Juarez Square and Other Stories (11 page)

The kids formed a circle and waved their torches at the ground in front of them.

“Now come together!” a blond boy shouted, pointing his torch. “Make it tighter!”

Rafael moved closer to get a better view.

Swamp rats
.

There were five or six of them, huddled together into a frightened mass of black fur. The kids had them surrounded, waving and poking their torches at the small animals. In the flickering orange firelight Rafael caught glimpses of the kids’ faces and their giddy, bloodthirsty expressions. A lump formed in his throat.

The rats tried to break away, but with each attempt the kids expertly waved the fire in front of them, blocking their path. After a few minutes, the animals stopped trying to escape. They pressed against one another and cowered.

“Now, start moving!” a girl barked, pointing her torch. “That way! Keep them moving that way!” The kids began to move in unison, keeping their circle tight.

Rafael followed as the kids slowly moved their circle, herding the rats. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he watched the helpless, terrified animals.

A siren suddenly blared and a strobe bathed everything in bright red light. Rafael froze, struck dumb for several moments before he realized what was happening. The strobe light sat atop a tall metal pole. A border marker. Rafael remembered the map Miss Hathcox had showed him, the crosshatched area.

They were near the red zone.
The kill zone
.

Instinctively, Rafael backed away. Ahead of him, amazingly, the kids hadn’t moved. They still had the rats encircled, still waving their torches. What the hell were they doing?

“Okay, let ‘em go!” the blond boy shouted, his voice barely audible above the siren.

Two kids stepped aside and the rats, seeing an exit, bolted away from their torturers. Blurs of dark fur drenched in red light.

Moments later, Rafael heard a faint, low buzzing sound underneath the high-pitched wail of the siren.

“It’s coming! Get back, get back!” a girl shouted. The kids began to retreat, backing away from the border marker.

The buzzing grew louder, quickly drowning out the sound of the siren.

A border drone
.

The crack-crack-crack of automatic gunfire broke out. Rafael froze, panic seizing him. Up ahead the kids jumped and screamed, cheering the execution of the swamp rats.

Images of Lake Conroe flashed through Rafael’s mind. Bullets whizzing through the air above his head as he crawled through the tall weeds, his belly in the mud. The sickening thud of someone near him getting struck, then falling to the ground. Cries for help. Wails of pain.

In the next minute, the firing stopped and the buzz of the drone’s engine faded and disappeared. The strobe light winked out and the siren stopped, and the night went deathly quiet.

Rafael was suddenly aware of his heart thudding wildly in his chest.

“Look!” one of the kids shouted, pointing. “One of ‘em got away. Get it!”

A swamp rat scampered through the brush near the kids. A girl pulled a pistol from the back of her pants, aimed, and fired. Rafael started at each crack of gunfire.

The kids cheered when the fourth shot found its mark, slamming into the rat and sending it tumbling.

“Let’s go,” one of the kids said. “I’m freezing out here.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” said another.

The kids walked toward Rafael. He wanted to turn and run back to camp, but his legs wouldn’t move. They came closer, the glow of their torches illuminating the trees and brush around him. In a few seconds they’d be on top of him, but he still couldn’t get his legs to work. His breath came in frosty gasps, and the echoes of the gun shots bounced around inside his head.

He managed to drop to the ground just before they reached him. Dry leaves and grass crunched under their footsteps, only a few feet away, as he closed his eyes and hoped they didn’t see him.

He lay motionless for several minutes, until he was sure they were long gone. Then he sat up, brushed the leaves off of his shirt, and cried. Tears gushed forth uncontrollably, wet and warm against his cheeks.

He had to get away from this place. Death was hiding everywhere, even in the laughter of children.

* * *

The next morning Rafael was the first to arrive at the school tent for the testing. He sat and stared at the map, wondering if the country north of the Red River was really all his father said it was: a land where laws still mattered, a land of opportunity where you could start a new life. He hoped Papi had been right. He wanted to start a new life. Maybe that would help him forget about the one he’d had here.

“My daddy said when he was a boy you could walk right across the Red River.” Rafael turned to see Miss Hathcox enter the tent, a bundle of papers under her arm.

“Or swim across, I suppose,” she said. “Good morning, Rafa. Did you sleep well in your new tent?”

He forced a smile and nodded.

She placed the papers on a table, moved to the map, and pointed. “My family had a farm up near Clarksville, not five miles away from the border. They used to go back and forth to Oklahoma all the time. Of course, that was a long time ago. Before Secession.”

Secession
. How his teacher back in New Caney, Mr. Blankenship, had loved to talk about Secession. He’d lift his arms high in the air and raise his voice like a preacher’s, going on and on about the ‘misguided dream of independence.’ Then, as he’d move his history lesson forward in time, he’d slowly lower his hands to his sides and his face would become serious. He’d talk about the ‘economic disaster’ and the ‘mass exodus.’ And when he’d finally get to the part about the States closing off its southern border to keep out the flood of refugees, his voice was almost a whisper, his expression stony and cold like he was at a funeral.

The teacher shook her head. “Mama and Daddy should have crossed us over when they had the chance.”

Rafael wondered what had brought her to Sanctuary City, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Coming to live in a refugee camp was always the end to a horrible story. He’d had his nightmare, Miss Hathcox had had hers, and surely every one of the thousands of tents in the camp housed its own tale of misery and escape, maybe some even worse than his. They were stories best left untold. Untold and forgotten.

Kids began to arrive and fill the rows of seats. Each of them looked quizzically at Rafael as they sat down. He recognized many of them from the night before.

