The Guardians (15 page)

That was when I lost my Lola. Fifty years we were together. Her heart gave out with the heat. La pobre. I was in the process of trying to put in an air conditioner when I heard a glass fall. I had left her in bed resting y drinking una Fanta. Orange Fanta was her favorite. “¿Qué te pasa?” I yelled from la sala, where I was struggling with the heavy unit by the window. I couldn't just let it go to run and see what happened. There was no answer. Nada. I only heard the hum of all the lil fans we had set up around the house, like always. We never needed no air-conditioning before. We'd grown up with the heat.

But that summer was a bad one. And my Lola was not doing too good by then. Our daughter, el Mikey's mamá, came over from San Antonio to arrange the funeral. I couldn't do it. I was too broken up. Mi'ja was so mad at me. She acted like I had killed her mother. “I'd been telling you two to come live with me, hadn't I?” she kept saying. It wasn't me who had not wanted to leave our home. It was my jefita.

Anyway, this is going to be one of those summers—I can already tell.

Besides everything else that can go wrong when the weather gets this hot it seems that people's tempers blow up faster. La other night I thought it was firecrackers going off in the alley that woke me up. No, hombre. Firecrackers, ni que firecrackers. It was bullets. I got up and came over to the back window like I always do at night when I can't sleep.

I rolled myself un cigarrito. And what did I see? Even though I can hardly see in the day, the funny thing is I can see almost perfect at night. No, the doctors can't explain it. But I ain't surprised. There's a whole lot of doctors can't explain.

That night there was a dead man lying on the ground right there in front of my window. Oh, I knew he was dead, all right. Blood spilled out all around him, especially around his head. He didn't move. I didn't move, neither. Caramba. I was afraid if I did, someone out there might see me by the window. The lights in the kitchen were off so I didn't think I could be seen. But I can never be too sure about nothing around here. Before I finished my cigarrito, keeping it low so the light wasn't showing out the window, I heard footsteps running back. Two pachucos came and dragged off the corpse. In the morning I asked the neighbors. No one saw nothing, heard nothing. That was just last month. It ain't the first time I witnessed something like that in the back of my casita, where my chamacos used to play a long time ago and where now it ain't even safe for your dog to go out.

Yes, sir. Things can get pretty bad during these times, so I wasn't all that surprised when I got the call from the police station about Regina's boy. At the little barbecue party that Mikey had for him, I gave el muchacho my phone number and address because with the likes of those hijos de la mala vida hanging around him, I just figured he'd need someone to call sooner or later. I didn't figure on that very night.

But then again, I suppose I wasn't surprised.

That big vaca that called himself “El Toro”—I recognized him right away. I can't see how my grandson didn't. A couple of years back that was the pachuco they arrested for train robbery in Sunland Park. Imagine robbing trains in this day and age. He was the ringleader. Nothing but kids, punks from Anapra, México—the other side. There's an Anapra on this side, too. And this big castrated bull, hijo de su … leadin’ them all to perdition. The train stopped right where the U.S. and México meet unnoticed. The punks would run over in the middle of the night, jump on the stopped train, break into the cars, and throw off all it was transporting—TVs, stereos, whatever there was, you name it.

One night, the FBI got a tip, planned a sting. They caught the gang in action. But then a couple of the FBI got beat up so bad they ended up in comas. One eventually died. As far as I see it, the revenge of the officials that followed was near merciless—allá, on the Mexican side. Whether la
chota or el FBI, I don't know who exactly, but right after all that went down they went around in the middle of the night like King Herod's soldiers, banging on doors, arresting everyone and his mamá.

I remember that ugly old cow from the TV news. He was the very same vaca who now calls himself “El Toro.” His ganga ain't nothin’ but a bunch of kids. He uses los cabroncitos to do his dirty work. Usually since they're minors or don't have records the chota can't prosecute to the full extent of the law.

And that El Toro Arellano—ol’ heifer—likes young boys in more ways than one. The news said he had been arrested before as a sex offender. I'm glad he got thrown back in el bote, where he belonged.

