Illegal

by Francisco X. Stork

  Trevor tried to burp as well. The art of burping at will was one of the things we had been practicing during our time together. “Do it again. This time real loud,” Trevor pleaded.

  “No. It will scare the people inside the house. They’ll think a lion was loose on the streets.”

  “Maybe they’ll think it was Chewbacca.” Trevor found his own cleverness hilarious. I waited for him to stop laughing, grabbed the edge of his sweater, and tried to rub out the remaining traces of blue on his lips. “Maybe they’ll think it’s Chewbacca and Yoda walking outside,” I said, patting his head.

  “I don’t look like Yoda!”

  I pulled both his ears. “Now you do.”

  “Ouch!”

  I stopped in the middle of a driveway. Trevor was pulling his own ears and half closing his eyes like a would-be Yoda. A man watched us through the front window of the house. He did not look like someone who would hire us.

  “You have too much hair to be Yoda,” I said.

  “Popsy could be Yoda. He’s bald.”

  But the picture of Able Abe on the company’s van had hair. False advertising. “Is Popsy wise like Yoda?”

  “Mmm. Popsy yells at Mommy and Daddy sometimes. Yoda never yells at anyone.”

  One good thing about Trevor was that he could make me think about things I never thought about before. Like just then. Wise people don’t need to yell at other people. Trevor could also make me laugh. He had a funny side that he never showed his parents. Right now, his humor was keeping me from exploding with worry.

  “What kind of clothes?” I asked quickly, pushing a painful thought out of the way.

  “Black sneakers. I picked those. Mommy thinks your boots are smelly.”

  I couldn’t totally disagree with “Mommy.” But the smell was only noticeable when I took them off, wasn’t it? Besides, those boots were special. Nancy Gropper was going to have to put up with their smell.

  Trevor continued. “Pants and shirts, underwear, socks. I didn’t pick those. You can wear the black sneakers tomorrow. They look like regular shoes.”

  “Tomorrow? What’s tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday. First we go to church and then we go to Popsy’s.”

  Abe Gropper. What did Mrs. C call him? A jerk? “I’m not going to Popsy’s tomorrow. I have some things I need to do.”

  How would I be contacted about Hinojosa’s phone? I looked around to see if there were any unusual-looking cars on the street. They could have been watching me now. How did they know where I was?

  “Liano.” Trevor was tugging at my sleeve.

  “Sorry, what were you saying?”

  “Church is boring but Popsy has a heated pool. Mommy bought you swimming trunks. They’re blue with little white sharks. I picked them.”

  Nancy was upstairs and so Trevor’s blue lips went undetected. I told Trevor to get started on the Life Star, while I looked at the wardrobe Nancy bought for me. I looked around the room and saw the box on the rowing machine’s seat. How could I have not seen it before? I used a screwdriver from the tool bench to cut the tape and took out a pair of khaki pants. They were the right length. The label on the back of the pants, twenty-four, was right. I dug through the box until I got to the black sneakers on the bottom. I took off the boots and smelled them. They weren’t that bad. I tried the right-foot sneaker. It was a perfect fit. I put on the other one, tied the laces, and walked around the room. How did dense Nancy get all the measurements correct? I looked down at my feet. The sneakers could pass for dress shoes. A light blue long-sleeve shirt, a blue tie with red stripes, and the khaki pants were the remaining parts of the Sunday outfit. Nancy Gropper had gone out and bought me cool clothes. She was dressing me up so I wouldn’t be an embarrassment to her at church and with Popsy, but it was still a nice move on her part.

  “Emiliano! Come here! I want to show you something extremely awesome.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and rested my head on the palm of my hand. What was good about this place? Trevor, definitely. Nancy had possibilities if I could become legal. And Bob Gropper? He was not the man I grew up with, but he was not totally different either. He was like me in many ways. Who is perfect? No one. Not me.

  “Emiliano! Are you coming? You said you’d help me build the Life Star.”

