Juarez Square and Other Stories

by Young, D. L.

  “The daily take is down,” Chang snapped. “What the hell’s going on out here?”

  Deke shrugged. “You came all the way out here just to tell me that? The dailies go up and down all the time.”

  “I’m not talking about normal ups and downs. The take is way down in the past few days. Lowest I’ve ever seen.”

  “Lowest you’ve ever seen, huh?” Deke echoed, playing dumb. “You don’t say?”

  Bits of ancient yellowed newspaper stuck to Chang’s jacket; he furiously brushed his sleeves and lapels. “How can you not have noticed? What the hell are you doing out here, sleeping all day?”

  Deke paused before answering. The moment had been a long time in coming, and he was going to savor each delicious second of Chang’s discomfort.

  “Sleeping?” he said. “Of course not. Let me tell you what I did today. First I woke up, brushed my teeth and had breakfast…No wait…I had breakfast, then I brushed my teeth.” He smiled stupidly as Chang’s face reddened. “What good would it do to brush my teeth before breakfast?” He rubbed his chin. “Where was I? Oh yeah, so anyway, after breakfast I thought about going down to Tijuana for more parts. But then I remembered this time of year the wind blows so much dust around you just want to stay inside and—”

  “I don’t care about any of that! There’s something wrong with those bots and you need to fix it quick.”

  “Okay, okay,” Deke said. “Let me take a look.” He took out his slate and tapped it to life. He hummed a pop song as he lazily swiped his finger across the slate’s surface, basking in the heat of Chang’s growing frustration. “Hmmm, been four months since the last full-blown diagnostics. Everything looked fine back then.” He looked up from the slate at Chang and lifted his eyebrows. “You want to stick around while I run some new ones? It’ll only take a few hours.”

  Even with half his face obscured by the mask, Deke could see Chang was losing it. “A few hours, here?” The possibility of spending so much time dumpside seemed to horrify him.

  Deke chuckled. “Well, not right here. You can wait in my trailer while I run all the—”

  “Enough!” Chang took a menacing step toward Deke. “Let me keep it simple for you. Your job is to keep those robots running and keep the daily take up. My job is to keep my employer’s businesses running smoothly.”

  Deke swallowed. Chang took another step forward and said, “So if one of his whores won’t put out, I have her beaten until she does. And if a crank peddler skims profits, I cut his hand off. Now listen to me close, you fat fuck. You’re no less replaceable than any random whore or crank pusher. And if I have to come back out here it won’t be for a chat, you get me?”

  Chang turned around and disappeared down the path. It was several minutes before Deke stopped shaking.

  ***

  Nighttime was always peaceful dumpside. The solar-powered bots hibernated until morning and the only sound was the soft rustling of windblown paper and debris. The light from the windows of Deke’s trailer was the only illumination for miles in every direction, a beacon in a sea of darkness.

  “I don’t see no good coming of this, Mister Deke.” Timo looked troubled as he placed their dinner plates on the small folding table. “Why don’t you just go down to the city and get a whore? Tijuana’s full of whores.”

  Deke exhaled. Ever since Chang showed up dumpside two days ago, Timo had been a nervous hand-wringing nuisance.

  “Look,” Deke said, “I don’t want a whore. I can get a whore anytime.”

  Timo sat and chewed his lower lip. “That Chang’s a monster. Not the kind of fella we want pissed off at us.”

  Deke took a bite of stew. “I told you you’ve got nothing to worry about. Chang doesn’t know you help with the bots. He thinks you just run errands and make food for me. This whole thing is on my head, understand?”

  The boy’s face didn’t change. “That still don’t make me feel no better, Mister Deke.”

  “You’re going to make yourself sick worrying so much,” Deke said, chewing. He forced himself to look unconcerned as the image of Chang’s scowl flashed across his mind, the menace in his eyes more a promise than a threat. Two days had passed since Deke had sabotaged the dump bots’ search patterns. The daily take was down to nearly nothing.

