Norte Page 5

  Rocío switched the radio on and tuned it to a station that played Madonna, Elvis Presley, and José Alfredo Jiménez. She turned the volume up so the old folks wouldn’t hear them, locked the door, and lowered the shades. She threw her plastic clown doll on the floor, jumped onto the bed, and perched against the wall, offering herself up lustily to their evening ritual.

  Jesús kissed her lips and tore at her clothes, fondling her breasts clumsily, drawing their contours with his fingers and tongue. He turned her over and held her by the throat as if she were the clown doll, penetrating her hungrily, aggressively. She sucked on a silver crucifix she wore dangling from a chain around her neck, and bit down, eyes closed, as if holding her breath underwater. He finally found a rhythm that worked for both of them, and marked it with sharp, stinging spanks on her ass that left little reddish-pink welts on her skin. When he could feel she was about to come, he squeezed her neck tightly and grunted obscenities. For a second she thought he might strangle her, and was about to tell him to ease up but didn’t. They came at the same time.

  As soon as she could speak again, Rocío told him she loved him. Jesús muttered “It’s a little early for that,” and Rocío was sorry to have let her feelings show. She loved how they did it, the violence with which he possessed her, but afterward she often felt dirty, as if he had stained something of hers that was sacred. And she told herself that any man who took her like that, or adolescent in his case because he wasn’t even a man yet—despite the hurt, the bitter rage in his eyes—no man with that inside of him could ever love her. One thing she knew for sure was that true love expresses itself through tenderness, and there wasn’t a single drop of the tender or gentle about Jesús.

  Jesús put his pants and sneakers back on and said he was starving.

  “Want me to cook you something?”

  “Nah, I’ll catch a bite outside.”

  She covered herself with a blanket and didn’t say anything. It annoyed her that he always left so soon after having sex.

  Jesús adjusted his belt and said, “I have the afternoon off tomorrow. Wanna go see a movie? There’s a new Jackie Chan flick playing.” Roció answered, “Who knows, tomorrow’s another day.”

  “Turn the lights off when you leave,” she said from under the covers.

  “You’re just going to sleep like that, with all your clothes on?”

  “For a while.”

  Jesús kissed her on the forehead, switched off the light, and left. On his way out he walked through the living room, where the elderly couple was snoozing, blanketed in the television’s flickering light. He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pinched a can of Tecate.

  The following afternoon he went to the movies alone. He sat in one of the front rows to avoid other people, and sprawled out across the dirty seats. Popcorn and plastic cups littered the sticky floor. Jesús laughed at Jackie Chan’s antics, and it thrilled him to watch how Jackie fought against four intimidating karate thugs. He was so agile and moved so effortlessly, he made it seem as though landing smack on his feet after a backflip or jumping from an eight-story building onto the roof of a moving truck was everyday stuff. No sweat.

  Papá had seriously wanted to turn him into a boxer. They used to throw jabs, practice parries, and spar on the patio. Jesús was a natural, it was only a matter of time before he’d grown accustomed to the gloves and learned all the moves. But how much better to be Jackie Chan. Everyone else has to stick to using a blade or a knife.

  By the time he left the movie theater it was dark out; the wind snapped him in the face and threw dust into his eyes. Pages of newspapers curled around street lamps. He drifted through the center-city streets searching peevishly for some sign of salvation, a church where he could find a friendly face like Father Joe’s, a marketplace where he could hang out with his cousins, a strip joint with an old whore, a playground where his sister was jumping rope with her friends. He surveyed the posters that were stuck to windows and walls advertising a wrestling match in the Municipal Gym, or the concert of a popular singer of corrido ballads. His lips trembled and he bit down with his molars, setting his jaw hard. His sense of unease was getting the better of him.

  The sodium streetlights switched on. He used up his last coins at a curbside vendor and devoured eight tacos al pastor.

  Jesús picked up his pace when he noticed a van with tinted windows that seemed to be following him. Most likely a false alarm, but why take chances.

