by Johnny Shaw
“Here’s something you wouldn’t guess. For being in the desert, we get a lot of drownings. Probably as many drowning as from the sun. From the All-American mostly. Got a wicked undercurrent from what I hear. Some in the Alamo or the New River. Damn nasty. Whenever they find a body in the New River and I’m supposed to go out, I fake a stomachache. Make up a dead relative. Anything. I ain’t going to swim through a river of puke and diapers for no dead Mexican. Give it time—they’ll just dissolve in that toxic shit.
“Remember that flash flood five, eight years ago? Tore through west of the Valley. Out in the Yuha. Like a river rapid, no time for the water to soak into the sand. When the rain finally stopped, we found fourteen illegals in a dry wash just north of Mount Signal. Their bodies stuck and sunk in the mud. Some you could only see a hand, sticking up like that. It looked like a fucking battlefield. Bodies strewn. That’s what they were, strewn.”
I put on my unwashed suit and tie for the second day in a row, doing my best to shake the dust from the ditch bank off the jacket. It stank of alcohol sweat, but I only owned the one suit and there was no time for dry-cleaning. I was the only invitee to the burial and Pop wouldn’t have cared, but I felt better in a wrinkled, smelly suit than my other option: jeans and a T-shirt.
I walked through the first floor of Bobby’s house. His bachelor pad was surprisingly clean for a guy like Bobby. I made a mental note to give Bobby some shit for owning throw pillows that matched the armrest covers. I found Bobby making some cold burritos in the kitchen.
He looked over his shoulder and said, “If you’re not careful, you’re going to forget to eat.”
I took a seat on one of the folding chairs at the table. “I can’t believe I completely blacked out. I got nothing from last night. Not even images.”
Bobby put a burrito in front of me, went to the cupboard, and found a bag of tortilla chips. He tossed them on the table. He grabbed two beers from the fridge, cracked one open and took a long pull. I left mine on the table. I looked inside the tortilla to find carnitas, cilantro, onions, guacamole, and salsa.
Bobby said, “I remember, but only what I saw, you know. Just my angle. I’ll probably remember more stuff when I stop trying to remember. Hard to say. The place got pretty crazy as the night went on. Lot of people. Lot of stuff happening in each corner. I got a better memory of who was there than what happened. I was making my own mischief.”
“What do you think happened to her?”
“She didn’t fall in. No fucking way. She may’ve jumped, but she couldn’t’ve fallen. Even jumping is kind of ridiculous. The Ash runs right behind Morales, and that’s a huge canal. She wanted to drown herself, why’d she ruin your bathwater? My guess, someone chucked her in there.”
“But who would do that?”
“Some asshole. Who knows? Could be anybody. Doesn’t take much. Everyone’s capable of killing.”
“You really believe that?”
“Maybe not you, but you’re a puss.” Bobby laughed. “Most people? Yeah, they could kill. Why would you think any different? You ain’t one of them people that think people are basically good?”
I bit into my burrito. The cold meat was delicious. I wasn’t up for a philosophical debate with Bobby about the nature of man, so I changed the subject. “Her family should know. Know she’s dead. Know what happened.”
“Griselda got her name. Her first name, at least. Probably more than they got for most of them they find. The county does a pretty good job. Best with what they got. There was a big thing in the I.V. Press about how they work with Mexico, tracking people down. Dental records, DNA, all that shit.”
“I’m going to call Tomás. Him or that Alejandro guy might know her full name. Or could maybe find out. Might know her people. Tell me how to get hold of them.”
“Tell you? You mean tell Griselda, right? This ain’t on you, Jimmy.”
“She was found dead on my land. She was up here because of Pop. It may not be on me, but I had something to do with how she ended up.”
“You looking for a hobby? You got a farm to worry about now. Griselda’s good at her job. Don’t get all Rockford Files on me.”
“Just thought if I could help, I would.” I finished the last few bites of my burrito. The meat hit the spot, filling a void I hadn’t been aware of.
“You’re going to have to tell me eventually. How did you and Deputy Sheriff Villarreal get so chummy?” I gave Bobby a big grin.
Bobby laughed. “She busted me. No surprise. I was on an official Bobby Maves escapade. I deserved it. I’ll be the first to tell you when I got it coming, and I had it coming. She was cool about it though. Too long a story to start from the beginning, but a series of unfortunate and escalating events led me to the point where Griselda pulled up next to me in her roller. Me, bare-ass naked from the waist down, being chased by a three-legged German shepherd through a sugar beet field. Her, laughing her ass off and making fun of my dangle.”
“If I hadn’t lived through some of them, I’d think all your stories were bullshit.”
“Ask her. She saved me. Three legs or no, that dog had it in for my junk. Thought it was a kielbasa.”
“Or a Vienna sausage.”
“She loaned me a pair of county-issues and let me sleep it off in the drunk tank. Didn’t file charges, which was cool. So I took her out to dinner.”
“And what does she see in you exactly? She appears to be an intelligent, focused, and serious woman. In law enforcement to boot.”
“What can I say? Opposites attract. Least for now.”
