The Knife and the Butterfly

by Ashley Hope Pérez

  After maybe an hour, Lexi’s mom, the pretty woman with dark hair, comes into the cell with the suit. It’s just the three of them, no guard. Who knows how they got permission to have a visit like that, but anything’s possible if you’re white.

  The man goes on for a long time about how Janet is crazy, how she’s trying to ruin Lexi’s life. He says how Lexi’s testimony is key in the trial, how she’s got to know every word of it perfectly. He says the same things over and over. Lexi nods, even says “yes, sir” once, but I think his words are rolling right off of her. Or maybe I just hope they are.

  Then her mom starts in. “Listen, Lex, Mr. VanVeldt told me what happened. You’ve got to think hard about this. Do you really understand the charges? Do you understand what can happen if they find you guilty? You’ve got to think hard, peanut.”

  Lexi bites her lip and looks her mother in the eye. But this time I don’t think she’s trying to pick a fight. This time, I think she’s just trying to get her mom to see her. Really see her.

  “Look, honey,” the mom says, softer now, “I believe in telling the truth, but maybe you should tell God the truth and trust your lawyers about court. You’re scaring me, sweetie.”

  Lexi stands up and walks over to her mother, placing her hands on her shoulders. “I love you, Mom,” she says. It’s the first time she hasn’t called her mom “Shauna,” at least as long as I’ve been watching. And from the look on her mom’s face, I’m guessing she hasn’t said “I love you” in a long time.

  “Can I see Meemaw?” Lexi asks. “In here, like this?”

  Lexi’s mom looks at the man in the suit. He just throws up his hands.

  When Pakmin leads me out of the observation room, I wish I could talk to him, ask him questions, but I’m afraid of giving away how little I know. From watching Lexi and her mom, I know she’s being tried for something, but I don’t know what it is—or what she has to gain by dragging me into her shit. For now, the question is, will she frame me, or won’t she? What I really want to know is what I can do about it. Or is this part of some sicko torture where I’ve got to watch myself get screwed over?

  CHAPTER 34: NOW

  It’s been two days since Pakmin came for me. Sometimes he passes by on his way to get other guys, but when I call to him, he acts like he can’t hear me.

  I get lonely, especially when I wake up first thing in the morning. It gets harder and harder for me to remember what it felt like to be out in the world, free to move around, touch people, eat whatever I want. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like just to hear a familiar voice. Not to be free or anything, just to have that sound in my ears. First I think of Becca, her laugh all sweet and low.

  But that always makes me sadder, so I decide to imagine someone I wouldn’t get to see even if I was on the outside. I think about dialing the number for my Grams out in Cali and asking for Regina. But this place even messes with my daydreams, because when I imagine Abue picking up, things go wrong.

  “Quién habla?” she asks me.

  “It’s me, Azael.”

  “Who?” Abue asks again. “You must have the wrong number.” Then she hangs up. When Gabe brings me breakfast, I want to ask him, what does it mean if not even my grandma remembers me? But I don’t. I take the tray without saying anything. I sit on the cot and eat my banana and cereal.

  Finally Pakmin comes for me. “Where you been?” I ask him.

  He ignores my question. “This one might be your last, my friend,” he says when he lets me into the observation room.

  I walk straight to the window onto Lexi’s cell.No time for kicking back in the crappy plastic chairs now.

  Instead of her county issues, she’s wearing a skirt and a jacket, high-heeled shoes. She sits on the edge of her bed combing through her wet hair with her fingers. Her hands fall like she’s forgotten what she’s doing, and her eyes are all red and puffy. She looks around the room until her gaze finally settles on the corner of the room where the sink is. When she kneels down, I realize that she’s unscrewing one of the bolts that anchors the toilet to the concrete. Once she’s got it loose, she gets down under the sink. That’s where she carved her name. I remember that from her notebook. If I squint, I can even make out the double lines of the S and the L together.

