ROQUE SAT UP IN THE PREDAWN STILLNESS, STARTLED AWAKE BY a wicked dream: menacing dog, desolate twilight, the sticky dampness of blood and a sense he was carrying some kind of treasure, something he’d have to fight to keep. Rising on one elbow, he glanced past Mariko toward the bedside clock. Three-thirty, the hour of ghosts. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he told himself it was time to go.
Gently, he tugged the sheet from her sleep-warm shoulder. She’d want to be wakened before he gathered his clothes and slipped out. “This kind of thing isn’t known for its shelf life,” she’d told him once. “I want to make the most of my chances.”
Twenty years separated them-practically a crime, given he was eighteen. He realized there were probably clinical terms to explain the thing, especially since he was motherless. In his own heart, though, it felt simple-they both were lonely, he liked her a lot, she seemed to like him back and he enjoyed getting his ashes hauled, an inclination she happily, at times rabidly indulged. The sex was always instructive, seldom routine, often kinky, especially once she cracked open that second bottle of wine. If any of that’s a problem, he thought, let somebody else worry about it. Every important connection he’d ever had was with someone older than he was-musicians, librarians, a cop here and there-why should this be any different?
She had her back to him, sleeping on her side, pillow balled tight beneath her chin as she snored. The dim glow of the clock reddened her shoulder, and he traced the back of his fingers across her arm, caressed her hip, the skin tight and smooth, then guided his thumb along the little trough of muscle in the small of her back, moving on from there to cup one plump cheek of her culo with his palm. She stirred finally, burrowing her face into the pillow to stifle a yawn. Lifting her head, she whispered over her shoulder, eyes glistening with sleep: “It’s you.”
He took a moment to study her profile in the dim light, the distinctive shape of her eye, the girlish lashes, the pudgy nose. “You were expecting…?”
She blinked herself awake, moaned and barked a raspy cough into her fist. “Hope springs eternal.”
Roque waited. “Oh yeah?”
“Tell you what-do me a favor, before you go?” She wiggled her can.
The musk from their earlier lovemaking still lingered, mixed with the vaguely floral tang of cold wax from a dozen tea candles scattered across the hardwood floor, their flames spent. “Just go back to sleep,” he said, recalling the scene from earlier, tiny tongues of fire all around as they thrashed and rocked and cried out, shadows quivering high up the bare white walls. Mariko, a Buddhist, had a flair for the ceremonial.
“No, I mean it.” Her voice was fogged with drowsiness and she writhed luxuriously in a kind of half stretch, burying another yawn in the pillow. “It’s okay.”
“It feels, I dunno, wrong. You half asleep, I mean.”
“For God’s sake, Roque, it’s all wrong. That’s what makes it so delicious.”
Sure, of course, that’s what this is. Wrong. He shook it off. “You know what I’m saying.”
She flipped over, finger-parting the tousled black hair framing her boxy face. “There. Awake. Better?”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Who says I’m mad?”
“I just-”
“Shush. Kiss me.”
He leaned down, instantly hard at the touch of her mouth, even with her breath sour and hot from the wine. It scared him sometimes, the intensity, the need. She wasn’t what any of the guys he knew would call a cosota linda, a looker, and with that a song lyric ghosted up:
So make your mark for your friends to see
But when you need more than company…
They’d met back in May during Carnaval, San Francisco’s biggest Latino celebration outside El Día de los Muertos, with samba dancers shimmying through the Mission in feathered headdresses and Bahía skirts while drum brigades hammered out a nonstop batucada. Bands of all kinds and every level of smack played hour-long sets throughout the weekend: ranchera, salsa, bachata, calypso, charanga, cumbia, reggaetón. It was Roque’s maiden gig with Los Patojos, a salsa-funk outfit in the Azteca/Malo/Santana mold but with a jazzier edge, and when Lalo called him onto the stage near the end of the set he introduced him as “The best young guitarist I’ve heard in a long, long time-Roque Montalvo!” They ran through three numbers to wrap up the hour, a reggae-inflected tune-up of Tito Puente’s “Mambo Gallego,” a timba reworking of War’s “Ballero,” and the finale, a double-time cumbia vamp on an old Byrds tune:
Don’t forget what you are
You’re a rock ’n’ roll star
“Hey!” Her rough hands locked at his nape and she tugged at his shoulder-length hair. “Where’d you go?”
He shook off the memory, busted. “Sorry, I-”
“You’ll make an old lady self-conscious.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Oh please.”
“I mean it. Really-”
She cut him off with another kiss, lingering, a nibble here and there, a swipe with her tongue. Refocused, he reached down, probed gently with his fingers, parting the feathery lips to get at the warmth inside, already moist. She moaned, a deep soft purr from the back of her throat, encouraging him, guiding him. He’d been such a wack lover when they’d met, all the usual young slob faults-the selfishness, the fumbling, the rush. Except for two girls he’d met at gigs, his pre-Mariko love life had been limited to pumping the muscle and wishful thinking, and the two exceptions had been disasters of opposite kind, the one girl just lying there in sweet-natured panic, the other thrashing around in such unconvincing bliss he’d almost stopped mid-fuck to ask if she was having a seizure. Mariko had taught him to relax, focus, think of it as dancing. Not the best analogy, perhaps, musicians being such clueless dancers, but he’d come around.
She said, “I want you inside.”
“So quick?”
“I didn’t say quick. I said inside.”
She guided him in. As always, he shuddered-so perfect, that feeling, like finding home.
“Just that,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Okay?”
She hooked her legs around his, locking their bodies tight, nuzzling her hips against his before returning to her kisses, deeper now. Another moan, this one longer, rose in the pit of her throat, followed by a tremor quivering up her spine.
Despite himself, Roque’s eye strayed toward the bedside clock. Three forty-five now. Soon Tío Faustino would be out of bed, getting ready to leave for the Port of Oakland where he worked hauling drayage. Tía Lucha would be preparing breakfast and getting ready for her shift at Food 4 Less. Godo would be stirring too, if he’d slept at all.
Drawing back his glance, his eyes met hers. She broke off the kiss, unwrapped her legs. “I know you have to go.”
“It’s just, you know-”
She cupped his face in her palm. “It’s all right.”
Godo was his half brother, back from the war. He spent his nights lurching around in bed, popping painkillers and antidepressants, chasing them with beer, unable to muster more than a few minutes’ sleep at a time. Better the insomnia, though, than the nightmares. It was why Roque couldn’t share the room anymore. No telling who or what Godo might mistake him for when he bolted awake, screaming.
“Sorry,” he said, thinking: You’re saying that a lot.
“Don’t be.” She brushed his face with her fingers. “It’s been lovely. It always is, Rocky.”
It was one way she teased him, mispronouncing his name.
“Roque,” he corrected, his part of the bit. “Rhymes with O.J.”
“Yes. How sad for you.”
He lowered his head, touched his brow to hers. “I love you.”
She turned her face away. “I told you-”
“I mean it.”
“What difference does it make what you mean?” Like that, the mood turned, as it did on occasion. Too often, actually, and more and more of late. “How many times-”
“Fine. Okay.”
He pulled away and gathered his clothes from the floor, threw on his sweatshirt, stood up to tug on his jeans, sat back down to lace his high-tops. You’re acting your age, he thought, unable to stop himself, at the same time wondering if he really did mean it: I love you. Maybe he was just raising the stakes, he wasn’t sure.
To his back, a whisper: “Roque?”
He wanted her to reach out, touch him, say it: I love you too. Or just: I’m sorry. But neither the caress nor the words came. He launched up and crossed the room, kicking several tea candles across the floor like little tin pucks.
Wood-plank shelves faced each other down the dark hallway, stacked with unfired pots, bowls, vases: Mariko Detwiler, Fine Ceramics. The clay smelled cold and damp and it made him think of fresh graves and with that another song lyric teased its way up from memory: The house is dark and my thoughts are cold.
He thumped down the porch steps, the fog cool on his skin, the air dank from the nearby wetlands. Lingering beneath the chinaberry tree in the dark front yard, he watched as the hall light came on and her silhouette materialized in the doorway. Timidly he ventured a farewell wave. She did not wave back.
CINCHING THE HOOD OF HIS SWEATSHIRT TIGHT, HE BEGAN TO RUN. Craftsman bungalows lined the block, some tricked out like minor museums, others sagging with neglect. At the bottom of the hill he skirted a thicket of blood-red madrone and turned onto the river road where he had the gravel berm to himself, dodging waist-high thistle. The solitude gave him space to think.
He knew what the chambrosos would say, it was all because he was an orphan-the sloppy lust for cougar poon, the pissy sulk upon leaving, even the musical gunslinger ego bit to soothe his pride. And sure, from as early as he could remember he’d sensed an absence at the center of things. Her name was Graciela, she came to the States a Salvadoran refugee, pregnant with her first child, a boy. Three years later she was dead, a massive hemorrhage within hours of delivering her second son. And so there they were, Godofredo and Roque, two American brothers, a toddler and an infant-different fathers, both absent; same mother, now dead.
They got taken in by their spinster aunt, Lucha, also a refugee. Roque knew zip about his old man and what he knew of his mother came from a handful of faded snapshots and Tía Lucha’s tales, not all of them kind. He came to think of his mother the way some people regard an obscure and troubling saint. Mi madre descabellada, the unholy martyr.
As for Godo, he’d never forgotten what it was like: three years old, slow to English, wary of strangers, possessive of his mother who one day went to the hospital and never came back-and for what? Some little shit weasel of a brother.
THE SIGN AT THE STREET READ “HUNTINGTON VILLAGE,” THOUGH NO one could tell you who Huntington was: a trailer park, home to several dozen Salvadoran families, as well as Hondurans, Guatemaltecos, the inescapable Mexicans, even a few Pacific Islanders. The streets were gravel and the shade sparse, no laundry hut, no playground, no management on the premises. Here and there, a brave patch of grass. He lived in a single-wide with Godo and Tía Lucha and Tío Faustino, his aunt’s marido. She was no longer a spinster.
It was temporary, their living here, so Tía said, just until she and Tío Faustino could reestablish some credit. It wasn’t really their fault, of course, losing the house-a crooked mortgage broker, a Mexican no less, had slipped an extra loan into escrow, more than a hundred Latino victims in the scam. It would take years and lawyers and more money thrown to the wind before any of that resolved. Meanwhile they lived as best they could, crammed into six hundred square feet, Tía and Tío, Roque and Godo.
Passing the gravel bed near the gate that served as parking, Roque noticed that Tío Faustino’s rig was gone. That meant it was already four-Tío had left for the Port of Oakland, to get in the queue for container pickup. Roque redoubled his pace until he could make out the random tinny carillon of Tía Lucha’s wind chime swinging from the doorstep awning.
Pulling up outside the trailer, he tugged his key from his jean pocket and slipped it in the lock, opening the door as quietly as he could, only to find his aunt waiting in the kitchenette, sitting at the table in her plaid robe, sipping Nescafé.
“You’re up already,” he said clumsily.
She responded using Spanish, peering over the edge of her cup.-Is it your turn to be the problem around here? Her eyes were sad and proud and blasted from exhaustion, her hair lying tangled across her birdlike shoulders. Her face was narrow and dark, weathered, an indígena face; shortly she would slather on pancake to lighten its complexion in preparation for a day at the cash register.
Roque went to the fridge, saw a can of guava nectar and another of 7UP, his weakness, picked the latter and popped the lid, all to avoid an answer.
– I don’t expect you to be a virgin. Your mother named you for a poet, it’s your privilege to act like an idiot. You’re using protection, yes? Please tell me that much.