  Death Star or Life Star.

  It was up to me to decide.

  The SHU is what the guards call the isolation cell where they’ve been keeping me. The Special Housing Unit. The only thing special about the cell were the windows near the ceiling, through which I could see the stars sometimes. How many days had I been in that cell before I was taken out for the credible fear interview and my phone call to Emiliano? I didn’t know. At the SHU you very quickly begin to lose your hold on reality. At first, I could keep track of time by the type of meals that were brought to me. Oatmeal meant another morning had arrived. But after a while, time became a blur. I didn’t know whether I had crossed into the United States ten days ago or the year before. Or maybe it was just a dream.

  Was talking to Emiliano also a dream? What was it that he said about the reporter? Every time I thought of that, I laughed. My little brother knew somehow that someone was with me. Either that or he was telling the truth and a reporter was on his way to save me!

  I had to repeat to myself what I told him all night long just to make sure that I had given him the right coded message. I had faith that Emiliano would remember what Brother Patricio told him during their Tarahumara trip.

  Hope, little brother, hope. Hope is what you got from that trip. Hope is doing the right thing regardless of the outcome. Life’s not worth living otherwise. But also, find the right people to help you with your mission.

  But did I put Emiliano’s life at risk by giving him that message?

  I remembered again what I told Juana, my editor at El Sol, that I thought the United States system of justice, while not perfect, was the best there was in the world. “Here in Mexico,” I remembered telling her, “they can put you in jail and you can’t do anything about it. In the United States, there are laws to protect the innocent and the laws are followed.”

  Could I have been so wrong about this country? I had to believe there were people in this country who would help Emiliano. There must be people who would protect his life and help him save the lives of the women who were in captivity. I was counting on Emiliano to be resourceful enough to find those people.

  And as for me? I knew that soon Wes Morgan would break through the barriers that were keeping him away from me. Norma Galindez would call him. I could tell in her voice that there was goodness in her. And then, there was Mario.

  Mario brought me my breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on his shift. Every time he came, I tried to engage him in conversation. At first, he would answer my questions with a yes or a no, but the evening after my phone calls, he stood by the door and spoke to me like he used to when I did my garbage rounds. I was sitting on the edge of my platform (I refused to call it a bed) with the tray of food on my lap.

  “I don’t know why you didn’t get a desk and a chair,” he said. “Every other security room has one.”

  “Security room?”

  “That’s what we guards call these rooms.”

  “Oh. Mario, do you know how long I’ll be in this security room?” I asked him.

  “Oh, no. They don’t tell me that kind of stuff.” He glanced at the camera in the corner. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  “Do people look at what I’m doing?” I looked up at the camera and then at the stainless-steel combination toilet and sink.

  “We check up on you but … we respect your privacy.”

  “Privacy. I have lots of that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. There was sadness in his eyes. He wanted to say more but he stopped himself. I decided to take a chance and ask him for a favor.

  “Mario. It’s not right that I am locked up in here. You know that. It’s not true that I am here
for my own safety.”

  He looked at his feet, embarrassed. He shook his head apologetically and started to open the door.

  “Please!” I pleaded. “Just give me one minute.”

  He stopped, his back to me.

  “Check to see if there are any messages for me. There must be one from my lawyer. His name is Wes Morgan. He calls every other day. He must have tried to see me a few times by now. Call him back and tell him I’m being held here in … this security room. You don’t have to say who you are when you call him.”

  Mario did not respond. He kept his back to me while I spoke and then walked out, locking the door behind him. For a moment all hope left me. Then I thought about how he had quietly listened to what I said. I knew that he would help me if he could. Then, about ten minutes later, Mario returned. I was still sitting on the platform, the tray of untouched food next to me. Mario picked up the tray, and with his back blocking the camera, he put a note into my hand and closed my fingers around it.

  “Flush it,” he whispered to me, and then walked out of the room.

