The Guardians (14 page)

Tears came to my eyes from the stench, the pain in my back and knees, and so much unsureness de todo.

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?
Jesus had cried out on the cross. All I ever have to do is remind myself what Our Savior suffered for us to know what I am capable of enduring, Padre Pío. I did not dare move, just like I used to have to do when we were crossing el desierto and helicopters were hovering over us. “Stay put,” my dad would say, pushing my head
down between my knees, hoping I would blend in with a nopal. “Shhh.”

Su Servidor

Praise Jesus Christ in His Angels and in His Saints, Santo Pío:

Perdón that I take so much of your time as I continue with my poor excuse for offending God. That long night that I watched out for los coyotes and never saw anyone, finally there was some whispering outside my garbage bin and then
zas, zas, zas,
on the lid. I jumped up like un jack-in-the-box. It was El Toro and Jesse. “Come on, man,” Jesse said. I climbed out and followed them down the street to Jesse's car.

“Where's la Tiny?” I asked, looking around and seeing no sign of her. Once Jesse and I were in the backseat and El Toro behind the wheel, Jesse said, “She made it back home a while ago. Ésa's got a kid, now. It's all good. She can't be out in the street all night like before.”

“Anyway, la cholita did all right,” El Toro said. “She got in the house—”

“What?” I said. “But how—”

“Don't worry about it,” El Toro said. “She got in. She got out. She got some information for us.”

While we stayed parked and I waited to hear whatever information they had found out, El Toro lit up a marijuana cigarette and offered it to me. I shook my head and he passed it to his brother.

It was not the first time I had been around people smoking marijuana, Su Reverencia. Not only en los baños at school did I see muchachos smoking but even as a child, working in the fields. Sometimes the men would be outside los jacales we stayed in; they would smoke cigarettes and sometimes marijuana. They drank beer and played guitar if anyone had one, anything to forget the day they'd just had and the next one coming up just like it. But smoking in a car at two in the morning, with Border Patrol and police cars cruising for people like us, made me duck down.

“Hey, pendejo, whatchu afraid of?” El Toro barely breathed out, holding in marijuana smoke.

To begin with, I did not even have a green card.

I stayed down while El Toro kept talking. “Man, you got yourself some real sh– to deal with.” (Forgive me, O Holy One, as I repeat more or less accurately only to show you how the Devil made himself manifest before me with so many temptations.) He took the marijuana cigarette back from Jesse and kept it for himself from then on. “Those coyotes that got hold of your old man are with los Villanueva—a small but very powerful family. Ambitious. They're into pushing meth, kids, females, all kinds of sh–. That's who we're talking about, none other.”

“Aw, man,” Jesse said under his breath. He looked out of the window into the quiet of the street at that hour and I waited to hear more of how exactly I was going to descend into hell forever. I knew there was no turning back from the threshold of eternal damnation. Padre Pío, even if I had good intentions at the hour of my death I was not sure I would be able to avoid God's anger.

I had no idea who were the narco familias or carteles, Santito. All I could think of was how had my father gotten involved with them? Usually he and my mother would find a coyote in Juárez who would set a price, maybe a couple of hundred dollars for each of us, and he would cross us all over. It was harder for first-timers and people coming from farther away. It was a lot more money, too, as much as fifteen hundred a head. They would be brought over through the desert, like herded goats that needed no consideration, sometimes not even water.

One time, back when we were crossing into California, mi hermana became so dehydrated we were sure she was going to die. My papá had to carry her. The coyote had just left us out there, having no use for us once he had his money. All I could see was white. My mamá started to carry me, too. After a time, I became too heavy for her. Then my father and my mother both dropped to their knees. It got so bad, we had no choice but to drink our own urine. It is disgusting to admit, but it saved us.

“They came from Tornillo,” El Toro said. “These newcomers have got to fight it out for control like a buncha muthaf—–s. And when I

say fight”
the Palomino jefe said, “I mean AK-
47
wars with the police in Juárez, man. In la pinta I heard these people threw a hand grenade into the police station.”

El Toro stopped to admire the marijuana cigarette he held up in his hand. “They must grow this sh - - in Acapulco, man,” he said, taking in a long puff before continuing. “Not only that, the Villanueva family's got some meth labs set up. That house right there? That's one of them.

Tiny checked it out. Move out the way, Scarface, the Mexicans are here to stay Coke, horse, weed, ice … snot—they're all coming to a school ground near you. Little brother,” he said to Jesse, “if we can get in on that, you and me are gonna be rolling in some major feria.”

Not just what he was saying but even his tone was ominous, San Pío. El Toro's hair was all messed up, thick and black like a hairy dog's. In silhouette, so huge, greñudo, sweating and breathing down on me like Cyclops—I could not imagine anything ever terrifying me more.

That was until a light flashed on us.

The sheriff's car pulled up right behind Jesse's. Two deputies got out and started walking toward us with their hands on their holsters. One of them was an older lady.

“F— me,” El Toro muttered, as he turned around to face the front and he banged the steering wheel with one of his manotas. I did not know what he did with the marijuana cigarette. As if it was all we had to worry about, Padre Santo. When the authorities pulled the three of us out, they not only found marijuana in El Toro's back pocket, but he was carrying a knife inside his bota.

“And you, boys?” El chavo deputy asked Jesse and me, while we were made to lie facedown on the sidewalk. “What will we find out about you?” (I call him un chavo because he looked almost my age.)

La señora deputy was radioing in to see who we were. All I had in my pocket were a few dollars and my student I.D. that said I was in high school.

“How old are you, son?” I felt a slight kick on the back of my shoe. “Yeah, you. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I answered. “Today was my birthday,” I added, like they were going to drop everything and start singing “Las Mañanitas” to me.

