The Jaguar's Children (8 page)

“No you don't,” she says. “You need to go home and sober up. Now get away from here. I'm busy.”

We crawl out from under the tables and are surrounded by flowers—roses, birds of paradise, gladioli and bundles of orchids from the Sierra. The sight of them there so many and so close makes me think of my abuelo and I feel it hard in my chest. All these flowers we put on his grave. César is already moving away deeper into the market, which is wide awake now. He does not look back but I follow him. I hear him asking for the ladies from Juquila who make special clothes for the Virgin. I smell meat and realize I am hungry when a man in a bloody jacket pushes past me and then César with the leg of a cow on his shoulder. In a moment we are among the butchers. It's early, so the meat is piled high on the shelves and hanging thick on the hooks—rags of carne asada, strings of sausages round as beads, heavy blankets of tripe, piles of goat heads staring blind over pyramids of chickens with their marigold feet hanging in the walkway. When César passes a juice stand, he buys a liter and takes it with him through the heart of the market and over to the far side, closer to the rail line and el centro. We are in a clothing section now so he asks again for the ladies from Juquila and is sent over to a young Zapoteca in bluejeans and a T-shirt with fake diamonds who is reading a fashion magazine and listening to an MP3 player with tiny headphones.

“Excuse me,” says César. “Is your mother here?”

The girl pulls out one of the headphones. “¿Mande?”

“Your mother, is she here?”

“Who are you?”

“Nobody. I need a gown for Juquilita.”

“Why don't you say so?”

The girl's stall is made of light metal bars going up and across all around her, like a giant cage. On every bar are hangers with colored shirts and blouses covered in fine flowers all from sewing. The girl points behind her with her thumb and high in the back is a row of tiny gowns too small even for a baby, covered in a layer of brown dust. “That's all we got left,” says the girl. “No more until November.”

César chooses the brightest one, light green with gold threads. The girl takes it down with a long pole, gives it a shake and hands it to César. “Quinientos,” she says.

You can buy five shirts for this kind of money, but César doesn't bother to bargain. He kneels down, pulls some bills from his sock and pays her. Then he folds the gown into his jacket pocket and makes his way back through the market toward the river, making sure to go a different way. It is harder to find a taxi on the back side of the market, but it is dangerous to be near the entrance. Always the police are there. I follow César outside where he is asking people about colectivos going north. I stand apart from him and he ignores me. After some minutes waiting, a minivan comes and he squeezes in the back with three hundred kilos of nuns going to Nochixtlán. I get the last seat behind the driver. I can see that César is angry, but what can he say with all these nuns?

The driver waits to collect the money until he is out of the city traffic and on the highway. This is a difficult moment for me because I have only the ten pesos. I am also hungry like the devil. I am hoping the driver will not notice me with all the nuns, but he does, and after everyone has paid he looks at me in his mirror and raises his eyebrows. “Didn't he pay for us already?” I say, and point back to César with my thumb. I turn around and César gives me a look like, What the fuck are you doing?

“I would be home sleeping now if it wasn't for you,” I say. César is furious, but the nuns are turning to look at us and he doesn't want to attract any more attention.

“Cincuenta y cinco,” says the driver.

“I'll pay you back,” I say to César.

Without looking at me, César passes the money forward to the driver and then turns his head to the gray rocks and bare brown hills of the Mixteca, a desert compared to our green Sierra.

 

When we got off in Nochixtlán on the edge of town both of us were watching for federales and police, but there was nothing—only freight trucks and cars. We were deep in the Mixteca, two hours north of el centro, and on the hills around us there was barely a tree. The road here was wide with many holes and little shade and on both sides were tire repair shops with cars and trucks up on jacks or piles of stones with the wheels off. It was only ten in the morning but the wind was hot already and smelled of rubber and garbage and cooking meat. César crossed the road to a taquería and from the lady there he ordered memelitas al pastor, something I wished to eat myself. There were two metal tables with folding chairs around them and this is where César sat and waited in the full sun with no hat. When the lady's young son brought the memelitas to the table, three of them, I waited until César had eaten one. Then I crossed the road, sat down next to him and thanked him for paying my fare, but he wouldn't look at me. “Why are you dogging me, man? I have enough trouble as it is.”

