Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (2 page)

When she
hesitated, he added, “It’s OK.”

Maria still didn’t
answer but could not stop the uncontrollable shaking of her hands. The man
reached over and gently held her hands.

“I’m not going to
arrest you or hurt you. I’m here to help,” he whispered.

 After a full
minute, the man let go of her hands and moved into a variety of positions,
barely touching Maria under the sheet. These movements were only for the camera,
he told her, so that if anyone watched a monitor, nothing would raise suspicion.
In reality, the man behaved like a gentleman. He appeared to have only one
intention: rescuing Maria.

As he pretended to
get his money’s worth, the man reached for his billfold and showed Maria his
badge, barely visible under the sheet.

Maria touched it
and gasped as her vision adjusted, suddenly aware that he seemed to have a
plan. The badge, FBI, appeared to be real! Her heart beat faster. Even in the
dim light under the tent-like cover,
the eagle’s outstretched wings gave her
hope that freedom might be within reach!

“Ooh, big!” she
said. Maria pouted her freshly-painted lips and showed her face toward the
camera.

“It does the job,”
the agent said as he put the badge away under the covers. “You’ll see.”

“May I look at
your neck?” he asked in a whisper.

Maria pulled her
hair to the side, knowing that the ink would still be visible in the tent-like
shape of the sheet.

“They’ve already
branded you. Ouch!”

For the ever-watchful
camera, she pretended that this man, like any other, was simply there for his
own pleasure. Outwardly, she had learned to perform for survival. It was merely
an act. Inwardly, she had learned to hate men and to turn all her physical sensation
to stone, not allowing anything to hurt. Could this man, with his gentle, even
shy approach, actually be different?

Having learned the
rules of survival, she cooed for the camera. When she spoke she knew she
sounded like a little girl. She had a lisp, so she tried to avoid words that
had an s in them. Maybe someday she’d have the chance to outgrow this speech
impediment.

Then, whispering,
the man explained that he was with the FBI and that her father was worried
about her. 

“I didn’t run
away!” Maria whispered, her head still under the covers. She started to cry.

“Don’t cry. He
knows that. We’re going to get you back to him.”

He let her know
that they were able to track her boyfriend to this address.

“You saw my
boyfriend?” she asked.

“You want to go
back home, don’t you?” he asked. “Forget him. You’ll leave tomorrow. Don’t pack
heavy!”

“Get me out of this
hell-hole. Now!” she said, trying hard not to raise her voice.

“All in good
time,” he said. “There’s no way they’d let you leave with me. This group plays
for keeps.”

Maria bit her lip.
She already knew that. Again, her hands shook.

He told Maria to
expect a woman to enter the cantina at 1:30 p.m. on the following day. She
would sip a bottle of sweet tea, no ice, for 20 minutes at the bar. Then she
would leave the cantina and wait outside in a blue car. Maria was to wait until
the woman, an analyst for the FBI, was gone. Then Maria was to go out and approach
the car. The woman would introduce herself as Miss Shoe.

“Are you free to
leave this building?”

“No, not without
Ramon or someone.”

“Find an excuse to
go through the front door. We’ll do the rest.”

“They took my
passport,” Maria lamented. “And my phone.”

The passport
itself symbolized freedom as much as the barbed wire around the back courtyard represented
imprisonment. She had been trapped and she knew it from the day she arrived.
She hated herself for having been so stupid.

“Don’t worry about
that. Just do what I told you.”

 When the agent
left, he bent over Maria and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then, in a normal
voice but in view of the camera’s eye, he said, “You’re good, Candie! I’ll stop
back the next time I’m down this way.”

Maria winced when
he called her Candie. Candy was something to be devoured for its sweetness.

The agent had been
both polite and funny. If she had been able to leave last night, like she’d
hoped, today’s brutal experience would not have happened.

She stood at the
broken mirror in the shared bathroom and studied her reflection. Hollow eyes
set deep revealed her pain while the dark circles underneath showed her
neglected health. She barely recognized the girl who stared back at her from a
face of yellowish blotchy skin that was now, already, showing signs of bruising.
Just a few months ago, her high school photo showed a different face, one that
was smooth and clear, vibrant, with bright sparkling eyes and a quick smile. If
she somehow went back to her father, would he recognize her? Would he take her
in? Some of the girls said you could never go back home. Maria wondered.

