Los pollitos dicen pío pío pío cuando tienen hambre, cuando tienen frío. The little chicks, peep peep peep they go when they are hungry, when they are cold.
This day is dark. The sun is waiting to come up. The little ones, Belén and Javier, are still asleep. I am feeding the clucking chickens and singing a chicken song and plotting my journey to The Angels, Los Angeles. Where Toño is.
Since my dream of the nameless boy I have been plotting plotting. I must keep this secret close or Papi for certain will stop me. Not Abue. “We each must find our own way,” she often tells me. She who sees signs in the way trees stand, in the forms of passing clouds. My sign now is the dead boy. In dreams he speaks to me. I failed, but you—
To leave, what I need are these things: food, warm clothing, money. What I have is this: nothing. Each day while I go about my chores my mind spins with plannings.
I begin to hoard foods. Small things that will not give me away. Stale or not one desperate day they will feed me. Mealtimes, instead of eating both my tortillitas, I stuff one into a pocket when I can, hoping that a hungry rat will not nose it out from its hiding place beneath my petate. Hoping also that my sharp-as-a-machete Papi will not nose it out even before rats do.
My Abue, smelling of the tortillas she makes, may know of my hidden supply. My Abue with her wise eyes and soul. These days sometimes she looks at me. Just looks. Showing neither sí or no. But I think she sees into my heart. I think there she sees Toño.
Another of my needs is dinero, money. What little we have goes for clothing and foods we do not grow ourselves. Café is a big money item. And azúcar. Ay how we all would love bundles of sugar. To make complete syrup of our café. But with sugar we are skimpers, even though.
I devise myself a peso plan, for the trip in general—food and stuff—but especially for my feet. I announce this foot part to my family in an offhand way. “The stones of the milpita are bruising my feet,” I say. (Around this time I begin to limp, just slight slight, not drastically.) Of course my feet are like hog leather from these twelve mostly barefoot years of my life. My feet have known sandals, especially at school, for teacher respect. But they prefer to be free. I look down at them, as if they were utterly black and blue as a Oaxaca storm—and tender as new corn. Maybe I even whine, from the supposed pain. “I need tennis shoes” is how I end the scene. I cannot go barefoot on the train.
How can anybody of this tough and centuries-upon-this-land family believe such words? Such ridiculosities. I do not know. Maybe in this moment the angels of Los Angeles have gathered to watch over me. Or maybe more local angels. Anyway—a miracle!—my family agrees to shoes if any to fit me can be found.
If such tennis shoes exist I am to earn them. And I will. To do this thing I become Resolve itself.
Shoes for my journey. I know of a pair. And I will have them—if they are still there.
Abue says not a word about my sudden need for shoes. But her eyes, how they speak. I am certain she knows my thinking.
These shoes I have seen, they are in the tiendita, little store, of what we call the pueblito, our village of San Juan. San Juan is so small a place, on any day I believe I could nearly spit its whole complete length.
At the heart of it is the tiendita. Here is where flows all news. When a messenger finds us, here is where we come running to receive our rare phone calls from Toño. Most people here have cell phones, but we do not. Papi likes the old ways and the silence of the fields. Phone calls cost money, besides.
When Toño calls we dash to the little store, then pass the owner’s cell phone around, all the family, and we talk fast fast as if to whoosh out everything to Toño in one breath. If I miss a phone call, I go off to be sad by myself.
The tiendita holds a collection of most beautifully disorganized items, both necessaries and “splurges for the soul,” as Abue puts it. On the walls are calendars with pictures. And everywhere there are signs with prices for the great jumble of items waiting to be bought. Foods like frijoles and papas, clothing, plows, tools, nails, machetes, ropes, leather goods, baskets, comales for the toasting of tortillas and such, cleaning rags, buckets, and jeans jeans jeans, which have taken over. The tiendita has dulces, sweets. Like Pingüinos and Gansitos, both little cakes, which I stare at long long whenever I go in. Probably the little cakes are a bit hard from staleness, but they would still taste good. Now and then we splurge on them. And the smells! Raw sugar, cinnamon, honey, chile. Each time I enter the tiendita the whole big fragrance overcomes me, nearly lifts my feet from the floor. Inside myself I float.
