Iron River

by Daniel Acosta

  We saw back yards with bed sheets and work clothes hanging on clotheslines. And yards filled with junked cars and trucks and chicken coops and barking dogs. Beautiful yards with vegetable gardens and yards that were pure dirt. Flower-filled yards and yards that had weeds growing to the top of the fence. Mothers carrying shopping bags with their kids behind them and tired-looking men holding jackets and lunch pails. Kids riding bikes on streets like Main Street that ran next to the tracks.

  We saw a man in a charro hat training a horse in a ring and a naked man taking a bath in a big tina in his back yard. We passed cars stopped at crossings and drivers leaning on their arms and waiting for the train to pass and we heard the ding-ding-ding of the crossing bells get quiet when we left them behind.

  And we saw boys. In every town we went through we saw boys lined up on the rightaway with rocks in their dirty hands to throw at us. We climbed down from the coop and went back out to the caboose’s porch and watched boys throw their last rocks at our train until they saw me and Danny. We watched them just stand there staring at us and get smaller and smaller as we got farther and farther away. When they disappeared, we went back inside and climbed back up into the coop.

  The caboose was hot and stuffy and we must’ve fell asleep. A rough hand shook my shoulder. I thought it was Cruz and right away I checked to see if I peed the bed.

  No, I was wearing pants, and they were dry.

  The hand shook me again. I opened my eyes. I wasn’t in my bed or on the couch. I looked down to see a white man dressed in dirty work clothes with a red face and angry eyes and a curled lip.

  “Get down from there!” he growled at me. I shook Danny and he woke up while I was climbing down. When we both got to the bottom, the man stood over us.

  “What’re yous doin’ in the crummy?”

  His crunched up face made me lose all my words.

  “What’re yous doin’ in my caboose?” he growled louder. My mouth was stuck.

  Danny talked for us. “We climbed up and the door wasn’t locked. We went in and the train started moving.”

  The man jerked his head to the side. “Let’s go.”

  He lifted us down from the caboose porch, dropped us on the ballast shoulder and shoved us to walk ahead of him. There were tracks going everywhere in the trainyard and they all had trains on them. There must’ve been a million cars in that yard. We zigzagged the tracks wherever there were breaks in the trains till we got to a mustard-colored building.

  The trainman opened the door and pushed us in. Inside, another white man wearing clean overalls was sitting behind a desk reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe.

  “Look what the cat drug in,” the dirty trainman growled. I looked to see what the cat drug in. He was pointing at us. The clean man looked up from his paper. All I could do was stare at his hairy eyebrows and his eyes moving back and forth at us underneath them. The dirty man growled again. “Found ‘ese two stowed away in my crummy.”

  The clean man’s eyes went up to the dirty man. His eyebrows went up with his eyes as if everything made sense now. “Do you yard-rats have names?”

  “Daniel Valdez, sir,” Danny squeaked. I almost laughed because he really did sound like a rat, but I was too scared. The man turned his eyes to me without moving his head.

  “Manuel Maldonado, sir.” I didn’t add a sus órdenes because he was white. My voice squeaked too. I could feel Danny’s bony shoulder pressing against mine. I was glad my pants were dry.

  “Where’d you yard-rats hop the train?” he asked us.

  “San Gabriel, sir.” He eyed me every time Danny said something, and every time I talked, he eyed Danny.

  He waved his pipe in a circle at the ceiling. “You know where you’re at?”

  “No, sir.” I didn’t know too many train-towns after El Monte. I didn’t know any really. His eyes shifted to the dirty man and his eyebrows dropped back down to their home.

  “Colton,” he said. “You’re at Colton.” I didn’t know where that was, but the way he said it made me think it was way past El Monte.

  The clean man leaned back in his chair. It squeaked. “Train-hoppin’s against the law.” He looked at the dirty man again. “It’s a federal crime.”

  I looked at the floor. I was already going to prison for murder. Now I was going to prison for hopping the train. Dad was going to hate me like he hated Rudy.

