Evidence of Things Not Seen (22 page)

What would have happened if I’d turned Maricela away when she came wandering up here with that boy on her hip? How do you think that little boy would do if she were desperate and scared and hungry? You never know how you are going to touch some people. I think people are basically good. Really good. That golden rule has been working on us for centuries.

People think this world is much crueler and more brutal now. But it’s not. We only hear about it faster. People have those little computer phones in their pockets and they hear about disasters and meannesses at the speed of light. They think things are worse. But I don’t. You go stand on some dirt between heaven and earth and see for yourself. Life is pretty fine.

I think, wherever Tommy is, he knows it.

MAY 4 . ONE YEAR MISSING

CHUY

Excuse me, sir. Is this where the trucks pick up workers?

I’ve been working on a farm nearby. The Traverses’ place. You know them?

Yes, they have a lot of work, a lot of planting. I could stay on but I made a promise to someone I’d keep going north.

You need some help? With the shovel, I mean. You want me to dig something while I’m waiting?

Sure. Where do you want it? Here? Okay. One post hole coming up.

Thank you. Consuelo made me speak English all the time. Even watching television. No telenovelas. If a show came on with Spanish subtitles, she’d tape paper in front of them. You know how I learned the most English? Comic books. I love them. I read as many as I could. Superman. Batman. The Avengers. Consuelo didn’t mind. As long as they were in English. She said I had to dream in English. I guess it worked, but I can’t tell if I dream in English or Spanish. They both sound normal to me.

You could call Consuelo my mother. She raised me.

My parents live in Mexico. They never got papers. We lived across the river from the American colonias. I went back and forth all the time when I was little. After a while I stayed with Consuelo. My parents wanted me to learn English and have a better life, so I stayed and went to school on the American side. I never got papers either, but everyone thought I was Consuelo’s boy. The people who knew didn’t care. Consuelo had papers and her three daughters were born here. She was glad to have a boy. One more mouth to feed is hard, but one more mouth also means two more hands to work. As soon as I could hold a shovel, I went out to work. But only after school.

Consuelo made sure school was first. She made me pronounce every word right. No
share
for chair. She is
fuerte
. She’s the reason I’m headed north. She made me promise I’d leave as soon as I graduated high school. She says living down there is like dying and if I don’t leave, she’d kill me. She might. She carries a knife at her waist.

The colonias. You ever been to the border? No, they’re not even towns. And the houses aren’t really houses. It’s a hard place. It’s kind of nowhere. You’re not in Mexico and you’re not in America. Well, you are but you’re not. Consuelo ended up in the colonias because she didn’t have much money after her husband left and never came back.

I told her I would send her money when I was working but she said not to. She says it takes five minutes to get used something better but it takes a whole lifetime to get used to ugliness. She says she’s used to the ugliness now. It’s a hard place.

No, she never adopted me. My parents tried to come back across the border several times but they got stopped. Finally, they stayed in Mexico. For a while I sneaked across to see them. But then one day I stopped. When you’re young, immigration doesn’t see you. But as soon as you start to look like a worker, they hassle you. And if you don’t speak English, they really hassle you. I haven’t seen my parents since I was ten.

I have papers but they’re fake. Consuelo paid a lot of money to get them. That’s why I am walking and sleeping in fields. She told me to get very far away from the border before I use them and start acting like an American. She said the farther I get from the border, the less people will know what official papers look like. I know it will be hard, but I think I can make it. Consuelo told me wherever I end up, I should go to school. She said immigration wouldn’t look for me there. I don’t know. She might be right.

Consuelo will tell my parents I went north. They will be happy. I know they want me to have a good life. It seems like my parents gave me up, but that’s not true. When you’re on the bottom and you’re sinking in the mud, you push your children up and hope someone will catch them. Even if it means you drown.

Is this deep enough?

Oh wait. You need some help carrying that?

That’s a beautiful cross, sir. I like the way the wood is curved on the corners and the bronze is set into the middle. It looks strong. It looks like your love for that person is strong. Someone is lucky to be remembered with this cross.

Your son? Oh, señor, I’m sorry.

Here, let me help you. Hold it straight. I’ll pack in the dirt. My name is Chuy, by the way. Jesus. But everyone calls me Chuy.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Smythe.

When did he die?

He disappeared? That means he could come back. People can disappear like ghosts and they come back. It happens all the time on the border. You never know. Some people get picked up by Immigration and get sent back to Mexico. Some people go north. And then they come back.

What’s his name? Tommy? In the colonias, if you never find the body, you always have hope. They can come back. People disappear. Parents. Sisters. Even the drunk old men. They come back. Sometimes with a lot of money. Sometimes beat up. If they don’t come back, you never know. They could be in Hollywood. They could be rich. You never know. Tommy could come back.

A year is a long time. But it could happen.

It took me six months to walk here from the colonias. I took my time. I worked on the way, but walking is like digging a big hole with a shovel. It takes time, but you get there.

You want me to get some rocks to put around the base? Don’t worry. I don’t mind. This land has a lot of rocks.

I wonder if that truck is coming. I probably got here too late. Mr. Travers said I could get more work around here. He also said the woman who owns that land out there always needs help with her goats and sheep. He says she takes in boarders like me. Has a girl and her son living there now. I could walk up there. If the truck doesn’t come, maybe I will.

Yeah, I slept out there last night. Did you know there was an old stone house straight out that way? It’s falling down but I slept there. No, I never make fires. It’s too dangerous.

