John interrupted. “Frank, can they put any of these pieces together?”
Frank shook his head. “They won’t comment officially, but they believe Mr. Perez was not injured in the explosion. He was found unresponsive, zip-tied, and lying in the back of a patrol vehicle with several weapons and a backpack full of both drugs and cash. He was wanted in several states but”—Frank thumbed over his shoulder—“not anymore.”
While my ears had been trained on the TV, my eyes had been watching the three of them. When the show broke for commercial, the little girl spoke first. “What’s your name?”
“Joseph. But most folks call me Jo-Jo.”
The woman had not looked at me. She was staring at the three tickets, with a narrowed space between her eyes where a wrinkle had creased the skin. Her statement in the cabin, He has friends, came to mind. I doubted a guy like that had a single friend in this whole world, but he might have some loyal lieutenants bucking for promotion by honoring his memory. And if they were so inclined, they’d check the buses. This didn’t set well with me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The woman placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Gabriela.” Then the boy. “Diego.” Finally she touched herself in the chest. “Catalina.”
I pointed at Gabriela. “And how old are you?”
Gabriela held up both hands and a total of six fingers. “Seven.”
I reached across the table and gently raised one more finger.
She smiled.
I looked to Diego. “And you?”
He held up both hands, and all his fingers, and smiled.
When our burgers arrived, Diego pulled the six-inch butcher’s knife out of its sheath, which now hung on a loop on his belt, and used it to cut his sister’s burger in half. Then his mother’s. Then his. Once finished, he carefully cleaned the knife and returned it to its sheath.
Catalina watched him and finally looked at me, but didn’t speak.
Our waitress reappeared. A short, somewhat pudgy redheaded girl. Maybe a bit absentminded. She was quick with a refill followed by, “How ’bout a couple of milk shakes?”
Diego’s eyes widened and his head jerked toward his momma. She was trying to shake him off when I asked him, “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Chocolate.”
Gabriela quickly said, “Banilla.”
The waitress disappeared. While she did not wear a wedding ring, the indentation in her finger suggested that she had. Even recently. As she walked away, her faded jeans, which had fit her two or three sizes ago, showed the outline of something in her back pocket. Something that would fit in the palm of your hand. When she stopped at another table and bent over to pick up a fork that had fallen, the thing in her pocket wiggled itself loose and hung just slightly over the edge.
A baby’s pacifier with a blue handle.
She stuffed it back into its hiding place and then grabbed the waistband of her jeans and tried to wiggle them above her tummy. She could not.
While we ate, Diego kept looking at me. Specifically, my hands. I held out my right hand. He looked at Catalina, who said, “Go ahead.” He reached out and placed his hand flat across mine. He then slowly turned my hand over and studied the scars—including two recent cuts.
Catalina spoke for him. “Your hands tell a story.”
I nodded. “And if they could talk, we’d be here awhile.”
Leaning forward, she chose her words carefully. “To Diego, no one was stronger than Juan Pedro. Ever. That knife is the emperor’s sword.”
Across the restaurant somebody clanked a knife on a plate. In the kitchen one of the dishwashers hurled obscenities at the short-order cook. The beleaguered waitress ping-ponged between the tables, trying to satisfy impatient customers.
Diego tapped his foot against the central leg of our table, and his eyes blinked several times. And across from me, Gabriela squirmed slightly like she had ants in her pants. I pulled an index card from my shirt pocket, flipped it over to the unlined side, and quickly sketched Diego’s face. I’m no artist. Just caricatures really. I can pencil somebody’s face in less than five minutes. It’s a habit I picked up when I needed to find a way to occupy my mind and hands with something other than what I was doing with my mind and hands.
I handed him the picture of himself. “You like to read?” I asked.
He pushed his glasses up on his nose and studied the picture. “Yes.”
I glanced at the time. “We’ve got a while. Maybe we could find you a couple books for the drive to Florida.” Gabriela was having a tough time sitting still. “She okay?”
“She has a rash.”
Gabriela was studying Diego’s picture.
Our waitress appeared with two milk shakes. “Anything else, honey?”
“Check, please.”
She set the check down, cleared a few plates, and left us quietly. Gabriela kept looking at my stomach and the insulin syringe.
Sometimes kids need permission. “You want to ask me something?”
With her top lip covered in milk shake, she asked, “Does that hurt?”
“It’s a small needle.”
“Are you sick?”
“I have a thing called diabetes.” I tapped the syringe in my pocket. “This is my medicine.”
She struggled with the word. “Dia-tee-tees?”
“Perfect.”
“How’d you get it?”
“That’s a good question. I’m not sure there’s a good answer.”
“How do you think you got it?”
“Long time ago, I didn’t treat my body maybe the way I should have.”
“What were you doing?”
“Stuff we shouldn’t have been.”
“Who were you with?”
“Bunch of young people as foolish as me.”
“Where were you?”
“California.”
“How long were you there?”
“Couple of years.”
