The Guardians (25 page)

Then something happened, Santito, the kind of miracle bestowed upon sinners like me. God is so great, He is bountiful even to us. As Saint John the Divine had in the Book of Revelation, I heard a voice from deep inside:
“I know thy works … and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. ”

It was true I could not and yet evil was all around me.

“And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.”

Padre Juan Bosco.

Then, as if the cura's weaknesses were contagious or I was excusing my own, I took a communion host out and placed it on my tongue. I yearned to taste the blessedness of the Lord again. After that, in el ropero, I found the humble robes of a Franciscan brother. They smelled musty and were filled with moth holes. I tried them on. They felt as if they belonged to me, Su Reverencia.

(Did you send them?)

All the signs were there. I am sure of it. Especially now, after the floods have destroyed so many of the casitas around here. Many of my classmates were left homeless. The great voice of Saint John told of the seven angels who were sent to pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

It was suddenly clear.

The next day I wore my robes at school. At lunchtime in the cafeteria I stood on a chair and set upon revealing God's message. Tiny Tears was sitting at the usual table with her girls, as she called them. My heart reached out to her, most of all, Su Reverencia, with the Word.

“The first angel poured his vial on the earth,” I said, at first speaking
softly, “the second on the sea, the third upon the rivers, and the fourth was poured upon the sun.”

(Contamination is everywhere in the environment, Padre Pío. El Chongo Man is always saying toxins are steadily killing everyone. The science teacher has told us that global warming will be the demise of the planet.)

“The fifth angel poured out his vial and the kingdom was left full of darkness.” My voice grew a little louder this time. “Wars are going on all over the world. Disease and famine are spread throughout.”

“No darker hour could we be living in than this one, when a great nation sets upon declaring wars in the name of peace,” I told my classmates. The students were mostly ignoring me, talking loudly and playing their music. Some made fun and even threw food at me. I did not care. Why should I? My voice grew louder still,
“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the beast. ”
(It was the day after the president gave a speech on TV. All my tía had done the night before when I came home from work was talk about how it had been nothing but lies to placate the public.
Placate.
I looked it up. Yes, everywhere people were sleeping.)

The teacher who supervises the cafeteria in fourth period left to call the security guard. A group of chavas were upset, unas güeras, who said they were not Catholic and whatever they were was nobody's business. They said they were going to call their parents and complain that they were being preached to at school. One called me Satan's helper. “With that rotten costume and red hair,” she said.

Some of the chavos, instead of throwing pieces of fruit and empty milk cartons, like others were doing, started threatening me. “Hey, shut the ef up, man,” and, “I'm gonna go up there and kick your funky ass if you don't shut up,” they called. But they did not. No one approached me. Tiny's “girls” were laughing—at me for sure, but when they saw me looking right at her, they laughed at her, too. Tiny just stared back at me.

The Spirit of God kept speaking through me.
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God … and the dead were judged, every person according to their works. ”
Tiny Tears was like the living dead, Padre Pío. She had no recognition of the greatness of our Lord's love. She kept eyeing me with those heavily painted eyes and penciled-in eyebrows that make her look gastada, like la Mrs. Casas, the lunchroom cook, and not just a girl. Why could she not cry real tears over those
tattooed ones that boast her mortal sins? With each second that went by, her gaze seemed more unrelenting.

The teacher came back with Mr. Ledesma, the school security guard. Both tried to coax me down. “Come on, son,” he said. “If you don't stop, we're going to have to call the sheriff,” the teacher said. But every time they put their hands on me, the hand of the Lord would shake them off.

Finally Tiny Tears got up.

My arms were still outstretched, waiting for her to be embraced by the light of El Espíritu Santo. But instead of coming toward me, she left, Su Reverencia. Her chavas followed behind, all with their shaved eyebrows, penciled, outlined purple bocas, tattoos on their necks and ankles, and pierced noses, eyebrows, chins, and even tongues. They looked like dancing girls from Babylon. I kept reaching out but they only laughed. “
… they hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb … ”
I called out behind them.

Then, I crumbled, Padre Pío, falling, yo creo, into el Mr. Ledesma's arms.

“What happened to him?” I heard the teacher's voice come from far away. “His hands are bleeding,” someone cried.
“His hands are bleeding. ”
1 heard a choir all around me.
His hands are bleeding.
1 could not open my eyes. I could not stand up on my own. When I woke in the nurse's office, my hands were bandaged.

The Lord heard me at last.

Praise be, Adorado Santo. Gracias.

In the name of All that is the Lord's, your eternally grateful servidor

MIGUEL

“When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.” That was an old saying of the anarchists. When my grandfather told me about the Flores Magón brothers, self-proclaimed anarchists and their first attempt to overthrow the Mexican government a hundred years ago, it just about changed my life. Especially the fact that my abuelo's own father had been a Magonista. My grandpa hangs on to that like a gachupín hangs on to the family coat of arms. The anarchists of that era—from Russia to the U.S.—were set on taking over capitalism. They were against monarchies and despots like Porfirio Díaz, who kept reelecting himself in México. Magonistas believed in rights for all the workers—all the underdogs.

“Land and Liberty” was Zapata's cry. Zapata was one of the heroes of the Mexican Revolution, but before him came the Flores Magón brothers. It was Ricardo Flores Magón, in fact, who penned that slogan, Tierra y Libertad.

Industrial workers of the world unite!
¡Órale!

Sometimes I think I was born a century too late.

