Into the Beautiful North(47)

“?Taxi?”

“No, gracias.”

The girls were despondent. Nayeli did not know what to do now. How would she keep her troops going? Had they lost Tacho forever? She could not imagine how she would find him again. How could they go ahead without him?

She looked up.

Standing at the end of the cracked and upthrust sidewalk, leaning on the staff, one foot planted against the opposite knee, red bandanna now gone, and shaved head gleaming in the sun, was the Warrior.

“I am Atómiko,” he called.



He leads them through the hot streets, his pole over his right shoulder. Nobody looks at him. They have seen men with poles before. They have seen stranger things than him. And the girls follow in a cluster. Nobody looks at them, either. They have seen men with poles leading groups of women. They have seen everything.

He stops at a food stand carved out of the side of a white-and-blue building with cursive writing in red slanting over the opening that promises SEAFOOD! SHRIMP! OYSTERS! FRESH WATERS! By waters, of course, they mean fruit juices and rice water and hibiscus tea. Atómiko knows the girls are dehydrated. He plants his staff and points at the counter and says, “Buy juice.”

Nayeli is so relieved to see any friendly face, even his jackal’s countenance, she meekly goes to the counter and digs out money and buys them tall glasses of iced fruit juice. She can’t believe how delicious it is. They gulp like people lost in the desert. Atómiko sips at a glass of agua de Jamaica, red as blood and tart. He thinks he would rather be drinking Mexican beer, the best beer in the world. Yolo guzzles tamarind juice, Vampi drinks horchata sweet rice water, and Nayeli is chewing chunks of strawberries floating in her glass.

Atómiko points down the street with his staff, and they follow. He leads them to a small motor court. A motel, white with blue trim. Three cars are parked in its sloping blacktop lot. A Mixtec woman sweeps the sidewalk in front of the rooms. A sputtering neon sign sizzles orange against the morning light. The cardboard sign taped in the window lists a reasonable price for rooms. Atómiko points, scratches his chest, and grunts.

“Sí,” Nayeli says.

“Two rooms,” says the Warrior.

She complies. She doesn’t care. She can end up with no money at all. She just wants to bathe. To sleep.

The girls share room 101. They cry out, they weep, they fall on the beds, they fight for the shower and the toilet. They turn on the air-conditioning. Atómiko has the key to 102.

“I am next door,” he says.

He belches.

He says, “Wash your panties.”

He slams the door.

In a minute, they hear the television in his room turned up very loud, and strange thwacking sounds and thumps. Shouts. They listen. Finally, Nayeli smiles.

She says: “He is practicing.”



They slept till five o’clock, the girls scattered across the two beds like dolls, insensate and snoring in their exhaustion. Their panties and blouses dried in the bathroom, hung over the shower rod. All their socks drooped from the edges of the sink and the top of the toilet tank. Vampi’s nose whistled in three distinct notes as she breathed, descending in pitch as each exhalation waned.

Nayeli was the first to awaken. She lay there for a while, listening to Vampi snuffle. She still had the tiny purse that Tacho had given her. She picked it up off the floor and dug out her KANKAKEE postcard. She read her father’s message again. “Everything Passes.” A better day would come.

She slipped it back into the purse and pulled out her Missionary Matt card. She looked at his phone number on the back. She sat up and saw Yolo, propped against her headboard. She was holding her own Missionary Matt card. They stared at each other.

“He used to call you Yo-Yo,” Nayeli noted.

“Call him,” Yolo said.

“Yes.”

“What do you think he is like now?”

“He is rich.”

“I think he’s a movie actor.”

“He is a famous surfer and rock star.”

“I hope he’s not married.”

“Me, too.”

Nayeli got up to put on her clothes so she could go find a phone. Her shirt and her underwear were damp, but she pulled them on anyway and quietly opened the door. That irritating Atómiko stood there talking to Wino. Wino was smoking, and he looked up at her and ducked his head. “?Qué hubo?” he muttered.

Nayeli stepped outside.

“How did you get him to come?” she asked Atómiko.

“I have powers,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied. “We noticed the other night that you could fly.”

“Oh?” said Wino. “?La mera neta? This vato can fly?”

There was a pay phone on the wall outside the motel office. Somebody had written “Octavio Slept With My Wife” on the metal. Nayeli punched O and got another polite Tijuana operator and placed her collect call to Tres Camarones.

It rang twice, and Aunt Irma grabbed it off the hook.

“What the hell do you want?” she barked.

“Collect call for Do?a Irma García Cervantes from Nayeli.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Hurry up—I don’t have all day.”

The phone clicked and clacked a few times, and Nayeli could barely speak, her throat was so tight.