“It’s not your problem,” he replied in English, a way to assert his distance. It was one of those ironies, how the older ones praised the new country but stuck to the old country’s tongue.
– Not today, but when the baby arrives and you have no clue if it’s really yours?
“It’s not an issue, okay?”
She cocked her head, studying him.-You’re telling me she’s a boy?
He rolled his eyes, put down his can and ambled over to the table. Agony aunt, he thought. He’d read the phrase in a book recently and thought instantly of Tía Lucha. Leaning down, he kissed her graying black hair, the texture of stitching thread, a smell like almonds, some dollar-a-bottle shampoo.
He switched to Spanish.-We’ll pretend you never said that.
On the shelf behind her, Salvadoran sorpresas, little clay tableaus made in Ilobasco, shared space with skeletal Day of the Dead figurines. He’d often celebrated El Día de los Muertos with her, it was why he’d never felt singled out for misery despite his mother’s death. He learned not to take it personally. Sorrow was inescapable, a condition, not a punishment.
– We’ll pretend because it’s not true, or because you’re ashamed?
– Don’t make me angry, Tía.
– So it’s a girl.
– A woman.
– And she’s not pregnant.
– She can’t get pregnant.
Tía Lucha studied him like he was suggesting something impossible, or infernal.-She told you that?
– Can we change the subject?
– Oh Roque, don’t be a fool, women lie, especially about that.
– Tía…
– And then they come and tell you, “I can’t believe it, it’s a miracle, a blessing from God.” How old is this woman?
Roque turned to head back toward his brother’s bedroom.-I’ll check in on Godo.
She closed her eyes and rubbed the lids.-Don’t wake him, please.
Acidly, Roque thought: Godo asleep? Now that would be a miracle.
He sometimes wondered if being parentless wasn’t a blessing in disguise. It gave him a kind of freedom from the usual attachments that seemed to hold others back. Life would be more fluid for him because love and desire and ambition would be a question of choice, not obligation. And yet, if that were true, how would he keep from merely drifting? Wasn’t that what love and respect were about, providing gravity? Otherwise there was just loneliness.
The oven door stood slightly ajar; an aromatic warmth greeted him as he bent down to peer inside. Two plates covered with napkins rested on the middle rack.
– One of these for me?
– You know it is.
Using a dish towel, he pulled out one plate. Beneath the napkin, he found his breakfast: pureed black beans with cream, fried plantains and yucca, corn tortillas.
He joined her at the table with his plate, wondering how angry she would get if he added some peanut butter. He’d been known to plow through an entire jar in a single sitting, until she told him that if he didn’t stop he’d end up in emergency with a bowel blockage. Even as he stole a glance at the open oven door, secretly craving the other plate, Godo’s share, he pictured the jar of crunchy in the fridge. He was ravenous. Sex did that to him.
Tía Lucha glanced back toward the bedrooms to the rear.-Your brother. No matter what I do, no matter what I say… Hand to her mouth, eyes spent.-Nothing gets better. Another miserable night.
Not glancing up from his plate, Roque said:-Don’t worry, Tía. I’ll take care of it from here.
WHAT THE WHOLE THING GETS DOWN TO, GODO THOUGHT, HEAD tilted back, draining the last few drips from the can-the trick to it, as it were, the pissy little secret no one wants you to know? He crushed the empty and tossed it onto the floor where it clattered among the others, then belched, backhanding his scarred lips to wipe them dry. Figure it out, cabrón: The whole thing gets down to knowing which guilt you can live with.
He sat propped on pillows in the mangled bed, his altar to insomnia, the bedside lamp still burning. Soon daybreak would smear the curtains with its buttery gray light. He shuddered. Strange, fearing the night, lying awake with the room all lit up like you’re some sniveling bed wetter, only to dread the dawn.
Across the room the rabbit-eared TV flickered. Nothing to watch at this hour, of course, just news any idiot could see through, no-name reruns. He’d squelched the sound, only to conjure not silence but the usual holocaust zoo tramping through his brain.
Focus on the physical, he reminded himself-the moment, as they say. The doughy mattress sighed beneath his weight. Armpit stench and foot funk added a manly tang. The rest of him was a wreck. He’d been hard and sleek after basic, plenty of PT, then hulking around the scalding desert with seventy pounds of gear, buffed and brutal. Now? A hundred and eighty pounds of discharge, a mess in the bed, a hash of scars weepy with some nagging infection.
As for his face, well. It was all still there, basically, and that was no small matter. He’d met another jarhead in the ward at Landstuhl who’d been trapped in a burning truck, an IED attack, all the flesh of his face melting from the heat. The doctors tried to put something back but there’s only so much magic in the bag. The guy came away hairless, beardless, his face a kind of mask-no chin, no ears, no nose-his remolded skin this mottled waxy pink. Sent home like that to Parkersburg and his hillbilly bride-to-be.
So, Godo thought, things could be worse. Nice mantra. Next time you’re in the moment.
He licked his rough lips, already parched again, but resisted the urge for another brew. Two six-packs down, plus Percocet for the pain, a Lexapro chaser for the depression, erythromycin for the nagging infection in his leg-so it went, every night, flirting with sleep, chasing off the sickness, the ghosts.
He’d made it through the night okay, though. Mostly. Nothing too stark, thank God. Just the Al Gharraf firefight in scattershot flashback, strobing through memory, blending with Diwaniyah, Fallujah… The jittery images stitched back around through memory on endless rewind-the crippling light of an RPG, deafening chaos, tracers vanishing into shadow, the shadows firing back, and the staggering upchuck stench of blood and shit everywhere, men he knew. Himself.
He pinched the bridge of his nose until polarized geometries flared and whirled on the backs of his eyelids, then his hand moved on, gently fingering the pitted scars on his face. Little ugly cousins to the ones on his legs, his arms, dozens of them, jagged red clots of seared flesh. Shrapnel so hot it cauterized its own scalding wounds. Not Al Gharraf or Diwaniyah or Fallujah. That other thing. But don’t go there. You held it at bay all night, don’t give in now. Be strong. Down that rathole lies the guilt. And, you know, screw that.
A tear threaded down his cheek. He made no move to wipe it away, preferring to pretend it wasn’t there. Instead, he reached up and gripped his head, as though to keep it whole. An invisible hatchet cleaved his skull and he fought back a scream, begging for time to pass, so he could take another Perc, the pain a banshee inside his skull. Breathe, he told himself. Pain is just there to betray you. Pain is illusion.
Time passed… two minutes… five… Gradually the banshee’s wail subsided, leaving a backwash of dread and leaden numbness. But that was okay. That was pretty good, actually.
He dropped his hands from his head and rose onto one elbow to liberate a hissing fart, then the next thing he knew a dog appeared in his mind’s eye, scavenging at dawn. Christ no, he thought, why now? He noticed it then-first light, the curtains-and everything coalesced. There they were, his squaddies, geared up in full battle-rattle, high on Rip It or ephedra or coffee crystals swallowed dry, Chavous in the Humvee turret manning the Mark 19, the rest lugging their M16s, throwing down the checkpoint… a crunching hardpack underfoot, the sky a whirl of grit, ominous flares of dawnlight in the east… the family of four, dad in his rumpled suit, mom in her hijāb, the bug-eyed boy, the swaddled infant, crammed into their rust-bucket Cressida with the single headlight… the horn-honking American pistoleros in their black Chevy Blazer, drunk on their own swagger behind the tinted glass… a shouting match with the Blazer’s driver, a dare, Godo’s big macho fuckup… the emaciated dog, arch-backed and trembling, lingering in the corner of his eye… noticed too late, the haji in the full-length abaya, garb of a woman, walk of a man, strolling up to the checkpoint… Godo preoccupied, Gunnery Sergeant Benedict stepping forward to cut off the cross-dressing haji… then the sheering blast of scalding light, ripping good Gunny Benedict into blood and wind.
Cutting the world in two, before and after.
His hand lurched toward the nightstand, reaching for the pill bottle, but he caught himself, drew back the hand. No. No more Perc, not yet. Not that kind of pain. Unless you down them all.
Better yet, a weapon. He had a Beretta 9mm in the drawer, two loaded clips, a.357 Smithy with speed loaders under the bed, keeping company with a Remington pump. Name one man who returned from war, he thought, and didn’t weapon up, if only to cut short the weirdness.
He closed his eyes. In time the dread and self-pity drifted back into the toxic beery Percocet fog. He forgot what he’d been thinking.
A timid knock at the door. “Godo?”
Roque peered in. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks flushed. He’d run home from somewhere. The big mystery-where?
Roque said, “You awake?”
“Take a wild guess.”
Roque ventured in, profile dappled with color as he snuck a glance at the TV. Godo had to admit it stung, knowing his hotshot musician faggot little brother wouldn’t share the room anymore. Neither of them could be quite sure what might happen when Godo shot up in bed in a howling sweat. But Roque wasn’t camped out on the front-room couch, either. He was sneaking out at night, getting some action, some poon, some pashpa. It was one more thing to hate him for-they were brothers, after all.
“It’s time to check your leg.” Roque turned away from the TV. “The dressing, I mean.”
“It’s fine.”
“You always say that.”
Godo cocked a smile, clasping his hands behind his head. “Really? Hey, here’s a thought.” He belched.
“When’s the last time you looked?”
“Oh, blow me.”
Somewhere outside a car door slammed. A dog started to bark. Like that, the thing materialized in the corner of his eye again: starving, child-eyed, razor thin, slinking in the rubble, waiting for a corpse to feed on. Benedict’s corpse, what was left of it.
Roque pointed to the leg. “You want to go back to the ER?”
Godo snapped to. “What?”
“You want to go back to the ER, have them drain off another six ounces of pus?”
“I want six ounces of pus, I’ll drain your dick. Where you sleeping these nights?”
Roque blushed. Godo wagged a knowing finger.
“Roquito’s got himself a mamasota.”
“Shut up.”
“Got himself a scraggle, a gack. A little bicha.”
Outside, another car door slammed. The dog’s barking grew more crazed. Godo felt a prickling of sweat on his neck. Hard to explain to people, this thing he had with dogs now.
“Godo, please, I need-”
“Que vergón, cabroncito.”
“I need to check the dressing on your leg.”
“Come on, humor me-who’s the lucky squirrel?”
For the merest second, a defiant gleam enlivened Roque’s eyes. He was pissed. Here it comes, Godo thought. Gonna tell me how hot his mamita is, maybe even spit out her name. But before that could happen Roque’s expression regained its put-upon blankness.
“I’m not playing, Godo, you always-”
“Hey, hembrito, I’m not playing neither. Gotta make sure you’re taking the proper precautions. Like, you know, you putting one bag or two over her head before you fuck her?”
The kid flinched like recoil from a slap and Godo almost dared him: Come on. Say it. Have some balls and say it. But by degrees the hate drained from Roque’s eyes, replaced by a sad superiority. Go ahead and mock, he seemed to be saying. Then look at yourself, check out your face. From now until the day you die, the best you can hope for is a pity fuck. Even if you pay for it.
Suddenly, from the front of the trailer, the muffled crash of shattered glass. Tía Lucha screamed. Roque froze.
Godo scrambled to the edge of the bed, reached underneath, pulled out the Remington pump-loader, weapon of choice for close quarters, and chambered a round of nine-pellet buckshot. He rose to his feet, swaying.
Outside, the dog fell silent.
