Muerte Con Carne (19 page)

Marta had been overcome with relief when Cristobal had come back to the house empty handed. No Felix. When she had seen the Border Patrol vehicle pull up behind Felix’s Taurus on the surveillance monitor, slivers of hope pierced her stomach, but it wasn’t until Cristobal returned without an unconscious and beaten Felix that she could actually breathe easier.

Felix was safe. And he was looking for her.

He’ll find me. He has to. Felix won’t give up on me.

She could wiggle her fingers some, and she stretched her thumb out and rubbed the smooth gold of her ring.

Yes, I’ll marry you. Just get me the fuck out of here!

Gustavo had chained her to the chair before running excitedly back to his room. Loud bangs continuously erupted from the bedroom, and though the chains made it difficult for Marta to breathe and the metal chair dug into her back, she was grateful she didn’t have to be in that room with him.

Cristobal emerged from his room, dragging Francisca along behind him. He was rough with her, looked annoyed and frustrated as he started down the stairs. Francisca sobbed, her face red and puffy, eyes nearly swollen shut from the endless tears.

“¡No…no! ¡M-mi hijo!”
She fought him, slapped at the fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“¡Callate, puta!”

With a quick yank of her arm, she was thrown forward, tumbling head over heels before sliding down the last couple of stairs on her stomach. She coughed and cried as she wormed across the floor, pulling her bruised body along with her forearms. Her eyes darted around the room, swept past Marta.

“¡Carlos! 
¡Carlos!
”

Marta fought against the chains, but it was no use. The metal dug into her flesh as she tried to wiggle.

Cristobal chuckled as he stepped off the last stair and strolled across the room toward Francisca. He pressed his foot onto her ass, pushed his weight down on her until she screamed. His eyes rolled and locked onto Marta’s and a vicious grin spread across his face.

“You’re so beautiful. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? Mas hermosa.” He twisted his foot and Francisca yelped.

“Fuck you.”

“You will, bonita. You will.” He leaned in and sniffed Marta’s neck, sending spider legs tickling down into her chest. His tongue slithered from his mouth and slid across her cheek. “I’m the man of the house. And the man gets what he wants.”

Marta did her best to turn her face away from him, but she could still smell his breath, feel the saliva pasted to her face cooling on her cheek.

Cristobal lifted Francisca by the back of her shirt, nearly tearing it off. When the woman tried to wiggle free, he slapped her once, then again with the back of the same hand.

“Hold still. You keep fucking with me, and I’ll boil Carlitos alive. I’ll make you watch while he screams, while his skin hardens and splits open.”

Francisca didn’t seem to understand the words, but she tensed up at the mention of her son’s name.

Cristobal forced her into the metal chair beside Marta, picked up the second chain that had been lying on the table, and began roughly wrapping it around Francisca.

“What are y-you going to do?” Marta watched as Francisca bared her teeth like a cornered dog. The chains were pulled tight and the woman grimaced, her breaths quickening.

“It’s almost time for the show. The championship match.”

“The wh-”

Another thunderous crash exploded from upstairs and Gustavo’s bedroom door shook in its frame.

Cristobal tittered as he lifted Francisca, chair and all, and carried her across the house and out of sight.

Marta twisted her wrists, flexed and unflexed her fingers to loosen her restraints, but they held tight. Cristobal returned, his gold tooth gleaming from between his pink, stretched lips. He ran his hand over Marta’s legs, massaged them, took another long sniff of her neck. Then he lifted her and they were moving across the room.

A door stood open at the end of the corridor, and Marta could see the ring on the other side of it, with its skulls and taught bungee cords. Orange light flickered over them, and when Cristobal carried her through the door and into the yard, she saw the small fire underneath a propped-up metal tub. The burning wood popped and filled the air with a pleasant, Christmasy scent. The moon was a faded white smear in the sky, still muted out by the dying daylight. Francisca screamed and did her best to thrash in her seat, but only managed to break open skin where metal rubbed against it.

More metal foldout chairs sat in front of the wrestling ring. Rogelio sat in one, hopping up and down in his seat. He leaned over and whispered something into Carlos’s ear, who was still connected to Rogelio by chained wrists. But Carlos wasn’t moving. His head hung limp from his neck, and as Cristobal sat Marta’s chair down beside Francisca, Marta saw the child’s face.

