The kid was walking along, sweating big time, making out he was totally oblivious, as if he didn’t realize he’d just crossed over from the other side. But of course he knew—everybody knows; there’s not a single person in Ilopango who doesn’t know where the dividing line is, and that’s why my guard went up. I thought: This kid’s plotting something, he must be a lookout for the Salvatrucha.
He was eating a bag of potato chips and he was pretty heavy; I guessed he was around fifteen or sixteen—far too old to be acting so dumb. He had a backpack on and looked very dapper, with his brand-new jeans and his shirt all freshly pressed—I thought I’d better take a look and see what he had in his backpack, why he was going around all dressed up like that. I crossed the street and caught up with him.
“Psst, hey, stop where you’re going,” I said.
He turned and glanced quickly at me, kept on walking, all hoity-toity, slower now, but without stopping. If it was down to me I’d have stabbed him in the gut by now, burst that snooty bubble of his—no one can walk around pretending they can’t hear someone from the 18th talking to them. Only thing is, I always get asked, “Who gave you authorization, who do you think you are, going above the guys at the top, you’ve got to take a good look at who it is before you take out your piece…”
“You’d better stop, kiddo,” I said again, and grabbed him by the arm.
He stopped walking without looking at me and I could hear him breathing heavily: The kid was nervous. He knew who he was talking to and already his legs were starting to tremble.
“Are you ignoring me or what?” I asked him.
He said nothing, just carried on huffing and puffing like a horse. I shoved his shoulder and he fell against the wall, without putting up a fight. Sweat poured off his forehead like a fountain.
“Where are you going all dressed up?” I said.
He wiped the sweat away with a folded handkerchief he took from his pocket, and glanced around before replying, as if he were looking for someone. Unlucky for him: There were hardly any people out in the street, and the few who were walked past quickly so as not to get mixed up in any trouble. Everyone knows you don’t get involved with M-18 just to stand up for some random kid.
“I know Yoni,” the boy said, when he realized there was nothing to do but talk.
“Well, what a coincidence—so do I,” I told him.
He tried to walk away, but I grabbed his arm and pushed him again.
“Seems to me you’re a lookout for the Salvatrucha,” I said.
He fell silent again, not saying a word, not even looking at me, just staring over at the end of the street as if he were going to find someone who would save him. The only thing this kid knew how to do was huff and puff like a horse.
“You think I didn’t see you come from the other side?” I said. “The other side belongs to the Salvatrucha—don’t make out you didn’t know that. Everybody knows that. Where are you going?”
He took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead again.
“What’s the matter, you melting or something?” I said.
“Yoni’s my friend,” the fat kid said again. “Just ask him.”
“I will ask him, but first you’ve got to tell me where you’re going.”
“I’m going home,” he told me.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Around the corner,” he said. “At the inn.”
“And what were you up to on the other side, eh?” I said. “I think you’re a lookout for the Salvatrucha.”
“I went to do a school project,” the kid said, pretending he wasn’t a lookout at all. “A group project—one of the other kids in my group lives over there. I can show you what’s in my bag if you like, so you can see.”
He took off his backpack, undid the zipper, and showed me he was carrying books, paper, school stuff. He had another packet of potato chips in there, too.
“And your buddy’s not in the Salvatrucha?” I asked him.
“I just went over to do my homework,” he said. “Honest, ask Yoni, he knows me, he knows my family.”
“OK, I will,” I told him.
The boy was about to do up his backpack again, but I stopped him.
“Give me the potato chips,” I said.
I grabbed the chips and gave Yoni a call. When he picked up you could hear the sound of the TV in the background really loudly; he must have been watching a film with his girl.
“Yoni, we’ve got a problem here,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
Yoni must have paused the film because the racket stopped and all I could hear was his voice as he replied.
“Quickly then, I’m busy,” he said. “What’s up?”
“There’s this kid on his way back from the Salvatrucha side and he says he knows you,” I said.
