“Go take a shower,” she said. “You smell.”
“It’s not me! It’s the air.”
But she wouldn’t listen. “Go clean up.”
I went and took a long shower and soaped myself three times. Even after that, I kept smelling the stink, but I couldn’t decide if it was actually still on me, or if it was bad air sneaking into the house, or if it was just my mind going crazy. When the water turned cold, I gave up scrubbing.
By the time I came downstairs, the stink was being replaced by other smells: cumin and coriander and mustard seeds frying as Mom started to work on dinner.
“Rabi,” my mom said, looking up from the stove. “What was it that happened after your baseball game? It looked like you were in a fight with that other boy. The Riggoni boy.”
“It was just kid stuff. He doesn’t like that I can’t hit.”
“You can hit. I’ve seen you.”
“No, Mom. I can’t. I suck.”
“Don’t use that word.”
“It’s not a curse word. Vacuums suck.”
My mom said something in Bengali under her breath. “My son thinks he is so clever.” To me, she said, “The word is the word, and we both know it’s not nice.”
“Yeah, well, Sammy calls me ‘red dot.’ I guess that’s not nice, either.”
I went into the living room and turned on the TV, started flipping channels. My mom shut off the stove and followed me in.
“Do your other classmates say these things, too?” She stood in front of me, blocking my view, a whole wall of yellow sari.
“Nah. It’s just Sammy. He’s a jerk. He probably went to Chicago and learned it from some of his jerk friends. There’s no way he came up with it on his own. He’s not smart enough.”
Which was true, because, let’s face it, if you’re Indian and you live in the middle of nowhere, nobody knows how to stereotype you. Half the people in America can’t even find India on a map, let alone know what the culture’s like. You might think I’m joking, but I’m serious: Unless I’m in a big city, if I tell people I’m half Indian, they usually think I’m talking about Native Americans—Sioux or Arapaho, people like that. They definitely aren’t thinking Bengali.
And what confuses people even more is that my dad’s white. Or, if you want to get all specific, he’s German/Swedish/Scottish, with maybe some Polish. Born and raised in Delbe, just like me. So I’m like a third-generation Bengali/German/Swedish/Scottish-with-maybe-Polish, Delbe Iowan. One hundred percent mutt, I like to say. My dad says that actually means I’m 100 percent American.
“Has Sammy been saying this long?” my mom asked.
I started to answer, but I caught a glimpse of the TV and was surprised to see Sammy’s dad staring out at me from the screen. It was almost like I’d summoned Mr. Riggoni by talking about his kid. “Uhh…” I leaned to the side so I could see around Mom to the TV.
“Rabi?”
I tore my eyes from the TV. “No, Mom. He just learned it. He’ll probably forget it tomorrow and go back to picking on someone else. It’s nothing. He’s a jerk.” I pointed at the TV. “Look. They’re talking about Milrow.”
Mom turned around and we both watched. “That’s Sammy’s father, yes?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking about what the guy had done to Miguel’s mom and dad. “He’s a jerk, too. It runs in the family.” I turned up the volume.
“Why do you say so?” Mom asked, and I realized I’d probably said too much. She didn’t know that most of Miguel’s family was here illegally.
“It’s nothing,” I said, and hit the volume up another couple notches. “Can I watch this?”
Mom finally moved clear so that we could both see. Sammy’s dad was standing in front of the Milrow plant with a reporter.
He was saying, “… Retrofitting for the processing systems will take no more than a few days. Obviously, when we open closed systems like this, there are some local impacts—”
“You mean the air—” the reporter started, but Mr. Riggoni overrode her.
“—is completely safe.” He took a deep breath, which I thought was pretty heroic considering how nasty I knew it was out there.
“Entirely safe. We’re overseen by both the USDA and the EPA, and we take our obligations seriously. Milrow Meats is entirely in compliance with relevant environmental regulations. Any impacts should be entirely gone by nightfall.”