Ay, no. I saw Regina's boy and I said, No way, hombre. That cow ain't going to ruin this one. Even with that crazy pelirrojo like a scalp on fire, you can tell ese muchacho is with God. Maybe a man like me, who made his livelihood with a saloon, has no right to say who is with God and who ain't. Then again, a man like me might know better than most. That boy, without a doubt, has un halo. I kid you not. I don't know if I'm the only one who can see it but it's plainly there. A gold ring y todo just like in all the paintings.

So when Sofia, la chief deputy ésa who told me later she's from up around Albuquerque, quesque some lil village nearby there, called me about picking up my grandson, I said, “Yes, ma'am, right away.” It was four in the morning, just about the time I usually get up anyways. I got on my clothes, made un cafecito, and smoked the first cigarrito of the day.

Then I went outside and got the tarp off my troca. I cover my pickup to protect it from the elements. (And by elements I don't just mean the sun and windstorms, I mean those elements who come around to see what they can steal or vandalize.) My troquita is a
1953
International, in mint condition, just like the day I bought it. You can't even find parts for it no more. I got in my white truck and went straight down to the police station, hoping to beat the daylight, when afterward the lights in my ojos would go out on me. That is, until dark came around again. And night would become day.

REGINA

My Gabo has been gone for four days. I know where he is.

He is a boy trying to figure things out. Even if you are a hundred, how do you make sense of your parents being killed or disappearing trying to make their way to the Land of Gold? Muchos dólares en Los Estados. That's what a lot of people hear in their villages. Rafa and Ximena knew better. The reality is that it don't make sense. People have to make peace with it—otherwise they might start a revolution. That's Miguel talk, but sometimes I have to agree.

At sixteen, my Gabo's got the bad luck that follows each member of our familia. So my nephew grabs on to God for the answers.

He is at the priest's house next to the church.

I went to see el Padre Juan Bosco when my nephew didn't come home from work. I already suspected something. The boy hadn't come home to pick up the truck. I pounded on the church first, using the huge doorknocker.
Zasl Zasl Zasl
Dogs started barking. I woke up the neighborhood. “Open!” I yelled, wanting to make a mitote. I never got along with Padre Juan Bosco. I kept banging until someone going by in a car stopped and said, “The church is closed, señora! Why don't you go around to the house?” I knew all that. I just wanted an opportunity to make trouble for el cura for being such a hypocrite. Who in Cabuche doesn't know that Herlinda Mora is his mistress and not there just to look after him? You'd only have to have a glance inside the house to know she was no housekeeper. I don't want to be mean but it's the truth.

Herlinda is the youngest of thirteen kids. Thirteen. Count them. She's been staying with el padre since her parents died. Mr. Mora the boot
maker was ninety-seven. His wife was eighty-nine. They went one day apart. Herlinda found each one in the morning in bed, cold. She had always looked after her folks. Suddenly, no one. Then she went to take care of Father Juan Bosco. Right. She was taking real good care of him at the barbecue party, from what I saw. I went around the church to the house. Her dog started yapping from behind the door. Of course it was her dog. What priest owns a Shih Tzu?

I rang the bell. It was el padre who answered. “Yes, he's here,” he said as soon as he opened the door. He didn't invite me in but I tried to peek around him. I could see from where I was standing what a mess the house was. The coffee table was covered with evidence of past meals in front of the television set, big empty soda bottles, plates and forks, even a pizza carton. Clothes thrown on the couch and chairs. Like I said, a mess.

For a second I caught sight of Gabo's red hair. It's indio hair, like my mother's but red, like mine and my papá's. Gabo's stands up like a maguey plant, all over the place. It was his cabezahead poking over the couch.

“I've given him sanctuary here,” the priest said.

Sanctuary? I wasn't the secret police. With hands on my hips, I started tapping my foot. I couldn't look him in the eye, knowing what I did about him and Herlinda. She wasn't showing herself, neither.