“What’s his name?” asked Yoni.
I asked the kid, who was wiping his forehead and his neck again, what his name was.
“Santiago,” he said. “Tell him my grandma owns the shop, over there in the inn.”
I repeated what he’d said to Yoni.
“Bring him here,” Yoni said, and ended the call.
“Yoni wants to say hello,” I told the boy.
I took him by the arm and started walking. The kid dug his heels in, and since he was so large it was hard to force him.
“My grandma’s waiting for me,” he said. “I have to help her in the shop.”
“You can tell that to Yoni,” I said. “Now get a move on, or you’ll see what happens to you. It’s not as if I don’t know where you live.”
I took out my knife and showed it to him. The kid averted his eyes, but he did start walking right away. We crossed several streets until we got to Yoni’s place, with me eating the bag of potato chips on the way. I was starving because I’d been on lookout duty since early—since twelve o’clock—and it was nearly five now.
Yoni was sitting with his girl watching the movie, and they were eating pupusas. I’d seen the film before: It was the story of a little boy who could talk to dead people. Yoni pressed pause when he saw us come in and the boy immediately started accusing me.
“This guy’s threatening me,” he said to Yoni. “I was just coming back from doing my school assignment. It’s not my fault my teacher put me in the same group as a kid who lives on the other side.”
“He said he was your buddy, Yoni,” I said, “but he was coming straight from where the Salvatrucha lot are—I saw him coming that way.”
“His grandfather used to own the inn,” Yoni told his girl. “The one around the corner—there was a time when my dad used to rent a room from him, but you don’t rent rooms out anymore, do you?” he asked the kid.
“Not anymore,” the kid replied. “When my grandfather died, my grandma decided that the inn would just be for the family.”
“And who else lives there?” Yoni asked him.
“My great-grandma, my aunt, my uncles, and my cousins,” he replied.
“Didn’t you have a brother?”
“Yes.”
“And how old is he?” Yoni asked. “He was called Daniel, wasn’t he?”
“He’s ten,” the boy replied.
“And you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Is your mom still in the U.S.?”
The kid said that she was and took his handkerchief out again to dry the sweat on his neck, his face, and his forehead. Yoni looked at him, a half smile on his lips, and squeezed his girlfriend’s hand to get her to look at him, too.
“Everyone here in the neighborhood loves your grandmother,” he said. “We respect her, but you shouldn’t take advantage of that if you don’t want everyone to think you’re a wimp.”
Yoni’s girlfriend burst out laughing, and so did I. The kid screwed up his handkerchief and stuffed it back in his pocket.
“I’m sick, Yoni,” the boy said. “I’ve got something wrong with my heart—I had to go to the cardiologist because I get tired really quickly and I start to sweat.”
“Are you serious?” Yoni asked.
The kid said that he was.
“I’ve got a big heart,” he said, “bigger than normal.”
“Sit down,” said Yoni, and he gestured at a chair. “Don’t you go fainting on me now.”
“I can’t stay long,” said the boy. “My grandma’s waiting for me: I have to work in the shop this afternoon and I’m already late because the assignment was really difficult and then this guy,” indicating me, “stopped me.”
Yoni got up from the sofa where he was sitting, left the plate of pupusas on the table, walked over to where the fat kid was, and pushed him down onto the chair.
“Did the Salvatrucha stop you?” he asked.
“They stop everyone,” the kid replied, practically in tears.
“And what did you tell them?”
“Nothing.”
Yoni clicked his tongue, exasperated by this point.
“Are you going to start blubbering now?”
He huffed and puffed again, but internally, like he was gulping down his snot.
“What did you tell them?” Yoni asked him again.
“They wanted to know where I was going, and they came with me to my friend’s house,” the kid said. “When they saw that I really was just going to do an assignment they left.”
“You aren’t lying to me, are you?” Yoni asked.
“No.”
“You remember Marco?” Yoni said. “We caught him acting as a lookout for the Salvatrucha, and you know what happened to him.”