Her head tilted sideways. “Seems kind of silly.”
I laughed. Truer words are seldom spoken. “Silly would be a good description of a lot back then.” A pause. I sat back. “You ask a lot of questions for such a small girl.”
“Papa say I ask too many.”
“Papa?”
She glanced at the TV.
“Well . . .” I never took my eyes off her. “He’s an idiot. Don’t listen to him.”
A spontaneous combustion of a giggle broke loose through her lips, and this time she could not conceal all her teeth. The giggle bounced in the air around us like a butterfly. Having satisfied her curiosity, she drank her milk shake. Evidently my encouragement served to break the dam. After a few gulps, she looked over her shoulder and then whispered, “Is he coming to get us?”
“No.”
“Did you stop him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do all that man said?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid?”
“No.”
She finished her shake. “Mr. Jo-Jo?”
“It’s just Jo-Jo.”
She chewed on this. “Mr. Jo-Jo?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“I think you must be a good man.”
I quickly sketched her milk shake–covered face, curious eyes, and matchless smile. While I sketched, she and Diego watched. When finished, I handed her the card.
She stared at it. “Can I keep it?”
I nodded.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“California.”
“How many have you done?”
I considered this. “Hundreds.” A shrug. “Thousands maybe.”
“Do you ever keep any?”
“No.”
“Why not? You’re good.”
“I don’t do it for me.”
“Then why?”
“It allows me to capture a moment and then turn it loose all at the same time.”
She considered this. And
me. She shot another glance at the TV. “Did you learn to do all that in California?”
Catalina put her hand over Gabriela’s mouth and spoke rapidly in Spanish, momentarily hushing the child.
I considered this. “Yeah. I guess I learned that in California too.”
She nodded confidently and then slurped the bottom of her milk shake. “California sounds like an interesting place.” She looked at her mom. “We should go there sometime.”
Gabriela’s nonstop twitching suggested that she was about ready to peel her skin off. And she acted like her underwear was constantly crawling up her backside, causing an uncomfortable wedgie.
I paid our check, left the tip, and we walked out. As we piled into the Jeep, where Rosco was waiting to lick Gabriela’s face, our waitress exited the restaurant. She was crying. As I shifted into neutral and let the engine idle, she walked up to the window and placed her hand on my arm. She clutched a wad of cash in her hand. I doubted she made that much in a week. Maybe two. She managed, “Thank you.”
I handed her my handkerchief and she wiped the tears off her face, smearing her mascara and making her look a bit like a raccoon.
I wanted to say something to make her feel better. “Life isn’t always this hard.” She nodded but didn’t let go of my arm. The pacifier dangled off her left pinky. “What’s the baby’s name?” I asked.
“James Robert. I call him J. R.”
“I knew a fellow named J. R. one time. Good man. Good name, too.”
She nodded, squeezed my arm, then squeezed it again and disappeared into the restaurant. Catalina’s eyes followed her.
Gabriela was bouncing around. Nonstop motion. Looked like an addict suffering withdrawal.
“She okay?”
“She needs a doctor.”
“What’s wrong?”
Catalina’s embarrassment was obvious. “She has worms.”
8
Diego and I sat in the waiting room while Catalina took Gabriela back with the nurse. Five minutes later, the nurse called Diego back, and he disappeared through the same sterile door. Twenty minutes later, when the three of them reappeared, Catalina was carrying two bottles of pills. Band-Aids on their arms suggested all three had been given a shot.
“Better?” I asked.
She nodded but with more embarrassment.
“Do you need the hospital?”
“No.” She shook her head. “We all have them.”
I bought Diego a few dime-store Louis L’Amour Westerns, along with a tattered copy of Treasure Island and a few word-search books. Gabriela picked out a couple of princess coloring books, a hardcover of Winnie-the-Pooh, and a giant box of crayons, because she said she wanted to sketch like me. Twenty minutes later we found ourselves standing awkwardly in the bus station. I turned to Catalina and handed her a folded wad of hundred-dollar bills. “To get you settled.”
She thought about refusing it but knew she needed it, so she slid it into her jeans pocket and stared at the kids.
There was no easy way to do this. I leaned over. “You two take care of your momma. Okay?”
They nodded. Diego extended his hand and shook mine while Gabriela wrapped an arm around her mom’s leg. Catalina said, “Thank you, Mr. Jo-Jo.”
I smiled. “It’s just Jo-Jo.”
FIVE MINUTES OUTSIDE OF town I pulled over and stared through the windshield. The man of my youth would not have deliberated. But I’d tried to kill him with booze and fifteen other things, so his voice was muted. The man of my forties would not have left the station without them, but I’d tried to kill him too, with success and travel and women and money, so it was tough to make out his voice over the idle of the engine. That left me with just me in the Jeep. Diabetes. Arthritis. Antacids. Reading glasses. Scars. Memories tough to look at. Through the course of my life I’d spent so much time and energy trying to silence the voices that now when I needed to hear what was true, I was having trouble.
