Authors: Heidi Ayarbe
Time stops.
“Just kidding. You’s funny. You need to look at your faces right now. So so funny.” She dabs her forehead with a tissue, her laughter filling the small kitchen. It’s almost as if the walls seep up the laughter and happiness, giving them texture and life. “
Embarazada
? Ha!” She winks at Mr. Mendez, who turns from pale to crimson in about two seconds.
“
Por dios,
Ma.” Moch rolls his eyes.
I laugh so hard, Moch’s cousins jump in their chairs. “What would Lillian say to that?”
“Ahh, Liliana,” Mrs. Mendez laughs, sweeping the dishes off the table.
I rush to the sink. “Please,” I say. “Let me wash dishes. Sit down.”
She bumps me away. “Come back next week.” She pinches my arm and
tsk tsks
. “You girls all want to be skinny these days.
Flacas
.” She wrinkles her brow and shakes her head.
I swallow a laugh. Skinny I am not. But I revel in the fact that somebody out there thinks I could use more calories.
“You come back to eat. You wash dishes. Bring Liliana.”
“I’d like that,” I say.
She motions to a plate and I pass it to the table. We cut the sweet empanadas in half and a burst of flavor fills my mouth—sweet raisins, cinnamon, and a twist of lime in a flaky crust. Mrs. Mendez slaps Mocho’s hand away from the last one on the plate. “That’s for
Abuela
Liliana.”
I wonder what Lillian will taste when she bites into the empanada: home, family, a sense of place—or just a pie.
Mocho nods and doesn’t look all that mad about it.
“Thank you,” I say, wrapping the empanada in a napkin. “I guess I’d better be going. I’ve got a lot of reading to do tonight.”
“I’ve gotta get going, too,” Mocho says, standing up.
A heavy silence falls over the room. “I thought you was staying in tonight,” Mrs. Mendez says.
“Were, Ma. Were staying in.”
Mrs. Mendez blushes.
“I’ve just got some stuff to do.” Mocho puts on his face—the one he uses at school. The Mocho he was at the table—the aluminum can–collecting Moch—is gone again. “I won’t be late.”
“Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres,”
Mrs. Mendez says.
Mr. Mendez translates for me. “You are who you spend time with.”
“At least I’ve got some pride. Yes,
señor
. No,
Señor Gringo
, thank you,
Señor Gringo
.” Mocho’s anger consumes the room.
I keep my eyes glued to the empanada crumbs on my plate.
Mr. Mendez puts his hand on Mrs. Mendez’s forearm and squeezes. His voice sounds strained, as if each word is a needle scraping across his throat. “You think I don’t have pride. Every job I do, I do with pride, to put food on this table, so that you—” Mr. Mendez is pointing at Moch with a trembling finger. “So that you can do better. You think being in a gang is pride? Under this roof, at this table, you respect your mother, this family, and our guest.”
Moch stands up.
His father points at him until he sits down again.
Mocho’s cheeks burn.
“You may be excused,
Hijo
.” Mr. Mendez’s arm drops to his side.
Moch shoves his chair back and leaves, slamming the flimsy aluminum door behind him. It makes a clanging noise and doesn’t shut all the way, tapping the frame, again and again, until the house is stuck in silence. His car squeals out of the driveway, throwing gravel against the side of the house like thick patters of rain.
Mrs. Mendez stoops over the sink, her hands absently wringing a dishcloth. She looks out into the dark neighborhood, streetlights dimly illuminating the other trailer homes; a street with chewed-up asphalt; cats scrounging around garbage cans; the heavy bass of reggaeton coming from a house three doors down.
And for just a moment, I see what Mocho sees.
Mrs. Mendez squeezes my arm. “
Flaca
,” she repeats. “I expect to see you here more.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Mendez. I’d like that.” I swallow and say in a lame attempt to get back some of Mexico, “
Muchas gracias
.”
Mrs. Mendez smiles and hugs me, wrapping her arms around me. “This is your home, too. Always.”
When I pull up to the house, I look at the yard, shoveled walk, cleaned-out flower beds. We need to trim down the bushes Lillian keeps around the house—bright purple geraniums that bloom year after year. She’s had the geraniums ever since I can remember.
I watch Lillian’s silhouette through the window. She sits alone at the table, stooped over her dinner, a soft glow of light coming from behind the shade. She stands when she hears me turn off the car. I watch as she pauses, looking outside, then sits back down at the table.
