ASTRONAUTS

Douglas Li is an immigration specialist. His business is to transport undocumented Chinese nationals into the United States. His current consignment consists of twenty-seven beneficiaries from Fujian. Fujian is Douglas’s ancestral home. This is just a coincidence. Douglas is not nostalgic. He has no personal motivation to do business in or with Fujian, except that Fujian is a wealthy province. Fujian is a wealthy province, but these beneficiaries are not wealthy. They are coming to the United States to work in a meat factory. They are good at this kind of work. They don’t mind the loneliness or the injuries. They don’t mind the long, gruesome hours. They don’t mind dropping dead, on average, at the age of fifty-two. Fifty-two is just a guess. It could be longer, though Douglas doubts that. They don’t mind any of this as long as they get paid, and their money finds its way back to Fujian, to the greedy and/or hungry hands of their gambling-addicted fathers, their crippled brothers, their boyfriends on the down-low, their village leaders, their mothers, their children, their wives.

Until recently, Douglas referred to these kinds of beneficiaries as Coolies. This is an outdated term in the United States. It was pervasive in the 1800s. It referred to Chinese emigrant workers during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and then afterward in immigration and employment legislation. The term literally translates in Mandarin to “Bitter strength.” To those who know the term, it is understood as a derogatory description of hard laborers, often who’ve been indentured or otherwise subjugated. Douglas had used the term both as a practical designation as well as a slur, until he resolved to refer to these laborers simply as Workers. This is not an act of conscience. It is an adoption of what he sees as a more professional aesthetic.

In any case, Douglas does not like them. He does not like working with them. They are not interesting conversationalists. They are not politically influential. They are not rich. Douglas prefers to work with interesting, influential, rich beneficiaries who can pay him to arrange visas and amnesty. He is doing this job under duress, a personal favor to the big boss.

Douglas has had these workers for a week. This is too long. They are in the garage of Granja Roja, a tomato processing facility in the interior of Sinaloa, Mexico. A Mexican man known as Chucho discusses technical parameters with a mechanic. Douglas knows Chucho. They are friendly, but they are not friends. The mechanic slaps his hand onto the wall of a forty-foot shipping container. Chucho frowns and looks up to meet Douglas’s eyes. Chucho shakes his head.

The shipping container is used to ship tomatoes. The twenty-seven workers Douglas is transporting will be hidden inside of this container in a stowaway chamber underneath twenty-four specially weighted pallets of tomatoes. It’s a complicated set-up, like a magic trick. Everything has to look one way while being another. The sights, the sounds, the weight. It all has to add up to be tomatoes in the observer’s eye, but when the magician pulls his hand from the hat, it’s workers all the way.

A delivery strategy like this has a hundred ways to go bad. Douglas is not happy about this. If it goes wrong, either they’ll get caught and the workers get detained, or the equipment will fail and the workers die. For Douglas, there won’t be much difference either way. If the workers get detained or if they die, Douglas will go to prison, if the bosses even let him get to prison.

The bosses want this job done. The last few trucks full of workers have been picked up at the border. Those workers were also hidden inside cargo containers. They were sniffed out by dogs. This cost the bosses money and also respect. The bosses don’t want this to happen again. They like Douglas, they say. He’s done a good job. But business is business.

Douglas thought to send the workers through the desert on foot. But he realizes he can’t send a platoon of Fujianese laborers through the Mexican desert. They’d be killed by the environment almost certainly. Or by bandits, or, on the other side of the border, by vigilantes. Or, stupidly, they could make a run for it, escaping their debt and making a go of America on their own. No, Douglas has no reasonable alternative. The tomato container is the best plan.

Meanwhile, the twenty-seven workers are gathered in a corner of the warehouse. Douglas has literally seen a million of these men in his lifetime, and still he’s surprised by how terrible they look: skinny, short, fucked-up teeth, hopelessly unkempt hair. Douglas feels like a god next to them. The workers mostly talk amongst themselves, or sleep. One seems attentive to Douglas and Douglas’s goings on. He nods at Douglas. Douglas is familiar with this worker. His name is Yiming. Yiming is young, much younger than Douglas. He looks youthful enough to be a teenager, but he is probably at least twenty-five. He smiles a lot. Usually when workers smile a lot, it means they’re embarrassed or scared. But Yiming seems to smile because he’s happy. Douglas likes that.

In Mandarin, Yiming says, “Boss, what’s wrong? Can I help?”