“The novelty of dating a cop wearing off?”
“No, I’m not even bugged by her whole ‘you can’t tell anyone we’re dating’ thing. That makes total sense. Look at me.”
“So, what is it?”
“It’s her,” Bobby said, looking to the photos of his two daughters on the wall. “Dude, as much as you think I’m some kind of alcoholic child—which is mostly right on—I’m half a grown-up. I work. I pay bills. Shit, I got two kids. Even if I never see ’em. The kids scare Gris more than my rep. When she came over here the first time and saw them pictures of me with the girls, it queered the deal a little. I think she’s got a thing about commitment. I like her. I hope it works out. But shit, I ain’t exactly got a winning record.”
From the way Bobby ended the story, I took that to be the end of that conversational thread. I nodded and gave Bobby a manly slap on the shoulder. A pathetic excuse for camaraderie, but it’s all I had.
Bobby had to check on his fields, so I asked him to drop me off at the cemetery.
Terrace Park Cemetery would not have been my choice as a final resting place. First off, no grass. Also, no trees. Finally, no flowers save for a twisted wall of oleander on the northern edge. Overlooking a scrubby ravine formed by the Alamo River, Terrace Park looked like a fine place to dump a body, but a strange place to put a headstone. A modern Boot Hill for the dead that don’t care and the families that want to make visiting a one-time affair.
My pant legs gathered dust as the Bobcat excavator’s claw started a fresh hole in the hard, dry earth. Dissonant scraping sounds echoed within the shallow canyon until the shovel finally found purchase and began digging Pop’s grave. Pop’s plot was right next to my mother’s, and I glanced at her stone with curious ambivalence. Barbara Veeder. I wanted to feel more, but I had never met her. My mother was a name and a photo on the living room wall. No memories. Only stories. We had no shared past, except for the tragedy of my birth.
I stood with four Mexican men, all of us with our hands in our pockets. We watched the Bobcat’s progress. Five men staring at a hole. Pop’s overpriced coffin sat in front of us. I felt hungover, hot, and overdressed.
“Su familia?” one of the Mexican men asked.
“Mi padre,” I said.
“Mi más sentido pésame.” He crossed himself. The other men nodded.
“Gracias,” I said, acknowledging each man with eye contact and a nod.
The men ran two thick canvas straps under the bottom of the coffin and used them to carry it. At the edge of the grave, they stopped and looked to me. I could see their muscles straining.
Realizing they were waiting for permission, I nodded. Slowly they lowered the coffin into the ground. I wanted to tell them to lift with their knees, as it seemed they were letting their backs do most of the work. But I remained silent in the spirit of the moment.
While it felt final, it mostly felt empty. For lack of a better word, it felt dead. All the ceremony one attached to death didn’t make dead any different.
I would’ve watched the gravediggers fill in the grave, but watching the Bobcat do it lacked gravity. I chose to walk around the cemetery until the job was done. Glancing at headstones, I recognized a number of last names. Nobody I knew, but ancestors of classmates and neighbors, many and most still Holtville residents. New generations had cropped up, but it was obvious that if one was born in the Imperial Valley, the odds were that the person was still there. Whether alive or dead.
A path cut through the wall of oleander at the northern edge of the cemetery. Having never been to that section and naturally curious, I walked down the path, avoiding any direct contact with the poisonous vegetation. Every part of the oleander plant is toxic, so of course it would be all over the Imperial Valley.
The path opened to a forty-acre field, an isolated extension of the cemetery proper. There appeared to be graves, but no headstones. Instead, single red bricks marked each plot. I leaned down and picked up one of the bricks. It read, “Doe M-9-28-08-004.” I set it back in the exact position that I had found it, matching the corners to the displaced dirt. There were hundreds of bricks and room for hundreds more.
“Cementerio de pobres,” a voice behind me stated. “What they used to call a potter’s field.”
I turned and was surprised to find a uniformed man holding a rifle. “This is where they bury the ones they don’t know their names. Unidentified illegals, mostly. Got to put ’em somewhere.” A closer look at his uniform told me he was with the sheriff’s department. Corrections Division.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“Three, four hundred, I suppose. Maybe more. Seems like we’re always digging.”
Behind him a dozen women in bright orange prison uniforms filed out from the path. Four women carried well-worn picks, while the remainder hefted shovels on their shoulders. Two more guards followed, rifles pointed casually to the ground, laughing from some joke.
“You use lady prisoners to dig the graves?” I asked.
“Border Patrol finds the dead, but it’s all on the county to stick ’em in the ground. Feds don’t give a shit. Not like the county’s got extra money to foot the bill. We use what we got. We got plenty of prisoners. Men and women. The ladies like the exercise. Keeps ’em fit.”
The guard joined the others, barking directions to his prison labor force. The women with picks went to work, the force of their blows making little progress in the packed ground. They were definitely going to get a workout.
I headed back up the path, turning to look at the expanse of land and innumerable bricks laid out in rows. They didn’t just represent the unnamed dead, but the questions that remained for the living. The families that would never know what happened. People that would never know their loved one’s fate. This is where Yolanda would end up if nobody found out who she was. An anonymous corpse in an unmarked grave. A numbered brick.