  The man opened the desk drawer and took out a pencil and a piece of paper and pointed over to a table. “Write down your names and telephone numbers. Your folks’re going to have to come fetch you. If they won’t, the Colton Police will.” I remembered the paper the Turk made us fill out at Marco’s house when we killed the hobo.

  Danny took the pencil and paper. We walked over to the table, and Danny wrote while I looked around. The office was dark and dull. There was a blackboard on one wall covered in squares with numbers in them. Another wall had a bulletin board covered with papers. There was an old couch with a pillow and a folded blanket on one arm. The floor was wood and creaked when the dirty trainman walked around. And somewhere a clock ticked steady and loud like a kid tapping a pencil on his school desk during a test. From the way the light was coming in the windows, I figured it was around the time Grandma starts cleaning the supper beans.

  Would she worry when she called me home and I didn’t come?

  “You hungry?” the clean man asked me, but I shook my head no. Danny was taking too long writing. The dirty workman opened the door and left. Danny slid the paper over to me, and I took the pencil. It was all wet with Danny’s sweat. I wiped my hand and then printed my name and Grandma’s phone number.

  The clean man reached into a lunch pail on his desk and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. He held it out and Danny took it right away. My stomach growled. I was sorry I said no. Danny unwrapped the sandwich and held out half to me. It was minced ham and cheese. My little sister Dorothy calls minced ham “mean Sam” because that’s how it sounds when Grandma says it. She tells Grandma, “I want a mean Sam sandwich.”

  I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.

  The door opened and the dirty trainman came back in. He put two Coke bottles on the table.

  I looked at the clean man. “Go ahead,” he said. I took one of the Cokes and Danny took the other. We sat on the couch with our sandwich and Cokes, and we ate slow and quiet.

  The dirty man walked over and took the pencil and paper from the table and cleared his throat like he was going to spit, but he didn’t. He looked at what we wrote and nodded his head to the clean trainman. Then the dirty man stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him.

  I thought about how I usually never get to drink Cokes, but yesterday I had five and now another one today. Though this one didn’t taste good. I couldn’t really like it because all I could do was think about my dad and what was going to happen when he found out and had to come to wherever Colton was to get me after a whole day at work.

  Before I knew it, someone was shaking my shoulder again. But this time it wasn’t so rough. I opened my eyes and Dad was staring at me and blocking everything else in the room. He looked tired, and the blue of his eyes looked cold and hard as ice, like the night he told me Uncle Rudy would be coming home.

  I looked around me. I wasn’t in bed. I was sitting up, but I was on that couch covered in the blanket. It smelled like oil. Like the black gravel of the ballast shoulder on the rightaway. I checked, and my pants were dry. Danny was leaning against my shoulder snoring quiet.

  “Let’s go, Manuel.” My dad didn’t have that rumbly voice, didn’t sound mad so much as tired. I shook Danny. He jumped.

  “Your father’s here,” my dad told him. Danny looked around for his dad with big, scared eyes. “He’s out in the truck,” Dad said.

  Dad thanked the clean man and said he was sorry for the trouble and took us out to Mr. Valdez’ work truck. It was dark outside, and Mr. Valdez was just a dark shape sitting behind the wheel. When he saw us,
he climbed out of the cab and started taking off his belt. I knew what was coming.

  “You’ll get yours when we’re home. Get in the back,” Dad said.

  I climbed into the bed of the truck and sat there while Danny’s dad gave him a belt whipping. I looked around at all the trains so Danny didn’t have to see me watch him get it. I heard the belt hit its target and Danny yell “Oww!” each time. Five or six good ones.

  He got into the back of the truck next to me when his father was finished. My dad handed me a blanket. I put it over us without looking at Danny. Two doors slammed and the truck motor started. We didn’t talk all the way home.

  Mostly, I thought about my dad. Worse than being scared of getting my belt whipping when we got home, I was ashamed of adding to his problems. Rudy didn’t come home and Dad was probably going to have to go out looking for him once we got back to the house.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, I was going to prison for murder and hopping the train. I wished I didn’t have to be born so Dad would only have Dorothy to love and take care of and worry about. I brought him shame like Rudy, and I was sorry. But I couldn’t go back in time and not get on the caboose. Or kill a hobo.