Roque reached out his hand, whispered, “Godo, wait, let me check-”
Godo cracked back hard with his elbow, slamming Roque’s jaw. To his credit, the kid didn’t cry out, just a breathy grunt as he spun down and away with the blow. We’ll save our sorrys for later, Godo thought. Gotta know which guilt you can live with. The impact clarified everything. Inside, the mental fog lifted, his thoughts turned solid and simple and whole. Outside, the visible shimmered. His skin pricked with sweat, his breathing slowed and steadied. He was in the moment. Crouching to lower his center of gravity, gunstock nudged tight to his shoulder, he flattened himself against the wall and inched out into the hallway.
ROQUE STAGGERED FROM THE BEDROOM IN A BLUR OF PAIN, JAW seizing up as he tried to peer past Godo. Bit by bit, like working a puzzle, he made out two men in black raid jackets, hovering over Tía Lucha in the low squat living room at the trailer’s far end. They held pistols. Laminated shards from the door window lay scattered across the drab carpet. The acronym ICE in white letters flared across the backs of their jackets. They were immigration agents, la migra. Then why break in?
Planted on the couch, hands flat against the tattered cushion, his aunt gazed up at the two strangers, eyes flaring. In the corner, Roque’s guitars, a white Telecaster and an Ovation Legend acoustic, rested upright in their chrome stands. He felt a sudden, embarrassing urge to rescue them.
Godo inched forward, strangely calm. Where the hall opened onto the kitchen, a joining crease in the trailer’s flooring gave way beneath his weight, emitting a pealing moan. Both agents spun their heads around.
Godo shouted, “Hands in the air!”
The one on the left was bodybuilder thick but short with a buzz cut tapering into a widow’s peak. The other was willowy, red-haired, skin dusted with coppery freckles. They pivoted apart, raising their weapons. “Federal agents!”
“Like hell!”
Godo had the drop on them both, the freckled one exposed, the kitchen counter shielding the one with the widow’s peak, at least from the waist down.
“Put the weapon-”
“You broke in!”
“Your weapon! Drop it! Now!”
Outside, someone charged down the narrow gravel passage between trailers, his body thudding against the aluminum walls as he got chased, caught from behind, wrestled to the ground amid curses in both Spanish and English, then a helpless yowl of pain.
“I’m not saying it again!”
“Put your weapons down!”
“¡Godofredo, no, escúchame!” Tía Lucha, pleading: Listen to me.
The one with the widow’s peak edged farther left and a little forward, crouching low behind the counter. Freckles stayed put, barking, “Put the goddamn weapon down!”
“Look at me,” Godo said, that same offbeat calm. “Look at my goddamn face. Go on, shoot, think I give a fuck?”
From behind, Roque, a whisper: “Godo-”
Mistaking the plea for a warning, Godo swung the shotgun toward the counter. “Back the fuck up.”
Widow’s Peak froze. His trigger finger fluttered. Freckles brayed, “Last chance!”
“You’re fucking intruders!”
“Put the mother… fucking… weapon… down!”
“You, not me!”
“¡Ellos te matarán!” They’ll kill you. Tía Lucha’s voice, all pity and terror, it froze the men where they stood. For a second-five? ten?-no one moved. Outside, the pursuers rustled their prey to his feet, thudding against the trailer wall once more, then crunching back along the gravel the way they’d come. The ensuing silence felt like a sign. Roque dared to hope that no one would die, common sense would win, everyone would step back from the lunatic edge and-what? Laugh? Shake hands? Exchange abrazos?
Widow’s Peak spoke up for the first time. “I can place a slug through your brain, crater face, before you get off round one. Not to mention, you shoot, the woman gets hit. Who you think you’re fooling?”
Godo, shotgun already trained that direction, tsked mockingly. “Perro bravo.” Mean dog.
“Won’t say it twice.”
“You’ve mistaken me for someone else, puto.” Godo tightened the coil of his finger around the shotgun’s trigger. “I’m a pill-crazed killer. And I don’t know who that woman is.”
The trailer door flew back. All heads turned-except for Godo and Widow’s Peak, their eyes locked in mirrored stares, weapons up.
Another agent peeked in at the doorway, shielding himself. Beyond him, Roque spotted more men, dozens of them, dogs too, flashlights crisscrossing the fog-shrouded maze of trailers. The one at the door had his pistol drawn, but after a quick glance first at Godo, then the glass shards on the floor, he made a show of setting his gun down just inside the doorway. Calmly, to the other two agents: “Holster your weapons.”
Freckles rucked up his shoulders. “He’s got a shotgun-”
“Holster your weapons!” Still using the doorway for shelter, he said to Godo, “It’s okay. Let’s all calm down.”
Godo kept the Remington shouldered. “Who says I’m not calm?”
“You’re back from OIF, am I right?”
Godo cocked his head a little, to ease the stress in his neck. “Thundering Third.”
The agent in the doorway nodded, eyes fixed on the shotgun barrel. “Okay, then. Excellent. I’m not saying this to yank your chain, okay? But I’ve got you beat by a decade or so. I deployed with the First Battalion, Third Marines during Desert Storm. Spent most of my tour in Kaneohe Bay, though.”
“Lucky you.”
“What say we all take a deep breath-”
“Get the two cowboys the fuck outta my house.”
Freckles: “We’ve come here for Pablo Orantes.”
Godo, incredulous: “Happy?”
“Pablo Orantes, where is he?”
“He’s in fucking El Salvador. You should know-you’re the ones who deported him.” Godo gestured with the Remington. “Now get the fuck out of this trailer.”
Widow’s Peak hadn’t budged. Freckles said, “Is Pablo Orantes on these premises?”
The third agent, taking all this in, finally eased through the doorway into the trailer, eyes still fixed on Godo, a way to make sure there were no misunderstandings. His hair brushed the ceiling, even with a slight forward lean. He looked older than the other two, crow’s-feet, brush of gray at the temple, necktie beneath the raid jacket lending an odd formality. The jacket was blue, not black. Snapping his fingers to make sure he got the other two agents’ attention, he then gestured subtly for them to stand down. “I’ll handle this.”
“We’re here for a fugitive alien named-”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
Only then did Roque notice how woozy he was; unconsciously, he’d been holding his breath. Sucking in a mouthful of air, he let his body slump heavily against the wall.
Freckles, focusing on Roque for the first time: “Is that Pablo Orantes?”
“I fucking told you, ass wipe, Happy’s in El Salvador.” Godo turned to the older agent. “Get them to leave.”
“I’ll do that. Meanwhile, be wise to lower the shotgun, don’t you think?”
“They leave first. I’m not getting queered by these two.”
“Nobody’s doing anything to anybody. These two agents are going to step outside, right here in the carport. You and I will talk through what needs to be talked through. We square?”
“They broke in.”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“I was in my rights.”
“We’ll discuss that.” He gestured for the two agents to pass in front of him, out the door. They did, unhappily-Freckles first, then Widow’s Peak, who exchanged one last eye fuck with Godo. The two agents perched at the foot of the doorstep, at which point the older one said, “Okay now. I’ve asked politely. Lower your weapon.”
Slowly, Godo let the barrel of the shotgun drop, his shoulders unclenched. For the first time, Roque noticed the pungent stench of sweat, not just the others, himself too, then another odor, fouler still-infection. Godo’s dressing, still unchanged.
On the sofa, Tía Lucha shuddered and put her face in her hands. The agent extended a gentling hand and said, “Everything’s okay, señora.”
Godo, swaying a little, steadied himself with the wall, then raised himself up again with a shoulder roll, like a boxer manning his corner. Loud, so the pair outside could hear: “I grease those two shitbirds inside my own home? Not a jury in America would convict me.”
“Let’s both be grateful you don’t have to test that theory.” The agent picked up his pistol from the floor and holstered it. “Shall we sit?”
“I’m good where I am.”
The older man’s glance tripped toward Roque, as though wondering if he weren’t, in fact, Pablo “Happy” Orantes. Tío Faustino’s son. Roque and Godo’s cousin, in a manner of speaking. Turning back to Godo, he again looked hard at the ruined face. “You’ve been stateside since when?”
Godo wiped at some sweat and uttered a small, ugly, disbelieving laugh. “My turn to ask you something.” His pitted skin shimmered in the kitchen light. “Tonight, when you plant your ass on the couch, front of the TV, you and those two glorified rednecks outside-when you’re watching yourselves, watching all the people in these shitbag trailers get rounded up, ask yourself why. They do what you want. They do it cheap. But you watch all that. And when the next bit comes on, the one about the war, when the names of the dead scroll by: Rodriguez, Acevedo, Castellanos, Hernandez…” He counted them off, each name a finger. “Hear what I’m saying? Come on, look me in the eye, tell me honest, two jarheads, goddamn Thundering Third, right? Tell me to my face that doesn’t fuck with you.”
PERCHED HIGH BEHIND THE WHEEL OF HIS FREIGHTLINER CAB, Faustino impatiently raided his lunch of cheese and beef tongue pasteles, prepared by Lucha, glancing up now and then through the wiper arc on his grime-caked windshield, watching the vast threadwork of lights grow dim along the crane booms and catwalks, daybreak sapping the dark from the sky. A San Cristóbal medallion hung from the rearview mirror, its pale blue ribbon entwined with a rosary.
He was waiting in his queue at the Port of Oakland, the complex as vast as a city itself. At every berth, longshoremen in hard hats scurried beyond the fences like dug-up termites, forklifts growling to and fro and belching smoke amid cursing shouts and horn blasts and siren shrieks. Jumbo cranes hoisted freight containers from the cavernous holds of cargo ships, the vessels so huge they dwarfed the piers to which they were moored.
Hundreds of truckers like Faustino-out of bed by three, down here by four-thirty to snag a place in line-sat idly in their rigs, waiting hours for a single load. And while they sat, they sweated the constant back and forth of cops and overeager port security flacks who hoped to pop them for a bum taillight, bare tread on a tire, excessive exhaust, anything. Most of the trucks were old-Faustino drove a ’94 day cab-and offers by the Port Commission to help finance new ones were laughable. Who could afford the monthlies, the interest, let alone the hike in insurance? Even the anti-exhaust systems they were hawking, ten to fourteen thousand a pop, were out of reach for most guys.
It sounded like a lot to outsiders-hundred dollars a load for just a drayage run, from the port over to the warehouse in Alameda, a matter of minutes-but the way they made you sit, wasting away the hours, you were lucky to get two runs a day.
And the nickel-and-dime stuff ate you alive. Faustino did his own repairs, juggled his accident coverage with his registration payment month by month, part of the constant trade-off, shortchanging one thing to make good on another. Near impossible to meet costs, let alone get ahead. Desperation became a kind of genius, making you sharp and clever and tight with a dollar, but it was their hole card too. The shippers had you by the throat and they knew it.
With his forefinger, he scooped up a smear of cheesy pastele filling from the crumpled tinfoil, unable to remember the last time he’d sat at the table and shared breakfast with Lucha or eaten one of her lunches without the stench of diesel souring the back of his throat.
Meanwhile, outside his window: “Check this out-I’m moonlighting last weekend, hauling rock? Heavy load, incline. Boost gauge hovers around nine psi. Been a while since I drove a boost, but ain’t that high?”
A circle of drivers, arms crossed, gathered on the pavement, biding time till the line budged. Risky, Faustino thought, gabbing away in the open like that. The shippers will say you’re organizing. Then watch your life turn to hell.
“With a loaded trailer? Twelve psi, easy. Nine’s fine. What’s your speed?”
“There’s the thing. I can barely break forty on an incline if I’m towing.”
Faustino cocked an ear halfheartedly, like it was a game between teams he had no stake in. Even if he’d thought the coast was clear, he wouldn’t have climbed down, joined in. He didn’t feel much like camaraderie these days.