“I’m not your boss,” says Douglas, not trusting Yiming to help, but enjoying being called boss. In English, he says, “There’s nothing you can do. Just stay out the way.”

Yiming says, “Thank you, boss. I can help. Your machine. I’ve done that work.”

Douglas ignores him. Yiming taps Douglas on the arm.

Douglas says, “Tsou nee ma. It’s fine. Leave it the fuck alone.”

Yiming does not seem bothered. He seems to make an attempt to comprehend Douglas’s English. He mouths fuck alone. Douglas rolls his eyes. Douglas can speak Mandarin fine, but he enjoys using English with the workers, pretending it’s for their own benefit. He says, “Too bad you aren’t a woman. You know what I’m saying? Woman? Piaoliang nuhai?”

Yiming nods with enthusiasm. Douglas pokes a finger to Yiming’s chest, an impolite gesture among Chinese. Yiming looks down at the finger. Douglas wonders if Yiming will say anything about it. He says, “You don’t like that, huh?” and scans Yiming’s face for anger, but Yiming doesn’t seem bothered.

Douglas says, “Too bad you ain’t got money. If only you were some rich Party motherfucker. Yoqian. It’s the honey or it’s the money. But your ass got neither.”

Douglas frowns and turns both his hands over, palms up. He looks at Yiming, who is still smiling. Yiming mimics Douglas’s gesture, hands out, palms up. Douglas looks at Yiming, at Yiming’s hands, and then at the whole gang of busted-up, broke-ass workers. None of them have much of anything but their hands.

Yiming says, “Wo yo piaoliang nuhai.”

Douglas says, “You? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Yiming nods. He reaches into his front pants pocket and takes out a wallet. The wallet looks new. It’s the size and shape of a checkbook. It has a brass latch securing it. Yiming opens the wallet. There is no money in it, just wallet-sized pictures and other nostalgia. He takes the stack of small pictures out, just three or four, and begins to show them to Douglas. There are two boys in the first two pictures. They look happy, smiling even though most rural Chinese still believe it is bad luck to smile in pictures. He says, “Wo de er zimen.”

Douglas laughs, “The fuck you have two sons?” and pats Yiming on the back.

Yiming shows Douglas a third picture. It’s of a woman. The woman is wearing a blue dress. She is thick-boned and paleskinned. She is not smiling, but she has kind eyes. Douglas thinks she has kind eyes.

Douglas says, “Ugly.”

Yiming doesn’t seem to understand.

Douglas says, “But good. That’s a good woman.”

He pushes the pictures and the wallet back to Yiming. He points at Yiming’s pocket, “Now put that shit away. Some asshole’s gonna think you have money.”

The shipping container ostensibly carries tomatoes. In actuality, the twenty-seven workers will be hidden inside of this container. They will be hidden inside a stowaway chamber. The stowaway chamber is designed to be undetectable. Invisible, sound-proof, smell-proof. The design of the stowaway chamber is as such: The stowaway chamber is an airtight steel structure contained within a thirty-seven-foot false floor. It is 1.75 feet deep. It runs nearly the entire length of the interior of the container. To avoid detection, the false floor and the stowaway compartment is recessed at least the length of one palette from the gate. This allows at least one row of palettes to be stacked in front of it. The stowaway chamber has a hatch that lifts up and then slides toward the container gate. The hatch is at the back of the trailer. The hatch locks from the inside of the stowaway chamber. This is to minimize its detectability. However, it will not be possible to open the hatch while the pallets are still loaded on top of it. The shipping container itself is equipped with an HVAC system. This is separate from the HVAC system mounted inside the stowaway compartment. The stowaway compartment’s system is retrofitted with oxygen canisters and a CO2 filter. This system is called Life Support.

Chucho yells at his crew in Spanish. Douglas doesn’t speak much Spanish, but from the looks of things, there are doubts about Life Support. The apparatus is old, which Chucho explains could be a good thing. It’s easier to modify. But the modifications have been elaborate. They’ve hidden Life Support inside the container in a way that makes it invisible from the outside. But those border customs motherfuckers know every trick. They have likely even seen twenty-seven workers stashed up in a tomato freight before. But border customs is also busy. Border customs is also understaffed. They are also sometimes lazy. So, as long as Douglas doesn’t flaunt his operation, it’s as likely as not that they won’t poke around inside a trailer full of tomatoes. It’s like everything in the US and in the whole world, really. Anything is possible. You just need to know the game. You just need to know the loopholes and the shortcuts, the subtext, what’s written between the lines, how to skate the edges, how to shoot the gaps. Because, if the illegal thing is indecipherable from the legal, isn’t it for all intents and purposes legal?