  Deke looked out the window. Chang was out there somewhere, flipping through his slate, growing angrier as the latest figures came in, each report worse than the last.

  No daily take meant no money coming in, and the longer the situation persisted, the more Chang’s coveted role as right hand man was at risk. And while he might bluster and threaten, eventually Chang’s pragmatism would overcome his rage. Deke was counting on that.

  Leverage.

  Deke had the leverage, and if he held firm and didn’t back down, Chang would have grant him an audience with the Dump Lord. That was the plan, anyway.

  Timo fiddled with his spoon, his food untouched. “And what if you do get that meeting, Mister Deke? You just gonna ask the big boss to let you bring a woman in here?”

  Deke smiled. Every time he started to think Timo had half a brain, the boy would say something that changed his opinion. “It won’t be that simple,” Deke answered. “It’s a long play. First I tell him about ‘the crisis,’ how the dump bots can’t find anything because they’ve harvested all the easy surface-level resources. Low-hanging fruit, understand?” Timo nodded and Deke continued. “Then I tell him not to worry, that I’m on top of it, and I wanted to come and tell him that personally. Then, a few days later when the daily take miraculously hits an all-time high…”

  “You’re the big hero,” Timo said.

  “Bingo. And no one could refuse the big hero a favor, right?”

  After dinner Timo served coffee, his face still twisted with worry. “Just don’t get why you need to do this,” the boy said.

  Poor child, Deke thought. Of course he couldn’t understand. Deke had taken the boy off the streets six months ago, and before that the boy had only known a life of hustling and panhandling in Tijuana’s brutish squalor. For a street kid like Timo, life inside the Dump Lord’s razorwired perimeter, with regular meals and a safe place to sleep, had to be paradise by comparison. The endless mounds of trash an oasis in the West Texas desert.

  Had Deke ever felt the same way? Lucky to have work, grateful to have any job under any condition as long as it kept food on the table? Maybe. But things had changed after eight years. Eight long years living under Chang’s silly ‘no women dumpside’ rule. Eight years with no human connection except Timo his helper and Chang his tormentor. And the infrequent whore down in Tijuana wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to fill the emptiness inside.

  “I know you don’t understand,” Deke said, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Someday you will.”

  Someday the boy would understand there were worse things to lose than your life.

  ***

  The next morning Deke stood at the north entrance of the Dump Lord’s estate. He took a deep breath, raised a trembling hand, and knocked on the door. Chang answered with dark circles under his eyes. The man looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “What are you doing here?” Chang snapped.

  Deke’s pulse began to race. He’d hoped to find Chang beaten down and desperate, softened up by two sleepless nights of waiting for the numbers to get better. Instead a monster with red-rimmed eyes, simmering with rage, stood before him.

  You’ve got the leverage. Deke repeated it to himself as he stepped into the foyer. The Dump Lord’s right hand awkwardly moved back a step, shocked by Deke’s sudden boldness.

  Chang looked at Deke’s clothes, his eyes widening. “What the hell are you wearing? Slacks and a dress shirt?” He shook his head and laughed. “Some special occasion I should be aware of?”

  Deke swallowed. “I need to speak with your boss.”

  “About what?”

  “You know.”

  They stared at each other for a tense moment, as if w
aiting for the other to flinch. Then a light behind Chang’s eyes switched on. “What did you do with those bots?” He stepped toward Deke, fists clenched, his gaze cold and hard. “You rigged them, didn’t you? This is all some sort of play, you stupid fat bastard? You’re a dead man.”

  Deke’s panic only lasted a second, its brief flare drowned by a flood of anger suddenly surging through him. Like a long-dormant volcano finally waking, he burst forth with a violent eruption, grabbing Chang by the lapels and shoving him hard against the door.

  “I’ve had it with you and your bullshit rules,” he sneered.