  The wannabe badass formerly known as Sexi Lexi is looking shaky as shit this morning. She steadies one hand against the concrete blocks, then starts scratching. She’s spelling something out when there’s a knock and her door opens. She palms the bolt and spins around all surprised, but it’s just her grandmother. So she’s not really busted.

  “Meemaw.” She says it like it’s the best word in the whole English language. “Meemaw.”

  Her grandma comes over to her, helps her up, pulls the bolt out of her hand, and then hugs her tight and long. “You ready, sweetie?” she asks when she finally lets go.

  Lexi shakes her head no and bites her lip. She crosses to the desk and pulls a crumpled piece of notebook paper from behind a book.

  “Will you help me with this?” she asks. She pulls out the necklace. It’s the butterfly.

  The grandma takes it from Lexi. “Where’d you get it?” She links the chain around Lexi’s neck.

  “A friend, I think,” Lexi says.

  Then the grandma gives her a pair of glasses. They’re the finishing touch, I realize. Now Lexi looks like some sweet local girl you’d see working in a grocery store. The angry girl I’ve been watching for weeks is gone. And for sure nobody’d look at her and think “criminal” or “liar.”

  Lexi and her grandma walk out. Before the light goes off in the cell, I see what Lexi was scratching on the wall under the sink, even though she didn’t get to finish:

  CHAPTER 35: THEN

  “Cut it out! You’re wasting my cans.” I pried a can of Red Devil Flame Red out of Pelón’s hand and yanked away the plastic bag he had pressed over his nose and mouth.

  “Fuck you, man,” he said, but he didn’t put up a fight. “What’s it to you if I have a little fun while you’re getting your art on?”

  “Nothing, except that’s all the red I got, and I still need it. And I need you to hold that flashlight for me. You can have all you want when I’m done, vale?”

  We were behind this abandoned garage a couple of blocks from the Bel-Lindo, and I was working on a piece for Becca because it was almost our two-month anniversary. The whole back side of the building was blank, so I had lots of room to work. The design was already set: a big-ass A and a big-ass B with a rose growing up around them and holding them together, plus a cartoon Becca with her shoulders against the B, leaning back all sexy with a rose in her hand. I spent forever getting it just right, sketching it out on notebook paper before I inked it into my black book. Now all I had to do was get it up.

  It took me almost six hours, but we got lucky and nobody came around or chased us off. By the time I was finished, Pelón was stoned off his ass. I didn’t take any hits, but I got a nice high just from all the fumes coming off the wall.

  “That shit is tight,” Pélon said, laughing all crazy and kind of dancing around in front of my piece. “Becca’s gonna shit herself she’s gonna like it so much.”

  Me and Pelón went and partied at Mono’s house. I waited until about seven and then changed my clothes and walked over to Becca’s apartment. I was thinking sunrise surprise, but it didn’t work out like I hoped. Even though it was crazy early, she couldn’t get away.

  “Sorry, Azz,” she said. “The folks are gone, and I got to watch the pinche kids all day.” Inside I could see her little brothers and sisters, maybe a cousin or two, all lined up in their sleeping bags on the living room floor.

  “Just ten minutes, baby. Come on, they’re all asleep anyway. I’ll have you back before they know you were gone.” I leaned down and kissed the back of her neck. “I got something to show you that you’re gonna like.”

  “You always got something I like, Azz, but you’re gonna have to give it to me here,” she said
. She hooked her fingers through the loops of my jeans with a wicked smile.

  It wasn’t until the next day that I finally got to take her to see it. I had two wine coolers in my bag along with my gear. Before we got to the garage, I pulled out a bandanna and tied it over her eyes.

  “Just fuckin’ show me, Azz,” she said, but I could tell she liked the game.

  I led her along the side of the garage and through the tall weeds, making a big deal of guiding her around an old junked-out washing machine.

  “Get ready,” I said as we came around to the back of the garage, but I stopped cold when I saw the wall.

  “Fuck!” I shouted.

  “Shit! Qué pasó?” Becca pulled the bandanna down around her neck so she could see.

  I ignored her and ripped into my backpack. The first thing I landed on was one of the wine coolers, and I pitched it at the empty, gray wall. The shattering glass helped loosen the knot in my throat. “Fuckin’ hell,” I moaned.