Just then Yoni’s phone rang, and he went into another room, so we couldn’t hear him. The boy saw his chance and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief again. Then Yoni came back.
“I’m going to need you to hide something for me at the inn,” he said.
“I can’t,” the kid said.
“There are loads of rooms there,” Yoni said. “You’re bound to find a safe place to put it.”
The kid said nothing, didn’t even look at Yoni while he was talking; he just stared at the floor as if someone were going to burst up out of the ground to rescue him.
“It’s just for a little while,” Yoni said. “Until tomorrow.”
“I can’t, really I can’t, Yoni,” said the boy. “If my grandma finds out—”
“I’m not asking you,” interrupted Yoni. “I’ve just been told the police are sniffing around.”
He hurried off into the back of the house and returned with a white bag. You could smell what was inside it as soon as he entered the room.
“You: Go with him,” Yoni told me. “Make sure he hides it and doesn’t throw it out on the way home.”
He scooped up the kid’s backpack, which was lying on the floor, and took out the books and files that were in it. He put the white bag inside, then zipped the backpack up again.
“What is it?”
“What do you think?” asked Yoni. “Can’t you smell it? Give it to El Meche when he asks for it, later today or tomorrow.”
“Who?” asked the kid.
“This guy!” Yoni replied, pointing at me. “You want me to introduce you or what? Now get out, we’re done here.”
The kid stayed sitting in his seat. He gave Yoni a sidelong glance.
“What are you waiting for?” Yoni said.
“I need my school things,” replied the boy.
“El Meche will give them to you when you give him the bag back,” Yoni said.
The kid stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Yoni pressed play again and, in the film, we heard someone cry out. It was the mother of the boy who talked to dead people: She’d just found him speaking an unknown language, his eyes rolled back in his head.
We went back out into the street; it looked like it was going to rain. It smelled of the dinner the woman in the house next door was cooking, and I hadn’t even had lunch yet.
“Where am I going to put it?” the boy asked me while we walked.
“That’s your problem,” I said. “Didn’t Yoni say there were lots of rooms in the inn?”
“But they’re all occupied,” the boy said.
“Well, put it in your room,” I replied.
“My brother sleeps there, too,” he said. “And my uncle—my uncle will realize.”
“That’s not my problem, kiddo,” I told him.
We turned the corner and crossed to the middle of the street. His grandma’s shop was on the other side, a shop that sold everything: food, drinks, toiletries.
“You’d better not let my grandma see you,” he said.
I crossed the street and went into the store. An old woman was sitting behind the counter, watching a TV that stood next to her. She looked at me as if the devil himself had entered her store. I grabbed a couple of bags of potato chips and a few cans of soda while the boy said hello to his grandmother and apologized for being late. He really was a wimp. I left the shop without paying and I could hear the old woman shouting after me, but I just walked off.
The next day I didn’t go and collect the white bag because things with the police had gotten complicated. Yoni said that some lookout had ratted on him. We all lay low for a few days, and then Yoni finally sent me to get the bag. I had to wait a while because the grandmother was in the shop and I couldn’t see the kid anywhere. But when he didn’t show up and it was starting to get dark, I had to go into the shop and speak to the old woman.
“Is Santiago here?” I said.
The grandmother pretended I didn’t exist. She didn’t reply or even look at me, just carried on watching the TV. I took out my piece and put it down on the counter, half blocking the TV so she’d pay attention. She turned around and walked over to a refrigerator in the back, reached up, and took down a bag from the top of it. She dumped it down on the counter, and I grabbed it and ran off to find Yoni.
“The kid wasn’t there,” I told him, handing over the bag. “But his grandmother gave it to me.”
Yoni opened it up and counted the baggies inside.
“Do you want me to go and find him?” I asked him.
“He’s already gone to the other side,” he told me.
“To the Salvatrucha’s turf?” I asked.
“The other side means the other side,” he said. “They sent him to the United States.”