Douglas walks into the empty container. He stands over the hidden compartment. His thumb is behind his back, hitched into his belt. He has a small revolver tucked in there. He rests the palm of his hand on the gun’s hard rubber grips. It is the only firearm on the premises. There is no need for Douglas to carry a firearm. This is for show, an accessory like a tie clip or a handbag or a Rolex watch.

The hidden compartment is underneath the main storage area, where the tomatoes will go. Douglas pats the metal wall of the container. The hidden compartment is typically used to smuggle inanimate things, like drugs or car parts or knockoff toys. Things that don’t need Life Support. Douglas stands next to Chucho.

Douglas says, “What’s the problem?”

Chucho says, “There’s no problem.”

“Then what’s the holdup?”

“It’s the air. Self-contained. Sealed. Dog-proof. But with twenty-seven of these guys packed in there. It’s not like you can just turn on the O2 and let it go. Too much and it’ll kill ’em. Not enough and it’ll kill em.”

“You need an engineer.”

“We need an engineer.”

“We don’t have an engineer?”

Chucho doesn’t say anything.

Douglas says, “But if you did, and the O2 worked out, then how’s the rest?”

Chucho says, “Container’s no problem. It’s not comfortable. They have to lay down in the dark for eight hours. They crap and piss, they just have to lay in it. But there’s no problem. They’ll have air.”

“What if we get held up?”

“No problem. Once it’s set, they can live for days, a week.”

Douglas doesn’t believe this.

A few feet from the container, some of the workers are gathered around an old tube television set. The television set is not working. Yiming has removed the back of the television and is tinkering with its wiring. Something happens and the television comes on. The other workers applaud. It’s the happiest they’ve been all week.

Yiming comes out from behind the television and takes a seat. He gives the other workers a thumbs up. The other workers laugh at him. The other workers pat him on the back. One worker goes to the television and starts to turn the channel selector knob. He flips through two channels. He stops at an old black-and-white science fiction movie. The audio is turned down low. The worker tries to turn up the volume, but it doesn’t get any louder. Yiming leans in close. His head is slightly turned, like he’s trying to listen to someone whisper. Douglas walks over to Yiming and pats him on the shoulder.

Douglas says, “You fixed this.”

Yiming says, “Yes, boss.”

“No tools?”

Yiming smiles and shrugs. Douglas nods. He motions for the worker seated next to Yiming to move. The worker moves, and Douglas takes his seat. He then takes out his cigarettes. He offers one to Yiming, who accepts. He lights his own cigarette and passes the lighter to Yiming, who does the same. Yiming holds the cigarettes out to return them to Douglas, but Douglas waves his hand in the air. “You keep those.”

Douglas reaches out and turns up the volume knob. It cracks and then gets very loud. Douglas exhales and leans back in the flimsy plastic chair. He pats Yiming on the back and smiles at him. The fuck I care about this little fucking genius, he thinks as he blows smoke into the air. Together they watch the movie. It’s near the end. An astronaut is returning to Earth after an eighty-year mission. Upon his arrival, he finds that his lover has not aged. Meanwhile the astronaut has become a very old man. This is not scientifically accurate, but it is how it happens in the movie. The old astronaut then tells his young lover to leave him. She does.

Douglas says, “The fuck was that?”

On the television, a beer commercial comes on. In it, several white people enjoy the beach at sundown. A pit fire is roaring. The music is Spanish guitar. A beautiful woman links arms with a handsome man. They are both young.

Around the television, some of the other workers have turned their attention to the movie. Their looks vary, from confusion to amusement to sadness. Although they may not be sad. They may be just tired. It’s possible that Douglas is projecting his own sadness on to them.

“That show,” says Douglas, “is the truth. This is the world, and the joke is on the astronauts. Sacrifice everything. Go across the universe. All for what? You come back worn out, old, and busted up. And nobody cares. Your lover don’t care. Your kids don’t care. America don’t care. Nobody cares.”

Yiming says, “Same as us.”

Douglas says, “Same as you.”

Then Douglas corrects himself, “Same as us.”

He grabs Yiming by the back of the neck. He kneads the scruff of the younger man’s nape. He feels Yiming relax under his grip. Douglas gestures to the shipping container, “You fixed this television?”

“Yes, boss.”

