The Guardians (13 page)

Crucita had come to check me out. She checked me out. But I checked her out, too. What I concluded about Miguel's ex-wife was that she was perfect. Perfect manicure, perfect hair, flat stomach, and spotless white shorts. Not everybody can get away with shorts like that. Crucita could. She looked like a tennis pro. She held her glass with a pinky in the
air and with a lip-gloss smile, she'd say things to Miguel like, “Don't burn the meat, Mike. I know you've never barbecued before.” After a little while she said she had to go pick up their kids from swim class. What a relief, I thought, since I had been holding in my panza the whole time.

It might have been Gabo's schoolmate Tiny Tears who made Miguel's ex skedaddle as fast as she did. “Tiny Tears, like the doll that could cry,” I said, when my nephew introduced her. She only laughed and sat down next to Crucita. “Are those real gold?” she asked Miguel's ex about the chains around her neck. She tried to touch them but Crucita pulled away. Five minutes later she was out of there.

Although I knew that Gabo's friend Jesse would come, I was very surprised to see Gabo's new shoes on him. Not just surprised but thinking my sobrino had some explaining to do. I knew that kid could not have gotten the shoes from my nephew honorably. My nephew may have a corazón that overflows with generosity but I'd seen Gabo's face when he opened his present. It was the finest gift he'd ever received. Mi sobrino said it himself.

Then I got a look at Jesse's older brother, El Toro. “Válgame Dios,” I said under my breath when I first saw him.

“The Bull?” Miguel leaned over and whispered to me. “He looks like a giant amoeba.”

It was true. There seemed to be no form to the man. “Do amoebas smell?” I asked Miguel.

“Bacteria does,” he said with a wink.

The Giant Germ had just been released from the nearby prison. “Yeah, La Tuna ain't all that tough,” he bragged, as if he were talking about Harvard. “I'd been there before, anyways.” Nobody asked El Toro Arellano what he had done time for—more than once. Just by looks alone, you could imagine him capable of anything.

And the party was not over yet.

Padre Juan Bosco showed up. I figured Gabo would invite him. But the priest brought along his mistress. He didn't even bother to make excuses for her. I'd known Herlinda Mora from Cabuche for years. Not as anybody's girlfriend, neither. All her brothers and sisters got married and she was left to dress up los santos in the church. Now she and the priest were there making goo-goo eyes at each other. “What the hell do they think they are,” I said to Miguel, “Episcopalians?”

“Be nice,” he kept saying. “It's Gabo's day.”

When the sun started to set I was glad that me and my sobrino could
soon head back home. Then El Toro managed to get up from the bench he had been plunked down on all afternoon and gave a “vámonos” gesture of his big cabezahead to the kids. Not just his Palomino sidekicks, Jesse and la Tiny Tears, got up, but Gabo, too, followed them to Jesse's car. He didn't thank us for the party, say good-bye, or even look at nobody. He just hurried off and got in Jesse's car with the others. It wasn't like my nephew not to mind his manners.

GABO

Apreciado Santo y Amigo de Dios:

Holiest, dulce Santito mío, I beg you to intercede for me. I am not worthy to ask God to forgive me. The last thing that I wanted to do was to offend Him. Again, I succumbed to temptation. Again, I lost the test to cleanse myself for Him. But as a weak excuse I only say on my behalf, in the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet María, how much I have missed my papá and cannot bear to think I will never see him again. And my tía—her eyes get so sad when we speak of my father. If it were not for You, how would I bear this darkness? The truth is, Su Reverencia, I made a pact with the Devil.

“My brother, El Toro, just got out, man,” el Jesse said the night before my fiesta at el Chongo Man's. “If anybody can find out what happened to your old man it would be him. He got his ways and he got his people. Me among them.” We were shooting hoops with Jesse in my new cross-trainers that my tía Regina had given me for my birthday.

