I didn’t say anything. Junior was correct.
When the sun spilled over the hills, sweeping away the menacing shadows, I went to the Western Union. I waited on the long line, avoiding the suspicious stares of the guards with guns. The man behind the bulletproof glass looked worried as he counted out my money: three hundred U.S. dollars. (Not even a fraction of what was needed to pay for a coyote to take me to America!) This was the sum total of my mother’s years of working in the chicken restaurant. She had squirreled away tens and twenties, and now here were her labors being handed to me in crisp lempira bills. The banker sealed the money in an envelope and pushed it underneath the glass. His fingertips brushed mine and he whispered, “Be careful.”
I tucked the packet in the waistband of my pants and walked out of the city as fast as I was able. It felt as if every hoodlum was watching me, ready to shove me down. Thankfully, I made it home safely. I put most of the bills in the coffee can my grandmother had kept buried underneath our pallet, and then I took Junior to the market and told him to choose anything he wanted. We ate three tortas each. We filled our arms with mangoes, oranges, and cold glass bottles of Fanta.
For two Wednesdays, I did not go to the Call Shop. I had begged my mother to come, and she had sent money instead. I myself went to Maria Auxiliadora Church and helped organize a funeral that my mother did not attend, paying for my grandmother to be buried next to my grandfather and covering her grave with plastic flowers, the kind that never wilt and never die.
6
Alice
PRINCIPAL MARKSON CALLED on Thursday and asked if I could come into her office for a meeting. “Alice, I have a proposal,” she said. I wasn’t sure what this meant, and the last thing I wanted was a teaching job, but I agreed to stop by. When I’d served the last quarter pound of meat, I flipped the sign and left Benji in charge of cleanup.
Feeling satisfied after a hard day’s work, I walked into the blinding sunlight and turned left on East 11th, toward Chávez Memorial High School.
As hip as it had become, the Eastside was still a rough neighborhood, though that hadn’t hurt Conroe’s any. But it was one thing to drive to a dodgy part of town for brisket and another to spend your childhood in these streets. As I walked the three blocks to Principal Markson’s school, I noticed yards containing broken toys and cars on cement blocks. In an alley, a group of young men huddled together, glancing up at me with cold eyes. A block later, a small boy with a fat face waved from behind the iron bars that covered his front window. I waved back.
Chávez Memorial was a faded brick building that could have housed a prison or a hospital. The parking lot was filled with late-model cars, some with metal panels that didn’t match. One Honda had a blue body and two tan doors; its bumper sticker read, “Proud to Be a Johnson High School Sophomore!”
Through wire fencing, I could see a dusty track and a set of bleachers on which a motley crew of boys sat and smoked cigarettes. A clump of girls stood underneath an oak tree, gesticulating wildly. Teenagers—their deep emotions, their unpredictability, the possibility that they could be armed—made me uneasy.
A large rectangle had been freshly painted on the front of the building to announce, “Chávez Memorial High School at the Johnson High School Campus.” In front of the school, a six-foot marble block was ringed by stone benches that looked as if they’d been stolen from a graveyard.
I walked to the front door (I had never been inside) and pulled. The door was locked, so I pressed a red buzzer. Nothing happened. A police cruiser drove toward me, and when the window slid down, I saw that the driver was Officer Grupo, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.
“Hey,” I said, squinting. “Principal Markson told me to come by. It’s locked.”
Grupo nodded, opened his door, and climbed out without turning off the engine. He carried the cool of his air-conditioned car in the folds of his uniform, and I had to stop myself from leaning toward him. He punched a code into the keypad. “Can’t be too safe these days,” he said.
“Jesus,” I said unthinkingly. “This seems a bit much.”
“A bit much?” said Grupo, his words clipped short, as if by wire cutters. I turned toward him but saw only my flushed face in his glasses. He was white, about my age, with hair so light I could see his scalp. Despite his brash personality, there was a sweetness in him. He’d once given a Valentine—an actual paper card with a teddy bear holding a heart-shaped balloon on it—to Samit, who worked at Conroe’s. I’d asked her if she was dating Grupo, and she said he kept asking, but she kept saying no. When I asked why, she’d held up her hands and said, “No chemistry. And even though he’s tall, he’s kinda … puny. You know?”
Strangely, I understood what she was talking about. He was muscled, but defensively so, as if he was waiting to be beaten up by bullies.
“Three Chávez kids have been shot this year,” said Grupo, putting his hands on his hips. “One right here in this parking lot.”
“Oh my God,” I said. Somehow when I’d thought about the gunshots I heard at night, I had connected them to “bad guys,” thugs—not schoolchildren. I felt a sour shame in my stomach, suddenly embarrassed by my protected life, the attention Jake and I paid to barbecue.
“You know about walking the line?” Grupo said.
“You’re not referencing Johnny Cash, I assume?” I tried to joke.
“It’s a gang initiation. A kid walks along the line of members, and each beats the shit out of the new guy. He can’t fight back. If he lives, he’s in.”
“And they don’t all …,” I said, my mouth growing dry.
“Nope,” said Grupo. “They do not. Anyways, have a good one,” he said, walking back to his cruiser.