  He went back to his room and slipped into bed. It didn’t take long to fall asleep. He woke up at three a.m. in a daze, not knowing where he was, what time it was. He couldn’t get back to sleep.

  Thinking of María Luisa, he consoled himself with the adage that everything happens for a reason, even if you can’t figure out what it is.

  He finally roused himself from bed and went in to work. His boss repeated the offer to send him to Texas to run stolen cars.

  “But the Migra . . .”

  “You go with a mule, güey, you ain’t gonna see no Migra. You gotta jump a freight train. No hay problema; like I said, we take care of everything.”

  It was Friday, “let me think about it over the weekend,” Jesús answered, he’d let him know on Monday. Braulio touched his hat and winked. A hint? Would he lose his job if he didn’t agree to do it? Maybe it was more than just a suggestion.

  He called Rocío later that afternoon; she would swing by his place at nine and they’d go dancing.

  A pounding on the door pulled him out of his dream again. Fragments lingered in his mind as he stood up: the war had come, and he couldn’t find a knife anywhere.

  It was Rocío. He opened the door for her. Sorry, chamaca, I fell asleep. She had a leather jacket on over a spandex top, and tight pants that didn’t really go with her high-heeled white sandals. She was wearing too much makeup, green shadow smudged into blue on her lids and below her eyes, and her lipstick was smeared.

  Jesús lay back down, lit a joint, and took a few quick puffs.

  “Aren’t you going to change? We’re supposed to go dancing.”

  “You really want to go out? I kinda like being here.”

  “And do what?”

  “Don’t matter.”

  Rocío held the joint to her lips.

  “I don’t like mota. I don’t like how it makes me feel.”

  Jesús cracked the seal of a bottle of tequila on the night table and poured two shots.

  They smoked and drank for about an hour, then Jesús got up to go to the bathroom. Rocío lay on the bed, her back to the door.

  She slowly sensed a presence, something moving in the doorway, and when she turned she saw a strange man hovering between the door and the bed; he was wearing a white wrestling mask with black lines. He stared at her from holes cut like snake eyes.

  Rocío panicked and her breath caught in her throat.

  Is that you, Jesús? Don’t mess with me like that.

  She saw the flash of a blade in the man’s hands and wanted to scream but kept her cool. She perceived something ominous in the denseness of the room’s air, a sickly sweet smell under the stench of stale food and dirty clothes strewn across the floor. Best to remain still, avoid unnecessary provocation.

  Jesús?

  The man drew closer and brought the knife to her throat.

  Please . . .

  He hit her so hard she flew back onto the bed. He ripped her top off and pulled her pants down. She tried not to lose control, not to panic. The pressure on her neck was suffocating her, and he smashed her face down into the tangled bedspread. All she wanted was to think of herself far away, distance herself from that room.

  The man charged her viciously, like an animal. She held onto the pillow and thought how little a woman can do to protect herself from shadows. How is this going to end? Would it ever end?

  He came hard and finally eased off her. When his panting slowed, he burst out laughing, hysterically. She recognized his laughter.

  A moan welled u
p from somewhere deep inside of her, from a place she hadn’t frequented in a very long time. She began punching him, sobbing, and he let her, making fun of her and laughing at her the whole time. You’re a piece of shit, she screamed, desgraciado. She dressed quickly as best she could, concealing her ripped top under her jacket. She had the hiccups from crying so hard.

  Don’t you ever dare come looking for me again. If you do, I’ll call the cops.

  Jesús stopped laughing the minute he heard the word cops. He pulled the mask off and said in a sweet tone that was full of menace: better be careful what you say, puta.

  Rocío slammed the door behind her. Jesús lay back on the bed and cackled till his jaw hurt.

  The next morning Jesús called his boss and told him he was ready. Braulio grinned and quickly gave him instructions: he would cross the next day, before dawn, and hop a freight train to El Paso.

  After work he went straight to the train station. It looked empty, so he jumped from the platform and walked between the tracks out to where a freight train was stationed, carrying a load of aluminum pipes.

  He walked around it, observing the train’s features till it lurched into motion about half an hour later.