I did not doubt Jesse's claims. The Palominos are everywhere. “What would I have to give in return?” I asked right off. I hoped he knew all of myself was pledged to the Lord and nothing would change that. Father Juan Bosco has told me: God is the ultimate word on everything. Besides that, a concept el padre wasn't sure I would grasp, God is not a man and the Devil does not wield a pitchfork or smell of sulfur. God is everything. We were all part of God. Christ died for the Palominos, too. That night, Padre Pío, like tiny dandruff specks from God's head, the Palominos had fallen on me.

“Well, first off,” Jesse said, pulling up his baggy jeans that just dropped right back down past his hips again, “your calcos, ése.” Then he added, “That's just for me. I can't speak for the rest, much less my brother. But that's all up to you, man. I mean, it all depends on how much you wanna find your old man.”

Jesse and I traded shoes before parting ways. I hoped my tía wasn't by the door when I got in without my new pair. She had been so excited about her gift. Yes, I felt guilty for it. I know she had been up nights doing a lot of sewing in order to afford my present. Yes, I was filled with anguish about my deal with Jesse. Yes, I feared the embers of Inferno. But most of all, San Pío, I was ashamed, because I knew that God was watching. I would have gone to Father Juan Bosco, as I had done in the past during such torments, but knowing what I did about him, I could not bring myself to visit him. Father Juan Bosco told me in confidence that he was leaving the priesthood to marry Herlinda Mora.

“You're very young,” el padre said. “You don't understand yet about love.” What greater love could I ever have than my love for God? It would have been disrespectful to say out loud what I really felt. As if he were anticipating what I wanted to say, el cura explained, “This is a different kind of love, hijo. My love for God will always be there, but I'll have to devote myself to Him in a different way.”

Su Reverencia, I am sixteen years old and already having a spiritual crisis. But I am not like other teenagers. I know that. My father is missing. My mother has been taken from me. My hermana, too. (Where is Karlita, Santo? Is she there with you y mi mamá? I have prayed that whoever she went with did not treat her badly.) I turned to my spiritual adviser and what was he now telling me? God was not enough for him.

According to Jesse, los Palominos were going to do whatever it took to find my father. Even la Tiny Tears, who had pledged her loyalty to the gang, had come to do whatever was necessary. Those tattooed tears of hers, one under each eye, is part of the Palominos’ code. Each tattoo tear represents a life taken. Tiny Tears has already killed, Padre Pío. That is what el Jesse said. And not out of self-defense. She killed enemies de los Palominos. All El Toro had to say was, “Do it,” and Tiny Tears did it without hesitation. Even from behind bars he had that kind of reach. Jesse told me, You had better not question the orders given by the jefe.

“So what?” Tiny Tears herself said when I asked. “My homies would do it for me.”

Jesse talked it over with his brother and a plan was made. Somehow, some way, we were going to get those coyotes down in El Paso who had called my tía asking for money to tell us what they ended up doing with my papá. “Do not doubt for a second that they know what happened to your old man, homes,” Jesse said, all too happy to take my new shoes as payment for his help. “But even if you let yourself doubt that, do not doubt that los Palominos will take care of business.”

Ayúdame, Holy Saint. The darkness falls like a shroud now all around me,

Your Servant in God's Love

Amado Santo,

Our Lord may have bothered Himself to tell you, but here is my side of it.

At my party, when el jefe of the Palominos gave the sign, we all got in Jesse's car, El Toro, Jesse, Tiny Tears, and me. I did not dare turn around to look at my tía or any of the other adults. If I gave her the chance, my tía Regina would have twisted my head off like I had seen her do with a chicken when I was little. We drove straight to el Segundo barrio in El Paso, where the coyotes live. It had not been difficult to find out la coyota's address. My tía had told me how she found it.

On our way to El Paso, the fate of my papá looming over my own, I could not help but try to tell the gangeros what I believed about death. “It says it right there in Hebrews,” I said. “Your earthly self dies but if your choice was to go with the good then you will have eternal union with Our Lord.”