“How?”

“I know about electricity. My work.”

Douglas looks at Yiming. He thinks this is dumb. He thinks there’s no way he can trust that some dumbass is gonna fix something even Chucho can’t get a handle on. He tells himself to forget about whatever he’s thinking about. But still. This guy. Douglas looks at him. This guy is different. There’s something in his eyes. Something in his hands. Like a spark or something, an illumination.

Douglas says, “Can you really fix the truck. The AC?”

“Yes, boss,” says Yiming. “Yes, I really can.”

The workers are packed into the hidden compartment. They are laid down flat on their backs, shoulder to shoulder. They look like sardines in a can. Douglas places Yiming in last, at the far end where the hatch closes.

Douglas says, “First class.”

Yiming says, “Thank you, boss.”

Douglas pulls the hatch closed. It drops with a clang. The clang echoes inside the empty shipping container. Douglas taps on the hatch. He listens for the sound of the latch securing. He waits. He taps again. Then a dull, clunky click. Douglas stands up and waves to the forklift to load the tomatoes.

Chucho is already sitting behind the wheel inside the tractor trailer cabin. He gives the thumbs up to Douglas. Douglas is silent, listening as the Life Support system hums gently. He turns his head, pressing his right ear to the container. The sound is warm and sustained, like static on the television.

Chucho raps his knuckles on the outside of his door. He looks over to Douglas. “We good?”

Douglas nods back. “We’re good.”

Douglas lights a cigarette and smokes without talking. Chucho pulls the truck out of the garage and rumbles onto a hard-packed dirt road. It’s just the two of them in the tractor trailer, the two of them and the twenty-seven workers in the cargo. Douglas wanted to have another guy in the cabin for security, but Chucho told him it’d be suspicious. It’s already suspicious with a Chinese in the truck. But Douglas has good paperwork. His documents say he’s an American citizen, lives in La Habra, California. These are real documents. Douglas is a real American. He’s voted in every presidential election since H. W.; Republican every time, except Clinton ’96. He even speaks English with a slight southern drawl, which makes no sense except that Douglas likes how it sounds.

The fastest route to New Mexico takes five hours. They’re taking a longer route to avoid attention. The early part of the drive follows the western coast of Mexico, close to Mazatlan, facing the Gulf of California. Douglas looks out at the beaches, the layers of blue water. Douglas likes the beach. He plans to retire on the beach. Not Mazatlan. Too many bad memories. It’s gotta be someplace he’s never been. He doesn’t mind the cold. He thinks maybe Seattle. He’s never been north of San Francisco.

As the sun is setting, the sky turns orange, and the water turns purple. Douglas closes his eyes. He is tired. He’s been on alert for the past week. This is the home stretch. He just has to see the drive through, get the workers to Los Lunas. If everything goes right, they won’t even stop at the border. Just get waved through like friends. Good morning. Morning. Morning to you.

Douglas starts to nod off. He tells himself he shouldn’t. He should stay awake. It’s just another few hours. But the fatigue grabs hold of him. This must be what dying is like. In the end, no drama, just relief. He thinks about Yiming in the cargo. He wonders if it’s cold back there. He wonders if Yiming would like to visit him in Seattle. These are his last thoughts before he falls asleep.

Douglas does not sleep well. He wakes up several times. Each time, it’s darker than before. It gets to be the kind of dark that is all consuming. Pitch black. He can see the tractor trailer’s headlights project beams into the darkness. They illuminate a small spot of road, the asphalt, the markers, and then nothing. No other cars, no road signs, no shadows of the horizon. It’s as if the light disintegrates into space, is absorbed by the darkness itself.

Chucho has the stereo on. It’s American rock music.

Douglas says, “Que pasa?”

Chucho says, “Nada.”

Chucho offers Douglas cocaine. Perico, he calls it. Douglas accepts, taking the vial and preparing a small mound of powder on the fleshy part of his hand. He snorts the cocaine. He licks his forefinger and wipes the residue off his hand, rubbing it into his gums. He drops the vial into his shirt pocket. He makes a mental note to throw the empty vial out the window once he’s done. Then he feels the numbness come over his face, seeping in from his nasal cavity and, to a lesser extent, from his mouth. Chucho opens a can of beer and hands it to Douglas. Douglas takes it and sips. He looks out into the darkness. He takes another sip, “How much longer?”

Chucho says, “Que?”

“To the border?”

“Dos horas.”

“Bueno, muy bueno.”