  “Azz! Talk to me, what the hell happened?”

  “They buffed it. It’s barely been two days and somebody fuckin’ buffed my piece. See?” I pointed from the blank wall to the drips of gray paint on the grass. “They just painted right over it.”

  Becca stared at the ground, then she nodded slowly. “Pendejos,” she said. “What’ve they got against a little color?”

  She walked over and grabbed my backpack, pulling out the other wine cooler. “But it’s not this guy’s fault. We got to save him.” She was trying to make me laugh.

  “I’ve still got the drawing,” I said, grabbing for my black book. I flipped to the page. “See? It was like this. But the piece was like a thousand times better.”

  “It’s okay, Azz, I love it.” Becca got up on her tiptoes and kissed me. But I couldn’t let it go; she never even got to see what I did for her. How it looked up on the wall.

  I pulled away from her and reached into my bag. After a second, my hand closed around the can I was looking for. Krylon Camouflage Black. The flattest shit you can get, practically impossible to scrub out. Sticks so good, it’s like painting a hole into the wall. It would take the fuckers at least three coats to paint over it. I shook the shit out of that can until I wasn’t thinking anymore, and all that mattered was that sweet click and roll. And then with big, sloppy letters, I canned “FUK YOU” all over that wall and everything near it.

  Becca kept trying to touch me, telling me to quit it, saying it was okay, that she liked the drawing, that it made her happy, that she didn’t need to see it up on a wall. Even though I heard her, I didn’t stop until all my cans ran out.

  CHAPTER 36: NOW

  The hours crawl by. I know I should be figuring some shit out, but nothing happens to help me out. No visits from Pakmin. No observations. No notebook from Gabe. No word about Lexi. Nothing. Just breakfast, rec, lunch, then dinner.

  So I think about Lexi, about what she might be saying in court. Her ass is in a bind, and everybody wants her to pin something on me. I imagine her biting her lip, eyes wide and innocent behind those glasses she never wore before. I see a jury already turning soft toward her.

  That gets me pissed, but it also gets me thinking how this whole place is messed up past the usual shit in lockup. How I haven’t even got a lame-ass public defender to help me out. How nobody even knows where I am.

  Maybe it doesn’t even matter what Lexi says. Even if she doesn’t say shit about me, does that mean they let me go? And if they don’t, who’s going to care? Who’s going to get me out? Eddie? My grandmother? Becca? Who remembers me? Is anybody even thinking about me?

  All I left behind at Pelón’s place was some clothes and my music. I can already see him swapping my shit for a couple of joints. My backpack is locked up by the cops somewhere. And the pieces I canned, they’ve probably been tagged over or buffed already. Like it’s no work to make me disappear.

  “Well, they can’t fuckin’ erase me,” I say out loud.

  But I know they can.

  I have to laugh to keep from tripping. I toss my cot over and do twenty chin-ups. Bam, bam, bam. I can feel my muscles roaring, getting strong, but it’s a strength that doesn’t even matter now. I know down to my bones that there’s no power on my side. Lexi’s got people. Shit, she’s got a fancy lawyer in a suit.

  Me, all I’ve got is my own skinny ass and a couple of drawings hid under my blanket.

  CHAPTER 37: NOW

  It’s early morning, before breakfast, when I hear footsteps. I know it’s Pakmin’s walk. I’ve been waiting to see him, but at the same time I don’t want him to come. After all this time alone in my cell, I don’t know if I can take seeing his face like another blank wall in front of me, something all my questions just bounce off of.

  I guess I can, though, because when he stands on the other side of my bars, I manage to look him in the eyes.

  “Long time, no see,” I say.

  “There are some things we need to take care of,” he says. His face is hard, harder even than I remembered. No feeling in it. Not good. Not good.

  The cell opens, and he leads me out toward the conference room. My stomach’s doing flips.

  “I’m going to be direct, my friend,” Pakmin says when we sit down at the table. “You’ve had more time than we usually allow before calling for a decision, and that’s becoming a problem.”