The reporter looked like she was fighting not to gag, but she managed to make herself smile and turn back to the studio. The news anchors all smiled as well and turned to face the camera. “That’s right, folks. Just keep your windows closed for another hour or two, and things should clear up.”
It was weird, looking at the anchors in their news studio and the lady reporter behind them on the screen, everyone smiling along with Sammy’s dad. Everyone pretending that the air outside wasn’t foul and that Mr. Riggoni wasn’t full of it.
“They’re lying,” I said. “This smell wasn’t planned. No way.”
“Don’t be silly, khoka.”
“I was there. All the workers were running away. Miguel’s uncle told us to run, too.”
“Don’t make up stories.”
“I’m not! There were sirens and everyone was running out of that place like they expected it to explode.”
Mom still gave me her best I don’t believe you look.
“Okay,” I said, backtracking. “Maybe it wasn’t going to explode. But Miguel’s uncle looked scared. Sammy’s dad is a total liar.”
“You’re just saying this because you’re angry at Sammy.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true! Sammy’s a total jerk, and his dad’s a liar. That guy would do anything for money. Lying’s nothing to him.”
“How do you know?”
I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to go into that. Miguel didn’t like having people talk about his family situation; he’d only told me and Joe about his parents’ immigration status because we were best friends. And he’d sworn us to secrecy.
“I just do.”
Mom looked at me a moment longer. “Don’t make up stories, Rabi. Mr. Riggoni is very respected.” I could tell she was disappointed in me as she turned and went back into the kitchen. “No more stories, khoka. Come and help me make the papad and set the table for dinner.”
I nodded, but I didn’t get up right away. I just couldn’t take my eyes off the TV with its smiling news announcers. It was like he’d hypnotized them or something. He was covering everything up, and he was getting away with it. He made lots of money and looked real good in a suit, so everyone trusted him—even when he was lying out of both sides of his mouth.
Even my mom trusted the guy. She was already laying chunks of fish into the simmering spices of her macher jhol, ready to go back to regular life. She believed every word he’d said, because he was “respected.”
Why wasn’t anyone challenging him? The newspeople weren’t saying anything. The workers weren’t saying anything, even though they’d all been running away, too. It was like all the grown-ups had decided not to tell the truth, or even bother to look at it.
The TV news switched over to some story about Homeland Security, breaking the spell. I wasn’t sure exactly what needed to be done about Sammy’s lying dad, but I was starting to think the answer lay in Joe’s comic books.
Good old Spider Jerusalem was practically screaming at me, telling me what he’d do if he saw some lying fat cat like that, right on the news.
Spider Jerusalem would have stuffed himself on caribou eyeballs, and then he would have gone out and investigated.
CHAPTER 5
Unfortunately, Spider Jerusalem didn’t have a mom and a bunch of family back in India. My whole plan to go poke around Milrow got derailed by real life.
In the middle of the night, my mom got a call from India.
India calls only at oddball times of the night because they’re on the other side of the world when it’s daytime for them, and when they call, it’s only for three
reasons:
1) A wedding
2) A new baby
3) Someone died
I was pretty sure no one over there was getting married, because the next cousin I had who was going to get an arranged marriage was fourteen, so he had a while to wait yet. And the next in line after that was Mishtu, and she was twelve. And none of my already-married cousins had any babies on the way.
I got a cold, sick feeling in my stomach.
Mom was talking fast on the phone in Bengali, and a couple minutes later she came in and said, “Rabi, there’s been an accident in Kolkata family. Mashima has been in a car crash.”
Mashima—that could have been any one of my mother’s five sisters. My mom seemed to read my mind. “Dhira Mashima,” she supplied.
It was still hard to remember which one she was; they were all a blur of saris and older ladies who sometimes gave me candy or rupees for gifts. I searched my mind and finally placed her. She was the second-oldest sister, with a big smile and who used to give me chocolate when we visited her flat.