The Bobcat had completed its job. The low mound of fresh dirt was Pop’s current marker. The army had told me that it would take four to six weeks to get his headstone. I told them to take their time.
I walked back toward the road, up the hill and past the shooting range. The range was quiet, everybody out shooting birds instead of paper targets and clay.
Just as it occurred to me that I didn’t know how I was going to get back home, I saw a wonderful sight. Angie sat on the hood of her F-150, her toes stretching to touch the bumper. She smiled when she saw me.
“Bobby called me.” She slid off the hood.
“Why do you think he did that?”
“Because you wouldn’t’ve,” she said. “He said you needed a ride.”
“I need a lot more than that.”
“You okay? With your father and all? Burying him, you know? I’m sure it’s emotional.”
“I guess. My brain’s spinning on top of my hangover. So, right now, I’m just trying to get through the day with as little pain as possible.”
We were halfway to El Centro, speeding down the Old Highway in Angie’s big truck.
“Are we going to talk about what happened last night?” Angie said abruptly.
“If you want to,” I answered. “But I don’t know that much. Bobby and I just found the body. The sheriff…”
“Body?” Angie interrupted. “What body? What are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about? What are you talking about? Wait…”
“You found a body? Like, you mean, a dead body?” She whispered the last two words. Distracted from her driving and staring at me instead of the road, her truck hit the shoulder and kicked up a huge wake of dust. Angie glanced ahead for the fraction of a second she needed to steer us back onto the road. Then she was back to staring at me.
I nodded.
“Why does shit like this always happen to you?”
“Shit like this doesn’t always happen to me. Shit like this has never happened to me. Back up a second. What happened last night that you need to talk about?”
“Whose body was it? Do you know?”
“It was Yolanda. The girl I brought to Pop.”
“Jesus. Her? She was young. What happened?”
“All I can tell you is what I know—which isn’t much.”
By the time I finished the tale about the morning’s misadventures, we had arrived at Harris Convalescent. She parked her truck and stared straight ahead, her hands at two o’clock and ten o’clock.
“What a waste” was her final assessment. “What a fucking waste.”
Angie insisted on helping me box up Pop’s belongings. Even though we both knew it was a one-person job. She took the books, boxing them slowly and carefully, reading each title and on occasion skimming a few pages. I took the personal items, as scant as they were. We worked in silence.
Looking at the stripped pillows on the bare bed, I was brought back to Pop’s final moments. Trying to shake it off, it occurred to me that a conversational stone had been left unturned.
“Angie? What happened last night? What happened that we should have to talk about it?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I told you—I don’t remember nothing. I was blacked out from the moment I walked into Morales.”
“You want to guess?” she said, with a head tilt that toyed with me.
Oh shit, I thought. “Oh shit,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Give me a little credit. You would have remembered if that had happened.”
“Then what?”
“You kissed me.”
“I did? Are you sure?”
“We had been at the bar talking for a half hour, standing near the back door. You were super drunk, but being kind of charming. I was in mid-sentence talking about my life or my job or some other bullcrap, and you just leaned in and kissed me.”
“I was drunk. You said it. Really drunk.”
“Yeah, you were.” She stopped what she was doing and turned to me. “But I wasn’t. I kissed you back.”
“Oh” was all I could think to say.
“If you took away the alcohol and cigarette breath, it was nice,” Angie said. “There was something about it. Something intimate. I know it was a kiss and kisses are usually intimate, but this—
it was just intimate. It felt like it was supposed to happen.”
I said, “I don’t know what to say. Everything that comes to my mind to say sounds stupid in my head. I want to say something, but I want to say the right thing. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I know I sound like a child, but I am a child, and I say stupid things. Every day I do stupid things, too. All the time. If this is the beginning of something, I don’t want to mess it up.”
“Yeah, neither do I.” She returned to the task of boxing Pop’s books.
“Is this the beginning of something?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m going to not talk now. Just so long as you know that I’m not talking not because I’m uncomfortable, but because I’m actually very comfortable with where we’re at. I want to keep it that way for a while. At least until I say something stupid.”
“That shouldn’t take too long,” Angie said with a smirk.
“Exactly.”
I avoided the temptation of talking to Angie again for the rest of the time we were at Harris and during the entire ride back to the house. It was Angie who finally spoke.
As I was stepping out of her truck, Angie asked, “Do you think they’ll find her family?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
I could see her looking out the windshield, her eyes focused on the water pump and the yellow tape that surrounded it.
“They should know. Her family should know,” she said.
“I know people that knew her. People that the sheriff and coroner won’t be able to talk to. People in Mexico that don’t like any kind of cop. I’m going to talk to them. See maybe if I can find her people.”
“Can I help? I’d like to help.”
“Pop knew her. And I’m thinking he knew her pretty good. There may be something in the house that can help me find out more. With the state of the house, I could use any help you want to give. I’ll warn you, you’re looking at the haystack and there may not even be a needle. If there was something Pop didn’t want me to know, I doubt he left anything for me to find.”