“Well, happy birthday,” the woman deputy said, coming back from the squad car. “Let's take them in,” she told her partner. It turned out she was a chief deputy and his superior.

“Nice company you're keeping with this guy,” said el chavo deputy, who yanked me up off the ground. We were already handcuffed. He meant El Toro, since the next thing he said was directed at him: “Well, I hope you enjoyed your vacation since it didn't take long for you to violate your parole.”

First they drove us to the jail downtown, where they took los hermanos Arellano. The chavo deputy went with them. The woman chief deputy took me across the street to what she called the “holding
tank” and stuck me in a cage. She left me there with no explanation. Of course she did not owe one to me. Then she went about her business as if I was not there. My wrists were still cuffed. I just stood watching like an animal passes the time watching the people at the zoo, Padre Pío. All kinds of gente went back and forth, police officers, state police, their prisoners, and victims. Y las familias coming to find out what to do about it all, in their bedtime clothes and faces. After about an hour, la chief deputy came back and let me out. She said she was going to process me. I was not sure what that would entail but the sound of it made me feel like a slice of cheese.

She took me to her desk to fill out forms, which I figured would end with me being deported. But she never bothered to ask if I was legal or not. At the time I figured it was because of my perfect English or the nuevos jeans I was wearing that my tía got me. “You look like a dorky white boy,” Jesse always told me. “Who'd suspect you of anything?” Maybe that was it, I thought. But later, I found out from el Chongo Man that they would not have reported me to Immigration because it was not their job.

I did not realize I was shaking until la chief deputy said, “I'm going to take the handcuffs off.” Then she asked me where I lived, and for some reason, Su Reverencia, everything that came out of my mouth was a lie. I would open my mouth and a lie would spill out. She would ask something else and out would come another lie. San Pío, by then I knew I was condemned already, maybe not in the eyes of the law, or even with los Palominos, but in my soul. “I live with my grandfather here in El Paso,” I said, thinking about el viejito at my barbecue party.

“CALL ME ABUELO MILTON—EVERYBODY DOES,
”el señor had told me. We had talked for a while about school and what I wanted to do with my life and then Miguel's grandfather gave me his address and phone number.
“COME BY AND VISIT ME WHENEVER YOU LIKE, CARNALITO,
”he told me.

He had probably seen me as a good boy, not like my “pachuco” friends, as he called them. I think that was the way they called bandilleros in the old days. But el Abuelo Milton had not seen how dangerously close I was already to becoming one of them. Steadily, they were absorbing me, like through osmosis. (I am excusing myself again, I know, Padre Pío. Perdóname.)

“Your school I.D. says you go to school up in Cabuche. What's up with that?” la chief deputy asked, sitting on the corner of her desk and
acting like she was my friend. “Call me Diputada Sofia,” she said. She reminded me of the painting of the beautiful lady holding the Mexican flag that they showed in history books in school in México, proud and so resilient.

There was no way I was going to call my tía Regina and give her a heart attack, like she always said she was going to have one day. “I go with my uncle, Miguel Betancourt, who teaches at the middle school there.” The lies kept coming. I lied like I was Dostoyevsky making my tale longer and longer. (And worse, Santito, deriving pleasure from my cleverness.) “He thinks the school is better for me up there than down here, where my abuelo lives.”

La Diputada Sofia nodded with her kind eyes and her equally kind smile, lips painted dark pink and her mouth going, “Tsk, tsk.” “Your parents?” she asked next.

“Dead,” I said, which was only half a lie, I hoped. I also hoped God would not punish me for that lie and take my papá away, too. My father had to still be here on earth—somewhere. That is what I really wanted to tell la Diputada Sofia, Padre Pío. I took a deep breath, hoping that when I opened my mouth next I'd have the courage to say the truth.
You want to catch real criminals?
I wanted to ask.
Go check out that house where los coyotes live. They are not just coyotes, they are really mala gente. Find my father. Leave kids like me alone who only want to study in peace.

She was staring right into my eyes and I wondered if she was reading my mind. My thoughts kept going loudly,
I belong to the Lord, not to your laws.
“My kingdom is not of this world,” I muttered. She did not hear me, I was sure. And I did not repeat the blasphemy. I was shivering like I had a fever, like my tío Osvaldo trembled, lips quivering, just before he died. Maybe I was going to die, I thought, and not just wished I would from shame. Maybe I had contracted something in that garbage can, tetanus, malaria, or maybe the West Nile virus. My arms and ankles itched painfully from the mosquito and fly bites I got in the garbage bin.

La Diputada Sofia sighed. “You kids,” was all she said, while shaking her head. I could not tell if she was feeling sorry for me or was just repulsed. I kept my head down. I wanted to look up but I could not.

She did not ask any more questions. Instead, she got up and let the clipboard fall hard on the desk. It knocked down a pencil holder. Another officer nearby looked up for a second. “You okay?” he asked her. She nodded and crossed her arms. Here it comes, I thought, the scold
ing, the verdict. They are going to take me off to jail with the Arellano brothers. Who knows what will become of me. I should have told her the truth. At least about my tía Regina. Now my aunt would never know what happened to me. She would die of a broken heart for sure. Then la Diputada Sofia said, with those kind eyes and kind smile and most of all a kind voice, “You know what, Gabriel?”

I dared to raise my eyes to meet hers.

“I think we're going to give you a break this time. You may be heading down the wrong path hanging around with the likes of those two we found you with tonight, but I got a feeling it's not too late for you. I'm going to call your grandfather to come down and pick you up.”

With my gratitude y mi devoción
Your most unworthy servant

EL ABUELO MILTON

Whew, hombre, I sure do hope the summer don't turn out like that one back in el ninety-four, when it was up past los one hundreds for two months straight.