Fifty Grand

He was wearing an oversize black T-shirt and blue Wrangler jeans that had been hemmed by a tailor. His shoes were interesting. White Nike Air Jordans that seemed to have two different soles. He was dressing up, but he was dirt poor-in his brother’s pants and someone else’s used sneakers.

Still, that was no excuse.

“One dollar for a refreshing drink,” he insisted.

I decided to work him a little.

“Where I’m from, güey, we have a saying: ‘Refuse a man a drink and he’ll refuse to speak for you at the Gates of Heaven.’ But maybe you don’t believe in Heaven. That’s ok. Most people don’t, these days,” I said icily.

The deaf old woman genuflected.

The Indian kid looked uneasy. “And what do you know about it, señora?” he asked.

Señora, not señorita. That was ok. It was better than güey.

“It’s just a saying, forget it,” I assured him.

His eyes frosted over and he looked at me with disdain, and I knew the hook was in. Too damn easy. Poor kid, I thought, and returned to the view of the flatland. A few scrabble trees, a dried-up creek.

“Ok, fifty cents, you can have it… Hell, you can have it for nothing.”

I yawned.

“Go on, take it,” the kid said finally, resting the bottle on my knee.

No point torturing him anymore. “For your sake,” I said.

He smiled with relief. A big easy grin. A kid’s grin. Life hadn’t ground that out of him. Hadn’t seen too much of the world.

Twenty-one, twenty-two. Half a decade separated us. Half a dec and a lot of experience.

I unscrewed the bottle top, took a drink of the tepid water, and passed it back.

“Muy amable,” I said.

He put his hand over his heart. “Please think nothing of it,” he replied formally.

Somewhere, at least for a while, he’d been raised right with a lot of sisters and aunts. It made me curious.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Francisco.”

“I heard Pedro say you were from Nicaragua.”

“Originally, but I lived in the DF for a few years.”

“The DF?”

“That’s the Distrito Federal, you know, Mexico City, and then after that I moved to Juárez.”

Shit, I’d been planning on saying that I was from Mexico City too. Have to change that idea. “I see,” I said hastily. “So what are your plans in America?”

“I want to make money,” he said flatly. The old man murmured, the little kid grinned. Of course. I was the odd fish here. That’s why everybody went to America.

“Why didn’t you cross in Juárez?”

He leaned forward. “Vientos Huracánados,” he said in a whisper.

I nodded. One of the newer, nastier drug gangs. They don’t kill you. They go to your house and kneecap your children. Then they go to your mother’s house and torch the place with her in it. And then they go to the cemetery and dig up your father’s corpse and behead it. Not to be fucked with.

“What did you do to them?” I asked.

Francisco shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“I was a mechanic in Belize, I can speak English,” the Guatemalan kid chimed in. I nodded and put my sunglasses on-see, that’s why you don’t make conversation; now here I was caring about two people.

I pretended to doze.

The two boys started to chat about soccer and the old man next to me began chanting some ancient Gypsy ballad.

After a while I really did sleep.

Hector says the mammalian brain is the most amazing thing in the world. Even when you’re asleep your brain is taking stock of things, measuring the temperature, processing auditory input, sniffing the air.

When I woke I knew immediately that something was wrong.

The bitter taste in my mouth was adrenaline.

The Land Rover had stopped.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s a car in front of us,” Francisco said.

I looked through the filthy windshield. Sure enough, about a quarter click ahead, a red Chevy pickup. New one. Big one.

“Pitufos,” Francisco speculated, but they didn’t look like cops to me.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“We’re northwest of Palomas at a junction called Bloody Fork. Just south of the road. This is our way up,” Pedro said.

“Can we go round ’em?” Francisco asked.

Pedro shook his head. “Only way is back the way we came, and they’d catch us.”

“They won’t chase us over the border,” I said.

“Won’t they?” Pedro muttered.

“So what are you going to do? Just wait?” I wondered with impatience.

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the border patrol.”

“What’s happening?” the old man asked, suddenly becoming aware of the situation.

“Cops, or something,” I told him.

“We should get out and make a run for it,” Francisco said.

Ni madres. “Are you crazy? On foot? Across the desert?” I exclaimed.

“They can’t chase all six of us,” Francisco replied, attempting to open the rear door of the Land Rover.

Pedro turned around in his seat. “Everyone stay put!” he snapped.

“I can’t afford to get deported back to Mexico,” Francisco said, pushing at the door. He looked at me. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“If we run for it, they get us all sooner or later. Get the old-timers first and then us,” the kid from Guatemala said.

“They’re going to murder us,” the old man said, insanely grinning at this prospect.