Saint Death

  He fishes into his own pocket and pulls out twenty more dollars.

  —Here, take this too. It’s all the American money I’ve got.

  Arturo shakes his head.

  —Forget it, cabrón. I’m not doing it.

  —You have to. ¡You have to!

  Arturo stands, backing away, shouting.

  —¡No, I don’t have to! You didn’t have to come here. You didn’t have to come and ask for my help. ¡Last year you drop out of my life, just like that! You could have been dead. I never heard from you, not once. ¿And then you come back here like it’s yesterday and you want me to put my neck in a noose for you? ¡No way! ¡Chingada! ¡No way!

  Faustino stands too.

  —¡You! ¡You’re a dreamer! ¡Stupid! ¿You think we’re still kids? ¿You think we don’t grow up? Things change, vato, things change.

  —Yeah, I can see that.

  Arturo looks at his friend, at his clothes, the shoes, the tattoos. Even his haircut says he is not who he once was.

  —You think you’re some kind of big man, now. ¿Is that it?

  —I’m not a kid anymore, Arturo. I’m not a kid.

  —¿And when did that happen?—Arturo shouts.—¿When they gave you a gun?

  That hits Faustino. He says nothing for a moment, runs his hand across his slicked-back hair. Then he points at Arturo, stabbing the air.

  —No—he says.—It happened when I stopped thinking about myself and started thinking about other people.

  He says it quietly, so quietly it takes the anger out of Arturo. He too stands for a long time without saying anything, his chest heaving, his breath slowing as he calms down, and he thinks about what Faustino just said and he knows that it’s way too smart for Faustino to have thought of it and wonders who it is who put that idea in his head.

  Then Arturo says—No. I won’t do it. I’m sorry, Faustino. I don’t want to die.

  —You won’t. There’s no risk for you. At worst you lose your dollars. They won’t know you have anything to do with me.

  But Arturo shakes his head.

  Faustino slams his hand against the wall of the shack. The whole thing shakes, and then this brief anger is gone too.

  —Come here.

  He goes to stand by the door, pushes it open.

  —I said, come here.

  Arturo comes over and steps outside after Faustino, who calls out, to the car.

  Now Arturo realizes that there is someone else in the car, someone he couldn’t see before. The passenger door opens and out steps Eva.

  In her arms, she’s holding a bundle. The bundle makes a noise, a little cry.

  Faustino puts his hand on Arturo’s shoulder, and with the other hand points at Eva and the baby.

  —You’re not doing it for me. You’re doing it for them.

  * * *

  At 3.54 p.m, 11/6/16, CHOMSKY68 wrote:

  Should there even be border controls?

  Crazy, you say?

  Say you believe in a free market. Nobody actually does, but say you’re one of those people who claim to believe in free markets. Well, free markets are supposed to be based on the free movement of labor. No free movement of labor, no free markets, right? But nobody talks about that.

  So should there be border controls? Should people be free to live and work where they want, where the market “wants” them to?

  It depends on what you think countries are for.

  It’s an interesting question to ask in a country where (unless you’re a native) everyone is an immigrant. The native peoples didn’t have the power to stop immigrants coming in.

  Now we’re trying to stop anyone else getting in.

  In the end, it’s all about power. Wealth, and power.

  * * *

  FAUSTINO RIDES THE BEAST

  Tomorrow is the word. Tomorrow was always the word, for Faustino. Arturo looks from his old friend to Eva.

  Eva is jiggling her hip up and down, trying to soothe her baby, who’s started grizzling. She lifts a hand and gives Arturo a little wave, a weak smile.

  Automatically, Arturo raises his hand in reply, and then he turns back to Faustino again, because Faustino is asking him something.

  —¿You want to see him? ¿My little boy?

  Arturo knows now they’ve stopped being kids. He just can’t work out when that happened. He doesn’t answer Faustino, doesn’t move, he just stares at Eva and the baby, until eventually he says—¿What’s going on?

  Faustino shrugs.

  —I guess tomorrow finally came.

  * * *

  Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

  It was Faustino’s word before he and Arturo even met. It was his father’s word even before Faustino was born. Back home, in Guatemala, his father used to say it to his mother: tomorrow I will get a job. Tomorrow I will mend the roof. Tomorrow everything will be okay. And Faustino’s mother would roll her eyes and moan and love her husband anyway. They survived in La Limonada, picking scraps from the garbage dump, reselling what they could, along with sixty thousand other people crammed into the teetering ravine that cuts almost to the heart of Guate.

  One day, Faustino was born, and then his father taught him the word too; tomorrow we’ll go to the park and play football, tomorrow I’ll find you a bike, tomorrow I’ll show you how to ride it.

  As Faustino grew, however, something changed in his father, and the word changed too. It actually began to mean something, and finally, one day, Faustino’s father said to Faustino’s mother—We cannot stay here anymore.