“So, what?” says Chucho. “You want to fuck that guy?”

“It’s not like that,” says Douglas. “He’s smart. He’s too good for this shit.”

“So what. If he’s so good, he’ll move on. He’ll do something else. Eventually. Work his way up. Go to college. Get a nice government job. Buy a big house in the oasis. American dream. Right, boss?”

“You know it don’t work like that.”

“He’s not your problem, boss.”

“Yeah,” says Douglas. “I know.”

It’s four miles to the border checkpoint. Douglas is wired. He is both drunk and high, his temples are tingling. His eyes aren’t blinking. Blink, motherfucker. Blink. The stereo is turned up loud. Douglas turns it up even more. The speakers start to crack. It’s still American rock and roll. Douglas shakes his head and slaps his face to clear his thoughts, to get ready to perform for the border agents. A song comes on that Douglas knows. He sings along. He gets the words wrong. He’s surprisingly self-conscious. Chucho seems to know the correct words, but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Douglas appreciates this.

Douglas takes out a travel-sized mouthwash and takes a swig of it. He passes it to Chucho, who does the same. Both men swish the mouthwash around and then gargle. Douglas spits his out the window. Chucho follows suit. Douglas then fishes the empty cocaine vial out of his pocket and tosses it out the window as well. He does the same with the beer cans, one after another. As they go, some of them catch the wind and whap against the side of the cargo container.

The song they were singing along to ends. Douglas sees something from his side mirror. Headlights. The headlights are closing in on them. “Fuck is that?”

Chucho turns his head to look out the rearview mirror. Douglas sticks his head out the window a little bit and turns to look out back. A bright spotlight turns on and shines into his eyes.

Chucho says, “Federales.”

A federal police pickup truck is behind them. It flashes its lightbar, red and blue and white. The brightness cuts through the dark. Douglas squints and bangs a fist on the dashboard.

“It’s fine,” says Chucho. “Stay cool, boss.”

Chucho points to the cargo and makes a shush gesture. Douglas quiets down. He listens. The noise has stopped. Behind them, the police instruct them in Spanish and then English to pull over. Chucho downshifts the tractor trailer, going backwards through the gears. They slow and come to a stop on the dirt shoulder. Then the police pickup pulls in front of them.

Chucho says, “I’ll deal with this.”

Chucho holds his hand out to Douglas. Douglas hands Chucho a small roll of hundred-dollar bills. Chucho looks disappointed, but Douglas doesn’t give him any more. Chucho puts the money in his pocket just as one officer comes to his window. Another officer stands underneath Douglas’s window. This one is holding a shotgun.

In Spanish, the first officer says, “What’s in the cargo?”

Chucho says, “Tomates.”

“Tomatoes? Really? That’s an extravagant transport for tomatoes.”

“They’re special. Artisanal.”

“What?”

“Special,” says Chucho. “They are special tomatoes.”

The officer with the shotgun starts to walk over to the cargo container. He taps the shotgun against the container wall.

The second officer says, “Jefe, there’s something strange about this cargo.”

The officer with the shotgun waits for a response. Douglas smiles at him and tries to act as if he is slightly bored by the process. He eyes the container through his mirror. He listens. The hum of the machinery rumbles on, but the workers stay quiet. It’s soundproof, he tells himself. It’s soundproof. But Douglas hears something. He thinks he hears something. A voice. A knock. A breath. Breathing. Breathing. Then nothing.

Douglas reaches behind his back, feeling the handle of his revolver. He feels a coldness. The coldness starts in his arms and moves into his middle. Douglas has only rarely fired his gun, and never at a living thing. Chucho puts a hand on Douglas’s elbow. Douglas looks at Chucho. Chucho shakes his head.

The officer under Chucho’s window says, “You think we need to see your tomatoes?”

This is an invitation for a bribe.

Chucho says, “You’re welcome to. But why waste time?”

The officer says, “True. It’s been a long night. My partner has been itching to get home to his new wife.”

Chucho laughs. The officer under Chucho’s window laughs. The officer with the shotgun underneath Douglas’s window does not laugh. It’s not clear if he hasn’t heard the conversation or if he disapproves of them joking about his wife.