  Chang’s mouth hung open, slack in disbelief. Deke reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a remote control. “In thirty minutes,” he said, his voice shaking with rage, “if I don’t send a code from this remote, every last dump bot in this hellhole is going to crack a vile of acid I put inside its chassis.” Chang looked at the device in horror. Deke said, “You won’t even be able to sell them for scrap. Total motherfuckin’ destruction.”

  “You wouldn’t dare—”

  “You know how long it’ll take you to get three hundred new dump bots, much less find someone who knows how to make them harvest worth a damn? Months, maybe years. But something tells me you wouldn’t last long enough to find them.”

  Deke returned the remote to his pocket. He clinched his jaw, scowling and defiant, and stared down Chang.

  Chang blinked twice, then lowered his eyes and slumped. “Fine,” he said, the single word of his surrender nearly inaudible.

  It took a moment for Deke to register what had happened. The sight of Chang crumbling, even though Deke had planned on it, seemed unreal. Deke slowly grasped the notion that he’d won. After eight dark and lonely years, he’d finally grabbed the keys to his cage.

  “Wait here for a minute,” Chang said, his voice low and subdued. He disappeared from the foyer and returned a minute later. He motioned for Deke to follow. “This way.”

  As Deke approached Chang gave him a warning. “Screw me over and you’re done.” Deke ignored him. There was no venom in Chang’s words, no threat in his eyes. The man was defeated.

  Chang led him down a long hallway, stopping at the last door on the left. He opened it, looked inside, and said to someone unseen, “He’s here.” Then he motioned for Deke to enter the room.

  Deke took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.

  Timo.

  The boy sat on a plastic tarp among stacks of dump bots and a scattering of parts and tools. He snapped together the top and bottom sections of a chassis and added them to a pile. He looked up at Deke, his face expressionless.

  Deke stepped forward, his mind racing. “What are you doing here?”

  The boy said nothing for a moment, then shook his head and looked to the floor. “Dump rats,” he said.

  Deke blinked. “What?”

  “Those dump rats that swallow shiny things like rings and jewels,” the boy said, picking up two more chassis sections. “They hafta know they shouldn’t eat them. They don’t smell like food at all, but they gobble them up anyway. Dump rats can’t control themselves. Never satisfied with what they got, always wanting something more.” He snapped the chassis sections together.

  Deke stared, trying to make sense of the boy’s words.

  Timo wouldn’t look up at him. “I’m sorry, Mister Deke. I tried to warn you. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  Deke’s stomach turned as he noticed a remote control identical to his on the floor next to Timo. “Jesus, what have you done?”

  “What do you think he’s done?” Chang boomed from behind him. The Dump Lord’s right hand entered the room, holding a slate and grinning. “The boy sold you out, of course. He sent out your secret code an hour ago, and now he’s cleaning up the mess you made.” Chang motioned to a box full of acid vials Timo had removed from the bots’ innards. Then he looked down and swiped his finger across the slate. “The kid’s a whiz with search patterns. Daily take’s already ticking back up.”

  Deke’s heart sank.

  Chang rubbed his chin and said, “How long was it going to take to find your replacement? Months, maybe years? Care to revise that estimate, fat man?” Deke had never seen Chang so smugly satisfied.

  Deke watched as Timo continued working. “He’s just a kid,” he said. “What did you do, beat the code out of him?”

  Chang’s smile widened. “That’s the best part. I didn’t have to do a thing. He shows up at the door wanting to make a deal. Hell, I didn’t even know the kid knew the first thing about bots.”

  Showed up to make a deal?

  Deke looked at the boy. “Timo?” The boy kept his head down and didn’t answer.

  “Timo!” The boy refused to respond. Deke felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.

  A security guard appeared and said, “Come with me.” Deke’s shoulders slumped. Without a word he turned and followed the guard, leaving Chang and Timo behind. He walked with his head down, numbly retracing the path he’d taken only moments before, so sure he was moments away from securing a brighter future. What a fool he’d been.

  The guard escorted him to the estate’s boundary. Deke took a last look around the verdant grounds, its lush trees and shrubs, it blooming flowers bright with color.