What he felt was ashamed-losing the house, cheated out of it, all because the mortgage broker, a Mexican, all smiles and small talk, said he was dying to give them the Latino dream. They’d found the house, fourteen hundred square feet, three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, nothing extravagant, and the broker had the loan, low interest going in, adjustable three years out. They signed the papers, wrote the check, moved in, no mean trick since Faustino was sin documentos. Two months later? Some guy they’ve never heard of shows up, demands an extra fifteen hundred a month, they’re already behind, says it’s to repay the short-term loan for the down payment. He had all the paperwork, Faustino’s and Lucha’s signatures right there, part of the ungodly stack the escrow officer had slid past them at the title company. That was bad enough but when the rate adjusted and the new monthly kicked in, it became too much. They’d trusted people. They’d trusted a Mexican. They’d been fools.
They lived in that humiliating trailer now, trying to get their legs beneath them again, except Godo was back from the war, body in shreds, brain not right. And Roque, who should be working, helping out. He’s gifted, Faustino reminded himself. “That boy could be the next Carlos Santana”-he was ten when they started saying that. Teachers agonizing over him at school, saying he had the mind but not the will, reading novelas policíacas during class, tapping out rhythms with his pen or just lost in the clouds. Then he met old Antonio, the retired bandmaster who played boleros at parties. That was it, like the guitar descended from heaven and spoke. Roque learned classical and flamenco from the old man, pieces from Spain and Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, and it was magical, watching him turn calm and mindful, cradling the guitar. Then, boom, he’s a teenager and it’s pickup offers, garage bands, jam sessions, sometimes with real musicians, guys who got paid, which was how he met his latest teacher, Lalo, a professor at San Francisco State. He took Roque on as a special protégé, introducing him to jazz. Lucha bought him the electric so he could stand on his own among the others, prove himself. What else was there to do, let him turn out like Godo? Or worse-Pablo?
Outside, the men continued: “Motor got rebuilt with a new pump maybe ten thousand miles ago, idles and runs like a champ, just weak on towing.” Faustino resisted a smile, not just at their rough-edged English, which to his ear, even after all this time in Gringolandia, could sound like rocks tumbling inside a bucket. The way norteños go on about their trucks, he thought, it was the same way they talked about family, sickness, politics. All you needed were the right tools, a good manual, everything would be fine. They listened to these people on the radio, Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil, hoping to fix their problems. They’re like children up here, Lucha said, they want to be told what to do, get punished but not too bad. Things are too easy, they get bored, which is why they spend so much time thinking about how to improve themselves. The divine, the invisible, death, it scares the living crap out of them, which is why they’re so noisy, so devoted to money and war and machines. Faustino knew what it meant to rely on his truck, he was no stranger to an obsession with its workings, but it was different. He knew there was no such thing as a diesel that could change his life.
He wondered what the loads would be today. Hopefully not avocados. Or bottled beer or boxes of slate tile, especially if they were packed high inside a twenty-footer. The shippers were notorious for over-packing those, so the cans were too heavy. And they knew which were which, the vessel planner had to balance the weight onboard the ship, but that kind of info never got passed on to the terminal operators or the stevedores, let alone the drivers. You could get a tri-axle chassis from the yard if you knew you’d be heavy ahead of time, but that never happened. Instead you found out only after you got your load and who could afford to wait another few hours to change a chassis at that point?
You took your chances.
Tickets for weight could cost you ten grand. Worse, if the load wasn’t just heavy but stacked too high? Might not even clear the truck yard before the thing went over on you, spend the rest of the day dealing with cops and the port people, all that paperwork. Or worse.
Trucker in Florida pulling a reefer load crushed a young model when his rig flipped, trying to dodge a wreck. Another guy right here in Oakland found out the chassis the yard crew gave him had shot brakes-same deal, swerved to miss a pileup, the thing went over on him, pancaked a Saturn wagon, whole family inside. And of course they always blamed the drivers, never the shippers. Everybody had a story like that or knew someone who did.
Faustino’s involved a load of goats.
He was carrying them to Guerneville where they were going to be used to clear brush-four hundred animals in all, stacked tight on tiered shelving in the trailer, to keep them from moving around, hurting themselves en route. None of them was more than two years old, babies almost. Faustino petted a few before closing up the back, heading out.
Right outside Sonoma, he blew out a tire on a tight turn-the rig belonged to the company, not him, he’d pointed out the wear but they’d said it was fine, go, drive. The cab nosed down with the blowout, the load shifted, the trailer went with it. Some of the goats got crushed by the shelving. Others scrambled free through the back door that busted open in the crash, dozens of them, roaming around wine country, chewing up anything they could find.
When the cops arrived they closed the trailer up again. Faustino tried to tell them no, don’t, the animals will suffocate, but they ignored him. The rest of the goats died, the ones on top smothering the ones below. Their screaming was terrible to hear.
The woman who ran the company, called to the scene, watched animal rescue pulling out one carcass after the other, bodies twisted, bloody, limp. They were stacked five deep along the roadbed like cordwood. She came to the patrol car where Faustino sat in the backseat and just stared for a moment, then broke down, cursing him.
Eight years ago that happened, Faustino thought. He still winced at the memory.
Someone started banging on his driver-side door. Glancing down, Faustino recognized one of the men from the circle who’d been yabbering all this time. McBee, that was his name.
“Better run, amigo.” He pointed back toward Maritime Street.
Checking his rearview, Faustino saw the swirling lights, the unmarked sedans speeding forward. They’d blocked the end of the cul-de-sac as well-there was no way out, except on foot.
A low-rising green lay between him and the inlet, with sapling elms and small tussocks of beach grass lining the walkway, but it offered nothing like a hiding place. Could he swim across the channel to the next berth over? Would he be any safer if he did?
The rosary and San Cristóbal medallion hung there from his mirror, helpless.
“Forget the truck, Faustino. We’ll get it to you somehow. Leave the keys. Run!”
GODO SAT ON THE SOFA BESIDE TÍA LUCHA, BEFOGGED BY a follow-up Percocet, a Lexapro for good measure, his leg wound clean and re-dressed, courtesy of Roque, who sat across the room, patting his hands together nervously. He was eyeing his guitars as though afraid they too might somehow get dragged off this morning. Such a punk, Godo thought, no particular ill will.
The medication conjured a numb remove. Leaning forward to see past his aunt, he peered out the window, watching the muchachos line up outside the black ICE bus, surrounded by dogs and armed men. “Pobrecitos,” his aunt whispered. Poor things. Godo nodded to acknowledge the sentiment but found it hard to muster much feeling one way or the other. The meds, he thought, they drop you into this strange place, this room you know but don’t know. You get stuck.
Meanwhile, just outside the trailer, the three agents were arguing among themselves. Listening in, Godo felt certain he heard one of them say, “They want to be taken prisoner,” but that was before, the invasion, the Kuwaiti terp talking about the deserters the regiment intercepted. Ragged silhouettes scuttling along the raised earthworks running west to Nasiriyah, lit from behind by distant oil fires, some in uniform, others wearing civilian clothes or traditional robes, choking on dust from the shamal winds, rags on their feet, gear discarded behind, littering the desert for miles. “They say if they go back the way they came, they’ll be killed by fedayeen.” Akbar, the terp’s name was. Everybody called him Snackbar. He had to tell the Iraqis they wouldn’t be taken prisoner, the Americans had barely enough water for themselves. The deserters shambled to their feet, a few crying out against the faithless marines, clutching handbills the Americans had dropped from drones promising humane treatment to prisoners. The rest just turned away, staggering east. You’re here to hunt, Godo thought, remembering what Gunny Benedict had told his squad the night before as they’d set out for battle. Think like a killer, not a friend. Be bold, trust no one, fear nothing. Act like you’re already dead-it just might save you.
He glanced again past the curtains at the captured muchachos, hands tied behind their backs with plastic come-alongs, some of them shirtless or shoeless despite the cold morning mist. They didn’t look like they’d wanted to surrender.
The raid had netted two dozen or so, “illegals” they’d get called that night on the news. Godo knew a few by name, knew the roofers and landscapers and body shops they worked for, even the dirt-poor villages to which they’d get sent and from which they’d inevitably return.
Meanwhile the two ICE agents continued going at it with the older one, who turned out to be FBI-Lattimore his card read, Special Agent James Lattimore. The dispute, from what Godo could pick out, concerned the need for a warrant to search the trailer. They’d checked everyone’s papers, confirmed that Tía Lucha’s temporary protected status was valid, Godo and Roque were both citizens by birth, every handgun in the house was registered. But none of that mattered to the ICE men. They were, they said, with all the scorn for Lattimore they could muster, in the course of a legitimate operation targeting known alien felons, meaning they could search wherever they damn well pleased.
“I’m not getting a Bivens claim slammed down my throat because of you two,” Lattimore said. “Call in, have the shift supervisor draft a warrant, walk it over to the magistrate and have somebody hike it over here.”
Sound reasoning, Godo supposed, but the tiff had nothing to do with law or procedure or good sense. It had to do with who could swing the biggest dick. The ICE guys felt humiliated, called on the carpet in front of a family of nacho niggers. No red-blooded American male over the age of nine could be expected to take that. Funny, he wanted to tell them, how sometimes that big dick just gets in the way. Take it from me.
The phone rang. Roque got up from the table and answered, holding the receiver in the crook of his shoulder as he tucked in his shirttail, conducting this mindless bit of business with such hip artlessness Godo felt an instant flash of jealousy, like he was being forced to watch his shit-for-brains hermanito turn into a rock star right there before his very eyes. And maybe he was. God help me, Godo thought, then Roque shot a wary glance out the screen door toward the agents, who were listening in. He turned his back to them, lowering his voice.
The door opened. Lattimore stepped in, the other two humping along behind. Roque cut short the call-“Okay, thank you, I have to go”-then returned the receiver to its cradle and turned back toward the room, tucking his hands in his pockets. It was odd, he still had that same lax grace about him, except the eyes.
“Let me guess, señores. You want to know who that was.”
The Spanish was meant as ridicule. Godo felt impressed. Meanwhile, to his credit, Lattimore said nothing, just waited. The man had the patience of a wall.
Roque added, “But you already know what I just found out, I’ll bet. ¿Verdad?”
Lattimore held pat for another beat, then: “Faustino Orantes.”
Tía Lucha stiffened, eyes bugging with fright. Godo, snapping his head toward Roque: “What’s he talking about?”
Using Spanish, to be sure his aunt didn’t misunderstand, Roque said:-They picked up Tío at the port, some kind of raid. Nobody’s sure where they took him.
Tía Lucha lifted her hands from her lap and, folding them as though for prayer, covered her nose and mouth and closed her eyes. She took three shallow breaths, trembling.
Lattimore said, “And yes, I’d like to know who that was on the phone just now.”
Roque ignored him, instead kneeling down in front of his aunt, stroking her arm. Finally: “I don’t have to answer that.”
Weeks later, Godo would look back on this moment as the point in time when Roque found his backbone. Either that or his terrible angel had come, whispering in his ear: Hey cabrón, take heart-you’re already dead.
IT WAS AFTER NINE BEFORE ROQUE COULD BREAK AWAY. TÍA LUCHA begged off work to spend the day searching for Tío Faustino; Roque sat by the phone in case she called. Come nightfall he put some dinner together from leftovers, made sure Godo got his medicine, watched a little TV with him in his room. Finally, when the first six-pack was history and Godo dropped off, Roque pulled on his sweatshirt, turned off the ringer on the phone, slipped out for Mariko’s. He’ll wake up at some point and find himself alone, Roque thought, and that could go a dozen different ways. But he’s not the only one with needs.
