Infinite Country(34)
TWENTY
You asked me to tell you what happened, and I said hell no. Then you said write it down because you’re putting together a record of our family, so this is the best I can do.
We’ve been trying to pass since we moved to this town. You were the one who told me performing Anglo is in how you walk, talk, and dress. It’s in how you think, what you spend your money on when you have it. It’s in what you love and who you hate. You said if I believed I was one of them, they might believe it too.
I try to avoid them, but they always find me. Like one time on the hot-food line in the cafeteria, this kid pinched my neck from behind calling me spic boy and little Escobar, asking when I’m going to get the fuck out of the country already. I pushed my tray along the counter, hoping the lunch lady who saw and heard would say something, but she didn’t.
I was talking to Emma back then. She wears one of those Irish rings with the heart pointed out and is seriously into ballet. We had our photography elective together. We were learning to use the old kind of cameras and develop prints. She hated how the chemicals burned her nostrils, so I did her darkroom work for her. We took photos of each other. Me, against the wall behind the science wing, staring at a tree branch like it was calling my name. Emma, pulling one of her legs to her ear.
When we spread our prints on the table she said my eyes are amazing, like someone just carved me open.
Like a fucking pumpkin, some dude I’ve never even talked to said, elbowing his way between Emma and me. Everything that followed was shit I’ve heard before. Even on the news. To Emma: Don’t you know his people are rapists? To me: You’d better leave her alone, latrino, or I’ll make a little phone call and have your whole family deported.
Latrino. That was a new one. I got a whiff of his jock funk, saw Emma’s eyes lower like she was bound to him out of some secret loyalty. Next class she had a note for the teacher saying she couldn’t develop prints because of her allergies, so he assigned someone else to do hers for extra credit.
* * *
The last time I went to the principal with complaints about this sort of thing, she called three of the guys who were harassing me down to her office to get their side of the story. I was hopeful because the school staff was being extra sensitive, since a few weeks before when that kid in Florida busted into his school and killed seventeen people. We sat in a row of chairs facing her desk. She asked if it was true that they called me names and threatened my family.
These guys gave looks like someone trash-talked their mothers. One said, Frankly, I’m offended Fernando would even suggest such a thing. We’ve only tried to befriend him since we noticed he’s had a hard time fitting in at our school.
The principal turned to me. I know English is not your first language, Fernando, so it’s possible you may have misunderstood what your classmates have been saying to you. As you can see, their only interest is in helping you fit in with our community.
That’s when I realized rich kids make for great criminals. After school, they followed me home. Watched in a car as I waited for the bus, driving behind until I got off at the stop down the road from our house, where there are only fields and horses around. They pulled onto the grass. Two guys jumped out and yanked me into the back seat. Punched me all over. Air left my lungs. But they didn’t touch my face, so when they pushed me out near our gates, though I could barely walk, Mom’s first thought when she saw me dragging myself up the driveway wasn’t that I’d had the shit kicked out of me but that I was coming down with the flu.
She helped me into bed and went to prepare me some caldo de pollo. I couldn’t tell her the truth. You only found out because those assholes took a video of the beating and sent it to their friends. And then they sent it to you and texted if you let them give it to you up the ass they’d leave me alone. You were crying when you told me this and that there was nothing to be done. I said I could get a Taser. Electrocute their balls off next time they touched me or threatened you. You made me cross my heart that I wouldn’t.
I remember wondering what it must feel like to belong to American whiteness and to know you can do whatever you want because nobody you love is deportable. Your worst crime might get you locked up forever but they’ll never take away your claim to this country. We both agreed telling anyone else would only bring attention to our family. You said you hate this place, and I hugged you even though it hurt my body and we aren’t really huggers anymore.
When Mom checked on us after dinner, we’d already sworn to each other not to say a word of what happened. When she asked how I was feeling, I said her soup had done its job, I was almost back to normal.
TWENTY-ONE
It should have occurred to them that by the time they’d arrive in Chiquinquirá it would be dark and cold and they’d be hungry and need a place to sleep, but it didn’t. The basilica was closed for the day. Aguja would have to wait till morning to visit the Virgin. They didn’t have enough money for a hotel room. It was Aguja’s idea to return to the town boundary, to a pedestrian bridge suspended over a thin river. Talia followed as he lowered the motorcycle down the ridge, resting it under the bowed branches of a roble tree. He lay beside it and made a pillow of his jacket.
“We’ll freeze if we sleep out here,” Talia said.
“Our bodies were made for this climate. Do you think our ancestors had electric heaters?”