  It wasn’t just the poverty. It wasn’t just the murders, the police who did nothing, who wouldn’t even enter La Limonada. It wasn’t just the floods and the landslides. It wasn’t just the outbreaks of disease. It was all of these things and more that one day made Faustino’s father say to Faustino’s mother—Tomorrow we will go to America.

  This time, when he said tomorrow, he meant it. It was bad that he and his wife had lived like this for ten years, but he couldn’t let the same thing happen to their only child.

  One day, just before Faustino’s seventh birthday, they left. They had sold everything they had, for dollars where they could. They had been saving what little they earned. It was now or never.

  They knew where to go; everyone told stories about people who’d made it, and everyone knew the dangers too, but despite that they hitched a ride north to the border with Mexico. At Tecún Umán they paid a lanchero ten dollars to cross the Suchiate River on his makeshift raft of planks lashed to giant inner tubes. It should have cost them only a dollar, but the lanchero could see they weren’t locals. He knew what they were, and he knew their desperation had a price. So did the border guard who stopped them almost as soon as they set foot on Mexican soil, in Hidalgo. He searched their bags indifferently; two plastic sacks with everything they had left in the world, explaining that he was looking for drugs, or guns. Finding none, he stuck out a hand for his bribe, and left them to continue their journey.

  They were lucky. They made it to Tapachula in one piece, grabbing rides in the backs of trucks for another few dollars each time. No one assaulted them. No one robbed them. No one beat Faustino’s father or raped Faustino’s mother. No one dragged Faustino away into the bushes.

  In Tapachula they asked around and got directions to the Casa del Migrante, a shelter run by a middle-aged Italian priest. Aside from a small rosary around his neck, he looked more like the owner of a bar than a man of the cloth. He spoke dirty, mestizo Spanish, with Italian thrown in here and there, but he gave them, and dozens of others, a bed for two nights and hot meals. He prayed for them, and he handed them pamphlets about the dangers of the road ahead, which they politely took and then did not read.

  They chewed their food, and they waited for their time to come.

  Faustino spent much of this time staring at one wall of the shelter, to which was pinned a large, grubby map, with graffiti and other scrawlings all over it.

  —¿What is it, Papá?

&n
bsp; Faustino’s father pointed out some places.

  —That’s Guate, where we came from. That’s where you were born, niño. And that’s where we are now. Here, in Tapachula.

  Faustino kept staring.

  —¿How far is that?

  —Three hundred kilometers.

  —¡That’s so far!—said Faustino.—¡We must be nearly in Los Angeles!

  Faustino’s father didn’t smile. How could he tell his son that they had barely begun? How could he tell him there were over four thousand kilometers more still to travel? He could not.

  After their two nights, they left the shelter along with the priest’s blessing and twenty-two other men and women. There were a few kids on the trail north, but none as young as Faustino. People looked at his parents and some muttered and some even told them it was crazy to bring a young boy along.

  It was almost another three hundred kilometers to Arriaga, and they walked some of the way, and took buses when they could, though they knew that if anyone asked for their papers they would be detained and deported back to Guatemala, and still they were lucky. Along the way, Faustino listened to what the grown-ups were saying, who spoke as adults always do, as if children cannot hear. But Faustino did hear, and he heard one word, over and over again: la bestia. The beast.

  The beast, the beast, the beast, until finally, Faustino grew scared of it. He picked up on not just what they were saying, but how they said it, and as it is so often, though children do not know, they understand anyway. And he understood; the beast was something of which to be afraid.

  —¿Papá?—he asked.—¿What is the beast?

  His father looked at his mother, and his mother shrugged, and so his father explained.

  —Tomorrow, Faustino, we will ride the beast. The beast is huge. ¡A kilometer long! ¡Longer! And the beast will take us to America.

  Still, Faustino did not understand, but that evening they arrived in Arriaga, and walked the short way to the railroad station, to the freight terminus, where hundreds of people were settling down for the night, huddling against huts, sleeping between the rails, a ribbon of steel for a pillow. Others simply lay on the ground, in twos or threes, waiting.

  Faustino’s father was wrong. They did not ride the beast the next day, because the beast did not show. So they waited, and waited, and it was hard to understand what everyone was doing here, hanging around a deserted railroad station, a station with no trains, nor signs posted as to when one might appear.

  On the afternoon of the second day, some people came, all wearing orange shirts with the letters GB on them, which no one understood the meaning of, but they handed out water bottles, and warned anyone who would listen about the beast, and the dangers of riding it.

  —Do not climb on a moving train. They may seem slow, but it’s too dangerous.

  —Look out for thieves. They may get on the train disguised as migrants like you.

  —Look out for Migra.

  —When you reach the north, it will be hot. Be careful with your water. The heat can get to 50 degrees Celsius, or more. Higher. It can kill you.

  Then, on the second night, it came. At three in the morning, the world began to shake. Deep underground, fantastic leviathans from ancient times were stirred as the tracks vibrated. They forced their way to the surface, gasping for breath, and then the creatures emerged into the fetid night air of southern Mexico and from around the bend in the forest, three dazzling eyes blinded Faustino with light.