  I lay on the platform and after a few minutes I turned on my side and opened the piece of paper that Mario had given me. I read it close to my chest, protecting the note from the camera.

  Message from Sandy Morgan.

  Dad was killed yesterday. We think someone

  was trying to rob his gun collection when Daddy walked in.

  I’ll come see you as soon as I can. It won’t be this week.

  It hurts so much.

  I rolled the piece of paper into a tiny ball. I sat on the toilet, dropped the paper between my legs, and then I lowered my head and cried in silence. I cried for Sandy’s hurt. I cried for Wes Morgan, who took my case and always refused to talk about a fee. You can pay me when you’re a rich journalist, he said to me. I pictured him driving all the way to El Paso to file a complaint when they told him he couldn’t see me. He believed I was worth fighting for. I’m sure he had been asking for me the past few days and was threatening Mello with all kinds of lawsuits if he did not produce me. I cried because I no longer had anyone to defend me.

  But most of all I cried because I had as good as killed Wes Morgan. I knew in my heart that he had been killed by the people who wanted the phone. The business card that Mello showed me must have been the one that Father gave Wes Morgan.

  Emiliano, please, please, please find a way to open the phone and put these evil men in prison. And dear Lord, let it be a prison just like this one and make it forever.

  “Emiliano, wake up!”

  I felt a gentle shaking of the shoulder and for a moment I expected to see the face of Brother Patricio urging me to get ready for the long day’s hike that awaited us. But the familiar smell of cologne quickly brought me back to reality.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s nine, but you need to take a shower and get dressed. We like to get to church by ten forty-five.”

  I sat up, rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t remember a time when I had slept past 7:00 a.m. “I’m not going to church,” I said, pulling the white quilt up to my neck. I had won the Sunday church battle a long time ago against more powerful adversaries. Bob was not going to succeed where Mami and Sara had failed.

  There was a clanking sound. I half opened my eyes and saw Bob pull a stool from beside the rowing machine and place it in front of my bed. Bob cleared his throat.

  I propped the pillow behind my back and placed my phone under the quilt. Now all I had to do was wait. Something was in Bob’s mind besides church, that much I could see, even in my foggy state.

  Bob bent to look in the box next to the bed. He took out the long-sleeve shirt and examined it. “Nancy told me she had gotten you a few things. They fit okay?”

  “She could have asked what I liked.”

  I regretted the resentment in my voice, but I was not in a good mood. I had stayed up most of the night worried about Sara and trying to decide what I would do with Hinojosa’s phone when I was contacted.

  Bob placed the shirt on the handlebar of the stationary bike. I noticed the blue tie with red stripes already there. “For church,” Bob said.

  Bob crossed his legs and placed his two hands on his lap. “Nancy told me about the talk you two had yesterday.”

  Were we really going to have that kind of conversation? Could it wait until I had two cups of coffee? Or better yet, could it wait forever? Maybe it was better to plunge ahead and get it over with. “She doesn’t want me here. She’s afraid she’s violating the law, harboring an illegal alien.”

  “She’s afraid. It’s normal. It’s nothing against you. The whole thing that happened to Sara and … to you … with men trying to kill you. It’s scary if you’re a mother. When I got the call from your mother to help, I went in spite of Nancy’s fears. Abe’s too. It was hard for them. But, bottom line, here you are. And Sara could be here too if she hadn’t turned herself in.”

  “She had no choice. Either that or a man died.”

  “I understand. I understand all that. I’m just trying to let you see that it is not unreasonable for Nancy to be nervous. About you being here and working with people who know us. Some of those people, like Mrs. Costelo, could turn you in to immigration. She doesn’t like Abe.”

  “Mrs. C is not going to turn me in. She likes me.”

  “If you are trying to tell me that Nancy doesn’t like you, you’re wrong. Would she trust you with Trevor if she didn’t? She sees how much he’s grown attached to you in such a short time. Don’t you think she’s grateful for that? These clothes she bought you …”

  “To look good in church and at Popsy’s.”