  When we got back to San Gabriel, Mr. Valdez dropped us off. Dad got out of the cab. I climbed out of the bed.

  “See you tomorrow,” Danny said.

  “No vas a ver a nadien mañana,” Mr. Valdez said to him. Danny climbed out of the bed and got inside the cab. I watched the truck go two houses and turn into the Valdez driveway and go all the way into the back yard. Danny was looking back at me the whole way.

  Dad wasn’t more tired than mad. I got my own belt whipping in Grandpa’s driveway behind the Chevy—a good one that burned my butt and three bad ones that hurt the most because I flinched and Dad’s belt hit the backs of my legs. I left my butt alone but rubbed my legs to try and cool them off. I was expecting a hard chewing-out from Dad, but he pushed me into the house without saying a word. Mom and Grandma were waiting for us in the kitchen. I smelled caldillo and tortillas and coffee, but I just wanted to go to bed and make the stinging go away and forget everything that happened.

  “Regresó Rudy,” Grandma told my dad.

  Dad still had his belt in his hand when he headed for the front room. I thought he was going to give Rudy a belt whipping too. He went into Rudy’s room and slammed the door shut. He yelled at Rudy. I could tell by his voice that if Rudy was one of his kids he would have got belt whipped way worse than me and Danny.

  I laid down on the couch and got under the covers and kept listening. I didn’t hear Rudy’s voice, but Dad roared a few more times, then it got real quiet. I turned on my pillow to face away just in time. Rudy’s door opened, then slammed shut—then the same for Dad’s door.

  In a little while Mom came and took me to the bathroom. She had me pull down my pants and when she saw my legs, she clicked her tongue. She went to the kitchen and came back with the can of manteca. She scooped some of the lard with her fingers and spread it on the backs of my legs. At first it stung, but right away the burning started going away. She put soft pieces of flour sack on top of the lard and tied them with strips of the same material.

  Then Grandma called me to her room and we knelt down and said the radio rosary. For Dad, Grandma said. By the time it was over, it was bedtime and my legs weren’t burning as bad. Grandma took me back to the salón and tucked me in and blessed me over and over. Mom blessed me too and kissed me good night and her and Dorothy went into their room. Rudy’s door was still closed. I waited for Dad to come out and bless me like he usually does.

  I guess I fell asleep waiting.

  10

  If the government wanted to punish me for killing the hobo, all they had to do was keep doing what they were doing. It was past a month now since we killed the hobo and still the police didn’t come get us. I didn’t want to think we got away with it because I knew what would happen. I would get all relaxed and think we were okay, and then, just when I didn’t think about the dead hobo and me and the gang in prison, that’s when a bunch of police cars would pull up in front of our house and one of them—probably the chief of police—would yell through a bull horn, “Manuel Maldonado, your house is surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”

  And I would go out with my hands up and five or six cops would grab me and put handcuffs on me. They would take me out to the paddy wagon and stick me in the back. When I got in there Marco and Danny and Little would already be there, crying, all handcuffed behind their backs sitting on a bench. I would look around at all the women of Sangra staring at us from their front yards and shaking their heads at Grandma, and there would be a million kids on other kids’ bikes who their moms sent to see what happened like they always do when there’s a car crash on Del Mar or someone has a stroke like my Grandpa and the police or the ambulance have to come into the neighborhood. It wouldn’t get into the Herald Express, but the whole neighborhood would talk about me and my family at the supper table and say what a rotten bunch we were and they always knew I was bad seed—look at Rudy.

  That’s what it would be like.

  But it was near the middle of summer and still the cops didn’t surround my house.

  I saw the Turk about five times since the murder. Each time, he stared at me like he was the one making me wait to get arrested. At least I think he stared at me because I couldn’t tell behind those sunglasses. I didn’t really want to see his eyes anyway.