One day I enter the tiendita with Abue. To seek shoes for my famously bruised feet. Some things have been waiting here so long, I believe, they have many layers of dust upon them. But one item does not have dust. The one I remembered. A pair of tennis shoes inside a glass case. White like clouds. Beautiful like clouds, I think. These cloud shoes, they speak to me as plain as anything. Buy us. We will take you where you need to go. We will be faithful. In this moment I feel that this is true.
They are not my size, but near enough. I will stuff them with paper to fit. The price is big. I bargain with the owner, Señora Crispina. We bargain bargain for a long time, back and forth, back and forth, till the cost is within my reach.
“Here is our trato, our deal,” Señora Crispina announces. “At dawn each day you Manuel Flores will carefully sweep the sidewalk in front of the store. You will carefully sweep inside the store. And straighten signs and displays and set out new items for those that have been sold. All this you will do—very carefully—before school begins.”
She smiles at me then, knowing that since Toño has gone I often wriggle myself from school early to help Papi.
“Could I sell cigarettes?” I ask with innocence, just to hear her fiery response.
“No, no, no, no, no!” she replies vigorously. She pops those “no”s out quickly like fiesta fireworks. “Cigarettes are no good. A boy should stay away from those.”
So I will sweep sweep and straighten straighten. And soon, if the angels are gathered close, I will own cloud-white tennis shoes. The extra money will be mine. Of course I will give it to my family—all but some few pesitos which I will hold aside for my journey.
My last need: something of warmth if it becomes freezing on the back of The Beast.
Time passes. I measure it by the corn. We planted it some months ago. Now it is taller than me.
During all my plottings I could change my mind. I could stay to help my family. Or I could follow my now-obsession, to be with Toño. To get a job in Gringolandia to help out with money. My heart swings back and forth—yes, no, maybe so—till at last it settles upon yes.
Once Abue looks at me with love. She touches my face with her floury hands.
“You are our dreamer, Manuelito,” she says to me in her starry voice, but with extreme seriousness. “Within you, you hold all of our dreams.” That is all. Then she goes back to patting tortillas.
I hold their dreams. What does this mean?
One day I am the owner of tennis shoes. New ones. Cloud-colored ones. A miracle in itself. As I wriggle into them I think to myself about where they will take me. Please, I say to the tennies silently, keep me on a good road always. The tennies answer, We will do our best. My feet, they are completely happy with these shoes. They dance all by themselves, it seems, to show they are pleased. Of course the shoes will soon be dirty from dust of the milpita, but that is good. Maybe upon The Beast they will not be a quick thief-target.
One afternoon when I think Toño will be home, I make a secret call to him from the tiendita. So secret I take the cell phone outside, away from all listeners. “Hermano, brother,” I say all in a rush when he picks up, “I am coming to you. If you tell Papi, I am coming anyway. I will call you when I can.” I speak these words with such solemnness, I know Toño will keep still.
I keep up my tiendita work as long as I can, to add more to my little hoarded paper pesos. Not many, but they must do. For I am going now—after I get a sweater.
I have one, but I need a bigger one, to cover me when it is freezing atop The Beast. Papi’s is the one I need. He would not give it to me for my unswerving purpose. He is generous in most ways, but not this. Already he has lost one boy to La Bestia. . . .
This night is quiet. The house is quiet. Its sleeping people are quiet. Quiet quiet to escape discovery I gather my few necessaries in a morral, a bag, including the tortillas and fresh chones, underwear. The phone numbers of the tiendita and of Toño. I have written them on little papers. These small papers I stuff into the pockets of my pants, along with my pesitos.
Just before I go, with great stealth I lift with care Papi’s sweater from the hook where it hangs. I wrap it around me, his too-big sweater with many holes. Papi’s torn old sweater wraps around me like his very arms. It smells of Papi and gives me courage to leave.
Now I am a thief.
I stand outside the door of my home.
I lift a hand in adiós.
Maybe I have tears. I do not know. I am numb.
Suddenly Guapo is beside me. Quiet quiet. Smart dog. Like Abue he knows I am going. He knows not to bark, not to whine, not to follow me. Only the grillos are singing as I bend to pet dear Guapo’s big-as-a-bucket head. Only the crickets sing me away. Into the dark. Toward The Beast.