The officer under Chucho’s window gestures for Chucho to get out of the cabin. Chucho opens his door. It swings heavy and then clicks open. Chucho steps out. Douglas waits. The officer with the shotgun keeps a flashlight pointed at Douglas. Douglas tries not to let this annoy him, but it is annoying. He squints and tries to look the officer in the face. He knows this is dumb. The officer isn’t going to want to be seen by Douglas, to be recognizable by him. But Douglas is drawn to the illumination, the other man’s face framed by the police truck’s spotlights like a halo. I don’t know this man, thinks Douglas. He could kill me. He could help me. And I don’t know him. And I never will.

They get to the border. The American border guards do not detain the tractor trailer. Douglas talks to a customs officer, who is looking over their paperwork. The customs officer says, “California, huh? So how ‘bout them Dodgers?”

“Shit,” says Douglas. “K.B.’s a boss, am I right?”

“Yeah, right,” says the customs officer. “More like a choke artist.”

Douglas laughs. The officer waves at Chucho to get rolling.

Chucho keeps his eyes straight ahead. He drives the tractor trailer off the scales and through the inspection corridor and back onto the highway.

From the cargo comes the steady whirl and hum of the HVAC equipment. They drive for the next two hours. Douglas is anxious. Douglas’s head hurts. Douglas does not feel sleepy again. He tells himself not to worry. He tells himself it’s the cocaine. He sits and watches as the sun rises to his right. Long, orange rays stretch across the desert sky and backlights the shadows of the jagged shiprock. As he watches, Douglas thinks he’ll have a cup of hot coffee when he gets to Los Lunas. He’ll read the morning paper, and maybe there’ll be a dog there. He’ll pet the dog. He’ll pour an extra cup for Yiming, and the two will sit and chat about world events, a friendly argument over the sovereignty of Taiwan. He rolls his window down. The cold comes in. He holds his hands to his mouth and breathes into them, warming them.

When they arrive in Los Lunas, there’s no one there to greet them. Douglas gets out of the cabin and unlocks the gates. He stays out of the tractor trailer and waves to Chucho to drive in. Chucho pulls the truck through the gates and forward past the cargo bay. He backs the truck into a delivery door. Douglas stands up on the bay. He doesn’t bother to guide Chucho. Chucho doesn’t seem to need it.

Douglas opens the container. Chucho uses a forklift to take the tomato pallets out. He does this one pallet out at a time. Each pallet has fifteen rows of packaged tomatoes stacked on top of it. The tomatoes look perfect. They are red and round. They look like they’d be delicious to bite into.

Douglas watches as Chucho works to unload the pallets. Chucho takes each into the storage area. He arranges them against a wall. As he watches Chucho, the anxious feeling continues to bother Douglas. The container is too quiet. He tells himself it’s supposed to be quiet. That’s the whole point. But wouldn’t there be some noise, something? Knocking, shouting, something? But except for the HVAC, there is nothing. Douglas bangs his fist on the side of the forklift. “Hurry it up. We gotta get this shit open.”

Chucho says, “Something wrong, boss?”

“Yeah. Just hurry the fuck up. Come on.”

Chucho works faster. He unloads the pallets without arranging them. Douglas goes into the shipping container. The hatch is slightly ajar. Douglas grabs at its edge but he can’t open it. It’s still blocked. Douglas shouts through the hatch opening, “You guys okay? Yiming? You okay?”

There is no response. Chucho gets the last obstructing pallet out. It’s still quiet. Douglas grabs the hatch edge. It catches against the recessed opening. Chucho jumps off the forklift and comes beside Douglas. Together they drag the hatch up and away. They drop the hatch. It lands crooked, half in the container and half out. Underneath, the workers are motionless, piled as if they were tossed about like dolls in a toy chest. The workers look blue, mostly eyes closed, some eyes open and bloodshot. Many of them have their arms positioned over their chests, their hands clasped over their hearts.

Chucho says, “Dang, boss. This is bad.”

In the pile, Douglas sees Yiming. Yiming looks worse than the others. He is pale blue like them, but he is also mangled. His face is beaten, his eyes swollen shut, blood streaked across from his mouth and nose, from his ears even.

Douglas says, “Fucking shit, Yiming.”

Yiming lays still. Douglas squats down next to him. He reaches in and touches Yiming’s hand. Yiming’s hand moves slightly. His hand opens a bit and closes a bit. Douglas grabs hold of the hand, “Goddamn it. He’s not dead. Help me get him out.”

Chucho says, “No, fuck this guy. Fuck him. This is on him. He was supposed to fix that shit. This is on him, boss.”

Douglas says, “It’s not his fault.”

