Nightcrawling(57)

“Sorry,” he says. I’m out of breath. I stare at him and my stomach heaves like this is the ultimate betrayal, but what did he really do to me? Men done so much worse than hug me for a minute too long.

“Why didn’t you do nothing?” I scream, shoving him again, tears flying out with my spit.

Tony stumbles backward like my hands have the force to knock him down and he looks like he’s about to argue, starts to stutter something too choppy for me to make out, then shakes his head, doesn’t even look at me as he says, “I didn’t wanna go down too.” Tony steps forward, tries to grab my hand. “I’m sorry.” He just keeps saying he’s sorry, over and over again, but it doesn’t change anything, so I tell him I don’t want to see him right now and turn on my heels, suddenly unafraid of the tingle and the cops and the men who might find me because my brother just got taken and it’s starting to feel like I don’t have anything left to lose.

I get on the bus and there’s no seats, so every time we hit a pothole I fall into the person next to me, my body doing internal flips. Everything a blur. At least I don’t feel the tingle here, on the bus, behind these windows. Even when I get off at my stop, the tingle stays gone, but the image of Marcus’s face mid-panic remains, feels like it will never leave me.

La Casa Taquería is small and comforting, the blue awning and the sounds of constant construction. Alé is at the cash register, Trevor sitting on a barstool in front of her, folding paper airplanes, and the two of them are something, some miracle I was gifted in all this shit. When Alé glances up, I can tell she sees my panic right as she locks eyes with me, tells Trevor to go help in the kitchen.

I walk up to her and she grabs both my hands. “What’s wrong? You don’t look right.”

“They arrested Marcus.”

Alé pulls me into her chest and whispers, “I’m so sorry. Lunch rush is almost over and I think the rest of ’em got it. Come upstairs with me?”

I don’t remember Alé ever inviting me into her apartment like this before. Always thought she was afraid I’d judge or think she was some kind of a mess. I nod and wait for Alé to go into the kitchen and let her family and Trevor know where we going. She returns and gestures for me to follow her through the other door and up the staircase.

She tries to push the apartment door open, but it doesn’t budge. “Gets stuck sometimes,” she says, and proceeds to slam her entire body weight into the door until it swings open.

The place is adorned in color, kindergarten classroom amounts of color: ocean of reds and blues and every shade of earth. I’ve never seen so many blankets and drapes and knickknacks. They’ve got tablecloths and hand-stitched embroideries on the walls. There’s a bed in each corner of the room and then a doorway that leads to another room with two more beds in it, plus a refrigerator. The bathroom connects to that room and I can smell the scent of soap that I’m almost sure they made because it smells just like some of the things Alé infuses her weed with.

The beds ain’t even really beds: more like couches they converted into these magical dreamlands. The pillows scream to be touched, but more than that, they scream to be stared at: images of people mid-story. Family fables caught in stitching. It’s something I wish I knew how to do, turn art into something I lay my head on.

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

Alé mumbles a thank-you like she’s embarrassed to occupy something this perfect, but all her focus is on me.

“What happened?” she asks.

“They been following me and when Marcus and Cole were there, I guess they jumped at the chance to fuck with me. Busted them with pounds of shit and guns and God knows what else.”

Alé walks fully into the room and over to one of the beds. This one is blue all over, has pillows with pictures of children on them. She calls me over to her and I sit. This must be Alé’s bed, the cushions she lays her head on. She sweats into these sheets every night, picks at loose threads on these pillows. Of course this is hers: baby of the family, blue.

“You okay?” She looks at me, takes all of me in.

“No.” I lean into her, let her have a little of my weight. “It’s all my fault and I can’t change none of it.” I wonder if Mama felt this too.

“We gonna get you out of this. And Marcus too, we gonna figure it out.”

“Okay.” There’s nothing else to say, no promises to make, no solutions to find.

“He probably ain’t been processed yet, but when he is, he’ll call. Or we will.” She pulls me closer to her. “For now, I got something to show you.”

Alé leans down and reaches under the bed, pulling out jars. Weed jars. I laugh at how hard it has become to remember when this would be normal, another day for us. She opens two of the jars and starts grinding, then rolling.

“Here?” I ask, looking at the door like her mama might walk in at any moment.

She chuckles at me. “Don’t worry, ain’t nobody coming. Anyway, Mama smoked a wood with me last week.”

I think of her mama, try to imagine her high and hysterical, but all I can picture is her delicate fingers braiding Alé’s hair and the creases that built in her forehead after Clara disappeared.

Alé opens the window beside her bed and it jingles the bell on her dream catcher. I want to reach out, hold it, hold all Alé’s dreams in my palms.