  It was a long week being grounded. My legs didn’t hurt any more from the belt whipping, but this was the fourth time this summer I was punished if you count getting kicked out of the San Gabriel Theater for throwing popcorn boxes at the screen and flying paper airplanes from the crying room in the balcony.

  The crying room is upstairs near the restrooms and next to Mrs. Nevers’ office who runs the show and who looks like the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz.” She usually keeps the crying room locked in the daytime, but once in a while she forgets to lock it.

  Know-it-all Cruz told me that at night it’s unlocked so people can go up there to watch the movie if they can’t get a babysitter. There’s a window up there that they close when babies cry during the movie. That’s why it’s called the crying room. But Cruz tells me only couples who want to make out go up there at night.

  Me and the gang go to the Saturday matinees because they show two movies and two cartoons after Dangerous Playground. Sometimes they have raffles between the movies. Danny’s the only one in the gang who ever won. His prize was a squirt gun that looked like a tommy gun. He only used it once. His mom took it away after he shot Doña Tí with it and woke her up from her nap. She almost had a heart attack. He never saw it again.

  Anyway, we got kicked out mainly because we’re Mexican. It’s the white kids that flatten out their popcorn boxes and throw them at the screen when the lights go out before the second movie starts, but they never get kicked out.

  White kids never get kicked out, and Mexicans don’t even buy popcorn. Mom gives me a quarter to get into the movie and have a snack, but I usually pay for Little’s ticket because he’s poor, and me and Danny buy Three Musketeers bars at Silverman’s that we sneak into the theater. Candy bars cost five cents each in the lobby, but at Silverman’s they’re three for a dime. So I never have any money left for popcorn.

  So. I got grounded for throwing the fruit at the hobos. That’s one. Two was getting in trouble at the show.

  Three was the smallest crime. I got room-grounded with no TV for one day for that. Me and Danny were sitting up in the club, and it was a hot and smoggy day. Those are the kind of summer days I hate, when you get kicked out of the house early, and the sun is hot and even the water from the outside faucet is hot and the smog is so thick and brown that if you didn’t know the San Gabriel Mountains were there you wouldn’t think there were any mountains at all.

  But the club was cool and I stretched out on the cardboard in the green shade of the avocado tree. Danny was
sitting cross-legged sorting through his baseball cards. He’s always looking for cards of Mexican players. I tried collecting baseball cards, but I got bored so now I just chew the gum and save the cards for Danny except for two. One is the Bobby Avila card. He plays second base for the Cleveland Indians and he’s Mexican. The other is the Raul Valdez Chicago White Sox rookie card. Raul signed the front for me. Danny has about a million Raul Valdezes.

  Anyway, while we were up there, we heard the water start running in the bathroom underneath us. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but then we heard humming and quiet splashing. We looked at each other. We both agreed: Yoci was taking a bath.

  Danny put down his cards and crawled to the edge of the roof and hung his head over. I followed him. When I leaned over, I could see a little bit of the bathtub through the window. I wanted to see Yoci’s chichis so I could to brag to Cruz, but all I could see was her feet. I watched them move in the soapy water. Her toenails were red. The splashes sounded happy and made me happy hearing them. She started singing a Mexican love song, but she didn’t sing all the words. Sometimes she would skip words and just hum like she didn’t really know the whole song.

  Cruz’ dad sings Mexican songs and plays his guitar at parties but mostly in bars. I guess that’s where Cruz gets it from.

  There was a loud splash, and I saw the feet go underwater. Then we heard the shower curtain rustle when Yoci got out of the tub. It was quiet for a minute. Then I saw the edge of a towel. I heard the drain plug pop and water start draining.

  We crawled back to the cardboard, and Danny smiled at me. He held up his hands in front of his chest, and we laughed. I could hardy wait to brag to Cruz that I saw Yoci’s chichis even if I didn’t. That was on a Friday.

  On Saturday morning Germán was on his front steps sharpening a machete with a file. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me Yoci told him she heard rats up on the roof. Big rats. They were probably eating los aguacates, he said, and he looked straight at me.