  As they approached the perimeter, Deke wondered how Chang had instructed the guard to do it. Bullet in the head? Probably not. That would be too quick, too painless. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he felt ill.

  They reached the security station next to the entry gate and another guard joined them. He went through Deke’s pockets, taking away his slate and hand tools. Then they began to beat him. One of the guards held Deke steady while the other pummeled his face and ribs. When the first guards’ knuckles became chafed and red, they switched places and the second man began to work Deke over.

  After several minutes of pounding, they shoved Deke, swollen-faced and bleeding, through the gate to the outside. He landed face down on the dirt road, barely conscious. The guards shut the gate, turned away, and left him alone. After a few moments Deke came to enough to realize they weren’t going to kill him.

  With his head throbbing and ribs aching, he stood up on wobbly legs. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and looked to Tijuana, sprawling and smog-blanketed in the distance. He stumbled forward, taking his first shaky steps toward an uncertain future.

  Minutes later when he could think straight again, his thoughts returned to Timo. Maybe the boy had made a deal to save his life. Knowing Chang, Deke found this hard to believe, but it seemed to be the only explanation for his survival.

  Deke cursed himself for not seeing it coming. He should have known, should have paid more attention to the fear in the boy’s eyes. Should have understood what he was putting him through.

  He looked up again at Tijuana, still far away but getting closer. Whatever the city held for him, starvation or salvation, at least he wouldn’t be alone.

  Not like the poor boy he’d left behind.

  Sanctuary City

  “So we’re here, see?” The teacher, Miss Hathcox, pointed to a hand-drawn X on the large map hanging in the school tent. Rafael sat on a folding chair and watched her.

  “We’re at Sanctuary City, just south of the Oklahoma border.” She ran her finger left to right along the wobbly line that represented the Red River. “Do you know what country this is, the one on the north side of the river?”

  Rafael nodded. “The United States.”

  “Good,” the teacher said. “And what’s all of this area, south of the river?”

  Hell on Earth. That was the answer he wanted to give.

  Instead he said, “That’s where we live, the Republic of Texas.”

  Miss Hathcox smiled. “That’s good, Rafa.” Then she tapped a thin oval that had been crosshatched in red pencil over the river. “And you know to stay away from this area, right?”

  Again Rafael nodded. He’d heard about the red zone, where
U.S. drones flew high overhead, watching every inch of the border, ready to rain bullets down on anyone who might be dumb enough to try to cross over. You only walked into the red zone if you wanted to die.

  “It’s just a few miles north of here,” she said. “So don’t go wandering off, okay? We hear gunshots and sirens all the time. It’s dangerous out there.”

  Rafael’s eyes drifted southward down the map. His stomach tightened as he came to the round blue shape labeled Lake Conroe.

  “You know something?” the teacher said. “You’ve been here three days already and I still don’t know where you came to us from.”

  Rafael fidgeted. “New Caney.”

  Miss Hathcox found New Caney on the map, and then she looked at Rafael.

  She tilted her head. “And what about your family, Rafa? Where are they?”

  He turned away and didn’t answer. To his relief, she didn’t press the issue.

  A red-haired woman with freckles covering her nose and cheeks came in and handed Miss Hathcox a paper.

  “Ninety-five,” the woman said, smiling. “Highest grade we’ve seen so far.”

  Miss Hathcox turned to Rafael. “Did you hear that, Rafa? You’ve qualified to take the test tomorrow. Isn’t that wonderful?” She looked at the paper, marveling at the score. “Ninety-five percent. You must have been your teacher’s star student back in New Caney.”

  Rafael stared at the dirt floor. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a good student, they never would have left home.

  He tried not to think about it. All he wanted to do was take the test, win the prize, and put this horrible country behind him forever.

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Rafael sat cross-legged on the dirt floor of the tent they’d assigned to him. He watched as people milled about, their feet shuffling aimlessly. Refugees stuck in the limbo of an uncertain future.