The Same Sky(48)

“Carla!” said Ernesto.

I stood and crammed myself into the combi. I was more afraid of the darkness than I was of becoming a stranger to myself.


When the sky was lavender, the combi dropped us in an alley near the train station. In Mexico City, the farthest north I had ever been, I looked heavenward and gave thanks. I was still alive.

I knew I should feel elated to have made it out of Chiapas. I was one more train ride from the United States border. But leaving my brother had given me an illness. Around me, my friends were in good spirits, but I felt achy and exhausted. Marcos told us to be patient and wait for the correct train, which would take us to Nuevo Laredo, located across the Rio Bravo from Laredo, Texas. “I have no Dodge Ram in California!” he said. “A train bound for Tijuana or Nogales does nothing for me!”

Now that I had failed my brother, I began to feel that my journey was without value. If I showed myself to la migra, told them I was Honduran, I would be sent on the so-called Bus of Tears to Tegucigalpa. I would not be crying, however. I would be thinking of Humberto and the life we could begin. We would not have much for food, and there was the smell of the dump, but even so, it was heaven on earth compared to Mexico City.

The harsh morning illuminated ugly Lechería Station. I looked at the violent graffiti (Jesus stabbed with a knife, for example, or a gun against the head of a child) and knew that evil people watched us, waiting to see what they could take. My will to move forward was small. I was afraid.

In a shop window, I saw myself for the first time since I had left Tegu. My eye was swollen and ringed in bluish brown where I had been hit on the train. A large cut—almost healed—had left a scar on my cheek. I was so skinny you could see the bones beneath my face. I looked like a starving mongrel. I stared at the glass. What had I become?


We spent a night by the tracks, and still the correct train did not arrive. It felt like a sign. I had forsaken my brother and I hated myself. I watched the dirty sky through eyes covered in grit. What was the point of this?

Finally, my head on discarded newspaper, I dreamed. I thought of Humberto—his arms, his hands, and his lips. He would not have to know I had been raped on the train. I could never tell him of my shame—I would be cast out of my village if anyone knew, and Humberto, much as he loved me, could never make a good life with me, marrying (as we had planned) in Maria Auxiliadora Church.

But there was no one to tell him, now that Junior was lost. I could stand at the altar in a white wedding gown. I felt that God would forgive me. And when Humberto touched my body, it would be healed.

I woke with a feeling that there was something left for me. I found Ernesto next to Juliana and told him I was going back to Tegu. “Why, when we are so close?” he asked.

“I’m sick,” I said. “I need to go home.”

Juliana put her cool hand on my forehead. She shook her head. “No fever,” she said. Her eyes were kind. “Don’t you understand?” she said.

“Understand what?” I said.

“Carla,” said Ernesto, “we have no home.”





38




Alice


FOR THE FIRST weeks of September, life was wonderfully ordinary. When I woke in the morning, Jake had gone to Conroe’s and Pete was curled up in his place. We went for walks around Lady Bird Lake or just to work, passing Chávez Memorial and waving at whoever was outside smoking or watching the smokers. Grupo told me the injured student was recovering at St. David’s. He’d been shot in the leg and was expected to be fine, though he wouldn’t play football for a while. The shooting had been gang-related, and when the Gang Prevention Task Force came in on Wednesday evenings, I served them the best brisket, which I’d set aside.

Marion was stopping kids in the hallways, she said, making them change their gang-colored shirts, dragging them into her office and handing them tees she’d gotten from Goodwill and Savers. Jake gave her a few boxes of Conroe’s shirts, and we got a kick out of seeing students walk by with our logo on their chests. The girls wore the XXLs belted with leggings.

As Homecoming—always held on the first weekend of October—approached, Marion presided over meetings late into the night. She stopped by our house some evenings, staying for a beer and telling us how conflicted she felt. “On the one hand,” she said, picking at her Shiner label, “it’s just stupid to go ahead with the Homecoming football game. And the dance. It’s dangerous. A big fat invitation to disaster.”

“That’s true,” said Jake.

“On the other hand,” said Marion, “what do these kids have to look forward to? Some of them won’t graduate. Only a very few will go to college. This weekend—it’s the best night for some of them.”

“Good point,” said Jake. He looked wistful, and after Marion left and we lay on the couch, I ran my fingers through his hair. “Was Homecoming your best time?” I asked gingerly.

“Of course not,” he said, clasping my hand. “But you never feel things so deeply—so strongly—as you do in high school. You know?”

“I guess,” I said. I couldn’t have cared less about Homecoming—Ouray High didn’t have a football team. I remembered hiking Mount Sneffels by myself instead of going to the school dance, trying to get closer to my mom somehow by getting higher, by going to one of her favorite spots (albeit one she’d forbidden me to climb to alone—or at night). It hadn’t worked, and I’d made my way down freezing cold, hating her for leaving me, vowing never to let myself be such a sucker again.