In the shower, she
attempted to wash away the filth, the grime, the bruising, the guilt, but could
wash away only the visible dirt. As she bathed, Maria hummed and tried to
imagine she was the person she had been before the cantina. She replayed
details of the agent’s words, now committed to memory.

“1:30…woman… sweet
tea,” she thought. “20 minutes...Don’t pack heavy…blue car.”

Freshly showered,
dressed now in a clean T-shirt, shorts and sandals, and with her dark hair done
in a long low ponytail, Maria tried to be nonchalant and not let her pain,
worry or excitement show. She used makeup to cover some visible bruising and
dark under-eye circles but she also ached inside. She worried about lasting
physical damage. She worried about the ink on her neck that wouldn’t wash away.
Mostly, Maria worried that she would never feel truly clean again.

After giving
herself a Cheshire cat smile in the foggy mirror, she went outside again to the
path that led to the cantina’s back entrance, this time trying to keep her feet
clean and her face devoid of her inner excitement at the possibility of escape.

Maria stopped
briefly at the small room she shared with three others. She took the money out
of the box. Then, with all her cash stuffed in her bra, she grabbed only as
many items as her handbag would hold, putting her rosary around her neck. Ramon
wouldn’t like that, but she didn’t care.

It was early
afternoon, almost time for the appointed visitor. A small table in a dark
corner of the cantina would give Maria a vantage point. She sat near a stack of
catalogs. The girls often sat here to peruse the catalogs for lingerie and to
be on display for potential clients. Maria positioned herself carefully and
watched the front door as she flipped through the pages of a catalog. A
scantily-clad model smiled back on the cover. When a man walked in, Maria felt
sick at the thought that a man might approach her.

With only the money
in her bra, the rosary, and her small quilted handbag dangling from her
shoulder, Maria watched, waited and said a silent prayer.

Occasionally, she
glanced at the photos in the catalog but they made her stomach tighten. Ramon did
the books, and Maria never saw money. He allowed her a small weekly allowance
that was to be spent on her appearance. Nothing could be purchased without his
approval.

Built like a middle-weight
boxer, Ramon was harsh, no nonsense. He expected his girls to look good. Those
who didn’t went missing. Maria and the others sometimes whispered among
themselves about the missing girls. Maybe they were simply allowed to go home,
having served their time, paid off their passports, or whatever debt Ramon said
they owed him. But three had gone missing in the two months that Maria had been
there and Ramon wasn’t talking. When a girl got careless, he would sneer and say,
“Ugly girls are a vexation to the eye.” Then, after awhile, you wouldn’t see
that girl again. And so the girls worked on their appearance: hair, nails,
makeup, and clothing.

After Maria spent only
a few minutes looking at catalogs, a woman walked in and approached the bar.
She was around forty, slender, and had shoulder length brown hair. Althought the
woman was not exactly pretty, she was attractive in a businessy sort of way. The
agent from last night had not mentioned the woman’s appearance, but Maria was
sure this was the analyst, Miss Shoe. Something about her looked tough, smart.

The
bartender
looked at the woman with suspicion in his eyes and said, “Yeah?”

Maria tried to
listen when the woman chit-chatted lightly about the heat of the day. The
bartender paid no attention to the woman except to take her order.

One of the other
girls, about Maria’s age, came in through the back door and walked to the table
where Maria sat, interrupting Maria’s concentration.

“Man, it’s hot
today. You done with this?” the girl asked as she reached for the catalog.

“Sure,” said Maria,
trying to stay focused on the woman. “Go for it! I don’t need any of this
stuff.”

“You don’t? I sure
do!” the girl said.

Although Maria believed
she now had a chance to be away from this God-forsaken place, she took her eyes
off the woman to look softly at the girl and promised herself that someday, if
she made it out, she’d find a way to set these girls free. Not one had asked to
come here. When the girl looked up at her, Maria gave her a quick smile and
then turned her attention back to the woman who leisurely sipped a bottle of
tea, no ice.