  6

  Landslide, 1985

  Braulio dropped Jesús off with a mule who carried him across the river on his broad shoulders. It was early morning and the water reached his knees. Jesús thought back to the stories Mamá used to tell him of how she’d made the crossing several times over the years. She would journey across to find work as a maid or a waitress in El Paso whenever they’d needed money. As soon as they reached dry land on the other side, Jesús bolted for the train station on Calle Santa Fe. He relaxed when he saw the Freight House sign hanging above the doorway of a tiny building. He stole down to the tracks and hid inside one of the boxcars.

  Jesús arrived in Landslide at the stipulated time. He caught a glimpse of the city’s tall buildings from the train—he remembered the skyline from some postcards Mamá had kept at home—and he could distinguish the silhouettes of the nearby houses as the train approached the station. He read the advertisements and billboards announcing “KFC Texas-size buckets!” and “New Coke: The Best Just Got Better!” His muscles ached from lying on the hard floor.

  The whistle announced their arrival. “The train slows but it don’t stop,” Braulio had warned him. When he felt the train slowing down, he got up and moved closer to the door: there were the tracks, then dirt, then bushes, then trashcans. And finally, a barbed-wire fence with holes in it.

  He couldn’t think about it too much or he’d miss his chance, the train would just continue on past Landslide.

  Jesús jumped impulsively. He banged his shoulder on the ground and did a few somersaults on impact before finally coming to a stop. He stood up gingerly.

  He hid in the bushes until he was sure the coast was clear, then hopped out into the street. An obese woman was pushing an old man in a wheelchair; a white woman passed by lugging a heavy suitcase. His presence hadn’t drawn any notice, not even from the cop who was sitting in his car on the corner in front of a hamburger joint. Jesús couldn’t believe he was actually standing in the country he’d considered out of his reach his entire life.

  Braulio’s contacts would be waiting in a cafeteria nearby. Jesús asked a gas station manager for directions in English. The manager answered him in Spanish.

  It didn’t take long to find El Dorado. There were only two clients sitting at the bar, both wearing ten-gallon hats. He approached, and they acknowledged him with a smile.

  “What’s up yo, who the fuck are you?”

  “Don Braulio . . .”

  “Goddamned partner’s a reckless sombitch. Why he send us a boy to do a man’s job? Y’ain’t a day over fourteen. What’s up with that?”

  “Damn right,” the other said.

  They both burst out laughing. They shook his hand. “Don’t pay us no mind, boy. How’s about we get you a shot of tequila?” Jesús couldn’t say no.

  An hour later they left the bar feeling tight. The Toyota he was supposed to deliver to Juárez was parked along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street; the plates were false and the back doors and trunk were mud-splattered. Overall, the car was in good condition, though—a few scratches on the back fender on the right side, a crack in the front left headlight.

  The car was parked in front of a store whose neon sign read V NT GE CLOT NG. There was a gray blazer in the window that caught his eye. The price tag sticking out of the pocket read $19.99.

  Jesús walked in, and a blond woman approached with a clean, wide-toothed smile. She had a fake tan and wore her belt tight, showing off her wasplike waist.

  “How may I help you today, sir?”

  He pointed to the blazer; the blond brought it to him. Jesús read the tag on the inside of the neck: “J. Crew, broken in, medium.” He walked up to a full-length mirror in a back corner of the store and had a good look at himself. The blazer was a little big for him—the arms hung over his hands just a tad too far—but he liked the color. He went up to the register and paid for it.

  The motel Braulio had recommended near the station was called the Cleveland. He paid in cash and settled into his room. There were cigarette burns on the rug, and the tub had some rust stains. The Latter-day Saints had provided a New Testament Bible.

  He grabbed a pen from the night table and drew a picture on the last blank page of the New Testament, a solitary figure in the middle of a flat landscape beside a lonely nopal cactus. The sole survivor of a nuclear war.