Carlos’s mouth hung open, his lips and chin white with dried vomit. One eye was pinched shut while the other was open just a crack, encrusted with a brown-colored mucus. Rogelio jumped out of his seat, slapped the ring and hopped in place. Carlos’s body tipped into the dirt, and Rogelio lifted him by the limp arm and held him up, faced him toward the ring like a life-sized puppet.

Francisca bellowed and fought against the chain so hard her chair fell over. She wept as she stared at her child in Rogelio’s grasp. Long, shrill bawling that needled at Marta’s eardrums.

“Dios mio,” Cristobal said as he led Mamá into the yard by the arm.

The old woman took slow, careful steps, and Cristobal led her past Francisca’s fallen body and sat her in the oversized wooden rocking chair that had been waiting for her there in the yard.

Cristobal strolled back toward Francisca, winked at Marta as he passed. He grabbed the chain wrapped around Francisca’s chest and lifted her back to sitting.

“I should leave you down there, puta. But you can’t miss this.” He patted Francisca’s cheek before hurrying back into the house.

Rogelio clapped, pulled Carlos along back to their seats. He sat beside Marta, propped Carlos up beside the old woman.

Mamá's face was a pinched scowl, the loose skin of her cheeks wrinkled like crumpled plastic bags. Her fingers wrestled with each other as she rocked herself to and fro, her eyes directed at the ring. She ignored the others, lost in her own thoughts. Her right hand slowly lifted and landed on top of Carlos’s head, and she rubbed absently at the boy’s hair, twirling the black curls in her gnarled fingers.

Francisca blubbered, her voice raspy, nearly sanded down to nothing from all her screaming.

Cristobal stepped back into the yard, and at first, Marta thought it was Gustavo he was pulling along with him. The man was shirtless and covered in blood, wearing a green Lucha Libre mask and spandex, but was far too scrawny, and in that instant, Marta knew it was Alejandro being dragged and finally tossed into the ring. The man looked weak, barely conscious, and his body rolled arm over arm until resting face up toward the darkening sky.

Francisca blinked as she studied the masked form squirming in front of her. Her eyes darted to the four corners of the ring, each aligned with three skulls equally spaced, the strengthening moonlight marinating the bone in silver light. Her lips peeled back and she inhaled in preparation for another shriek, but Cristobal wrapped his braided leather belt around her mouth before she could. He pulled it tight, secured it, grabbed her head with both hands, and forced her to face the ring.

Championship match
, Marta thought.
Gustavo is going to wrestle this man. He’s going to kill him in the ring.

Marta pictured the masked, festering heads in Gustavo’s room. They were his opponents. And Alejandro would join them soon.

“Ow!” Marta flinched, hissed. Her head swung to her right where the sharp pain had tunneled into her thigh, and Rogelio was pulling the needle out.

He cocked his head to the side and grinned his metallic smile at her, then jabbed the needle back in.

Marta fought her chains again, even bit at the air in the boy’s direction, but he only giggled as he poked her over and over again. He moved to her arms and stippled her flesh with puncture wounds.

When the low growl slid into the yard from the doorway of the house, Rogelio gasped, straightened in his seat and clapped. Carlos fell forward and planted his face into the ground, his arm held up behind him and waving as Rogelio applauded. Mamá tickled the air where Carlos’s head was only a second before, not seeming to notice the absence of hair or scalp.

Gustavo’s shoulders rocked back and forth with each breath, his deltoid muscles rippling as he took thundering steps toward the ring. The belt hung over his shoulder and sparkled in the dying sunlight. His thick chest and barrel stomach were oiled, and he shone like a mountain of greasy meat and gristle. Long yellow teeth were clamped together. Ribbons of spittle wormed from his mouth as he breathed and glared at his newest opponent.

Alejandro had managed to rise to his feet, though his knees wobbled. He clawed at his neck, squealed as his fingertips scraped across the bleeding flesh there. Sewn. The mask had been sewn to his neck, and as he tried to pull it free it bled, fat tears of blood drooling down his chest and stomach.

Francisca groaned from behind the leather belt strapped to her face and Cristobal pulled it tighter.

Gustavo pounded a fist to his chest, harder and harder as he watched the man in the ring panic and stumble around. Gustavo lifted his belt in the air with both hands, showed it to the moon, to his enemy, to the spectators. He spun, stomped his feet, howled. The cords in his neck bulged fat, and he launched himself toward the ring, slid under the bottom rope.