The Magonistas considered J-Town the optimum headquarters for an uprising. They had a customs house and a railroad there—in others words, money and good transportation. But Porfirio Díaz was not about to suffer enemies. No dictator does. The Magonistas managed to get some allies here in El Paso, but Díaz had planted infiltrators in the group and all the Magonistas were arrested. Ricardo Flores Magón died up in Leavenworth. The official report was heart failure. The bruises noted on the corpse's neck said differently.

“History,” I tell my students, “depends on who you want to believe.”

My abuelo told Gabe all about the Flores Magón brothers just the way he once told me. Regina's nephew has been through more than most people twice his age. He can handle all kinds of information. He reads like breathing air. So, hearing about Ricardo Flores Magón, an intellectual, former law student, writer, starting a movement with his brother to overthrow their authoritarian government—that must've been like a Russian novel for the kid.

But history does not mean much to the youth. It ain't real for them. Video games are more real than the past, the past being yesterday. I know. I teach the subject and I've slammed a book down on a desk more than once to wake a knucklehead who's fallen asleep in class.

But after Regina told me the kid was walking around in some kind of monk's robes and preaching scriptures at his school, I thought maybe I should talk to him myself. Guy-to-guy. One day I picked him up after school, and we drove over to the Sonic to get a couple of burgers. We pulled up to the speaker and put in our order. Right away, it started off bad. Gabe said he didn't want anything. But except for all the gauze wrapped around his hands, he seemed normal enough, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “You boxing now, dude?” I said, referring to the bandages. No reply.

I ordered some onion rings and a shake for him. A few minutes later an attendant came out with our order. “Girls used to bring orders out on roller skates,” I said, groping for a way to start a conversation.

“Why did they wear roller skates?” Gabe asked me, accepting the rings and shake when I handed them to him but I saw he wasn't about to touch them. He rested the food on his bony knees, waiting, like he was being held captive.

“I don't know,” I said, already feeling like an asshole. That's how it is with teens. They make you feel out of it. Trying to talk to my daughter these days, for instance, always ends up seeming like I'm interrogating her. No matter what I ask, “Dad!” is all she'll reply, rolling her eyes.

“My abuelo said he was talking to you one day about our local revolutionary heroes,” I said. Gabe didn't even show facial reactions to my comments. He just stared out the windshield. “You know, I think that in his day Christ might have been considered an anarchist.” Why the hell I said that, I'll never know.

But this got the kid to finally speak up. “I understand what you y el
Abuelo Milton are trying to tell me. But I must find out what God wants from me.”

I ran a hand through my hair. Armchair revolutionaries, that's what we were, my grandfather and me both. Crucita was right. My worst enemies in the community were right. Too much talk and not enough action on my part. “Never mind,” I said to Gabo, deciding to just eat my burger and shut up. I couldn't help him.

Meanwhile, things all along the border just kept getting more heated as the months passed. The latest thing was the weird shoot-outs between Border Patrol over in Crockett County and Mexican military protecting vans packed with marijuana trying to cross over. The Mexican government denied involvement, but the Texas officials said, “Well, if it looks like a duck …” Those Mexican military ducks shooting it out on U.S. territory were probably more afraid of the narcos they worked for than the Border Patrol.

Then the kid reached into his backpack. I tried not to be nosy, but I peeked over anyway. It was bulging but not with schoolbooks. Yeah, brown burlap. Where had he gotten a monk's robes anyway? I wondered. He pulled out a sheet of notebook paper folded in a square about the size of a silver dollar. “Here, read this, please,” he said, handing it to me.

I hesitated but he pushed it against my hand. “Please, Mr. Betan-court.” I put down my burger and wiped my hands on a paper napkin. I don't know why. The letter looked like it had been through hell and back already.

It was written in large, loopy letters. I glanced down quickly to see who'd penned it. Tiny Tears. That girl was all attitude.

“I found it in my locker this morning,” Gabo said. “She doesn't come to school anymore.”

It was addressed to Gabe.
We need to brake out El Toro,
the note said.
You have to help.
Apparently they had El Toro's breakout all planned.
He got you down as his brother,
the note said.
He got information about your dad.
They wanted him to hide bedsheets under his “robes.” By being listed as a relative, as a minor Gabe could visit El Toro. “Are they kidding?” I said to Gabe. Did they actually believe he was going to escape from La Tuna through a window using a bunch of knotted-up sheets or how?

“No, they are not kidding, Mr. Betancourt,” the kid said. “It has been done before. Un hombre escaped last year from there like that.”

“Did he get caught,” I asked, “ 'cause I bet he did.”

Now that anguished look on his face since I'd picked him up from school made sense. Gabe nodded. “But, the Palominos have worked it out better.”

“Well, you ain't doin’ it!” I said.

“What if El Toro does know something about my father?”

“That guy don't know nothing, man. Don't let them con you, Gabe. And even if he's stupid enough to try to break out, you are not getting involved with those people anymore. You hear me? Don't make me tell your principal about this … or your aunt.”

He took the note back, folded it up again, and put it away.

“Gabe, man,” I said, “promise me—on your mother's grave, you are not going to get involved in this.” Gabe tried to open the car door and I reached over to stop him. “Promise me, man,” I said.

“I promise, Mr. Betancourt,” he said finally.

But I was left uneasy. Even though I had no intentions of snitching on Gabe to Regina, I decided to go see my abuelo that night for advice. With no news about Gabe's father our expectations had all but faded out. Not without some guilt, I avoided bringing the subject up about her brother to Redhead. When I arrived at my grandfather's, he was out. Going around with his new dog, I figured. At least one of us wasn't ready to give up.