I go inside, give Lillian the empanada. By now, though, the dough looks gummy and tough, the cinnamon scent and steaming flavor is lost to the grease that seeped in while the empanada cooled. She bites down and chews on her Mexico—leftover and cold. “Thank you, Mike,” she says.
I nod and go to my room to do homework, writing in my Creative Writing notebook:
Heart bursts with words not said
.
AFTER LILLIAN GOES TO BED,
I sneak out and drive to American Flats, cutting down an old access road nobody ever uses. I follow tire tracks in dirty snow patches, a trail of trampled sagebrush bushes, until I see Mocho’s car. I need to talk to him, to make sure he’s not—
Not what?
Not who I’m afraid he’s becoming. Not who Nim is.
I hate this place.
My phone rings, making me jump so hard I bang my elbow against the door; dizzying waves of pain shoot up my arm. Josh.
Now
he calls. I click it to vibrate.
As soon as I park, it feels like something is squeezing on my chest. It’s hard to tell between real and fantasy at the Flats—it’s this area’s urban legend: ghosts, neo-Nazis, devil worshippers, poltergeists, spirits, raves, séances, and death. Always death.
I hike down the hill to the abandoned cyanide mill; the skeleton buildings are bare, graffiti-painted ruins—Nevada’s version of the Acropolis, without the Yanni concert, complete with cyanide residue to make you sick.
And ghosts. I’m pretty sure there are ghosts because even at night, there’s an eerie light out here. Like the place glows. Unless that’s cyanide, too.
Welcome to Weirdville, USA.
The knot that was in my stomach has grown and filled up my entire torso—like I’m a solid chunk of ice inside. I clap my hands against my arms and try to rub off the chill, pulling on my gloves, wishing I’d brought a hat.
Altitude. It’s higher here.
But the chill isn’t the normal kind of cold-wind chill. The crunch of my footsteps on packed-down snow echoes in the concrete corridors. Fear rises in my chest. “Moch?” I whisper.
Maybe I can talk him out of what he’s going to do up here. That’s reasonable. I can just plead with his rational side. I practice, keeping my voice as low as possible. “Moch, please stop all your illegal activities and—”
The wind answers—a shrieking sound that rips through the canyon and burns my face. I walk halfway up the exposed staircase in the main building, slip on a layer of ice, grasping a crumbly step so I don’t fall down. It doesn’t lead anywhere—just half-crumbled, icy stairs to nowhere. I listen. I shine my flashlight on some graffiti.
FUCK YOU
.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Moch wouldn’t set a campfire to call attention to himself. Maybe he’s just out here to think about stuff.
He’d want to be inconspicuous since it’s BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property. He’d be fined, possibly sent to jail, then deported if he were caught here. I’ll just be fined . . . and maybe sent to jail.
I can hear voices—muted, lost in the wind. It’s hard to follow where they’re coming from in the emptiness—as if voices are all around me, like I’m stuck in a drum. I turn off my flashlight and follow the path to where Moch used to set off pipe bombs with his friends, hoping he’s there.
I circle around the main building, hiking down a chewed-up ramp that was probably once a staircase, trying to keep my footing when I slip, fall down a few stairs, tearing my jeans. A jagged piece of glass sticks out of my knee. I bite my lip, wincing with pain, pulling out the glass.
Have I had a tetanus shot?
I can practically feel my jaw starting to spasm.
Stop it.
I pull out the glass and whimper.
“Who the fuck’s out there?”
The voice isn’t Moch’s.
I’m right below them. The moon is bright—full; its light spills down the canyon, glowing blue on drifts of snow, illuminating the face of the main building of the Flats. I tuck myself into the shadows sitting in a puddle, pushing myself against the side of one of the outer buildings, holding a filthy pile of snow to my throbbing, bloody knee.
“Who’s there?” the voice shouts again.
“Can you keep it down, man?” Moch’s voice.
“You alone?” Whoever the guy is, he sounds really nervous.
“I could ask you the same,” Moch says.
“Like who else would wanna come to a place like this? This place creeps me out.”
“Afraid of the dark, huh?”
“Fuck you, man. You got it?” Silence followed by the sound of a plastic bag being opened. “Wow. This is
mad
good.”
I hear Moch’s monosyllabic grunt. “Yeah, insanely good. You keep dipping, though, you’ll smoke all your profits.”
“C’mon, dude. We all dip.”
Silence.