She basically only spoke Bengali, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could really know about her, unless my mom or one of Dhira Mashima’s kids was around to translate into English. Mostly she would just smile at me, and I’d smile back, and then the silence between us would stretch and stretch until I had to leave the room because I couldn’t take not actually being able to say anything except “hi” and “how are you?”
“Is she okay?”
“We’re not sure. She’s in the hospital. I’m going to make tickets to fly tomorrow, if we can find seats.”
I was still trying to get the sleep out of my eyes, but Mom was bustling around, talking about tickets and driving to Chicago, and who she could get to come over and take care of the yard.
“Mom?”
“Yes, khoka?”
“Do I have to go, too?”
Mom turned and looked at me, shocked. “Of course you have to go. She’s your mashima. Your family needs you.”
“But…” I kind of understood what she meant about family, but really, what good was I going to do over there? My mom was the kind of take-charge person who could push around hospital doctors and nurses. She could probably help, but me?
“Won’t I just be in the way?” I asked.
“It’s important to show you care. You must come.”
Spider Jerusalem didn’t have to deal with stuff like this. I didn’t want to be a jerk, but how was I going to figure out what Sammy’s dad had been lying about if I was in India?
After the news report on the TV, I’d called Miguel and Joe. They’d both seen the news, too.
“Total liar,” Joe pronounced. “Full-on Magneto evil liar.”
“Yeah,” Miguel said. “My uncle saw that, too. He said it was bogus.”
“So what’s the scoop?” I asked.
“It’s gonna chill your blood.”
“Yeah???”
But Miguel wouldn’t say any more. So all night I’d been lying in bed, waiting for daybreak so that I could go over and shake the story out of him.
And now India was calling.
Saying that I didn’t want to go wouldn’t do any good. I needed a different plan. Appeal to family and duty.
“If I’m over there, I’ll just be in your way,” I said. “I can’t speak much Bengali, and everyone’s going to be busy. But if I stay here, then you’d be free to go to the hospital and help Dhira Mashima. I’d be fine. I don’t mind. I just don’t want to be in the way when you need to be taking care of your sister.”
Mom looked doubtful. “But where would you stay?”
“I could stay with Miguel.”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t just impose on his family like that. I could be gone a week. More, maybe.”
“They wouldn’t mind—” I almost said, They’re working so hard they’re hardly around the house at all, but that wasn’t a good thing to tell your mom, so instead I said, “They like having kids around. It wouldn’t bother them. They love kids.”
“That must be why they’re taking care of Miguel while his parents are looking for work in California.”
That was the story we’d been telling everyone about where Miguel’s parents had gone. “Yeah. They really like kids,” I said, nodding vigorously. “Love ’em.”
“All right,” she said, doubtfully. “I can call them. But no guarantees.”
By morning, Mr. and Mrs. Castillo had agreed to let me stay, and I was packing a bag to stay at Miguel’s. I felt a little guilty for misleading my mom, but it was for a good cause, I figured. Now, as I zipped up my duffel and slung it over my shoulder, I couldn’t wait to get the inside scoop from Mr. Castillo about what had really happened at Milrow Meat Solutions.
Spider Jerusalem was on the trail of a scandal, and he wasn’t going to let up until all the rotten corruption had been brought to light.
CHAPTER 6
To be honest, Miguel’s house wasn’t my favorite place in the world.
Mr. and Mrs. Castillo were nice people, but they also really did work all the time, because Milrow didn’t pay much. Half the time they were working crazy shifts at Milrow, and the other half, they were doing other odd jobs and work. Miguel had to do a lot of the cooking and clean up the dishes and do laundry for himself. And on top of that, Miguel had a job where he’d go out and mow lawns so he could help contribute to getting his folks back across the border.
Mrs. Castillo would sometimes try to take care of us, and she’d do cool things like let us drink café de olla, a kind of coffee that has cinnamon in it and a ton of sugar. But it wasn’t like my house, where you could just hit up your mom for a snack of mango pickle and rice; at Miguel’s you had to go dig in the fridge and hope that you didn’t also have to go to the grocery store, and if you did, you had to hope that someone had the cash to do it.