  He took a nap and woke up famished, so he went out to look for a place to eat, switchblade tucked in his pocket. As he walked along, he noticed the names of the streets; Spruce, Austin, Benson. It was dark and he didn’t know the neighborhood, so he figured he might as well go back to El Dorado. He ordered chicken wings at the bar and sucked on them for a while, nibbling at the meat and drinking. There was a football game on the television, Packers versus the Broncos. Just his fucking luck, the 49ers, his favorite team, wasn’t playing. Joe Montana was fucking God. Son of a bitch had an arm.

  He left the bar all boozed up and took a pedestrian-only street that bordered the station. As he made his way back, he heard footsteps.

  There was a woman walking ahead of him, about a hundred meters away.

  He started following her.

  In the distance he could hear a couple shouting, locked in a bitter argument. Better hurry.

  He moved in closer to the woman. He wanted her to feel his presence, to be afraid. He touched the switchblade in his pocket. She was white and was wearing high heels with a knee-length skirt. She glanced over her shoulder uneasily and saw how his shadow grew along the cobblestone street. She grabbed her bag tighter. Her steps accelerated.

  It would have been better if she hadn’t tried to run or scream, but she did both. He caught up with her and shoved her into the bushes and off the sidewalk in a single tackle. He covered her mouth and pulled out his knife. Her eyes expressed distress, round as plates and open wide, and her skin was covered in little goosebumps. He could see she was just a chamaca. She had looked older from a distance, but close up he could tell she was barely eighteen, if that.

  He dug around in her purse, took out her lipstick, the photos from her wallet, stared at her driver’s license for a while as if trying to memorize her information; Jannsen, Victoria. She had a passport. He examined the seal and the words below, written in some strange language. He couldn’t figure what country she was from. He opened it and inspected the girl’s radiant picture on the first page, her green eyes. She had changed her hairstyle: it was curly then, now it was straight.

  OK Victoria, deja de moverte.

  He stroked her hair. He’ll be quick with her. He raised her skirt and pulled down her panties. She started to cry, saying no, no, please, between sobs, please no. Callate, puta.

  She tried to wriggle out from under his body. Jesús told her again to shut the fuck up and stop
moving but she kept it up. So you don’t want to play, huh? Almost without thinking, Jesús plunged the knife into her chest. A single sharp thrust was all it took.

  She froze with her mouth half-open. The air exited her lungs: going, going, gone.

  Now what?

  He had never fucked a white chick before.

  He pulled his pants down and entered her, counting by fives in his head.

  He came fast. It would have been more fun if she were wiggling a little.

  Don’t worry bitch, you’ll be in a better place soon, he said as he closed her eyes. Then he threw her passport into the shrubs, stuffed his pocket with her credit cards, and took off running.

  By midmorning Jesús was on his way back to Juárez, listening to rancheras on the radio. The harsh desert light reflected off the shiny hood and glared through the Toyota’s windshield.

  He had stopped at a Seven Eleven for supplies, bought M&Ms, Snickers, and a Three Musketeers bar. He sipped at a Dr. Pepper’s from the six-pack he had bought to help him stay awake as he drove.

  The road was straight, and every once in a while he couldn’t help nodding off for a few seconds. Truth was he hadn’t been able to rest much. He couldn’t sleep, and when he did, nightmares kept waking him up, like the one of María Luisa and the butcher knife. The night had been unpredictable, as if his life had morphed into some sort of drug-induced hallucination.

  He could do it again, though, sin problema. The thrill of the hunt, the turn-on of being ruthless, the risk.

  TWO

  1

  Landslide, 2008

  I stopped by the university before my shift started at Taco Hut to check my box at the department, since I still received some random mail there.

  I took a shortcut through the campus. Doric columns lined the entrances of stately buildings; nineteenth-century shields and Latin phrases decorated the arcades. The carefree students played Frisbee or napped, or argued over Gossip Girl or read Paradise Lost on perfectly manicured lawns. Though Texan women may put on a casual look, their outfits are all but spontaneous: they preen and redo their makeup endlessly, even shorts and flip-flops are fastidiously color-coordinated.