  “Man, Emiliano.” Bob shook his head. There was sadness and disbelief in his voice. “Have you really changed that much? What’s happened to you? You’re a good person. Were.” He stood and then sat down again. “We’re trying our best here. Nancy … she’s reserved. Yes, she’s afraid. But like I said, you’re here. You don’t know how much it took for me to get you here … and we don’t ask much from you. I need you to help me. Help me out here.”

  “Help you?”

  “Come to church and to Abe’s house with us. If you don’t come it will be harder on me. And … on Trevor. He won’t understand.”

  “Why hard on you?”

  “Abe wants to meet you. I promised him I’d bring you. He called this morning from Washington, DC. He had an important meeting with one of the heads of the Labor Department. Abe’s the head of a committee that advises the government on safety regulations for heating and refrigeration workers. Anyway, he called a little while ago to make sure you were coming over to his house for Sunday lunch.”

  “To check me over?”

  “He wants to get to know you. Can you blame him? You’re staying in the house with his daughter and his only grandson.”

  “Why isn’t your word enough?”

  “Emiliano, come on.”

  “And what does it matter who I am or what kind of person I am? I’m illegal. I could be a saint and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

  “You have to understand their thinking. Nancy and Abe are very law abiding. They … it’s a different mentality. Breaking the law is a big deal for them. It’s like a sin. Only there are no venial sins or mortal sins, no small sins or greater sins. Breaking any law is all the same—a sin.”

  “That’s stupid. Going faster than the speed limit is the same as killing someone?”

  “To you and to me maybe that sounds stupid. The consequences of breaking different laws are different, sure. They know that. But they have this view of who they are. They see themselves as the kind of people who never break the law. Not ever. So it is hard to be associated with people who do. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “I’m only a few months from my citizenship papers coming through. It should have happened by now, but it looks like everything’s backed up when it comes to immigration. And as soon as I have a little time, I’ll talk to an
immigration lawyer; maybe there’s something we can do to make you legal even now. It’s just been so busy at work. You won’t believe it. But I think we won that bid I was telling you about. From Safeway. That’s big. Very big. But it will mean a lot of work too. More people …” Bob stopped when he saw me raise the palm of my hand.

  “Okay, okay. Let me take a shower and get dressed. We don’t want to be late for church.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, son.”

  I watched Bob weave his way through the exercise machines and out of the room. I waited until the door was closed and then kicked the quilt from my legs. I don’t know what came over me when I was with my father. Away from him, there were moments when I felt a little of what I used to feel before he left us. But in person, there was something in me that wanted to oppose him, push him away, argue with him.

  * * *

  St. Paul’s Episcopal Church looked like a small castle. Trevor, sitting next to me, stuck the instructions to the Life Star inside his coat pocket as we pulled into the parking lot. Trevor was wearing gray pants and a red bow tie. He smelled like Bob. I unbuttoned the top of my shirt so I could breathe. Nancy got all of my measurements right except the neck size. With the tie on, I felt as if I were inside a permanent choke hold.

  “Is Popsy coming?” Trevor asked.

  Nancy turned around to answer. “Popsy is flying in from Washington, DC, this morning, so he’s going straight home from the airport. He’ll have lunch ready for us at the house after church.” Then, looking at me: “My father is usually an usher at this service. He had to fly to Washington for a meeting with the U.S. Department of Labor.”

  Nancy Gropper waited for me to look impressed. That must have been the fourth time that morning that either Nancy or Bob mentioned Popsy’s important meeting in Washington. I looked out the window instead. After all that hurrying, we were early. There were only a handful of cars in the lot. When I went to church with Mami and Sara, a long, long time ago, we usually got there just as the music started. There were rules on how late we could be for Sunday Mass to count. Sara claimed you had to get there before the gospel reading. I thought if you got there before Communion, you’d be safe. But all that was before I stopped believing in God. Although, out there in the desert when I was dying … I prayed to someone.