Jogging up Mariko’s block, he noticed a strange car parked out front, lights on in her living room. He waited outside for the man to leave-graying blond hair, yuppie rugged, North Face vest, Timberland boots, a mere peck on the cheek as he said goodbye-waited ten minutes longer, then walked up and rang the bell.
“You had company,” he said when the door opened.
Wineglasses lingered on the living room floor near the futon, one empty, the other half so. The bottle sat uncorked off to the side. Given the sparse furnishings, the bare walls and hardwood floor, the arrangement resembled sculpture.
She stared, those dark almond eyes. “You’re not going to turn jealous, are you?”
There was no smell of sex. And she was dressed in a bedraggled pullover and drawstring pants, everything bulky and shapeless, not the stuff of come-hither.
“Who says I’m jealous?”
“Because it would be dreadful form, given the age difference.”
He warned himself: Steady. Don’t get sucked in. “You know, it’s hard to keep up. One minute, I’m so damn mature. The next, when you want to put me in my place-”
“I have friends, I have clients. Sometimes we meet here. You can’t be part of that world.”
Roque’s chest clenched; the knot felt cold. “I said I wasn’t jealous.”
Mariko studied him-not without a hint of longing, he thought. “In my experience, it’s always the ones who tell you they’re not jealous who are.”
“Maybe that says more about your experience than it does about me.”
He went to kiss her. She turned her head, offering her cheek.
“It’s been a long day.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, smothering them beneath the nubbly sweater. “I have a client consult early tomorrow.”
“They took my uncle away.” It was smarmy and manipulative, he realized that. But he had to get her to drop the put-upon snit she was hiding behind. He deserved better.
The almond eyes turned glassy. “What are you saying?”
“ICE. La migra. They nabbed him at the port and we don’t know where he is. My aunt and some of the other women from the trailer park have gone down to the federal jail in San Bruno, see if they can find anything out.”
“Who’s looking after your brother?”
“Godo’s fine. He won’t really need me till morning.” There, he thought, that puts things plain.
“I can’t let you stay.”
Roque forced a smile. Can’t? “I didn’t ask to.”
“Not in so many words.”
“Not in any words.”
“You’re angry.”
“You’re talking to me like I’m a problem.”
Just outside, a neighborhood cat in heat emitted that distinctive guttural howl.
“Look, I’m sorry about your uncle.”
“Yeah. It’s fucked. But you can’t let me stay.”
“You said you didn’t want to.”
“I said I didn’t ask.”
“My God.” She pushed her hands into her wild black hair. “What are we fighting about?”
“I’ll go.” He turned for the door.
“Roque, I don’t have what it takes for this.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “For what?”
“For what’s happening, right now, between us.”
“And what’s that?”
“Stop it!”
“Stop what? I’m serious.”
“This game you’re playing. This thing that you’re doing.”
“Huh.” He struck a pose. “This thing.”
“If you want to talk about what happened with your uncle, we’ll talk. But there’s something else going on and I just don’t have what it takes to deal with it right now.”
“Maybe I should come back when you do.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She was shouting. But he’d become invested in seeing her cry. Somebody, somewhere was supposed to cry.
“I’m just saying, maybe I should come back. Tonight’s, you know, not good.”
The rutting cat cried out from the dark again. Mariko said, “No. Please don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want you to leave and not come back.”
The cold knot in his chest dropped like a stone into his stomach. “What are you saying?”
“We both knew this couldn’t go on forever.”
“I didn’t know that.” He wondered if that was true. “The guy who left-”
“Here it comes. I knew it.”
“I love you.”
She brought herself up short in the middle of an unpleasant laugh. “No, you don’t. You just like the way it sounds.”
“Why are you insulting me?”
“I’m telling you the truth. If that’s insulting-”
“The truth? Agents busted into our trailer today, looking for my cousin. They almost got into a shootout with Godo, I mean they were this close, okay? Then, way I hear it, my uncle got chased from his truck at the port, run down like a crook. He’s been hauling loads there five years, suddenly he’s a security risk, the fascist fucks.”
“Things are different now. You know that.”
“My uncle’s in a cell someplace. At least, that’s the best I can hope for. But in a few weeks, maybe less, he’ll be on a plane to El Salvador, not much me or my aunt or anyone else can do about it. And we kinda need Tío’s cash input at the moment. Money’s kinda tight.”
“Maybe it’s time you thought about a job.”
The tone, he thought, so snide, so bogus. “Okay. You’re right. I should go.”
“And not come back.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t? I said it-I can’t take this, okay?” A tear scrolled down her cheek. He reached out to hold her but she tore herself away. “Get out!”
“Why are you-”
“Get! Out!”
She looked around, saw the empty wineglass on the floor and stooped to pick it up. Cocking her arm, she readied herself to hurl it.
“Put it down.” He turned and without looking back walked out the front door. She slammed it behind him but didn’t turn the lock. He wondered at that, lingering on the porch. Shortly he heard it, coming from inside, not the sound of weeping, something else, something much different, a sudden thick crashing, the splintering hollow thud of earthenware smashing against wood. By the time he snuck back in, came up behind her in the long narrow hallway, she was ankle deep in clay shards, face in her hands, shoulders heaving. And then the shelves were bare, he thought, the words sounding like a line from a fairy tale.
He picked his way through the debris, noticing how the fresh-grave smell was even more pronounced now, wrapped his arms around her, whispering her name as he nuzzled her hair. Listening to her shallow sobs, he thought: But this was what you wanted, right? Someone somewhere crying.
Hours later, when he rose from her bed to head back home, he asked himself what it meant, to bed this woman he cared for so much when she wouldn’t look at him, when even during sex the tears didn’t stop-unable or unwilling to climax, turning away from him as he pulled out short of climax himself, burying her fist in her mouth and her face in the pillow, steeled to his presence but no longer demanding he go.
ROQUE SLOWED TO A JOG AS HE NEARED HUNTINGTON VILLAGE. Fog drifted off the wetlands, hazing the streetlamps. The screech of a blue jay answered a distant car horn.
He wondered if the agents had come back hoping to wrap up the prior day’s business, snatch the few stragglers who’d eluded them-like Happy, who hadn’t been seen anywhere around here since, Christ, when, two years ago? The prospect of a confrontation, ordered to show ID, forced splay-legged against the chain-link fence with its thorny bougainvillea, it momentarily distracted him from what had just happened with Mariko.
He’d meant to comfort her; she’d remained inconsolable. The woman who made him feel smart, capable, a lover, a man, she’d peeled back the layers of his ego to reveal a whole new level of fuckup. He felt out to lunch, dishonest, guilty. He felt eighteen.
His chest heaved from the run as he peered through the fogged-in darkness, edging toward the trailer-park entrance, checking for sedans, clean-cut cops in bulky raid jackets. The maze of trailers sat quiet and mostly dark. The air smelled of pine and sewer muck. You go back soon, he told himself, you make sure she’s okay. You stay until she talks to you.
The tinny clamor of wind chimes grew louder as he neared the trailer; he saw lights up front. Tía’s awake, he thought, one more thing to tweak his guilt. Godo would be too, of course. I’m gonna catch hell, he thought, for leaving him alone. Okay. Fine. Unlocking the door with his key, he eased it open, stepped inside. Glancing at the breakfast nook, he stopped short.
“Close the door,” Happy said.
He was sitting next to Tía Lucha at the kitchenette table, his face bearded and stern, looking like a saint from some old Dominican prayer card. The beard was new. Always lean, he seemed gaunt now, eyes bulging from their sockets like small black plums. The rest of his face composed itself into a wary, tight-lipped scowl and his body seemed coiled, ready to bolt or lash out. He wore jeans, work boots, a plaid flannel shirt. His black hair was cropped short.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
Happy’s long-fingered hands clutched a mug of Tía Lucha’s Nescafé, which he raised halfway to his lips before answering. “That’s a long story.”
“When did you get here?”
Tía Lucha piped in:-He’s been back almost a week.
Roque was stunned. “You knew?”
– Of course not. Why would I keep something like that from you if I knew?
She seemed dazed, even fearful, an effect enhanced by the day’s first smears of thick white makeup, which gave her face a clownish unreality. Her glance darted between Roque and Happy, her gifted if irksome nephew, her marido’s fugitive son.
Roque said, “I meant no offense, Tía.”
She rolled her eyes. Happy downed the last of his coffee.
Roque said, “Does Godo know you’re here?”
Happy turned in his seat to get out. “We had our chat.” He rose and offered a grateful nod to Tía Lucha. To Roque, he said, “Walk with me.”
“I need to check the dressing on Godo’s leg.”
Happy glanced back down the hall toward Godo’s room. “It can wait.”
OUTSIDE, THE FOG LINGERED. HAPPY HIKED UP THE COLLAR OF HIS shirt. “You forget how cold it gets here,” he said, walking briskly toward the gate, hunched forward. He cast an impatient glance over his shoulder, urging Roque to keep pace.
Once they were out on the river road he turned north, one wash of headlights after the other spraying his back as the morning’s first traffic made its way toward Napa. He ignored the cars or trucks as they rushed by but Roque could tell from the dock of his head as each one passed that he was noting who was inside.
Several hundred yards on he turned off the gravel roadbed into the parking lot for a small weatherworn strip mall-a cash-only car repair, a discount mattress outlet, a combination panadería/tienda/envío de dinero. If not for the raid the day before, clusters of bleary men would already be gathered in the parking lot, trying to stay warm as they waited for contractors to swing by, collect them for a day’s work. Happy headed for a battered Ford pickup scalloped with rust, bearing Arizona plates. Climbing behind the wheel, he said, “Get in.”
As Roque closed the door behind him, Happy lit up a cigarette, the rubbery match flame hollowing his features. After shaking out the match and exhaling a long plume of smoke, he turned to stare across the pickup’s cab with a strangely menacing sadness.
“Been spending your nights boning some broad twice your age. How’d that happen?”
Roque felt the blood drain from his face. “Who told you that?”
“Who says I needed to be told?” Happy tapped his ash through the window vent. “Tell me, Roque, your vieja, when she takes you into her bed…” He affected a throaty purr.
“Fuck you.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“You been spying on me?”
“I know things,” Happy said. “Get used to it.”
“Yeah? What else do you know?”
“That’s my business. What’s with Godo?”
“Tía Lucha didn’t tell you?”
“Never mind what she told me, I wanna hear it from you.”
“Hear what?”
“He’s fucked up.”
“Ya think?”
Happy reached across and swatted the back of Roque’s head. “Don’t be such a punk.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Happy, in whiny nasal mimicry: “Don’t touch me.” Then: “His dick still work?”
Roque had to process that. “There’s some things we don’t share.”
“I mean has he gotten it wet since he got back? Given how he looks, I was thinking maybe…” Happy rubbed his thumb and index finger together, suggesting cash.
“Who am I, his pimp?”
Happy chuckled at that, then took another long drag, blowing the smoke out, watching it billow against the windshield. “Face the way it is? He looks like a fucking dartboard.”
“Tell him that. I dare you.”
Happy let that go, except to say, “You got a point. Nothing wrong with his temper. Spent maybe two minutes with him, he wants to mix it up.”
“You want Godo mellow, you’ll have to kill him.”
“There’s a thought.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Fuck’s sake, Roque, chill out. By the way, not everybody who was over there came back fucked up. You get that, right?”
“How would you know?”
