Into the Beautiful North (27 page)

“We pick chiles and tomatoes. When the season changes, we go north and pick strawberries and apples.”

That’s right,
the paisanos said.

“Is it hard work?” she asked.

He laughed.

“How does it look to you, señorita?”

“Hard.”

They all laughed.

“If you were born to be a ten-penny nail,” Don Arturo said, “you cannot curse the hammer.”

The paisanos all nodded.

“Forty brothers camp here and work the farms. We share costs—food, things like that.”

“Beer,” one paisano called out. The men laughed.

“Sometimes,” Don Arturo admitted. “Better poor and happy than rich and miserable.”

Atómiko said, “Better still rich and happy.”

“That’s a fact,” agreed Don Arturo.

Atómiko poured himself some more coffee.

“We boil water from the stream so we can drink,” Don Arturo explained. “Churches donate clothes. Sometimes, it is too hard to wash the pants, and we throw them away.”

Nayeli noted a muddy pile of old clothing strewn in the reeds.

“It’s a shame,” Don Arturo said. “We don’t make enough money to rent motel rooms or houses.”

Then the bamboo parted and a very handsome young man stepped through.

“Angel,” Chava Chavarín said.

And behind him came Sully and Jimbo and four companions.

Sully had a chain hanging from his right fist. Jimbo carried a bat. The other four were unarmed. Sully swung the chain like a pendulum.

“What do we have here?” he asked. “What do we have here?”

Chava had never been in a fight in his life. He held up his hands placatingly, and he hated himself for it.

“Immigration rally?” Sully asked.

The paisanos backed away.

“They found me at the water,” Angel said. “I’m sorry.”

Jimbo pushed Angel, hard.

He fell to his knees.

“Stay down, doggie-doggie,” Jimbo said.

His homeboys laughed.

“Beanertown,” Sully said. “Christ, you people. See what the mud people do to America? It’s Calcutta down here.” He spit at Chava’s feet. “You people stink.”

Jimbo lectured his associates: “They come in here, turn our country into the third world. Am I right, Sully?”

“Right-o.”

Atómiko lowered his coffee cup and belched loudly.

“Did you hear a bullfrog?” he quipped.

These border jumpers, Atómiko thought, how subservient could you get? They all hung their heads and acted like they were wringing their hats in fear of these gringo thugs. They ought to come on down to Tijuana and face the cops if they wanted to be scared. Too bad there were no women here; it would have been fun to show off for a sweet little brown girl. Oh well, he had Nayeli, even if she was blind to his charms.

Atómiko stood up and tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. He hung the cup on a nail. They all studied him carefully. He scratched his crotch, stared at the thugs and chuckled.

“You boys want to help me scratch this? Got a bad itch!” he hollered.

Angel started laughing and turned and looked up at the skin-heads. You would have thought that Sully and his boys were the most amusing monkeys in the zoo.

“What are you looking at, José?” Sully demanded.

Nayeli turned to Tacho and asked, “¿Qué dijo?”

Atómiko relocated his scratching to his beard. He kept his other hand dangling loosely over the butt end of his staff. It hung across his shoulders like a barely noticed tool for the harvest.

He replied, in his Tijuana English: “I dunno what I look at. But I figure it out pooty soon!” He laughed. He squinted at Angel. “What are they, brother?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Angel replied. “I never saw anything like them.”

“You want to dance with me?” Sully asked, playing to the boys now.

He showed Atómiko his chain. Atómiko made an
Ooooh!
face.

“I no wan’ dance with you,” Atómiko said. “I wan’ break you neck. And then I go to your house an’ make babies with you madre.”

“¿Qué?” said Nayeli.

“We’re in serious trouble,” Tacho whispered.

“Oh.”

She rose.

“Sit down, bitch!” Sully snapped.

“Ay.” Atómiko winced. “You made a mistake, pendejo.”

Nayeli turned back to Tacho.

“Did he call me a bad name?” she asked.

“Sorry, m’ija,” Tacho replied.

She held up a finger at Sully and waggled it, scolding him.

“Nayeli,” Chava warned.

“Morra,” said Tacho, “don’t start anything crazy.”

“They started it.”

“What’s your name?” Angel asked, still kneeling.

“Nayeli.”

“What?” Sully demanded. “Speak English, greaser.”

“¿Qué?” Atómiko demanded.

“Goddamned beaner.”

“Te voy a chingar.”

“What?”

Nayeli said, “Watch his chain.”

“Shut it!” Sully barked.

“I see it, I see it.”

“I put greasers in the hospital, man,” Sully said.

“OK,” Atómiko said.

Sully was a little confused. The script dictated that at this point, the greasers begged or tried to flee. Fear. These two were just standing there. Then Angel stood up.

Atómiko pulled the staff off his shoulders and started to spin it languidly in front of his face.

“What are you, a cheerleader?” Sully said. His boys guffawed.

“Baton twirler.” Jimbo laughed.

“No,” Atómiko said. “Samurai.”

He cracked the pole across Sully’s face so fast it looked like a cloud had passed in front of him; his nose smashed loud as a small firecracker, blood exploding from his face. Angel grabbed Sully and launched him through the reeds and into the creek. Nayeli knee-kicked Jimbo, and he went down clutching his leg and howling. His baseball bat fell on the ground. He tried to sit up, and she spun once and kicked him in the jaw. His head bounced off the mud and he wet his pants. Sully came out of the creek, swung the chain blindly, the blood and tears ruining his eyesight. His homeboys spread out with their arms open. They were closing on Nayeli.

Atómiko stood still, wide-legged, holding his staff perfectly erect before his face. He screamed and lunged four times, smack-smack-smack-smack. Sully’s scalp parted over his eyebrows and more blood covered his face. He fell to his knees as Atómiko’s blows cracked on his shoulders.