“Don’t be stupid,” says Chucho. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

Douglas ignores Chucho. He holds on to Yiming’s hand and pulls. Yiming groans. He’s alive, but barely. Douglas looks into Yiming’s broken face. Yiming whispers, “Wo yao hui jia. Wo yao hui jia. Bang mang wo. Bang mang. I want to go home. I want to go home. Help me. Help.”

A week since Los Lunas, and Chucho is gone. Douglas paid him to lay low and keep his mouth shut. Chucho probably won’t keep his mouth shut, at least not for very long. Douglas is in Las Vegas. He’s there to meet one of the bosses. Yiming is not with Douglas. Yiming is in a motel in Henderson. He’s there alone. He’s still a mess. But he’s not as big of a mess as he was a week ago. His face is fucked up. His arm is broken and will probably never really be set right. He can’t see out one eye. But he is alive.

The boss that Douglas is meeting is the middle boss. Not the big boss, but not the little boss either. When he heard that the middle boss was coming, Douglas didn’t think that was a good sign. He thought that probably meant he had an 80–20 chance of leaving Las Vegas alive. That’s 20 percent alive, 80 percent not. Douglas gets to the bar and sees the middle boss seated in a booth. It’s not a good thing that the boss had to wait for Douglas. Douglas tries to recalculate his odds of survival. Before he can come up with a number, a waitress stops him and asks if he’s there to meet the boss. Douglas nods.

The bar is opulent. The ceilings are gold. The walls are gold. The chairs are plush white leather, soft and clean. The waitress is Chinese American. She has long blonde hair and wears a short skirt. As she gets to the boss’s table, the boss asks her advice about which sports car he should buy next. The waitress says Corvette. The boss says he already has a Corvette, it’s a piece of shit. The waitress laughs.

Douglas doesn’t talk to the waitress. He watches the casino. There are a lot of Chinese there. The waitress leaves. The boss doesn’t look at Douglas.

The boss says, “You should do something else.”

Douglas says, “Yeah.”

“What, is this the mafia? You in for life? Get a government job, like the post office.”

“No thanks.”

“What, you’re too good for the post office?”

Douglas is not too good for the post office. He’d probably like working at the post office. He wishes he maybe had taken a post office job instead of this one.

Douglas says, “Yeah, I’m too good for the post office.”

Douglas takes out his mobile phone. He doesn’t have any new messages. He scrolls through the old ones. The boss watches as Douglas does this. Douglas knows it’s bad form. The boss doesn’t say anything, which is worse than if he did. Douglas puts the phone down.

Douglas says, “You’re here to find out what happened?”

The boss says, “I already know what happened.”

Douglas continues, “It was genius. We had them in this refrigerated tomato freight. It was genius, greased and smell-proof, dog-proof. We had all the lackeys bribed, and that state-of-the-art Life Support keeping fresh air pumped in the whole time. We thought we could leave them workers in that box for a week if we had to. Even with the piss and shit, it’d stink, but as long as that Life Support worked, nobody was gonna die.”

The boss motions for Douglas to go ahead and try to explain.

Douglas goes on, “But the Life Support didn’t work. It makes noise like it’s working, but something’s not working. Those workers in the freight, but the air, it starts to run out. These fuckers can’t breathe right. It gets bad. Some of them pass out early. Some probably died early, the older ones, maybe. The fat ones, not that there were any fat ones. Then there’s this one guy. The one guy I knew, Yiming. This guy. My guy. This fucking guy is closest to the hatch. He was trying to get it open. The other workers pushed at him. But it was my guy, trying to open the hatch. But the other workers are crushing him. He couldn’t get enough space to turn the handle. It’s this long ass naval latch. The door won’t open. Of course, it won’t open. Goddamn who knows how many tons of tomatoes on top of it. These workers, they get desperate. The ones that have any strength in them start to grab at my guy. Grab him, yanking his arms, his head, his legs. They start to hit and kick. Cursing him. But he’s just trying to help. They punch and elbow and grab and pull, tearing at his eyeballs and his jaw. Fucking him up to kingdom come, using up even more air while they’re at it.