“Now that you’re all here,” the teacher announced, “I’d like to introduce Rafael. He just arrived a few days ago and he’ll also be taking the test with us today.”

The kids stared at him. “Too many damn people taking this test,” one of them muttered.

Minutes later the U.N. test proctors arrived, wearing crisp white shirts and carrying boxes labeled
Carter Scholarship Testing Materials
. A large man with a special badge on his jacket followed them. He strode over and shook hands with Miss Hathcox. She seemed impressed with him.

“Would you like to say a few words to the children, Senator?” she asked.

Senator
. That explained the special badge, Rafael thought.

“I’d be delighted,” he answered, and then he turned toward the kids.

“Good morning,” the senator said. “It warms my heart to be with you here today, boys and girls, it truly does. I know it’s been a long hard journey for many of your families to get you here.”

Rafael shifted in his chair.

The senator continued speaking. “After so many years of working to get the Carter scholarships approved, it’s hard for me to believe it’s finally happening.” He smiled briefly, then his lips tightened into a grimace. “I wish we could have come here with more than ten, but I’m afraid those of us in Washington who favor reconciliation are still a small minority.” He paused and seemed to grope for his next words.

“But at least there’s that,” Miss Hathcox said, ending the awkward silence. “Amnesty for ten children is better than nothing.”

The Senator nodded. “Yes, of course. Ten is better than nothing, but it’s only a start. My sincerest hope, children, is that this marks the dawn of a new day, the beginning of a new era of cooperation between our two countries, and perhaps one day, God-willing, re-unification.”

The U.N. staff and Miss Hathcox applauded as the senator made his way around the classroom, shaking hands with each of the kids. The senator wished them all good luck and left the tent.

One of the proctors handed Rafael a pencil and test booklet. He looked at the booklet, then moved his eyes around the room, counting heads.
Fourteen
. There were fourteen kids taking the test. And only ten scholarships.

Four kids would have to stay behind.

* * *

That night Rafael lay awake in his cot for hours. He took the test over and over in his head, doubting the questions he’d answered easily, fretting over the guesses he’d made. He wouldn’t know the results until tomorrow morning.

He got up and left the tent, finally giving up on sleep.

An autumn chill frosted his breath as he wandered through the camp. He realized that he no longer noticed the stink of the place. He’d gotten used to the fetid stench of rotting trash and human waste that he’d gagged on only a few days ago. Barrel fires warmed him as he passed by. Groups of people warming their hands stood around them.

Were there stories like his behind their blank stares? Had they made it here, too, like he had, surviving the journey out of dumb luck? And were they lucky at all? Maybe the lucky ones were those who hadn’t made it, the ones who weren’t stranded in Sanctuary City without a home, without a future. Maybe the lucky ones were those who didn’t have to remember what it was like to have a life.

He kept walking until his legs tired, then he retraced his steps and made his way back, hoping the exertion would help him sleep. He turned past the last row of tents and stopped short. Two of the kids who’d taken the test crowded the front of his tent.

“Where the hell is he?” the girl asked, lifting up the flap, then throwing it down in disgust. Rafael recognized her as the girl who’d shot the rat.

“How should I know?” the blond boy answered, shrugging. “What am I, his babysitter or something?”

Rafael backed away, hid behind a neighboring tent, and peeked around the edge.

The girl knelt down and rummaged through Rafael’s blankets. There was a pistol tucked into the back of her pants, the telltale white handle of a U.N. security guard weapon protruding above her waistline.

Rafael’s heart raced as images of Lake Conroe flashed through his mind. Blood in the water, bodies strewn along the shoreline.

Run, Rafa, run
! His mother’s last words rang loudly in his ears.

He turned and ran for the woods in a panic. Curious eyes followed him as he sprinted past, dodging trash heaps and weaving his way between rows of tents. He reached the forest and kept running, his hands outstretched to feel his way in the darkness. Small branches and pine needles scraped and stung his face.

Minutes later he was a mile away, flat on his belly in a thicket, breathing heavily and shivering against the cold ground. He looked back at the camp, its barrel fires flickering orange in the distance.

When he caught his breath, he chided himself for running and hiding. He should have told someone about the pistol, one of the aid workers or Miss Hathcox. In the animal terror of the moment, he’d only wanted to get away from the gun. But now he imagined other tents those two kids might be visiting.

Fourteen kids, ten scholarships
.

Rafael squeezed his eyes shut against the morbid thought. No, that couldn’t be right. They couldn’t just walk around the camp shooting people.

Then he remembered the ugly scene at the red zone, the delirious blood lust on the kids’ faces.

He had to go back and tell someone.

Rafael stood and brushed dirt off of his shirt. In the distance he heard a rapid crunch-crunch-crunch of dry leaves and underbrush. Footsteps approaching. He ducked back down into his hiding place. Two silhouetted figures ran toward him, the same two kids he’d seen at his tent. The girl held the pistol, moonlight glinting off the white handle. Rafael put his belly to the ground and held his breath.

“Hurry up!” the girl shouted. “They’re probably halfway there by now!”

Rafael went rigid, his heart thumping wildly as the kids raced past the thicket, their steps falling only a few feet away.

They ran deeper into the forest. The sounds of their voices and footsteps faded and disappeared. Rafael stood and brushed himself off again. His heart finally began to slow down.

He tried to make sense of what the girl had said. Probably halfway
where
by now?

He took a step toward the camp, then stopped, whirled around, and looked in the direction the kids had been heading.

In the distance he saw flickering lights, bobbing up and down.

Torches
.

Rafael broke into a sprint. A minute later he heard voices, children screaming out in fear. He ran faster.