondered when he had gone from smart boy to prison boy.
‘Something to drink?’ Mando asked. ‘We’ll work better after a drink of water.’
One of the men jerked his thumb in the direction of the far end of the sheltered area. Mando found the covered barrel first. A cup hung from it. The boys took turns drinking. The water made Diego feel better.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked Roberto, who seemed more baffled than the rest of them to find himself in the middle of the jungle.
‘Why are we here?’ Roberto asked. ‘I don’t want to be here.’
‘Maybe we should ask for food,’ Diego suggested.
‘Let’s not push our luck,’ Mando said.
‘It’s not pushing our luck to ask for food when we’re hungry,’ Diego started to say, but he was interrupted by Rock.
‘Smart boy! Put everybody to work or we’ll feed you to the anacondas!’
‘Anacondas?’ Mando whispered.
‘Big snakes,’ Diego replied. He led the others away from the water barrel.
Two of the men put up another tarp over an empty section of the clearing. Another small lantern was lit.
‘Start digging,’ Rock said, passing out shovels. The men argued about how big the trench should be. When they reached an agreement, they marked an outline on the ground, and the boys started to dig.
The earth was soft from all the jungle debris, but the digging would have gone faster if the boys were not so tired.
‘Take your time,’ Rock sneered. ‘We don’t care if you sleep or not.’
‘Some crop of babies you brought this time,’ one of the other men said.
‘The dregs of the dregs,’ Rock said. ‘They’ll work cheap and keep their mouths shut. Except for this one.’ Rock tossed a handful of dirt at Diego’s head. Diego flinched, but kept digging. ‘This one’s got an attitude.’
‘That won’t do him much good out here, will it?’
Diego kept digging.
The pit they dug was ten feet long, four feet wide, and two feet deep. Diego used the notebook in his head to figure out the cubic area. It helped to pass the time.
The boys got to sit down for a few minutes after that. Julio fell asleep against Diego’s shoulder. He had no more weight than a sheaf of grass. Diego stayed awake and watched the men put a big plastic tarp into the pit, supporting it on all sides so that the tarp l
ined the pit and rose two feet above the ground level.
‘Smart boy—you and your friend start dumping those leaves in here.’
Diego carefully shifted so Julio could slide to the ground without waking up. He got to his feet.
‘My name is Diego,’ he said.
‘You don’t want me to know your name,’ Rock said. ‘Once something goes in here,’ he tapped his head, ‘it never goes away.’
Diego doubted that, but he and Mando got to work. Diego had no idea what they were doing, but, like Mando said, it would all end up with money, and that was all that mattered. They undid the ties on the sacks of coca leaves and emptied them into the newly dug pit.
The men started arguing again. ‘It’s two cans of kerosene to three sacks of leaves.’
‘No, you’re wrong. That’s not how we did it before, and we have five sacks of leaves tonight, not three.’
‘Did you use the big cans, or those other cans? And how much water and sulphuric acid?’
‘Maybe we should wait for Smith. We don’t want to waste the leaves.’
‘We’re not waiting for Smith. He expects to find this pit up and running,’ Rock said. ‘Oh, this is just wonderful. We have everything here, but nobody knows the proportions.’
‘Proportions are ratios,’ Diego said, his mouth talking before his mind told him to keep quiet.
‘What’s that, smart boy? You trying to tell us our business?’
Mando put his hand on Diego’s arm to shut him up, but Diego kept going. ‘Ratios are fractions, and I’m good at fractions.’
‘You think you’re smarter than me?’
‘Maybe you had better things to do the day they covered fractions at school.’
Rock crossed the clearing in two steps and struck Diego across the face.
The blow hurt, but it didn’t surprise him. Diego stood his ground. Never show bullies that you are afraid.
‘That’s enough,’ one of the men said. ‘We have work to do. Kid, come over here. What can you make of this?’
He held a crumpled piece of paper under a flashlight. Diego could see words and numbers scratched on it in a mess. It looked like some kid’s cheat sheet at school.
Diego, Run! Page 6