“Hey, man,” El Toro half snorted from the backseat, “La Muerte is always good. Lookehere.” I turned around. He pulled out the charm of La Muerte that he was wearing on a chain around his neck. It looked like the Grim Reaper. “La Muerte is the Palominos’ patron saint,” he said. (How that could be, I was not sure, Santo, since death was never a person to begin with.) “I call her La Niña Blanca,” Tiny Tears said, pulling out a similar pendant hanging on a chain around her neck. “Before I go out, I pray to her.”

“You pray to her?” I asked.

Tiny Tears nodded. “Hell yeah. I light candles to her and everything.” She kissed the pewter pendant and stuck it back inside her polo.

“What do you ask her for?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Tiny said, suddenly hesitant. Maybe, I thought, it was because she was being asked to speak from her heart. Then she said, “Like, if we're gonna go hit a convenience store or something and I go in with my kid to cause a distraction. I say, ‘Por favor, Niña Blanca, protect my baby from getting hit by a stray bullet.’ ” Then she smiled.

“That's right,” El Toro said from the backseat. “You just gotta ask La Muerte to watch out for you and you'll be all right.”

El Toro told us, “Tonight, all we're gonna do is scope out the place.” He was so big he took up all of the backseat. Tiny Tears sat between Jesse and me in the front. “Whatever you mensitos do,” El Toro said, “do not let anybody there see you.”

How we were going to manage not being seen hanging around by the coyotes’ I had my doubts immediately, since, as soon as we found the house, El Toro told the three of us to get out. “Find a hiding place to stake out the pad,” he ordered, wiggling out and jumping into the front seat to squeeze in behind the wheel. “See if you spot anyone coming in or going out. We need to know who we're dealing with. Jesse, you know some of the coyotes around here. See if you recognize anybody.” Jesse nodded and scurried off so fast I did not even see which way he went.

El Toro drove off without saying another word. I hoped he was coming right back. I had to be at Mass at seven in the morning. After la misa I had to go to work. “I guess you ain't exactly cut out for a life of crime, huh, dude?” Tiny Tears said when I told her I was worried that El Toro would leave us out there all night. Before I could answer, she took off, también. Esa Tiny Tears was fast for being so chiquita. She could not have been even five feet tall but she acted as tough as a man.

Left alone and needing to hide, too, I looked up at the trees, mostly elms, to see if there was one I could actually climb. There was not. If I crouched behind a parked vehicle someone would find me suspicious soon enough. Then I spotted a big garbage bin that looked empty. It was directly across the street from the casa of los coyotes. How to get in without anyone noticing was the challenge.

I let a few people go by, a lady walking her dog, taking their sweet
time, a couple of chavalos on skateboards, then un hombre yelling in Spanish at someone on his cellular came. He actually stopped right next to me as if I was not even there, he was so busy shouting swear words. I became anxious, knowing El Toro could come right back. He would find me still out in the open. I just went for the garbage bin with the cellular man standing nearby. Either he was used to seeing things like that in his barrio or his phone call was taking up all his attention, but even in the bin I could hear him yelling.

My heart was pounding and even though the bin was totally empty, it smelled like dead rats. Somehow, I made myself get used to it by focusing on the crack I left by leaving the lid slightly open. I had a full view of the house. The modest casita was un verde all faded with a small front yard that looked neglected, with all kinds of trash thrown around. Big plastic bags of garbage. There was an empty kids’ wading pool and every now and then a flaco Rottweiler came around from the back. There were iron bars on the windows but that was not unusual on that block.

Was my father in there? I wondered.

When no one was around I pushed the lid up and I gave out the whistle my papá taught me. We used it when we crossed the desert. “In case you lose your mamá or me, hijito,” he said, “give out this whistle as loud as you can. We'll hear you.”

I whistled again.

“Papá!” I called out next. My eyes searched for any sign of movement coming from that house—all boarded up as if it were abandoned. Pero no one came out. I crouched back down, out of sight.

A long while passed.

How many times had mi tía Regina begged my father not to return to México, to take his chances and stay, Santo querido? But México had a pull on my papá. It was his country. “No soy un gringo,” he'd say. He came up to el Norte only for the sake of supporting his familia.