Angel was moving around like a crab, and he seemed to be bowing to everybody, but when he bowed, the white boys flew through the air.

“Yeah!” Tacho shouted, jumping to his feet. One of the thugs decked him with one punch. Nayeli was on the boy in an instant, jabbing him in the neck and around the eyes with her nails, striking like a bobcat. He staggered around with her on his back, on his front, up on one shoulder. “Get her off! Get her off!” He tried to bear-hug her, but she head-butted him.

Angel stood in front of Chava and Don Arturo, defending the elders.

“You all right?” he called.

“We’ve got it,” Nayeli replied.

One of his boys turned to help get Nayeli off the kid’s back, and Atómiko swept the staff across the backs of his knees and dropped him into a campfire. He screamed. “My hair! Fire! I’m burning!” His head smoking like a torch, he broke through the bushes and fell sobbing into the creek. Nayeli hopped down.

The remaining thugs circled her and Atómiko. Jimbo had lurched to his feet and limped toward them, gripping his thigh above his ruined knee. The two friends stood back-to-back. Atómiko made patterns with his staff, swinging it around and around, covering Nayeli’s left, then her right. As the three thugs closed in, Tacho and Angel attacked from behind with a frying pan and Jimbo’s abandoned baseball bat. The bat made a horrid flat clang when it hit the nearest fighter’s head. Poor ol’ Jimbo. He dropped like a bag of frijoles.

“Aluminum,” Atómiko noted. “I prefer wood.”

Whap! His staff stung the boy in front of him in the throat. The boy fell to his knees, choking. Atómiko jammed the end of the pole into his solar plexus, then smacked him on each ear so he’d remember the day.

Nayeli jumped in front of the last one standing. She was breathing heavily, covered in sweat. It dripped off her hair. But she was smiling. That was what scared the boy the worst: the crazy beaner chick was
smiling
. She licked her lips. She raised her fists.

“Hello, baby,” she said.

The boy plunged through the bamboo stand and ran all the way up and out of the canyon.

Nayeli turned to Angel and said, “Do you want a job?”

Chava dropped them off near midnight. Angel was going home with him to shower and buy some clothes. Nayeli couldn’t wait to hold up three fingers to Yolo to see her smile. But her arms were so sore from the battle that she didn’t think she could raise them. Her legs were trembling.

Tacho got out of the car and limped as if he’d been the one fighting everybody.

“M’ija,” he noted, “I am just too old for this. And too pretty.”

She laughed.

Atómiko said, “I am more pretty than you are.”

They walked up the little lawn and found Carla. Somebody had set up a huge inflatable pool on the grass, and Carla was lounging in the water. Atómiko pulled off his filthy shirt and kicked off his shoes and fell into the pool, sending a big wave out onto the grass.

“That there’s the only water that grass has seen this year,” Carla told them.

“¿Y la Vampi?” Nayeli asked.

“Gone with that Satan dude,” Carla replied.

Atómiko was blowing bubbles under water.

“Yolo?”

“Inside with the Matt-ster.”

“Gracias,” Nayeli said.

“No prob.”

Atómiko surfaced.

“Pretty thing,” he said to Carla as he moved her way like a crocodile.

Tacho stood there watching Atómiko and Carla as if they were a National Geographic special.

Nayeli stepped into the duplex.

“Yolo?” she said.

She heard it before the screen door had closed:
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!

She could smell incense. Most of the lights were out.
Oh-oh-oh!
She should have backed out, left right away, but she could not.

She moved forward, toward the sound.

The bed was making thumping, squeaking noises. In Matt’s room. The door stood half open.

Nayeli looked in at them. She watched him atop Yolo. She could
smell
them. His bottom was pale blue in the window light. Yolo’s thighs were dark, like shadows. Her feet crossed over Matt’s back.

“Sí, sí, sí,” she cried. “¡Mateo!”

Nayeli backed out. She tiptoed to the living room. She stepped out onto the porch. She had her hand over her stomach. She put her other hand over her mouth. Yolo? Matt and
Yolo?

“Hey,” Carla shouted. “You got a call.”

Nayeli just looked at her.

“El phone-o? While you were out? Una call-o?”

Carla helpfully held her hand up to her face, thumb and pinky extended to form a phone.

“Ring-ring?” Carla said.

“Hurt me,” Atómiko breathed. “Break my bones, devil-woman!”

“Huh?” Carla said.

Nayeli gulped and stepped off the porch. She had tears in her eyes. But really—they weren’t children. They were all grown up. They were outlaws! She hadn’t staked a claim on Mateo. Still…

“Some lady?” Carla continued, fending Atómiko off with one hand. “Your tía?”

“My tía?” Nayeli said.

“Right—Irma? Is that the one?”

“What did she say?” Tacho asked.

“She was lookin’ for Nayeli. Said she’d call back. She’s down at some hotel.”

Atómiko splashed Carla.

“Te amo,” he said.

“Excuse please?” said Nayeli.

“Yeah. She’s in a hotel. I wrote the number down. She’s here. In town. Flew in today.”

“Here?” cried Tacho.

“Yeah, mon. She’s got the hots for that Chava dude, if you ask me.”

Atómiko clutched her and they sank beneath the waves.

Inside, Yolo let out a long cry.

Tacho’s eyebrows rose.

Nayeli covered her eyes with her hand. She walked down to the alley to be alone.

“I see,” Tacho said.

His shoes were black with mud. The bottoms of his white jeans were a hideous brown. His shirt was torn. Tía Irma had arrived. Yolo had stolen the boy.