Into the Beautiful North(36)

Vampi cried, “Take Atómiko!”

Tacho said, “I’m going north. I want to see Hollywood, and that’s that.”

“We have a mission,” Nayeli reminded them.

Atómiko patted his belly like the Buddha and smiled upon his poor, benighted children.

“Get seven of these muchachos right here,” Yolo advised. “Get on the bus. Go home.”

“No fuss!” Vampi said.

“No Border Patrol.”

“No border.”

“No money spent,” Yolo said. “We can go home and give them back their money!”

Porfirio tipped the jar at her and gulped some more rum-milk.

Do?a Araceli appeared and pried the jar from his hand and took it away.

“Hey!” he said, but he couldn’t focus on her.

Atómiko cleared his throat.

“No,” he said.

He shook his head.

“No, you can’t do it that way.”

“Do what? Which way?” Nayeli said.

Tacho said, “I know where he’s going. Listen to him.”

“You can’t recruit vatos from the dompe,” Atómiko said. “It’s not what you set out to do. You have to accomplish your quest. To el norte. Besides, these warriors are not worthy.”

“What is this,” Yolo complained, “a fairy tale? Y tú, ?Qué eres? King Arthur?”

He smiled at her.

“I am Atómiko,” he reminded her.

“As if we haven’t heard that,” she said.

“Look—these men here, they came from there!” The Warrior pointed south with his staff. “They came from the lands you left! And they ran out of steam right here. You need the men who made it through the border. You need the warriors who have passed their challenge. Men worthy of the honor.”

The girls had not heard this kind of talk outside the movies, and it was kind of stirring.

“We, here, have our lives,” Atómiko said. “Some of us failed to make it across; some of us just wanted to pick the trash. Some of us, like me, were born right here! But this is home. We have houses and families, ?Qué no, Porfirio?”

“Right!” Porfirio yelled.

Atómiko swung his staff north.

“The warriors are before you,” he intoned.

Everyone stared at him: he liked it that way.

“You must go across the line to retrieve them.”

Yolo shook her head and looked bored.

Tacho nodded at Nayeli.

“We have to go,” he said. “Besides, there will be men there who miss Mexico.”

Nayeli looked into all their faces.

“Still…” Atómiko drawled.

He poked at the gray soil with his shifter knob.

“You need a man like me,” he said. “On your journey.”

“They would run you out of Tres Camarones on a rail,” Nayeli replied.

“I don’t care about your stupid town! I live on the border, esa! This is where it’s all happening! Did I say I wanted to go to your sad little town? What I said was, you need a man like me on your mission.”

Nayeli laughed dismissively.

“I can get you across,” he said.

“You?” Nayeli scoffed.

He drew himself as tall as he could, tightened his sash, and ruined the noble pose by scratching his whiskers again.

“Sure,” he said.

“Have you ever been across?” she asked.

“Me? Why would I go across?”

“Oh, yes—your life is so elegant here,” she said. “Why would you leave?”

Atómiko turned to Tacho and said, “My life? What is wrong with my life?”

“Nada,” Tacho said. He gave Nayeli one of his Looks, that Tacho eyebrow and tip of the chin. It said: M’ija, you’re being rude.

“In fact, pinchi Nayeli”—Atómiko sniffed—“I used to go to the other side all the time. Me and my soldiers used to run across the fence and buy soda at McDonald’s.” He spit. “So there.”

“Wait —illegal-alien soldiers?” Nayeli said.

He shrugged.

“Until we got caught,” he muttered.

He planted the end of his staff in the soil and looked implacable and, in his own opinion, formidable. “You want to go or not?”

Nayeli crossed her arms.

Tacho said, “Yes. I want to go.”

“Orale pues,” Atómiko said. “We boys are going. What about you girls? You have cojones or what?”

Yolo said, “Where did this creature come from?”

“I want to go after my father,” Nayeli said.

“There you go!” Atómiko enthused.

He stepped out of Porfirio and Araceli’s small yard. He looked back toward the bulk of the village, and he put his fingers to his lips and whistled louder than anyone Nayeli had ever heard. She opened her mouth in shock. He was whistling a ditty, what people in Los Yunaites might have recognized as “shave-and-a-haircut.” But, of course, there was no such phrase in Mexico. That same rhythm was bad-boy code for the ultimate obscenity, “chinga tu madre.” No self-respecting gentleman in Tres Camarones would whistle that in front of three fine young ladies!