Happy picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue. “That’s another long story.” He turned to gaze out at his window at the mold-freckled storefronts. A crow perched on the rain gutter, framed by fog. “How come you’re not pitching in with money?”
“Who says I’m not?”
“You’re really starting to piss me off with this.”
“I’ve got a line on a band gig. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Roque shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“Really? Hard to say what, your family needs the bread? Hard to say they’re fucked, my old man deported?”
An eighteen-wheeler thundered past, rattling the pickup’s windows. The crow on the gutter fluttered its wings. “Maybe we can get a lawyer.”
“Fucking hell-you stupid? What’s a lawyer gonna do except take our money? You think-” Happy stopped short, glancing in his rearview mirror. A patrol car pulled into the strip-mall lot. Murmuring, “What’s this asshole want,” he stubbed out his cigarette, dropped the butt between his feet. “Keep talking,” he told Roque.
“About what?”
“About anything. So we don’t look like we’re casing this dump.”
Roque let his glance dart once out the cab’s back window, then started babbling, launching into the first thing that came to mind. Happy, eyes glued to the mirror, spoke to the reflection: “Come on, fuckwad. You run the plates, we’re gonna do this.” With painful slowness, the patrol car eased along the storefronts, shining a flashlight through the window glass.
“Open the glove box,” Happy said.
Roque obeyed. The butt of a pistol lay exposed within a folded newspaper. “Jesus-”
Happy turned toward him, their eyes met. The menacing sorrow was gone, replaced by emptiness. “Tell me another story.”
“You’re not gonna shoot a cop.”
“I’ll shoot you, you don’t calm down. Tell me another story.”
The black-and-white, having finished its check of the stores, eased toward the end of the parking lot, only to circle back and come abreast of the pickup, so the driver sides matched up. The cruiser’s tires were muddy, the windshield caked with rainy grime. The cop lowered his window and gestured for Happy to do the same. The glove box remained open.
The officer said, “Mind telling me your business here?”
Happy turned so his body blocked whatever view the cop might have through the window. “I’m just sitting here talking with my cousin, officer. He’s getting married next month and he’s worried about money.”
The cop studied Happy at length, an occasional attempt to glance past him toward Roque. The man had a thick putty-colored face with baggy eyes, more bored clerk than cop. “Kinda early, don’t you think?”
“Only time we had. We both gotta head off for work soon.”
“What say you do that now.”
“Yes, sir. You wanna see my license and registration?”
Happy reached for the glove box. Roque’s throat closed up, he couldn’t get his breath.
The cop glanced away, dipping his head toward his radio, deciphering a sudden shock of words ensnarled in static. “Just get to where you need to be.”
“Okay, sure.” Happy toggled his keys, cranking the engine. “Thank you, officer.”
He pulled out and the cop stayed put, the two of them watching each other in their rearviews. Happy turned south, heading back toward the trailer park. He dug another smoke from the pack in his shirt pocket, set it between his lips, then rummaged in his pants pocket for his matches. “I’m gonna drive a ways,” he said, “not pull in, understand?”
Roque nodded. He could finally breathe. “You’re the one driving.”
Happy lit a match one-handed, held it to the tip of his cigarette, tilted his head back as he waved out the flame, then tossed the matchbook onto the dash. “Let’s get back to what we were talking about.”
Unable to stop himself, Roque glanced over his shoulder out the back window. Like a nagging itch, the cop was there, trailing several car lengths behind.
Happy said, “I see him. Relax, will you?” He glanced toward the glove box, which Roque had yet to close. “With Godo fucked up the way he is, it’s gonna be up to you. No excuses.”
Roque went cold. He glanced at the weapon, then back at the cop, then Happy. “What do you mean? Up for what?”
“I said relax. I’m talking about my old man.”
Roque wiped his palms on his jeans, trying to picture Tío Faustino in a crowded cell, unable to sleep, scared. “What about him?”
For the first time that morning, Happy smiled-an acid grin, vanishing almost instantly-as he glanced in his mirror. Behind them, the patrol car slowed, then turned off into another strip mall. A clerk not a cop, Roque thought.
Happy said, “Shut up and I’ll tell you.”
GODO WASN’T SURE AT FIRST IF WHAT HE HEARD WAS REALLY A knock at the door-the sound seemed timid, maybe just a tree branch brushing the roof. He muted the TV. It came again.
He swung his legs to the floor and leaned down, reaching under the bed, not for the shotgun this time but the Smithy.357. Be cool, he told himself, no reruns of yesterday. Could just be one of the neighbors, wanting to beg some favor off Tía Lucha. That happened a lot-patron saint of mooches, that woman. But then he glanced at the clock and thought, My God, has it really been an hour since she left for work? Can’t be. He blinked, shook off the watery drift of things, checked again. Sure enough, not just an hour, a little more.
His leg felt leaden and balance was iffy but he made his way down the hallway and into the kitchen just as a third knock sounded. Pausing beside the door, he stared at the square of cardboard taped up where the window used to be.
He called out, “Yeah?”
No answer at first. Then: “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, unfamiliar.
Godo tensed. “Who’s there?”
A preliminary bout of throat-clearing. “I’m a friend of Faustino’s. Drove his rig up from the port. Parked it out front. Got his keys here.”
Godo stepped past the door toward the window, edged back the curtain. He was a knobby squint of a man with large hands, a reddish mustache too big for his face, ears poking out from under a graying mop of windblown hair. He wore a mechanic’s one-piece coverall, stained at the knees from oil, other smeary markings here and there.
Godo reached around to the small of his back, tucked the.357 into his pants, covered it with his shirt and opened the door. The man seemed taken aback by the sight of his face.
Extending one of his outsize hands. “Name’s McBee. You Faustino’s son?”
The question reminded Godo that Happy of all people had appeared out of the blue that morning. Or was he making that up? A drugged-up dream, a figment of his bleak mind-no, he thought, it happened, we fought. But Christ, we always fought. Suddenly he remembered his hand and glancing down he saw it, same pitted red scars as on his face, locked in the fierce pumping grip of this stranger. McBee. Chafing calluses coarsened the man’s palm.
Godo said, “Not son. Nephew, sort of.”
McBee seemed content with this information, delayed though it was. He took his hand back, dug around in what appeared to be a bottomless pocket, then produced Tío Faustino’s key chain. “I can leave these with you?”
“Sure.” Godo shook his head to clear away the Percocet muck. McBee dropped the keys into his hand. From somewhere in the trailer park, a woman’s voice could be heard: “¡Oye, nalgón, no me jodas!” Listen, fat ass, don’t fuck with me.
McBee broke the spell. “Any way I could bum a ride to the bus station? Gotta get back to Oakland. Can’t waste the whole day, losing money as it is.”
Godo caught a hint of dutiful poor-me in his tone, the only snag in the man’s act so far. “I don’t have a car, sorry. My aunt took it to work.”
The news seemed to baffle McBee. He dog-scratched his ear. “Point me the right direction at least?”
Godo snapped out of his stupor. “Sorry. I’ll walk you, how’s that?” He thumbed the door lock plunger, searched for Tío Faustino’s keys, found them in his hand, reminded himself not to forget about the pistol nudging his ass crack, then stepped out onto the doorstep. “Follow me.”
McBee blanched, stepping back to make way. “You sure?”
“I’m positive. Get the blood moving. You coming?”
He shortly regretted not donning a jacket but then shook off the cold, faulting himself for wanting snivel gear. During the invasion he’d slept shivering in shallow ranger graves, wet from rain or choking from windblown dust, hoping not to get run over by a tank in the night, clutching his weapon, happy as a drunk come payday. Jesus, he thought, how soft you get and so fast. He fought against the hobbling pain breaking through the Percocet, willing himself forward. McBee kept pace behind, patient despite the crippled speed and mercifully short on conversation.
Near the trailer-park gate Godo spotted Tío Faustino’s Freightliner cab and felt a misty want, picturing his uncle, wondering when he might see him again. Strange, how girlish the moods sometimes. The truck’s engine was ticking from its cool-down and he caught a whiff of diesel, the scent sending him back instantly to the cramped confines of his Humvee, packed into the backseat with the rations and water cans, the ammo and thermite grenades, C-4, claymore mines, the bale of concertina wire and cammie nets, bolt cutters, map books, chemlites, a pickax and sledgehammer-Chavous in the opposite seat; Mobley in the turret manning the Mark 19, his ass a fart’s breadth away from Godo’s face; Gunny Benedict in front with his maps; Pimentel at the wheel, bitch-slapping the radio, screaming at the static. They were pealing toward Al Gharraf, preparing to take fire.
“You all right?”
Godo snapped his head toward the sound.
“You stopped walking,” the man said. McBee. He sounded concerned. Maybe frightened.
Godo said, “Sorry.”
“Listen, if this is too much, I’m serious, just point me in the right-”
“I’m fine. Come on.”
At the gate Godo swung south and they marched along the gravel roadbed toward the center of town where the transit center was located. The wind was sharper here, keening off the mudflats and the grass-lined river, but now Godo embraced it, letting the cold meld with the throbbing ache in his leg. His gooseflesh cheered him and his pitted skin blushed from the stinging air. Beyond the wetlands the Mayacamas range lurked in the drizzle. Stunning, he thought, miraculous, resisting an urge to cry out: Get some!
With the engaging monotony of one step begging the next, time fell into its crazy hole again. He lost all track. Ten minutes? Twenty? Maybe this means I’m finally in the moment, he thought merrily, buoyed on pheromones, but then he noticed, just up the roadbed, near the edge of the commercial district, an arch-backed dog rummaging in some Dumpster overfill. He stopped, feeling his lungs constrict. Shortly, the frame confused him, a line of towering dusty palms, a sagging concrete wall, a roadside bag of trash, then impulse threw him to the ground, locked up in a fetal curl, burying his head in his arms. Seconds warped around his brain as he waited out the blast. Rather than the dust-scattering concussion he was expecting, though, he felt instead a gentle prodding kick to the sole of his shoe.
“Listen, I don’t mean to keep bringing this up-”
Godo’s eyes shot open. The light was gray, not ocher, the air wet and cold, not parched.
“-but if you need help, or I should get you to a doctor-”
Godo scrambled to his knees in a panic, combed the grass with his hands, searching out the spider device-two batteries, the curving wires, the unspent shell.
“-you gotta let me know, okay? Otherwise I’d just as soon-”
Jerking his head up, Godo fixed the man in his eye. McBee. Hillbilly stock, grip like a pipe wrench.
“-not impose on you. I’ll just head on downtown here, if this is the way.”
A station wagon had pulled to the curb a little ways on. A broad-faced man in a ball cap stared back over his shoulder at them.
To McBee, Godo said, “Don’t look at me that way.”
McBee took a clumsy step backward. “I didn’t mean-”
“Who the fuck are you, look at me like that? I served for you, asshole.”
McBee put up his hands, another step back, quicker. “Look-”
“Fuck you, white trash.”
McBee dropped his hands, now clenched into fists. His crabbed eyes turned fiery. “You go ahead and wallow around on the ground there, piggy. Go on. I did your uncle a favor, I lost half a day’s pay for the privilege. I’m done being nice.” He spat, then stormed off.
Godo struggled to his feet, bellowing, “I don’t owe you, honk. I paid. I paid big.” Turning toward the man in the station wagon, he reached to the small of his back, gripped the gun, and held it up above his head. “You feelin’ me here, Elmer?” The fat-faced man jumped in his seat, threw his car in gear and sped away, tailpipe belching smoke. A Latina dragging a pigtailed child on the far side of the street stopped to stare until her eyes met Godo’s, at which point she scooped up the toddler and hightailed off. Godo glanced over his shoulder, trying to get a better look at the skulking dog. But there was none. The palms remained, the listing wall, the Dumpster dripping trash bags. No dog.