They were sitting on the bench waiting to board when I turned the corner. Catalina was slumped down on the bench, shoulders rolled off at both ends, staring at the tickets with that pained look on her face. The kids were oblivious, engulfed in their books. Both looked up at me with surprise when I sat next to their mother.
“I was thinking . . .”
Catalina said nothing.
“I could drive you . . . to Florida?”
“What?” The space between her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I hadn’t practiced conversation much in the last few years, so I was rusty. “Riding that bus is not a good idea.” I opened my hand. Palm up.
This woman hadn’t let her guard down in a long time. I’d been there. You can kill my body and you’d be doing me a favor, but kill my soul and there’s no remedy for the pain. And when you’re in that place, and the pain is real bad, and you’ve been leaning into the thing causing it so long that you don’t know how to do anything other than lean, hope and hopelessness blur and you lose sight of who’s trying to hurt you and who’s trying to help. Sometimes you need somebody to stand between you and the sharp thing that hurts. To lean for you. I touched her hand. “It’ll be okay.”
Slowly she laid the tickets flat in my hand.
When we reached the Jeep, Rosco was spinning in circles in the back seat, whining excitedly. His tail was creating its own wind cycle. Catalina reached into her jeans and handed the money to me.
“Keep it.”
Her hand was shaking. She was struggling. Hope has a funny way of cracking people down the middle. Cutting through the tough places. Half of her wanted to trust me. Half of her wanted to run. She offered it again.
Rosco sat in the middle, between the two seats. He fluctuated between trying to lick our faces and watching the world pass by through the windshield. I spoke as I shifted. “I will take that back, but I would be grateful if you would let me give it to you.”
She held it out.
“I don’t have kids. No wife. No mortgage. I’ve owned and sold several businesses, and at one time in my life I made some money. I’m not stupid rich, but . . . I don’t need it.”
I have seen dogs, beaten by the people who owned them, unable and unwilling to let anyone pet them. They approach, then stand at arm’s length, never closing the gap. Their experience teaches that all hands are the same, and while some might scratch between the ears, in the end all bring pain. Catalina had known a lot of hands.
“Why are you doing this?”
An honest question. “If I don’t, who will?”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Every man wants something.”
When people become afraid on a soul level, when the terror of their lives has taken up residence in their belly, it becomes the wall behind which they sequester themselves. The only way through is to tunnel under. Meet them inside their perimeter. Problem is, the depth of their pain determines the thickness of the wall. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“That’s all you want?”
“I think so.”
“You’ve got to do better than ‘I think so.’”
I wanted to. “I don’t know how.”
She glanced at the money, then at me, and raised one eyebrow. She whispered in a tone of voice the kids would not understand. “I can pay . . . just . . . not where they can see.”
“Ma’am—”
She straightened. “Catalina.”
“Catalina, save Rosco, I live alone. Have for a long time. I’m not around people very much, so I don’t always understand what they mean when they say things. Maybe I wasn’t in class the day God taught us how to read between the lines. I’ve known some hardship. Maybe a lot. There was a time in my life when you would not have wanted to know me. When every bad thing you could say would have been true. I don’t know how to navigate all this. It’s tough to get a compass reading. But—” I waved my hand back toward the bus station. “I’ve known some bad men. Know how they think. Maybe I even thought like th
em at one time. I’m not saying I’m proud of that. I don’t blame you for not wanting to trust me. If I were you, I’m not sure I’d trust me either, but . . . I have this thing that happens with the hair on my neck, and I’d feel a lot better if you’d let me drive you.”
Catalina pulled her knees into her chest, bit her bottom lip, and wrapped her arms around herself. Holding herself. As if she were afraid the pieces would fly out the window if she failed to hold them all together. As the station disappeared behind us, the tears that she’d been holding for a few years broke loose.
9
When we reached Micaville, Catalina tapped me on the shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“May I please spend some of your money?”
I’d been on my own a long time. Never had any kids and never had to think like a parent. “Sure.”
We stopped at a Walmart, and the three of them ran in while Rosco and I waited in the truck. I figured maybe they needed some privacy. Twenty minutes later, they exited the store, each carrying a shopping bag and wearing new clothes. When they climbed in, a new-clothes smell plus the pleasant aroma of perfume filled the truck. Took me a minute to realize it was the smell of deodorant.
When I turned into the parking lot of a storage unit, they looked at me with curious eyes but said nothing. Evidence that Juan-idiot-Pedro had sunk his claws in deep. I rolled up the storage unit door to reveal a late-model Crew Cab Ford F-150. They eyed it as if it were the president’s limousine.
I swapped out the vehicles, and while the kids stretched out across the back seat, fighting Rosco for sleeping room, Catalina sat with her arms wrapped around her. She looked cold. I pushed a button on the dash. Two minutes later she started fidgeting and finally unbuckled, sat up off the seat, and began brushing off her back and legs. “Something’s wrong.”