“Don’t go all pious on me. Like you
don’t
?” The guy sounds on edge, like he’s maybe taken from the cookie jar one too many times. Moch is quiet. There’s a quiet clicking sound of someone opening and closing a metallic lighter.
Click click click
. He breaks the silence. “You watching the divisional playoffs this weekend?”
“Pass. Not a big fan of ass grabbers in spandex. Cash?”
A ruffling noise and the sound of a zipper.
“It’s all there.”
“
Chulo
,” Moch mutters. “Only a total
pendejo
wouldn’t count.”
“Where can I reach you?” the guy asks.
“Nowhere. I’ll contact you.”
“When?”
“When I’m ready.”
The guy leaves, the moonlight casting eerie shadows, fingers of blackness that stretch over snow-covered sagebrush and stones, zigzagging through the moonscape like phantoms.
“Moch?” I whisper.
“Who’s there?” I hear the cock of the hammer of a gun.
“Moch, it’s Mike.”
He scrambles off the concrete platform and finds me in the shadows. “What the—What are you doing here? Are you totally
loca
?”
I turn on my flashlight. My jeans are soaked in blood. “What are
you
doing here?”
“
Joder
. You’d be killed if anybody knew you were here. You want that?”
“And you?”
I stare at him and watch how anger has chiseled his face into something unrecognizable. But his face softens. “Mike, you’re bleeding all over the place.”
He takes my hand in his and pulls me to my feet. I hobble beside him, leaning on him, and we hike through wet snow to get to our cars. “Moch—”
He holds up his hand, shakes his head. “What do you think I do, fix up cars and sing ‘Greased Lightning’?”
I drop my gaze and shake my head.
“We’re not ten anymore. Things change. We changed.”
“But this?” I think of everything Moch can be. Moch: baseball player. Moch: community reporter. Moch: drug dealer. Moch: dead. “This is . . . wrong.”
“When I was a little kid, somebody forgot to tell me that I don’t count. I’ve lived here since I was two. I was a Cub Scout. But, you see, I don’t exist according to the nice people at the Social Security office. I’m a space taker, oxygen waster, persona non grata—”
“Drug dealer.”
“What am I s’posed to do? Break my back every day working in some kind of indentured servitude? You’re sitting pretty comfortable—heading to U-Dub next fall. You ever been to the Carson River? Seen the shantytown there? Open your eyes, Mike.”
“So what do you do with the money? Some kind of college fund? A CDT?” I swallow back the fear that’s bubbling up inside me. I figured la Cordillera was just a thing he did to let off steam. Kind of like my gambling, a means to an end. But what’s Moch’s end?
My breathing comes quicker. I wrap my arms around my chest, hoping Moch doesn’t see I’m shaking. “You’re such a cliché—poster boy for a life in a gang. You’re so—”
“You got a better way to do things? Show me,” he says. “
Joder
, Mike.” He slams his hand on the hood of his car. “When are you going to see the world for what it really is?”
“What is it?”
“A dead end.” I can’t see Moch’s features in the shadows. But I can feel the tension, how his entire body bristles. He moves toward me. “Don’t come back here. Ever.”
My breath stops in my esophagus and remains, like it’s frozen with the rest of my insides. Crystal-like ice particles have formed and closed my throat. I try to swallow, inhale, exhale, but everything feels cryogenic. I move toward my car door and open it, backing in, afraid to turn my back on somebody I thought I knew.
I ease the door shut and lock it, leaning my head on the steering wheel, willing the air to reach my lungs.
Moch steps away from the car and lights up a cigarette—the orange ember like a firefly in the blackness. He watches me back out as I clumsily reverse my way to the main road. Part of me knows the old Moch is there, making sure I get to the road okay. I can see the dwindling light of his cigarette, the outline of his body leaning against his car. I drive toward Carson trembling.
Alone.
Hopes of future lost in present.
THERE ARE FOUR MISSED CALLS,
the last one a little past midnight. He’s such a tool. I stare at the phone—the blinking missed calls—and listen to the voice mail.
“Just calling to make sure you haven’t been buried alive in a shallow grave in central Nevada because you got involved in some kind of Mafia scandal or have become the target of a federal investigation. That, and, um, sorry about Seth. We were just talking and, damn, that guy is
good
about getting information. I’m. So. Sorry. Really. I so owe you. It was like my brain-to-mouth filter had a glitch the other day. I’ve already called Seth to retract.”
*beeeeep*