“What did you expect me to do,” I said, “wait for another taxi?

César didn't answer but took a bite of the second memelita. There was sweat on his forehead. On the table was a plate of napkins and two clay dishes of red and green salsa as bright and round as traffic signals. Flies circled, landing on the rims and spoons. When they landed on César's plate, he didn't wave them away.

“Do you remember who I am?” I asked.

César was looking south, toward the city. “You're the chico who borrowed my copy of
The Savage Detectives
and never gave it back. Tino? Nico?”

“Tito. I still have it.”

“No shit. Slow reader?” He finished the second memelita. They were small and he saw me watching. He looked at the last one and pushed his plate toward me. “And you're still mooching.”

“In this moment, yes, but I have some money at home. I have been saving it.”

“For what? Taxis and memelitas?”

My mouth was too full to talk so I shook my head. “For university,” I said. “But my father says I should go to el Norte.”

César waved the serving boy over and ordered two Cokes. I pulled out my ten-peso coin and put it on the table, but César ignored it. The boy brought two bottles, opened them and set them in front of us. César took a long drink, then he leaned forward in his chair and looked me in the eyes. It was the first time I saw fear in there and also how tired he was. “I need to leave the country,” he said. “Immediately.”

When I heard this, I felt more worried for César than for myself. “What has happened?” I asked.

“It's not just the taxi. That's all I can tell you.”

“I'll go with you.”

The words surprised me how quick they came. They surprised César too and he sat back in his chair. “Well,” I said, “they saw both of us, didn't they? And both of us ran.” César dropped his head, swinging it back and forth like a burro trying to find its way under a fence. “You don't understand,” I said. “My father has been on my ass for years to do this—to go up there. Most of my friends are gone already. It will make him happy to see me go.”

César took another sip of his Coke and rubbed his eyes.

“I could help you,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows and looked me up and down. “I don't think so.”

“My father has a connection.”

“Everybody has a connection.”

“To Don Serafín.”

César made a snorting sound. “
Your
father knows Don Serafín?”

“He works for him all the time,” I said.

César sat up in his chair. “Can Don Serafín get you a good coyote?”

“If my father asks him, yes.”

Don Serafín is what we call a cacique, a rich and powerful chingón with a lot of property and influence who can make war if he wants. Caciques were here before the Spanish came, and they're still here. Don Serafín is Zapoteco, but his great-grandfather was half Spanish, un hacendado with a lot of land to the east of el centro. Now his family grows agave there for the mezcal and makes it also. For people like my father, Don Serafín can do many things—find work, loan money, grant favors, offer advice. In return my father gives him loyalty and must do whatever he asks.

“If you're going to call your father,” said César, “I guess you'll want to borrow my phone”—he smiled a little bit—“along with my books and money and food?”

“I have my own phone,” I said.

He laughed then, and it was the first time I heard him do that since we were in school. “Just don't mention my name.”

When my father answered he was mixing cement. At first he was irritated, and when I told him I was ready to go to el Norte he was surprised. I told him as much of the truth as I could—that I have a small problem with the police, but I swear on the Virgin it wasn't my fault and this is why I cannot come home to say goodbye. I think he knew I was not saying everything, but he has done this himself and he did not press me. You must understand, to go north is my father's dream since I was young, and more than anything he wants to believe it will come true, not only for me but for him.

César found a patio with some shade near the bus stop and we waited there with a beer for my father to call back. César never once took out his phone, but when mine played “Back in Black” in the middle of the afternoon he jumped. “Bueno,” my father said. “I have consulted Don Serafín and he has agreed to help us. But you must understand, this is a special favor he is doing, loaning us so much money. You must promise me you will pay it back as quickly as you can, and you cannot forget the interest. It will be bad for me—for the family—if he must come looking for it.”

“I promise, Papá, as soon as I find work. Tío will help me.”