The man shrieked, backed away from Gustavo as the larger wrestler rose to his feet and calmly placed his gold belt on one of the top skulls in the corner.

Gustavo slowly turned his head and growled at Alejandro, stalked his opponent around the ring. Toying with him. When Alejandro made like he was about to try and run, hop out of the ring, Gustavo would stomp his foot, roar, and the man would pull his hands away from the bungee cord and continue sidestepping awkwardly away from Gustavo.

“Why?” Marta had been thinking it, but didn’t realize she’d spoken until she heard her own voice.

“What?” Cristobal said. His attention was on his older brother, but he shot quick glances Marta’s way. Cristobal was enjoying this as much as Rogelio, like a kid looking up to his hero. A goofy smile spread his lips. “You say something, bonita?”

“Why do all this? What’s the point?”

“It’s always been this way. El Gigante is the best, el campeón. Nobody can beat him.”

Marta shook her head. “Why don’t you quit fucking with us and just kill us already? Huh? I’d rather die than spend another second with you sick fucking psychos.”

Gustavo roared and sprang forward. His massive hands slapped over Alejandro’s shoulders, squeezed so hard Marta could see the fingertips dimpling the flesh. He threw his forehead forward, smashed it into the middle of the man’s face. When Alejandro’s head jolted back, the stitches in his neck tore and a fresh sheet of blood flowed.

A tormented scream blew from his throat, and it continued as he was flung across the ring and into the corner. His face met bone, and he hit it so hard, the jaw fell off the skull, then he crumbled to the mat and writhed, clutching at his face and neck. Flies exploded and swirled, landed on his body and drank the blood and sweat.

“When my parents came here, to the States, I was in Mamá's belly. Gustavo was ten years old already. Once I was old enough to understand, Papá explained to me that Gustavo had something wrong with his head. Something in his brain. But he was strong. Real strong.” As the sky continued to darken, the light from the fire grew in strength, bathing Cristobal’s body in orange and yellow.

Gustavo pounded his chest like a rampaging gorilla, flexed his arms and chest and stomped his foot. Alejandro grabbed the second bungee cord with a shaking hand, hauled himself up to a sitting position. A clicking, choking sound clucked from his throat.

Gustavo threw his own body into the bungee cords behind him, launched himself forward. The entire ring shook as he ran across the mat toward his opponent, then he jumped with both legs, slammed both boots into the middle of the man’s back. Alejandro squealed, arched his back, clutched his neck when the stitches pulled tight and ripped skin.

“Papá said the only time he saw Gustavo smile was when he was watching Lucha Libre. Papá built this ring for him. Said it was good for Gustavo to exercise his mind, get out of his room and away from his tapes.” Cristobal arched his mouth, lifted his eyebrows. “I added the skulls later. Nice touch, don’t you think, bonita?”

Gustavo lifted Alejandro’s body off the mat and sat him on the top skull in the corner. The man could barely lift his head. Blood continued to trickle down from under his green mask and onto his sweat covered chest and stomach. Wide red spaces had torn open on his neck as more stitches ripped free from skin.

“My family was poor. Going hungry. Papá brought us meat, meat he didn’t have to pay for, meat that nobody would ever miss. Untraceable meat. And he taught Gustavo how to butcher it, the right way to cut it. He taught me how to catch it.” Cristobal chuckled and rubbed the top of his head. “And the pigs made perfect opponents for Gustavo. Papá said the family needed some entertainment, and Gustavo deserved a reward.”

The giant laid his opponent’s arm over his neck, put the man in a headlock. He climbed his way onto the second skull, the bungee cords looking ready to snap at any second. Gustavo grabbed hold of Alejandro’s thigh with his massive hand, lifted him over his head, and jumped backward off the second rope. The ring rumbled when they hit the mat. Gustavo jumped back to his feet in seconds while Alejandro slowly writhed and gasped for air.

Francisca muttered slobber-coated gibberish through the belt, her face a dark maroon and smothered in snot and tears.

Cristobal and Rogelio both cheered. Rogelio grabbed Carlos’s wrists and yanked them up and down. The boy’s head rolled, then hung backward, his face pointed at Marta. Francisca’s bawling went up another level. Mamá rocked in her chair, a tiny tree bark smile hooked her mouth as she watched her oldest son lift the man to his feet by his throat.