  “Decision? What kind of decision?”

  Pakmin silences me with a hand. “Transfer, release, or otherwise, it makes no difference to us. But if you don’t find a way to move on soon, that option will be closed to you.”

  “You’re talking like I wanted to come here, man. Like this is the freakin’ Marriott or something. I’m ready to go. Just tell me where to sign.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “But you got to admit I been trying hard. I put in my time watching the girl. I read my file real careful.” I study his face for clues.

  “But that’s over now, don’t you see?” Pakmin lays his big brown hands flat on the table. His knuckles are hairy, and a too-small wedding ring bites into one of his fat fingers.

  “What do you mean? I’m gonna see Lexi again, right? I mean, she’s supposed to help me remember, right?” I’m scrambling now, freaked out by the idea of not seeing her anymore, of not knowing what happened. What she’s done.

  Pakmin shakes his head. “It’s over, my friend. Yes, yes, so you helped the girl. But you have to take care of your own situation.”

  “Helped her? Helped her how? All I know is that her lawyer had her set up to dump lies on me in court. So what happened? What’d she say?” I lean forward and then realize my mistake. Too eager. Too damn eager. Now he’s not going to tell me shit.

  “Her trial is her trial, don’t you see? You’ve got to help yourself. Your release—you must be the one to make it happen.”

  “But how?”

  “You know what you have to do. Remember.” Pakmin locks his eyes on mine.

  “I can’t, man. I tried, but . . .” I think of the drawings and the dreams. My guts twisted. The thing aching in my chest like a memory that got lost from my brain. I know something, but what? Why can’t I remember the right shit?

  “I can’t do much more for you. You have to try harder, Martín.”

  “It’s Azael.”

  He ignores me. “Start talking. Let yourself own what you know. Right now.” His voice has turned from rough to a kind of low purr, and I can’t help nodding.

  “I’ll try it for you, Pac Man.”

  He doesn’t react to the nickname. He just says, “Do it for yourself, my friend.” His voice is hard again; his mouth tight under his mustache, eyes narrowed under his one giant bushy eyebrow. I can see my time running out in his look.

  “I was with my homeboys,” I say quick, before I can think too hard. “We were cruising, heading toward Montrose. We were supposed to go scare some punks that was messing with a homie’s sister. There was a car . . . we followed it. Then we started fighting in th
is park, about ten of us and maybe fifteen of them. I was looking out for my—” I stop myself. I was just about to say brother, to bring Eddie into this. No way, no way do I want to do that.

  “I already know your brother was there. Eddie. Go ahead.”

  I feel sick. I don’t know if it’s hearing Eddie’s name in Pakmin’s mouth or the feeling that Pakmin already knows exactly what I’m thinking. But if he knows what I’m thinking, how come I’ve got to say anything at all?

  “The remembering is for you,” Pakmin says, like he’s answering my question. “Close your eyes.” The purr is back in his voice, and so I do it.

  My head starts to clear, and I can see the field almost like I’m there. Eddie and me are beating down this little show-off from Crazy Crew. I don’t have my chain anymore, so I’m scanning the ground for a new weapon. First I see an aluminum bat lying in a patch of brown grass a couple of yards from where Greñas is pounding a guy with a pipe. And then I see something else.

  “Red,” I say out loud. “I see red.”

  My hand closes around the bat. I pull it out of the grass. Then I see it again, something red at the edge of my vision. I turn around, and there’s this girl in a red tank top and brown shorts headed toward me.

  It’s not just any girl. It’s Lexi.

  She laughs when Cucaracha catches a punch in the jaw from this tall motherfucker, but she just keeps on walking, tits swaying a little under her tank top, mouth twisted. She stops maybe five feet away.“You respect Crazy Crew?” she spits out at me.

  “Fuck no! MS-13 controla!” I shout. “Now get out of here, bitch.”

  She keeps coming, though, and I stick the bat out, push her back with it. “You got no business here. Go play with your fuckin’ dolls.”