The Same Sky(8)

“Oh, Carla,” said my mother. “If I return to Tegu, I’ll lose my job. I might never get back to Texas. What will happen to us then?”

I told her I was ten years old and I did not know.

“Please don’t be obnoxious,” she said. She said she would send every cent she could, all her savings, and that it was my job to make my grandmother go back to the hospital. “I know I can count on you,” she said. “You’re my big girl.” When I hung up the phone, I saw that the Call Shop owner was looking at me.

“Stop complaining, you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

I pushed open the door, the air a hot hand over my face, and I began to sprint toward the bridge that would carry me across the river. Past the glue sniffers, past the men in suits, past the buildings that blocked the sky and the graffiti-covered cement walls, past the barbed-wire fences and the skinny dogs, past the women selling their bodies and the women selling tortillas. I ran past the dump and finally reached the small road that led to my house, which—let’s be honest—was a shack. As I approached home at last, my lungs tight and my thigh muscles scorched, I saw Humberto in the yard. My brother Junior was kicking a soccer ball, his face alight.

“You got him a soccer ball?” I said.

Humberto smiled.


My grandmother died that night, before any more money arrived and before I could talk her into anything. Junior and I were sitting next to her on the pallet. Junior was brushing her hair (which she loved, making a cooing sound at the pleasure of the bristles on her scalp) and I was massaging her hands and singing. She had not said much since returning from the hospital, but we knew she loved us. We knew she was worried about us.

When she stopped breathing, Junior’s whole body shook. “She’s dead!” he cried. “She’s dead!” The words came out of his mouth squashed, as if being stepped on.

“Calm down, Junior,” I said. “I will take care of you now.”

“You’re a kid,” he cried.

I didn’t say anything. Junior was correct.

When the sun spilled over the hills, sweeping away the menacing shadows, I went to the Western Union. I waited on the long line, avoiding the suspicious stares of the guards with guns. The man behind the bulletproof glass looked worried as he counted out my money: three hundred U.S. dollars. (Not even a fraction of what was needed to pay for a coyote to take me to America!) This was the sum total of my mother’s years of working in the chicken restaurant. She had squirreled away tens and twenties, and now here were her labors being handed to me in crisp lempira bills. The banker sealed the money in an envelope and pushed it underneath the glass. His fingertips brushed mine and he whispered, “Be careful.”

I tucked the packet in the waistband of my pants and walked out of the city as fast as I was able. It felt as if every hoodlum was watching me, ready to shove me down. Thankfully, I made it home safely. I put most of the bills in the coffee can my grandmother had kept buried underneath our pallet, and then I took Junior to the market and told him to choose anything he wanted. We ate three tortas each. We filled our arms with mangoes, oranges, and cold glass bottles of Fanta.

For two Wednesdays, I did not go to the Call Shop. I had begged my mother to come, and she had sent money instead. I myself went to Maria Auxiliadora Church and helped organize a funeral that my mother did not attend, paying for my grandmother to be buried next to my grandfather and covering her grave with plastic flowers, the kind that never wilt and never die.





6




Alice


PRINCIPAL MARKSON CALLED on Thursday and asked if I could come into her office for a meeting. “Alice, I have a proposal,” she said. I wasn’t sure what this meant, and the last thing I wanted was a teaching job, but I agreed to stop by. When I’d served the last quarter pound of meat, I flipped the sign and left Benji in charge of cleanup.

Feeling satisfied after a hard day’s work, I walked into the blinding sunlight and turned left on East 11th, toward Chávez Memorial High School.

As hip as it had become, the Eastside was still a rough neighborhood, though that hadn’t hurt Conroe’s any. But it was one thing to drive to a dodgy part of town for brisket and another to spend your childhood in these streets. As I walked the three blocks to Principal Markson’s school, I noticed yards containing broken toys and cars on cement blocks. In an alley, a group of young men huddled together, glancing up at me with cold eyes. A block later, a small boy with a fat face waved from behind the iron bars that covered his front window. I waved back.

Chávez Memorial was a faded brick building that could have housed a prison or a hospital. The parking lot was filled with late-model cars, some with metal panels that didn’t match. One Honda had a blue body and two tan doors; its bumper sticker read, “Proud to Be a Johnson High School Sophomore!”

Through wire fencing, I could see a dusty track and a set of bleachers on which a motley crew of boys sat and smoked cigarettes. A clump of girls stood underneath an oak tree, gesticulating wildly. Teenagers—their deep emotions, their unpredictability, the possibility that they could be armed—made me uneasy.

A large rectangle had been freshly painted on the front of the building to announce, “Chávez Memorial High School at the Johnson High School Campus.” In front of the school, a six-foot marble block was ringed by stone benches that looked as if they’d been stolen from a graveyard.