Juan was five when they found me. That day, I drove home after work, my rusted Toyota pickup grinding through the field roads at the bottom of the Royal Oaks Hills. When I pulled into our driveway and saw the shiny black SUV, I knew. The wicked thing had come breathing hot on my back.
I stopped the truck, my sweatshirt damp and roasting in the cab’s stale heat. My throat suddenly dry. I squinted at the SUV, the tinted windows. No movement. Only sunlight glinting on the black paint. Please let Martha and Juan be okay, oh God, please let them—
No. Worry would not help me. I was not a hero. I was a man who had done bad things, and my family was in danger.
I got out of the truck and bit the inside of my cheek, to keep me sharp. Blood welled up, copper pain like an angry spark. I crouched down, crawled to the back of the SUV. Raised my fist and rapped on the back window. Waited. Pressed my ear to the car. Silence. I hunched over, back aching, and ran to the driver’s-side door. Tried the handle. The door opened and I squatted by the tire. Nothing from the SUV. I opened the door wider, pressed up on the leather driver’s seat, and peered inside.
No one in the car. They were inside the house.
I swayed through the front door, already open. Waiting for me. Laughter, loud and familiar, drifted from the kitchen. I followed.
“Señor Cruz! Good of you to join us! Good to see you, mi amigo!”
I had not heard that voice in many years, save perhaps in nightmares, but I could never forget it. My eyes flicked quickly, seeing without looking. Registering. Preparing.
Martha sat hunched at the table, eye swollen shut, puffed black, blood running down her chin. Still breathing, thank God. At the sight of her, I wanted to scream. But screaming would not save her. And where was Juan?
A man leaned back over the counter. Thin, corded with muscle, a mustache drooping down his face like a frown. Hair slicked back with grease. A gold plated AK-47 dangled in his hands. Too much for me, mano a mano, even if I somehow wrestled the rifle from him.
The other man, the one who had spoken, sat next to my wife — grinning at me through misshapen teeth stained the color of old urine. Clean shaven. Sharp eyes. Eyes that see beyond, we used to say in Mexico, cursed eyes. Wearing crocodile cowboy boots and a bolo tie. His rolled-up shirt sleeves, tattoos of skulls and M-16s creeping out like a rash on his skin. Waving around a diamond-encrusted Browning 9 millimeter, with a custom grip. A good gun. The type of gun I used once.
I nodded. “Hola, Rojelio.”
“He remembers!” Rojelio said. “How good to be remembered. Especially by the great Señor Cruz, and after so much time. Your wife, she has not been hospitable; she did not offer us coffee. You know how I enjoy my coffee, Luis.” He tapped his piss-colored teeth with the barrel of his gun and laughed.
Perhaps they did not know I had a son. If they had killed him, Rojelio would tell me soon enough. Just to see my face. M’ijo, if you are hiding, stay hidden.
“I’ve missed you,” Rojelio said, still smiling, always smiling. We used to say he would smile even when la bala lo encuentra, the bullet finds him. “Sit down, sit down!” He pointed to a seat by Martha.
“I cannot say the same.”
He laughed again. A strange, wet sound. No humor. Only amusement. Martha’s head rolled on her shoulders toward me, and she blinked her good eye. I tried not to see her swelling, bruised face. A lump rose to my throat. Heat rushed through me, prickled my skin, and balled in my aching hands. Anger. Good. I had tried to forget that feeling, that candencia. Time I remembered.
Martha blinked at me again. A movement so subtle as to mean nothing. But her clenched jaw, her gaze locked onto mine, showed me different. She had every reason to be scared, but she was not.
“Not many remembered you left, Luis.” Rojelio studied me as if I was a simple curiosity. “But I did. I remembered. You know too much. I had business, you know, after Arellano was killed.” He crossed himself — in earnest or mockery I could not tell. “But Luis. I remembered to come for you. Aye. Arellano thought much of you. But this place? Your work?” He waved the Browning into space, his head nodding to accommodate the gesture. “This is beneath you. Truthfully, it disgusts me. You disgust me. Do you see it? Smell it on your body, when you come home after working for them, doing something so low they would never sink to it?” He wiped his mouth. Flicked his tongue across his dry lips. A lizard in the clothes of a man.
“You would not understand,” I told him. His compañero, unhappy with my words, shifted his frame from the kitchen sink. He lifted the rifle. Rojelio glanced back, cocked his head, and the compañero faded into the kitchen once more.
“Luis.” Rojelio stared at me, beady eyes narrowed, as if in disappointment. Then he laughed again. “What makes you think I want to understand?” He sighed, shrugged his shoulders. “This life. Our life. You cannot leave it behind. It follows. It follows, until it leads you where you’ve been going all along, kicking and screaming con espuma en la boca!”
Se sigue.
Martha blinked, moved her lips, and moved her lips again. I finally understood the words Martha mouthed to me: Ven aquí. Come closer.
“No! Please!” I begged, and leaned forward. Under the table, Martha slid the cold steel of a kitchen knife into my sweating palm. I clenched it tight. Blinked at her. I had to be faster, not only than Rojelio, but his compañero. I did not know if I was so fast, not anymore.
“Do you wish me to shoot her?” Rojelio said. Holding the gun to Martha’s head. She whimpered.
I ground my teeth. Patience. Wait for the moment.
Rojelio slid his free hand onto the table. There. Now. Or my family died.
I arced the knife from beneath, sliced the air, and it landed with a soft thunk! In the back of Rojelio’s palm, pinning it to the surface. He screamed and dropped the Browning. I dove for it, smacking the floor hard enough the air left my lungs. The compañero had already raised his AK-47, eyes burning. I pointed the gun at him and squeezed the trigger.
His knee exploded in red-and-white pulp, like the splatter of a rotten apple. Warm, wet, red, and hard flecks of white sprayed my face. I fired again. This time I found my mark, and the compañero clawed at his chest, as if to dig the hole deeper.
Screaming overcame the fading thunder. Rojelio. I whipped the gun back, saw the color drained from his cheeks, yet he clutched at the knife handle, nearly had it free. I put a bullet in his head. He did not smile when it found him.
Martha fell into my arms, shaking, sobbing into my shoulder. I held her as tight as I could. Tasted wet salt on my lips. I let the gun drop, jerked my hand. As if it had bitten me.
“Papa?” A voice so soft. A voice so scared.
I looked down the hall, and there stood Juan. My eyes closed tight, tighter. But no matter how much I shut out the nauseating light, I could not undo what my son had seen.
Juan stands next to me in our backyard, and I hold his gun in my hand, still wrapped in the dishtowel. Sunlight burns orange across the fields and streaks the clouds with red as it lays itself to rest beyond the horizon. There is Lupe’s playhouse, bought at Kmart last Christmas. Juan’s old soccer ball still sits on the grass, untouched by anyone except time. My son has gained weight, like his father. Wears a goatee. It does not make him look more of a man, only like a boy playing pretend. I think to tell him this — this and how ridiculous he looks in his sagging jeans and shirt so large it hangs nearly to his knees.