  —¡Papá!—he cried.—¡The beast!

  With no more warning than that, it had come: a train a kilometer long. A freight train, with no passengers or passenger cars, just wagon after wagon of closed steel boxes.

  When Faustino saw it was a train, he was no less amazed, no less disappointed than if a dragon had scuttled up from some primeval chasm. It slowed to a crawl and then stopped, and many people shouted and ran and clambered up the steel ladders to the roofs of the boxcars, while others sat on the ground, those who’d made the journey before, who knew it would be hours before the train left again.

  The hours passed, and Faustino was scared. He and his mother and father had found a spot under the sloping end of a wagon made to hold liquid goods. It was lower to the ground, and there would be some shelter if it rained. They were joined by three other men and a young woman, none of whom spoke, and Faustino was scared, in this time of waiting; a desperate kind of tension hung all about them, as they waited for someone to come and tell them to get down, or arrest them, or worse. But no one did, and there was no one in sight, no one from the railroad, or the town. Somehow, after hours had passed, during which they ate the last of the food they had, the beast began to move again all by itself, a metal animal, rumbling its way north through the southern Mexican jungles.

  —¡That’s it!

  Faustino’s father laughed.

  His wife held his hand, clinging to it tightly.

  —El Norte. We are going to America, Faustino. ¡Los Angeles!

  —¿When, Papá?—asked Faustino.—¿When? ¿Tomorrow?

  One of the other men huddling with them laughed. The young woman turned her head away, stared out at the black jungle night.

  —No, Faustino. Not tomorrow. But soon.

  * * *

  Faustino spent his seventh birthday clinging to the back of the wagon, huddled between his mother and his father as the rain lashed down. When the rain stopped they passed a village where kind people threw fruit up for them to catch, and they each ate an orange, eating the peel too, licking their fingers clean.

  Their luck held still, for a day, and halfway into another night, and then it ran out.

  They were asleep, despite the thumping of the train over every crossing, despite the terrible roar that the beast’s wheels made on the tracks, despite the colder nights. There were shouts, shouts from ahead on the roof of the train.

  —¡Migra! ¡Migra!

  —¡Run!

  —¡Get off and run!

  Confusion swept down the length of the train, as their luck fled faster than they could. For it was not the migration police, but something worse, a gang of robbers. A couple of shots sounded, the gunfire flashed in the dark, and people began to scramble and jump from the train.

  Faustino’s father shouted at his wife to jump. He had to shout twice. It wasn’t far but the dark made it even more frightening. Then Faustino jumped, his wide eyes seeing nothing. Then Faustino’s father jumped, and before they knew what was happening, rough hands grabbed them all and lined everyone up in the headlights of a pickup.

  Men with guns went along the line and took everything. Money, phones, nice clothes. Everything. They took the young woman, and Faustino’s mother, and bundled them into the back of a beat-up van, which sped away as soon as the doors were closed. They shot Faustino’s father as he tried to stop all this from happening.

  They left Faustino clinging to the body of his dead father in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. After a day passed, even the young Faustino knew he had to move. He waited for the next beast to roll along the tracks, and he tried to climb onto it as it was moving.

  Hands reached for him, friendly hands.

  —¡Mierda, he’s just a kid!

  —¡Grab hold, kid! ¡Grab hold!

  Faustino tried to grab, but he slipped. His right foot went under the wheel of the train, which sliced it in half. He lay in the dark, unconscious from pain, and his blood flowed and flowed but finally stopped, just before death came.

  In the morning, a farmer found him and took him.

  Many tomorrows passed. Tomorrows that became months, that became years. Faustino was passed from place to place. He ended up in a hostel for people like him who’d lost a limb, or more, to the beast, but he didn’t like it. One day, he begged a middle-aged couple who were heading north to take him with them, and finally, he ended up in Anapra.

  He was ten years old.

  * * *

  Somehow, he survived in Anapra. He met Arturo. They beca
me friends. They were brothers, and they even went to school for a short time, which was where they met Eva. And all the time, all the time, Faustino would say to Arturo—Tomorrow, carnal. Tomorrow, I’m going to America. I don’t have to stay here. In this dump. I can leave whenever I want. Anytime. ¿You know?

  —Yeah—Arturo would reply.—I know, sure.

  Tomorrow.

  * * *

  ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done? ¿What have we done?

  * * *

  INSATIABLE GODS

  Just like in a game of calavera, Arturo knows that Faustino has played an unbeatable card. The game is won. The game is won because Faustino isn’t talking about himself.

  Arturo knows Faustino’s story, or most of it. He knows what he means when he says “tomorrow.” He knows it never really meant anything, not till now. But now that it does mean something, Faustino isn’t suggesting he’s going to leave for America.

  —It’s Eva—he says.—Eva and the baby. I paid for them to cross.

  Arturo can’t believe it.

  —¿A thousand? I’ll hold your hand and we can walk over there right now, cabrón. ¡There it is! ¡Right there! ¡El Norte!