I nodded yes. Where else would we go? But then I thought of my brother. I hadn’t even told him I was going out with Hernán.
“Let’s get Walter a present first,” I said, and he agreed right away.
I don’t know if the scent of patties was from our burgers or if the warehouse was thick with smoke. The massive Mega warehouse was windowless and the exit was through the entrance. The smoke from the food skidded against our bodies and against the clothes draped on the coat hangers in the booths. Bringing something for Walter also meant bringing him a little bit of all this. And I liked that.
Where’d you get the money?” my brother asked, unable to stifle a huge smile.
“You like it, though?”
He held up the jacket and stared at it like the thing was a ghost. I thought of Hernán trying it on for size, which made me giggle. There’d be no movie that night. Some other time.
“I’ve been working. Took on a gig.” My brother kept mum, so I carried on. “I’m helping that woman from the other day. She’s paid me.”
For a second, I thought Walter hadn’t heard me: he wasn’t talking or moving or even glancing my way. He wasn’t getting mad either. Nothing. Then, he looked up at me.
“You sure, lil sis? If you’re doing it for the money, don’t.”
“It’ll all be all right,” I said without thinking. “I’m sure of it.”
My brother came up to me and kissed me on the cheek. Then he said the jacket was awesome and asked me where I got it. I laughed.
“It’s a surprise, Walter.”
He took it to his room, saying he’d wear it some other time. It was special so he was gonna put it away for now.
The same can on the table and the woman, looking stern and saying she’d brought the right earth this time.
“How am I supposed to know?” I didn’t want to eat dirt every day.
I walked around. Bided my time. Went to the kitchen and put the kettle on even though I knew I wouldn’t be drinking mate till later. That day, I wanted to be able to say no.
“Mate?”
The woman shook her head. Annoyed, I went to the kitchen and turned off the burner.
I came back in. Averted my eyes.
“I’ve got a stomachache.”
“I didn’t come yesterday,” the woman said, and I felt kind of sorry for her.
“News on Ian?”
“The cops have stopped looking for him.”
I studied her, then. She had these awful bags under her eyes; her neck and jowls were flabby and starting to wrinkle. But she had strong arms. She sat firm and upright as she waited for me to grab the can. I knew the woman wouldn’t let up till I found him. She was starting to grow on me.
Walter came out of his room, spotted her sitting there, and stalked off in silence. He didn’t even say hello. Him leaving like that rubbed me the wrong way.
Sometimes I thought that if my brother never came back, I could have eaten all the dirt in the house—I could’ve broken it, made it quake.
“Hand it over,” I said and she nudged the tin toward me.
Hope she’s done it right, I thought to myself, but said nothing. I was no chump.
I ate some of the woman’s earth but instead of thinking about the little snot, I thought of Hernán’s kiss, of the cotton candy and beer from the day before.
I closed my eyes and saw her.
It was like returning to a night long ago. A night that had been wearing out and had ceased to exist and that I could only see from there, from that moment, in my head.
Ian looked worn-out, too. Like he was high. The man pushed him. He didn’t cry. He wore his usual expression, except frightened. The man had on green overalls and stared at Ian. I recognized him. I didn’t like him one bit. He stared at the little snot like he was sizing him up. Ian could barely stand. His eyes drooped and his head flopped side to side. He shook himself, trying to pry his eyes open again and stand up straight. It was like the air had turned strange.
Ian fell. His body was on the floor now. The man sat beside the boy, but with his back to him; Ian, who’d smacked his head on the ground, bled.
The man was Ian’s father. His eyes had been glued on his son, but now that the boy’s body was spent, on the ground, the man was pretending he wasn’t there. He pulled a lighter from his overall pocket and began to smoke. He looked down at the cigarette and then ahead of him, past the smoke, somewhere I couldn’t see. He smoked for a while, calm.
Then, he got up.
He walked toward a car. Try as I might I couldn’t make out the license plate. He opened the back door and grabbed a couple of black trash bags. He rooted around for something else, didn’t find it, and gave up. He went back to Ian and lifted him. He walked away, the boy’s body and the trash bags in his arms, and he lumbered through some real tall weeds. I tried to follow but couldn’t. They were out of my sightline and I had trouble moving. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t go forward. Little by little, I went stiff. Like a statue. I was trapped in that bullshit. I gazed down, hunting for earth, but found only trash engulfing my shoes. I gazed ahead and tried to find the man stealing his boy’s body. But the trash mushroomed into mountains. The stench penetrated my nose, as though it were a swarm of furious wasps beating their way out of my head, hurting me.
I opened my eyes. The stench still stung. It reminded me of the smell of dead dogs on the roadside.
I looked at the woman, strong arms clasping her purse.
She waited for me to speak. I waited for the stench to leave me alone.
I didn’t know whether she’d like what I had to say.
I was washing my face when Hernán came by. I was the sort who never cried. I shoved my hands back under the cold water. My eyes stung and my hands burned, but worst of all was Ian’s dirt inside my body. Still clamoring to speak.
Hernán put on some music, Cri cri minal the song went, over and over, and I don’t know why that made me want to cry too. I patted myself dry with a towel and glanced in the mirror. I never used to cry. I tried to keep my eyes open so as not to see what the earth wanted to show me. My eyes kept tearing. I thought of the woman and hoped she’d never come back. She had asked me to see but hadn’t been able to stomach what I saw.
Tú me robaste el corazón como un criminal, the song went. You stole my heart like a criminal. I didn’t want to listen. The earth churned in my stomach. That curly-haired boy was rooted in my belly like a son in his mama’s heart.
I needed him out. I turned on the faucet as far as it would go, so the sound of running water would carry him away.
I kneeled at the toilet and shoved two fingers down my throat till I gagged. Farther. It hurt. I threw up.
I forgot because I could. I’d never be a mother. I didn’t want to be a mother.
I went back to the faucet, eyes down. I put my hands, then my arms under the stream of water. I took them out, then stuck my face under, and my smarting eyes, which I was finally able to close. The water was healing. I relaxed. I pulled my head out from under the water, turned off the faucet, groped around for a towel, and slowly, as if stroking a burned body, dried myself off. I walked out.
Hernán asked me what was wrong, like he’d seen a ghost.