I ended up helping with a lot of the housework, too, because if you’re going to freeload at someone’s house, it’s what you do. I did dishes, helped Miguel mow lawns, chopped vegetables for dinner, whatever needed doing.
But you know what? It was all worth it, because Mr. and Mrs. Castillo had a story to tell, all right, and I would have worked twice as hard to hear what they had to say the first day I got there.
We had just finished dinner, and Miguel and I were washing the dishes by hand because they didn’t have a dishwasher. Miguel kept giving dishes back to me to scrub twice.
“Do it again,” he said.
“I already did.”
“Feel that.” He rubbed his finger on the plate. “You got to get the oil off, too, not just the food. I thought Indians knew how to work.”
“I’m only half Indian.”
“Half Indian, but pure momma’s boy.”
I got more soap on my sponge and did it again, while Miguel watched me like a hawk. Behind us, Mr. Castillo was practically asleep at the table, after finishing a brutal shift, but Mrs. Castillo was wiping down counters and putting everything back in order.
Finally, I couldn’t hold back anymore. “So?” I elbowed Miguel. “What happened at the plant? You said you were going to tell me.”
In a single second, the kitchen went from happy and relaxed to dead silent. Mr. Castillo, who I’d thought had been dozing, was suddenly looking at Miguel, his brow knitted.
“You told him?” Mr. Castillo asked.
Miguel looked down. I’d never seen him look embarrassed before. In school or on the baseball field, he was always a rock. But when Mr. Castillo looked hard at him, he seemed to shrink.
Mrs. Castillo was looking from her husband to her nephew, her warmth and friendliness gone entirely. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
And then she turned to Spanish. She aimed rapid-fire words of authority at Miguel, her hand chopping the air for emphasis. I caught mamá and papá, but the rest of it went by in a blur. Her expression was hard and disappointed. She finished up with “¡Muy peligroso!” and a final chop of the hand.
I’d alw
ays thought of Mrs. Castillo as a pretty quiet woman, a nice lady who always smiled at me, even after a long day at work. But she didn’t look that way now. I wouldn’t have crossed her, not in a million years, looking like that.
But Miguel turned stubborn under her words. “He’s my friend,” he said, and the way he said it, he looked just like he did when he was about to go out and try to beat up some bully, even though he was outnumbered. Straightening up, all determination. “He’s my best friend.”
I looked from Mr. and Mrs. Castillo to Miguel, feeling like I was in the middle of a standoff, and something terrible was at stake.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “I can keep a secret.”
Mr. Castillo frowned at me. “Good secrets are kept by telling no one at all.”
“I know you’re here illegally,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone about that. You can trust me. I didn’t even tell my parents that Miguel’s mom and dad got grabbed by ICE. I don’t tell secrets.”
“Secrets.” Miguel’s uncle laughed sharply. “Yes. Secrets. If you know half the things that happen in Milrow…” he trailed off. “You know nothing. You know less than zero.”
“I know something went wrong out at the meatpacking plant. And I know Sammy’s dad is a liar.”
“That man…” Mr. Castillo made a face of disgust. He seemed to make a decision. “That man would do anything for Milrow. They want money, money, money. All they want is for workers to work harder. Más duro, más duro, más duro. Always it is más duro. They do not care if people are hurt, because there are always more people from Mexico or Honduras or Ecuador. I have seen people lose arms and legs and fingers in that place. In those machines. Those fast knives…” He trailed off. “It is a sickness in that place. They care about nothing except making a little more money. And now they feed their cows strange things to make them grow faster. They give them drugs to make them not die when they live in dirt and filth. They use the feathers and droppings and bits of chickens from their chicken factories and grind them up and give them to their cows for food, because it is cheap to feed their cows the trash of other places…. I see all of this, and I do not complain, because they will deport me like that.” He snapped his fingers.