OK!
 Maria
thought. Her heart raced. She remembered to sit tight and not approach the
woman inside the cantina, but it was so hard to wait, to stay calm, and just
mark time. Again, her hands began shaking.

A man entered in
dirty work clothes, apparently on lunchbreak from a nearby factory. He nodded
his head toward the girls and talked to the bartender Ramon.

“Look here, Candie.
This outfit is just drop dead gorgeous. Would Ramon let me get it?” the girl
asked Maria as she pointed to an outfit.

“That rag looks
like trouble. So does that man who just walked in,” Maria said, and brushed the
girl’s bangs out of her eyes. “Don’t get hurt.”

When the girl gave
her a quizzical look, Maria showed her fresh bruises.

The woman’s timing
was exact. After precisely twenty minutes, the woman paid Ramon and left the
cantina. The man was seating himself at the bar, having a beer.

“Ouch! Who did
that?” the girl asked after she studied the bluish mark on Maria’s face.

Maria shook her
head. It made her feel dirty to remember the disgusting man who was responsible.

“Skinny. Crooked
teeth. Mean eyes. You’ve seen him,” Maria said without emotion. She got up to
leave. “Stay safe.” Her lisp was worse than usual. It didn’t matter.

Finding it hard to
remain calm, she adjusted the lump in her bra and headed toward the front of
the cantina. Without looking at the bartender’s eyes or at the stranger, Maria
sauntered past them on toward the door and the dust-covered street. She clasped
her hands around her handbag to stop them from shaking.

The bartender quickly
moved to block her way. “Whoa, girl!”

“I need to breathe.
Not going anywhere.”

Maria walked out.

           
Abbi had a gift.
Or was it a curse? She contemplated the feeling that she had and tried to piece
together the fragments of scenes that kept popping into her mind, awful scenes
she couldn’t shake. A gunshot. Her father. A scuffle. Her mother. Someone
slumped over in pain. Then lights out. Something felt wrong, terribly wrong.
And it involved her parents.

As if those scenes
weren’t enough to convince her, Shoe Clerk called.

Abbi breathed
deeply but finally resigned herself to what she had to do. She hated having to
leave home. She hated trying to pretend that all was well. The phone call sfrom
Shoe Clerk was proof that all was not well. She picked up her cell phone and
started texting a friend.

CAN I COME OVER?

[Brief pause.]

            TO STAY?

            4 AWHILE. SHOE CLERK
CALLED.

            OMG. GOTTA CLEAR MY
BUNK.

            THX C YA. TELL MAMA P I
MISSED HER COOKING.

            This text exchange
happened between, Abbi Abernathy, 16, and Louise Pelletier, her 17-year-old
friend. As close as they were, she couldn’t tell Louise about the scene flashes
she’d been seeing or the strange way she felt. There’s no way Louise would understand.
Abbi had tried before. She used to think everyone did this, to some degree, but
Louise never did. Louise thought Abbi was “imaginative” and “inventive”, polite
ways of saying Abbi did over-the-top drama.

The two were very
different but, in many ways, like sisters. Abbi envied the way Louise knew what
she wanted to do with her life. Louise wanted to be an accountant.  The very
thought of doing that made Abbi sick. Abbi had no idea what her own career path
might be. Something adventuresome, maybe. Or imaginative.

Abbi’s parents spent
long days at work and seemed to enjoy it. For the most part, Abbi kept to
herself and her parents kept their business to themselves. That’s just the way
Abbi liked it. They said they worked for Fred’s Boots Incorporated. When Abbi
was little, it kept her in dance shoes. That’s all that mattered in her early years.

Now, at the age of
sixteen, Abbi’s discussions with her parents still revolved around shoes. If
Abbi rolled her eyes or jokingly protested, they ignored it.  Comments such as
“This next job is a shoe-in!” and “Wouldn’t want to be in his shoes!” punctuated
their conversations. Abbi found it annoying, but she played along to amuse
them.