My father was nervous and I could hear it. “He let me sit in his car, Tito. It's the first time in all these years.”

I have seen Don Serafín's cars before in el centro. His new one is the BMW 760. In all of Oaxaca there are only two or three like this. For someone like my father it is an honor to sit in such a car, but it is also a burden. The problem with the favor is that there will always come the day when you must repay it. You cannot know when or for what you will be asked, but when it comes from a heavy chingón like Don Serafín it will hurt and you can never say no. I was afraid for my father then and I didn't know what to say so I asked him what it was like.

“If Pancho Villa was alive today,” he said, “his car would be like this one. Every seat is a throne. And when he called his man Lupo? The car turned into a telephone!”

After this, Papá told me where to go and how to find this Lupo. I thanked him, but it wasn't enough.

“I hope you will come back,” he said, “but not until there is a reason for hope. L.A. is best for you, I think. I'll tell Tío you're coming. Your mother will be worried so call when you can. Suerte. Vaya con Dios.”

Thu Apr 5—23:14

 

Time, you know. Minutes. When my abuelo was young he didn't know what a minute was because in Zapotec there aren't any minutes, only days and seasons and harvests. I'm not sure I know what minutes are myself now. But I know they matter, especially when you're trying to count how many you have left. And this I do not know. There are many of us, AnniMac, but there was never a plan for something like this so everyone is just reacting to themselves, giving up or holding on to some private hope the way they hold on to their crucifixes or water bottles or cell phones.

With no water we can go maybe two more days in here if we stay quiet and don't get the heat stroke, maybe longer if we drink our urine. Someone has to find us by then. I have to believe this because my water is almost gone. More than forty hours I made it last. It is easier when you are not moving, when you are breathing air that is so wet, even if it smells like the sewer. And when I imagine it is my abuelo holding the bottle, saying, Only one taste every hour. The heat makes you stupid and angry, and the thirst can make you crazy so you must fill your mind with something else—something stronger. For me it is my abuelo, the father of my father who was no blood to him or me but who always felt closer than blood.

The only way out is into your mind so that is where I go, trying to rest, trying to breathe only through my nose so I don't lose too much water. When I drink now it is only a cap at a time and I hold it in my mouth as long as I can. Then I imagine Abuelo's voice and it carries me out of here. I don't think I slept last night, but I dreamed so many things and my abuelo was there also. He was called Hilario Lázaro after a saint and the Spanish family that once owned the land around our pueblo. To this my abuelo said, “¡Hilario! ¡El Dios español es un bromista cósmico!” My abuelo was a bromista too—a funny guy, and when I hold this little jaguar head, I feel that he is with me.

In my dream he was sharpening his machete. It is something he did many times a day, right up until he died last year. I cannot say he was a good Christian, but this sharpening was for him a telling of the beads and it worked very well. He ground that blade so fine he could take the hairs off his face with it, and cut an ox bone in the air. “Throw it this way,” he says to me in Zapotec, and he shows me how to do it so the bone is floating there in front of him. Then he takes his machete in two hands and says,
“Lédá!”
I throw the bone up and one moment there is a bone floating and that blade is only light, singing in the air and
Ya!
—there are two bones falling on the ground.

“Abuelo!” I say. “You can play for the Guerreros!”

He laughs and makes his machete sing again. “Only if they want to have two baseballs.”

Abuelo was a real campesino, a kind of workingman that maybe you don't have in el Norte. He was even shorter than me and his feet were thick like a car tire. The lines in his face were so deep you couldn't see the bottom and his nose was a dark mountain standing by itself. He always looked old to me, but when I was little if his hand got hold of you, you could never get away no matter how you twisted. He worked his whole life in the milpa that he cleared himself from the forest and planted with corn and beans, squash and chiles and many other plants. It looks simple from the outside because you see only the corn growing, or maybe the beans climbing the dead stalks, doubled over, but inside there is a small jungle—a world of plants all connected. Es un sistema complicado and it takes a long time to learn. I know only part of it.