God help me, he thought.
He put the gun away, then began plodding home. Within twenty steps the fluidity of time failed him, the seconds like daggers, every footfall an ordeal. The pain in his leg shot down into his heel and up into his spine and he gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, closed his eyes, walked.
As traffic passed, he tried to let the whisking hum of the tires against pavement lull him into a trance. Every now and then, though, peeking up, he saw drivers staring, passengers too, gazing at the pock-faced stumbling madman and he wondered: Who are these creatures? What world do they come from? He laughed. That was it-they came from Mars or the moon or MySpace, instructed by their overlords to annoy the fuck out of anything that moved. He could hear their voices tripping away inside his brain, beamed in by radio wave, echoing things he’d heard before, things other creatures, all heartfelt eyes and misty smiles, had said when he’d ventured out.
Things like: “Welcome home.”
Things like: “Thank you.”
Things like: “Support the troops!”
Except the troops don’t need or want your support, thank you very much. They don’t want the bumper-sticker bravado, the teary moms sporting Yankee Doodle ribbons on their watermelon tits, the brainwashed kids with the scrubbed little grins and roadkill eyes. The mascara wives bearing heart-attack casseroles and lukewarm beer or shag-assing off to bed for a little marital poon that can only go screamingly haywire. One trip to the VA, listening to the other guys rotating back, taught you that much. The troops respectfully request that you and your gung-ho support kindly fuck off. The troops do not recognize you as human.
Better yet: “Bring the troops home!” Yeah? Permission requested to saw off your head, the better to shit down your neck. What the fuck do you know about it? You know nothing-because you don’t want to, you want to wax indignant, you want to blame the same old crew, the greedy preening stuffed suits you blame for everything. You want to say the magic word: peace. Well fuck you. Fuck peace. Fuck a home that has to be shared with the prissy likes of you.
Someone called his name.
He turned toward the sound. A vintage Impala, tricked out like a showpiece, had pulled to the curb, passenger-side window rolled down. A pair of chavos in the car, both watching, waiting. The faces, yes, he knew these two.
“Hola, chero. The fuck you been?”
The voice conjured a name: Chato. The other one, behind the wheel, was Puchi.
“Need a lift?”
The next thing he knew he was in the backseat, the black vinyl upholstery cool and tight. A whiff of reefer, sweat disguised with Brut. He could make out Puchi’s eyes in the rearview. He wore an A’s cap with the brim cocked up in front, a gray hoodie. He seemed bigger, bulkier than Godo remembered. Weights, maybe. Prison?
Chato, a few years younger and riding shotgun, turned around in his seat so he and Godo were face-to-face. An angry whitehead wept pus just beneath one heavy-lidded eye. He wore a hairnet, his coif meticulous, black and sleek and combed straight back, while on his neck three tattooed letters appeared: BTL. Brown Town Locos. It was the name of the clica he and Puchi belonged to, the one Godo had danced around the edges of before enlisting. The name seemed a relic from an ancient time.
Chato held out his fist till Godo bumped it with his own. “My brother from another mother. Long time.”
True, Godo thought. Two years at least. An eternity, given what happened in between. Chato had been a mere mocoso, a little snot, back then.
“Iraqistan. Musta seen some serious shit. Bet you waxed your share of raghead motherfuckers, am I right?”
The kid was wired and his breath smelled and Godo had to resist an impulse to reach out and rip the hairnet off.
Puchi chimed in, “Wondered when we’d see you around, man. Heard some things, didn’t know what was true, figured we’d wait till we caught you out and about.”
Godo waved his hand idly toward his face, as though to conjure its pitted ugliness in a gesture. “Malacara,” he said, figuring that explained it all.
“Yeah, but you’re not all picoteado from squeezing your zits,” Puchi said, slapping Chato’s shoulder. The kid glared back venomously. “And it’s not like we’re gonna mock you, homes. Not the way it is.”
Godo tried to picture what that meant-The Way It Is-wondering if it bore any resemblance to Some Serious Shit. The effort to make more sense of it foundered as they passed the fenced confines of a vast construction site, rising in tiers up a broad bare hill. Baymont, the neighborhood was called, that or Hoodrat Heights, depending on who you talked to. Boon-Coona-Luma. Ho Hill. At least, those were the names thrown around before Godo left for basic.
He’d heard the story in bits and pieces after that, following the hometown news from afar, how some developers had wanted the whole hill condemned, war-era federal housing never meant to be permanent but grandfathered in, city council deadlocked on eminent domain. So a local fixer, former honcho with the firefighters union, hired some bent ex-cop to torch the whole neighborhood, burn every home to the ground. The plan was to blame it on some arson freak, this patsy they let die in the fire, and for all practical purposes it succeeded, though the players turned on one another when the bent cop got exposed. Not that that stopped anything. What was left of the neighborhood wasn’t worth rebuilding. The condemnation vote finally passed and the developers lined up like trick-or-treaters. Then some of the local stakeholders, good old boys whose families ran things here, they began wrangling over secondary spoils; the construction unions demanded a local-labor rider in any contracts; the town’s greenies hired a lawyer and challenged the EIR; the Building Department red-flagged every plan submitted, slowing things to a crawl; then the bottom fell out of the housing market and the mortgage crisis hit, financing dried up. So here it was, a vast plot of nothing, stalled in its tracks before the first shovel bit dirt. Two years now and counting, old houses torn down, nothing new built back up. As for all the families who’d lived here? Don’t ask.
Across the side of a panel truck parked just inside the project perimeter, some tagger had written: Rio Mirada-Where your hopes come to die.
“You heard about the big bad clusterfuck, huh?” It was Chato, following Godo’s eyes.
Godo snapped to. “Some. Here and there. You know, the news.” He didn’t remember coming this way during his trek with McBee from the trailer. Were they driving back a different route? “I watch a lot of TV,” he added sheepishly.
Puchi said, “We were hoping for work, man. Whole town was. Lay some brick, pound some nails, whatever. Then the buzzards showed up. Everybody gotta have their slice of the pie. And if they don’t? Nobody gets nothing.”
“Nobody,” Chato chimed in solemnly.
Godo, still staring out the window, said, “So what is it you two do? For work I mean.”
Puchi said, “Happy didn’t tell you?”
“Happy?”
“You seen him, right?”
“This morning, yeah. First time, actually. Why?”
Puchi and Chato traded glances up front.
Godo said, “What’s the big secret?”
“We’re in the moving business,” Puchi said.
Chato laughed, a snide little wheeze.
“Great punch line.” Godo felt his temper inching toward red. “Guess I missed the joke.”
“It’s a trip, man,” Chato said, unaware. “Check this out: We got no license, the trucking company, I mean. It’s so fucked up, it’s like, backwards, you know? Like permission to steal. Yuppies never see it coming.”
“See what coming?”
“Here we are, man.” Puchi slowed to a stop and dropped the tranny into park, the Impala’s 427 throbbing in neutral. They were out in front of the trailer park. How, Godo wondered, did we get here so quick?
Puchi turned around in his seat. “Good to see you, my man. Maybe now, with Happy back, we’ll see a little more of you.”
Chato added, “He talk to you about that?” He seemed eager, too much so. The kid was pasmado, all tics and quirks.
Puchi cut him off with a glare. “Come on, let the man out. Got someplace I need to be.”
Just as suddenly as he’d found himself inside the car, Godo now found himself standing on the gravel roadbed. A gust of wind off the river blew grit in his eyes. Chato cocked his hand into a pistol and winked. “Later, masturbator.”
The black Impala rumbled off. Godo watched the six tail-lights recede, remembering another car, another time, another two vatos up front. Him and Happy.
The car was Tía Lucha’s, the weed under the seat Godo’s. They were coming back from a house party in Vallejo, this girl he had a moon-howl crush on, name of Ramona Sánchez. A fly morena, long straight hair, heartbreaker eyes, smart but not stuck up, little cue-ball titties but an ass that said Step Right Up. Godo stood there in the kitchen, nursing the same beer for almost an hour, slick but not too, cracking jokes, teasing, asking about her people. If she was bored she hid it well, leaning back against the wall, smile to knock you over.
Meanwhile, Happy sulked, too bashful to chat up a girl of his own, too angry to just hang, enjoy himself. He stood there chain-smoking, clutching the neck on a fifth of Jack, scaring the lipstick off the pigs, never mind any girl worth looking at. Finally he went out back to chill with Puchi and the boys. Godo checked in on him now and again, made sure he didn’t get into it with anybody he couldn’t handle.
As the night idled away, Godo drifted in and out of the house, keeping track of Ramona, see if anyone else was hitting on her, not too obvious, slipping into the bathroom for a rail with Enrique, Cap’n Crank, catching a bump later on, just enough to keep the edge on his cool.
When he caught her gathering her things off the couch, he strolled on up, helped her with her jacket, asked if he could walk her out. Her girlfriend was there but that was fine, Godo had a knack with chaperones. At the curb he asked for her number, wrote it on his palm with her eyebrow pencil. She shot him that knock-down smile as they drove away, and he told himself: Wait a couple days, then call her.
No more romance on the agenda, he got tanked. Tequila shots, chased with beer, a few more bumps of crank. Sprawled on the couch, he rocked out to the music in hammered bliss: Zurdok, “Abre los Ojos.” Molotov, “Karmara.” Control Machete, “Sí Señor.” The music made him think of Roque, Tía Lucha’s precious, her favorite, the mother killer. Hand him his due, the kid had chops. But what a truly perfect day it would be, he mused, when that gifted little twerp woke up and had to look life in the eye: fuego, sonrisas, realidad y dolor.
Fire, smiles, reality and pain.
Sí señor…
A little after midnight, Happy appeared. All he said was, “Gimme your keys, manudo.”
Godo scored the pot on the way out, an ounce to mellow his drift, copped from Puchi, the crowd’s preferred mariguanero.
That was what the Brown Town Locos were good for, crank and weed, that and stealing shit. Bumming papers off him too, Godo rolled a number, toking away as Happy drove. The night was cold and still. No moon. The bud turned him philosophical.
He said, “You know, cabrón, way you act, women gonna think you’re a mariquita.” A faggot. “Gonna think you learned to fuck in jail.”
Happy’s hand sailed across the car, snatching the doob away. “Who are you now, the prince of pussy?”
Godo reached over to grab back his blunt. “Don’t be dissing my girl, cabrón.”
Happy fended him off. “Zorra flaca.” Skinny slut.
“I mean it, fuckface.”
Godo tried again to snag back the joint, Happy dodged the grab. Godo persisted. A blur of hands, then Happy launched a crackback elbow, landing the blow square and hard. A clap of searing white, Godo reached for his nose. A dollop of blood stained his pants. His eyes watered from the pain.
“Hijueputa…” Son of a whore.
He threw a punch. Happy dodged the blow, pivoting away. The wheel went with him. The car veered across the double line, then whipped into a spin as Happy overcorrected. An oncoming pickup veered to miss them, screech of tires, angry honk. They stalled out straddling the center divide-lucky, for a few seconds anyway. A cop, lurking on a side street maybe three hundred yards down, saw the whole thing. Not that the two of them noticed. They were back at it, wild drunken haymakers landing once in every five tries but coming fast and hard regardless, only stopping when the cop hit his strobe.
They froze. The red light swirled. Happy whispered, “Estoy chingado.” I’m screwed.