“By the time me and Chucho get the box opened, they’re goners. Just a pile of cold, dead corpses. Except then, like a zombie movie, there’s something in there. Something moving. This hand, this one hand reaches out. Chucho says to leave it. But I’m a dumbass good Samaritan. I grab that hand and pull it forward, but the arm is limp like a rope. I pull it forward, and this guy comes out. And it’s my guy, Yiming. I pull him out, sort of out. It’s just his arm and shoulder and head out. He’s got blood coming out his eyes and ears and black puke coming out his mouth. His face is all punched in, nose practically torn off, eyes swollen shut. And he’s trying to say something, in fucking Foochow, he’s saying something. But I can’t hear him. I lean in. I can still barely hear him. It just sounds like a slow stutter. Like tiny puffs of air coming out one puff at a time. I tell him, What? What is it? He reaches his hand out for me, and he’s saying, help, help, help.”

Douglas takes out another couple cigarettes and gives the boss one. He lights his own and then, with the same match, lights the boss’s. They inhale, almost in unison, and then blow smoke out the sides of their mouths. The boss waits for Douglas to finish the story, but Douglas doesn’t say anything more.

The boss says, “So, what did you do then?”

Douglas puts his cigarette in his mouth and leaves it there. The cigarette twitches a tiny bit, each time he pulls. Looking at the boss, he leans back and hitches his thumbs into his belt.

“What’d I do?” says Douglas. “I helped him.”

“What do you mean you helped him?”

He keeps his eyes on the boss’s eyes. Douglas makes a gun gesture with his thumb and forefinger. He points his forefinger at his temple, a pretend gun like he’s about to blow his own brains out. Then Douglas makes a clicking sound with his tongue. He moves his thumb like how a gun’s hammer would hit its firing pin. He juts his head to the side. He does these gestures methodically.

The boss frowns and finishes his drink, “Jesus, you didn’t have to do that.”

Douglas doesn’t say anything.

“Well, could have been worse,” the boss says. “You wouldn’t believe some of these dumbshits. They have a come to Jesus. They think they’re gonna help these fuckers. Sneak them out. Set them free.”

Douglas says, “Dumbshits.”

The boss says, “That shit doesn’t end well.”

“Nope,” says Douglas. “Not for nobody.”

The boss makes a face. The face is a half-frown and halfsmile. He shakes his head at Douglas.

The boss says, “You’re no dumbshit though. Hard ass.”

Douglas says, “Rock hard,” and raps his knuckles on the table top.

The boss doesn’t say anything else. Douglas can’t tell if the boss believes his story. Douglas can’t tell if it matters. The waitress comes over to retrieve the boss’s empty glass. She holds the tab out to the boss. The boss smiles and points at Douglas. “It’s on him.”

The waitress puts the tab down on the table without looking at Douglas. She then puts her hand on the boss’s arm. The boss gets up, and the two of them walk toward the casino. Douglas stays seated. He watches. The boss doesn’t look back. The boss gives the waitress something else, his number maybe, maybe his room card. The waitress kisses the boss on the cheek. The boss leaves the casino.

Douglas looks around. He sees some guys. These guys might be the boss’s guys. They might be waiting for Douglas to leave. They might be getting ready to grab him and drive him out to the desert and beat him up some and then bury him under a rock. Or not. They might be just regular Vegas Chinese. They might just be regular Chinese guys looking to gamble and maybe get laid. Douglas doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what will happen now. But he thinks his odds are still bad. His odds are still just as bad as ever.

He picks up his drink. He finishes it slowly, letting the last drops of liquid drain into his mouth, and then a piece of ice. He clanks the piece of ice around in his mouth and then spits it back into the glass and then places the glass onto the tabletop, before picking up the bill and looking it over.

Douglas takes out a wallet. It’s the size and shape of a checkbook. It has a brass latch securing it. It’s Yiming’s wallet.

Douglas opens the latch. He takes out a small stack of bills. Several small pictures fall out as he does this. Douglas takes the pictures and spreads them out on the table. He arranges them in rows. The pictures include the one of Yiming’s sons. There is also the one of Yiming’s wife, and then other pictures that Douglas hasn’t seen yet, a picture of a hilly field, a picture of the side of a house, an old car that doesn’t look to run. Finally, there is a picture of a man, who might be Yiming. The man is carrying a bicycle on his shoulder as he walks up a set of stairs. A young boy walks beside the man. The picture is taken from behind them, so you cannot see their faces. The picture is in black and white. The man carrying the bicycle is holding the young boy’s hand. They are almost to the top of the stairs. The stairs seem to lead to a doorway. The doorway seems to lead out into the outdoors. The outdoors is overexposed, just a white light that bleeds into the stairway and surrounds the man and the boy, washing them in a glow like supernatural beings, like ghosts, or just normal people caught in a twilight, in-between where they’re coming from and where they are going.