No, I’m not scared. I mean, I keep to myself. I watch out. I learned a lot listening to people who crossed over. If you are traveling alone, you look for a place to sleep while you are walking. Under a tree is good. Or sometimes you pass by a ledge with flat ground underneath. Somehow you have to mark the place in your mind. But you keep walking. Then when the sun is setting, you stop and you wait. When it’s dark, you go back to that place you found. You need to go back to it in the dark because you don’t want anyone to see you. If someone sees you go back to the place, they could rob you when you are asleep. Or worse.

I’ve walked a mile, or more, back to a place. Sometimes, if I don’t see a place during the day, I walk a long time after it’s dark and then I lie down and hope for the best. Once you lie down, you listen. You listen for any sounds. You learn the difference between a man and an armadillo. They are difficult to tell apart. The armadillos are so loud they sound like men stumbling around.

Gradually, I stop listening for the sounds and I breathe. After a while, it’s like I become the air. I start to disappear into the night. Then I fall asleep.

Sometimes strange sounds wake me up and I see people, sometimes three or four, walking through the field. They look like ghosts. You can’t see their legs. Just the shapes of their bodies moving over a field. That’s another way to travel. At night. I couldn’t do it. It’s too hard to find a safe place to sleep during the day. Plus I would be too nervous to fall asleep. Someone could walk up on me. At least, at night, it’s easier to hide in the shadows.

Is that enough rocks? I think we need two more.

Yes, I see a lot of things at night. Sometimes I think that all the people sleeping in their beds have no idea of the life going on around them. There is a whole highway of people, traveling in the night, out in their fields, crossing their roads. We are invisible to them.

Sometimes, there are people out there who are invisible even when we see them.

Well, it’s a strange story. You probably won’t believe me. Not too long ago, maybe a month, I was south and west of here. I’d just left a farm that had me digging postholes for a new fence. I probably dug five hundred holes. This one was easy, señor.

Anyway, I found a really good place to sleep. There was a tree up above and a deep hole under a ledge. It looked like animals had dug it out or the wind had eroded it. After I got in there, a storm started. I could hear the thunder. The lightning was flashing all around. One time it flashed, I swear I saw a person. About as close as that trash can. The thunder and lightning were right on top of each other. No rain yet. The whole field was filled with electricity and noise. I kept watching that person. I was worried he would get hit by lightning. I yelled at him to come over where I was. He heard me because he looked at me. I swear he looked at me because it was very, very bright. I could see his face. There was lightning everywhere and then he disappeared. I’m not kidding. I ran over there because I thought maybe he was struck by lightning and fell down. But he was gone. I’m telling you it was like he stepped into a closet and disappeared. I swear. I know it sounds crazy. But there wasn’t any trace of him. Anywhere. Nothing. I was scared to keep standing there. Maybe there was an entrance to another world and, if stepped the wrong way, I wouldn’t come back. Then the rain poured down and I ran to my hole. When I looked back, it was raining so hard I couldn’t see a thing. It was like a curtain of water.

Now I’m not sure I saw anything. Maybe it was a trick with the lightning. But maybe it was a spirit or an alien. You know, an extraterrestrial.

Like I said, sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night and people were walking through the fields. At least I thought they were people. Maybe they weren’t. What if I was seeing aliens? What if I was seeing into another universe? It could be, right? You probably think I am crazy. Or that I read too many comic books. Comic books always have aliens. And heroes jumping across space and time to save the day.

Consuelo says spirits walk the earth. She believes there is a time, right after someone dies, when you can see him. Like they haven’t crossed over. She says you can talk to them and they can hear you. She talks to her spirits all the time. She says they talk to her but I’m not so sure of that. Because they only talk to her when she wants to make me do something I don’t want to do. “I can hear your
abuelo
Juan Pedro telling me you need to take physics or chemistry so you can be a doctor.” Or something like that.

There. The cross is strong. You know, you could leave a message for your son here. On the cross. In case he comes back, so he knows you are still looking for him. People will talk about this cross, I think. They will know about your son. I know about your son. I will look for him.

Every night, when I go to sleep outside, I pray that I will wake up in the morning. I pray I will be safe. I never know when I go to sleep if something might happen. Anything could. Poisonous spiders. Robbers. Mountain lions. You don’t know.

When I wake up, I’m glad to be alive. I’m glad to stand up and keep walking. But you know what? I’m still uncertain. Any minute something can change. A storm. A snake. I thought I would feel safe in the morning. But I don’t.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s hard to live with not knowing. Like you want to know if your son is dead or alive. But it’s uncertain. This life is a mystery.

We have to live each day with the mystery.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In a very real way, this debut novel is in your hands because a whole lot of people said, “Yes. Keep going. You can do it. Wow. Love it.” Bear with me while I try to acknowledge all of them here.

I began this novel while I was an M.F.A. student at that holy place on the hill in Montpelier called Vermont College of Fine Arts. Every lecture and workshop shaped me as a writer, and I am down on my knees grateful for advisers Sarah Ellis, Jane Kurtz, Sharon Darrow, and Julie Larios for their wisdom and coaching and patience. A special kekekekekek goes out to my class of Thunderbadgers.

After I graduated from VCFA, I was lucky enough to fall into the finest clutch of critique mates ever: Anne Bustard, Bethany Hegedus, and Liz Garton Scanlon. Writing is a less lonely business with you ducks quacking along with me.

This novel has grown in size and depth as the result of these readers: Kimberly Garcia, Jim Phillips, Greg Delaney, John Thomas Harms, Brian Yansky, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Meredith Davis, and Rod and Isabella Russell-Ides, as well as the Palacios retreat group: Kathi Appelt, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, and Jeanette Ingold. Thank you for every minute of your time and attention.