Over twenty years of Father Juan Bosco as my confessor and he never once let up on me about my not knowing a man. “How could you not, Regina?” His silhouette would lean against the screen, all ears. “You were married.”

Sure, for one day. Junior was shipped out the morning after we had gone to the courthouse in Las Cruces. We planned on waiting until we could have a church wedding. In those days people waited. Father Juan Bosco never believed that we did not spend even our “wedding night” in the same bed. We weren't ready for that. We only married because Junior had a feeling he wasn't coming back. “I want to make sure you're taken care of just in case,” he said.

“Is my nephew all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Padre said. Still, he didn't invite me in. “He'll be safe here. We'll … I'll take good care of him—don't worry,” he said, looking ready to close the door on my nose. He was acting like I was one of los Palominos. “Are those hoodlums harassing him?” I asked. The priest didn't say yes or no, but made a face that said, “You can never tell.”

“Make sure he goes to school,” I said.

Padre Juan Bosco nodded. “Yes, of course, Regina.
I
wasn't the one who let him hang around with that gang. Remember that. Just don't worry so much. He doesn't miss work, either. He's a good boy.” Buen muchacho, he called him. That's why I wanted to fetch him home. I didn't want my boy corrupted by Church hypocrisies any more than I had ever wanted him hanging around with hoodlums.

“When he's of age he is going into the seminary,” Father Juan Bosco said, treating me like an unfit parent. “Go on now.” That did it. I tried to get around him, but he succeeded in blocking my way.

I sized him up. I could've taken him, I thought. Stepping away from the door and on tiptoes, I tried to look past the priest again. Red spiked hair jutted out from behind the couch.

“Go on now,” el padre said, shooing me with his hands like I was a bug. “When your nephew's ready, he'll go home on his own.” The door slammed on my face. Maybe in big, enlightened cities you could call the authorities on a priest for holding a minor. Pero in Cabuche I doubted very much that the sheriff would force Gabo to go home when the priest was looking out for him. Everybody liked Padre Juan Bosco. Except me. More than ever now. “I'll be back!” I shouted, all Schwarzenegger-like after the priest shut the door with a
pom.
It sounded as if he might have slammed it on purpose to be rude. But I wasn't sure. It was a heavy door, so there was no telling.

Los curas had always been like that, in my experience, back in México and in Cabuche, New Mexico—hard to decipher.
Decipher
sounded like they were encoded beings. But that's the word that came to me, hurrying back to my truck in the cold. A big word for a big pain in the butt. When he wore his collar (which Father Juan Bosco was not doing that night at home), a priest would look like trustworthiness incarnated. You could surrender yourself entirely to him, your penas, and all your woes. He would understand you. He would help you. He would look up to the heavens and intervene for you if you had lost your way from God. But not Father Juan Bosco and not the ones I knew growing up. They were men. Just men. And a couple of them had been good and a few had been bad. El cura was not always a good man but not always a bad one, neither. That's why I say he was hard to figure out. Slowly walking off, I hoped in the case of my Gabo he was planning on being good. If he called La Migra on Gabo, I swear I didn't know what I'd do to that hombre.

“He's at the top of his class,” I shouted from the corner. I knew the
priest was watching me from the window through a crack in the Venetian blinds. “I want him to graduate!” I said.

Then the door opened and Gabo came out. Just for a second. “Don't worry, Tía,” he called.

I wanted to ask him if he was eating all right (I knew Herlinda Mora was no kind of cook) and let him know that if he still needed help with calculus I had found a tutor for him. Before I could make a move toward the house, he went back in again.

El Padre Juan Bosco said he was giving him sanctuary but it feels more like he's being held prisoner. All I do every night is plan Gabo's breakout. I know my nephew is there of his own free will. But maybe he needs deprogramming. I learned all about this years ago on a TV special. Kids like my Gabo, suffering, could get brainwashed by cults and political zealots. Their parents had to hire someone to find them and deprogram them. Rafa would have agreed with me. He would have thought his son was being brainwashed by the Church. Just like Mamá used to think that my brother was brainwashed by communism.