He bolted, throwing open the door, leaping from the car, charging down the gravel roadside berm through weeds to the riverbank, hunting a way to cross. The cop spotted him, a voice calling through the squad car’s loudspeaker for him to stop and the headlights now square on Godo, sitting there, too stupid from liquor and weed to toss the ounce stashed under the seat.
It would all play out like a tedious movie from there, the backup units blocking off the road, the chopper with its searchlight, the dogs. Godo would remember the back and forth at the window, the officer with his steel-gray crew cut, very professional, very polite.
“I’d like to know if you’ll agree to a search of the vehicle.”
By that point Godo was a fatalist. What would happen would happen.
“I can get a warrant, just a matter of time. I detect a distinct odor of marijuana, your pupils are dilated, your companion fled the scene. You were observed driving erratically-”
“I wasn’t driving.”
“You have gang tattoos.”
That made Godo laugh. He looked at the backs of his hands: a dragon, a bat. “These?”
The cop leaned closer. “Let me explain something to you, son. Here’s how it will go: I’m a decorated officer with twelve years’ experience working this city, with expertise of particular relevance to the matter at hand, numerous multiagency task forces, narcotics unit, youth gang outreach. Am I getting through?” The two cops behind him grinned like jackals. “I say those are gang tats. Think any judge in this county is going to second-guess me?”
Godo’s eyes burned. Fearing he might cry, he bit his lip, telling himself, Don’t be a bitch. “I don’t care,” he whispered.
The cop accepted this remark with an oddly warm smile. “Thank you. That’s consent. Please step outside the vehicle.”
Godo watched as they tossed the car, thinking: sly motherfucker. They found the pot but nothing else worth bagging and tagging, no open containers, no crank, no weapons. Half an hour later the dogs cornered Happy out among the sloughs on the river’s far side, hiding in a patch of oleander. He and Godo were taken to lockup in separate cars. I’ll never see him again, Godo realized. The weed was a California misdemeanor, no more than a fine for him, his bigger problem would be public intoxication and even that was just another minor beef-a lecture from the bench, community service, counseling. But for Happy, the pot was an aggravated felony. No matter what any lawyer tried to do, no matter what Godo said under penalty of perjury-the pot was his, no one else’s, he’d paid for it, hidden it under the seat-none of it mattered. Happy wasn’t a citizen. His case was heard in immigration court and he drew a hanging judge. Not only did he get deported; he was barred from reentry for the rest of his life. Exile, for an ounce bag of Godo’s bud.
It took only one time, looking into Tío Faustino’s eyes, for Godo to realize there was no other option. He had to go away, someplace strange and terrible. If he came back, he had to come back changed. And so he headed to the small featureless office downtown, where the man in the olive-green pants, the khaki shirt and tie, the famous high-and-tight buzz cut, sat behind his simple desk, Stars and Stripes on one side, Marine Corps colors on the other.
“I just got popped on a weed charge,” Godo said. “That gonna be a problem?”
THE DULL CHIME SOUNDED BEYOND THE THICK DOOR. ROQUE cupped his hands, a gust of breath, hoping for warmth. A ten count, longer, then she appeared, dressed in paint-stained sweats, wiping her clay-muddied hands with a towel. Her eyes looked scalded.
“You’re working,” he said, remembering the debris from last night.
She forced him to endure an unnerving silence.
“I thought I’d check in on you. Make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice barely a whisper.
Something in her reticence suggested shame. Given his own, Roque found this encouraging. “I was hoping we could talk. I hated leaving this morning, the way things stood.”
Her eyes seemed focused on a spot several feet beyond him. “And how,” she said, “would you say things stood?”
A sudden wind sent a shudder through the chinaberry tree, rattling loose a few pale leaves. “Can I come in?”
Her eyes blinked slowly, just once, like a cat’s. She stepped back and he followed her to the kitchen, grateful for the warmth.
She poured them both tea in the breakfast nook. A wooden statuette of a bodhisattva named Jizo-typically portrayed as a child monk, she’d once explained, guardian of women and travelers, enemy of fear, champion of optimism-rested on a teak-wood platform at the center of the table. Steam frosted the windows looking out on her terraced backyard. In the sink, a drip from the faucet made a soft drumbeat against the blade of a carving knife perched across a bowl.
“Something strange has come up,” he said. “I kinda wanted someone to talk to.”
She sat with her elbows propped on the tabletop, cup lifted, as though to hide behind it. “I thought you wanted to discuss what happened between us.”
“I do. Yes. I’m just saying…” The thumping drip from the sink unnerved him. “Last night, why couldn’t you stop crying?”
She regarded him with sad disbelief, then chuckled. “What a treat it would have been to get asked that at the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I gathered that. Or I wouldn’t have let you in.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “What will it take to get you to pay attention to what I’m feeling, Roque?”
“I thought I did pay attention.”
A rueful snort. “We had sex.”
He felt his stomach pitch. The woody scent of the tea didn’t help. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I know it wasn’t. But it wasn’t all loving kindness, either.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that, please. You’re being sorry isn’t much help, frankly.” She sat back, glancing out at her dormant garden. “I haven’t much wanted to get into this, but things haven’t been so great for me the past year or so. The drinking tells you that much. That’s new, trust me. I never used to drink, not like now, not till after my divorce.”
She’d been married to an air force captain. “Your husband didn’t love you.”
She made a face, like he’d missed the point entirely. “Yes, he did, Roque. Just badly.”
“Talk like that, anything passes for love.”
“Oh please, just once, try to realize that things are going to look very different to you in a few years, all right?”
He blanched from the scolding. Gradually, anger brought his color back.
She said, “I can tell you’re taking that the wrong way.”
“There’s a right way?”
“Yes, actually.” Beyond the steam-fogged window a crow rustled the branches of the tangerine tree. “I’m trying to make you understand what middle age is like.”
He slumped in his chair. “That’s all you ever talk about.”
“Please, listen. You get to where I am, see all the things you wanted that never showed up and realize, finally, they never will. This time of year just makes it worse. I’m feeling all bitter and Brahmsian and bored with myself.” She shivered. “God, that sounds like the line from a song. What I mean is, this thing, here, between you and me? It’s just an attempt to pretend I’m not really getting older. There. That simple, that stupid, that sad. As for you-”
This part wasn’t new. “You think I’m needy.”
“I think you need, yes, a kind of love I can’t promise or provide.”
“And what about the love I can provide?”
“I’m more concerned about what you can’t promise, actually.”
“Which is?”
“Please, stop being so angry, so-”
“You think you know how I feel. So why do you get so scared when I try to tell you what I’m actually feeling?”
“I was your age once, remember. I had passion and confidence and exuberance, all that lovely stuff. I envy you. But I can’t recover what I’ve lost through you.”
Roque was floored. You think I don’t understand despair, he thought. You think I don’t know what it means to be lonely and desperate for something to justify the hassle of getting through the day. You think I don’t see what Tía Lucha and Tío Faustino and you and everybody else your age goes through, that I don’t get it, I don’t care.
“I can give you back your hope.”
She looked chastened. Then: “No, you can’t.”
“I can make you happy.”
“You do make me happy. You infuriate me and, I’m sorry, bore me sometimes, but yes, I’m mostly happy when we’re together. But-here again, the age factor comes in-happiness isn’t as important as I once thought. It’s a pretty slim commodity, actually.”
“You’d rather be unhappy?”
“Happiness comes and goes, is what I’m saying. A little sunlight on a gray day, poof, my spirits lift. A melody in my head. On the street, a dog wags its tail-”
“That’s not happiness,” he said. In fact, what it sounded like was boredom.
“Yes, it is. That’s the sneaky truth about happiness. It’s pretty ho-hum stuff. As for hope, it’s just a way to trick yourself into thinking the future can’t go wrong.”
“What I mean by happiness is how we feel when we’re together.”
“That will change.”
“Yeah. It’ll get better.”
“You can’t know that. Trust me.”
“If you really believe that, why live?”
Her eyes met his. “The question I ask myself several times a day.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“‘Death is like the falling of a petal from a rose. No more. No less.’” She turned her cup in its saucer, as though it were a sort of compass. “In case you’re interested in the Zen view.”
“You’re not seriously-”
“I know, how thoroughly seppuku of me.”
“Stop joking about it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not contemplating suicide. But do I think about death more and more? Why yes I do. And you shouldn’t. It would be wrong and selfish and cowardly of me to inflict all that on you. Besides, there are worse things than loneliness. I let myself forget that.”
“You’d rather be alone than with me.”
“You make me want to drink, Roque. You make me want to drink and fuck and laugh and forget.”
“And that’s so terrible?”
“It’s cowardice. It’s unfair. To us both.” She said this with a sort of guilty kindness, fiddling with her cup. “You mentioned that something had come up, right? And you needed to talk about it.”
“Yeah. My uncle. The one they arrested yesterday.”
“He’s not really your uncle, though, if I remember.”
“Close enough. I owe him. Big-time. His son, Happy, he’s come back. He got deported, couple years ago. Showed up out of the blue. I met with him this morning.”
She looked at him askance. “What are you saying?”
“Tía Lucha has to stay here to earn enough to look after Godo. Godo’s too messed up to travel anywhere, that’s not gonna change. Happy’s not supposed to be here in the first place, no way he can just come and go.”
“Go where?”
“El Salvador.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Why-”
“I have to go down and make sure the money we send gets into the right hands, make sure Tío Faustino doesn’t get screwed by the mareros.”
“The who?”
“Gang members. They’re the ones who can get him through Guatemala and Mexico. The borders have tightened up down there. It’s not as easy as it used to be to come north. Money’s not enough, you’ll just get ripped off. Or worse. And Tío Faustino’s no spring chicken.”
“And you’ll be doing what in all this?”
“We get close to the border, the mareros take Tío, hike him overland, I drive through the checkpoint. I’ve got an American passport, it’s like magic down there. I pick up Tío on the other side, some designated spot. Guatemala, then Mexico, then the U.S.”
“That’s insane. How can you trust these people?”
“Like we’ve got a choice? The drug cartels took over the smuggling routes. You can’t just go it alone, too easy to get killed or betrayed. Happy already has some angle worked, he hooked up with these people when he came across this last time. All we need’s the money.”
“I can’t believe you’re even thinking-”
“I can’t let the family down.”
“Your family shouldn’t ask you to do something so stupid.”
“Please, don’t talk about my family like that.”
“You’ve got too much promise.”
“It’s not about me.”
“You’re just trying to prove yourself. To this cousin.”
His hand ventured across the table, searching for hers. “It’s nice, by the way, to hear you say I’ve got promise.”
“I’ve always said that. When does all this happen?”
“Happy’s got a line on a job for me, some moving company, guys he knows.” He drew back the neglected hand. “Like I said, we need money, more so now. It’ll take anywhere from six weeks to six months for them to deport Tío Faustino. They’ve got laws on the books, from the civil war, making it harder to send Salvadorans back home. It creates a lot of red tape. But he’s got no case, no lawyer can help him, he’s screwed. So it’s just a matter of time.”
She rose from the table, walked to the sink, staring out past the muslin curtains. “I’m not going to save you from yourself, Roque, if that’s what you came here for.”
He felt stunned. “That’s what you think?”
She opened the spigot, ending finally the thudding drip, and rinsed her cup. “I care about you. What you’re thinking of doing, I wish I could stop you, talk you out of it. But I also get the feeling that’s precisely what you want me to do. It feels manipulative. It feels wrong.”
“It is wrong. Everything you just said.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He glanced again at the bodhisattva Jizo, guardian of travelers. What she meant was goodbye, she’d been saying it all along. Maybe it was time he listened.