“That maldito with his pawing hands, he has stolen my tortillitas!” I pat my pockets quickly and feel only the little phone numbers. In my panic the words burst out. “Also he got my pesitos!” I shout. When The Beast stops I cannot buy food. Or water. What will I do?
I must sound wild with worry for Gabriel at once calms me.
“Fear not, Manuel. I have food.”
So atop The Beast, while I struggle to stay on, we eat. Cold beans and rice. And it is good. Inside myself, like Papi would, I give thanks.
“Your age?” Gabriel asks.
“Twelve.” For politeness reasons I do not dare ask his age. But I think it is in the thousands.
“A runaway?”
I realize suddenly this is true. All I say is, “I am going to find my brother.”
“Ah,” says Gabriel, his ancient eyes boring into me. “Brothers, they are a pull. They tug at the heart.”
Suddenly, I feel tired tired. And achy from the shaking of The Beast. I want desperately to sleep, but the dead boy ghosts into my mind once more. I have a deep fear of falling to the tracks. I struggle to keep awake. I sway.
“Sleep,” says Gabriel in his chopped speech. “I will see that you do not fall.” He is hunched in such a way that beneath his shirt his thin shoulder blades have a certain lumpy look. In my exhaustion I wonder stupidly, Wings?
I must be out almost at once, sleeping deep like a fallen tree. In dreams I think of chiles and beans, and home. I see the faces of my family. In dream-thoughts I wonder, Will I ever see them for real again?
When I awake Gabriel has vanished.
The stars too have fled to somewhere else. Like watery ink, the dark is now thinned.
Where am I? I wonder at first, still drugged with sleep. Are we there yet? I ask myself with hope.
I find myself tied with a rawhide cord to a small pole at the end of the train car. So that I stay on top of The Beast. Careful not to fall, I untie the cord and place it in a pocket of Papi’s sweater. For when I sleep. One last kindness from Gabriel. With that thought comes a clench of my stomach. Now I must look out for myself.
Lying there I listen carefully to the sounds that wrap round me like a shawl—the laughings, the cryings, the songs, the prayers of the many voices of the people bunched so close. I listen also to the loud train sounds. And I remember something I learned in school, a trabalenguas, tongue twister, with lots of rs: Rápido rápido corren los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril. Fast fast race the train cars over the rails of the train. I say this over and over above the noise, to calm my fears.
The Beast rushes through the land. On the way I try to make myself look sympathetic, so that people as poor and desperate as I am will give me food and protection. A tip from Toño when Papi was not near the phone: Because you are young they will help you. It shames me to do this, but it is the only way. Now that I have no money, eyes pleading and big, I beg.
We pass milpitas, and big spiky maguey plants with white sheets and colorful laundry drying upon them. Heart stabs of my home! I imagine those who wash our clothing and bedding then carefully drape it over magueys to dry. Once Mami and Abue, now Abue alone. All of a sudden I feel a big sadness, so far from my family.
I am on a strange train bound for a strange land, among strangers, many from far places, with nobody who truly cares for me. I Manuel Flores am on my own.
The wheels scream and the wheels scream and things happen. I Manuel Flores am wrapped in the unholy noise and wind from this unholy train.
Soon the motion of The Beast feels different. It is slowing! A stopping place is coming with big buildings—and polis with fierce dogs that can smell even fear. This I have heard at home. And here also, from other riders. If I am caught I will be sent back. I cannot face that.
Knowing they have customers clinging to The Beast, suddenly vendors burst forth from nowhere, selling tortas, cacahuates, chips, bottled water, Coca-Colas, diapers, soap, you name it. But right now nobody cares about vendors. Everybody swarms for the ladders in a crazed rush to evade the police.
Somebody nearby shouts at me, “Chavo, the moment you can, scramble down a ladder!”
And another, “Run fast for the bushes!”
“Duck down! Do not move!”
“Quick! Follow me!”
The faithful tennis shoes and I make a dash for it.
Next thing I am crashing through brambles, patches of briars, being lashed, stifling my cries against the whips of wicked branches. Then I squat behind a bush, panting panting. While the polis beat every plant in sight and shout, I crouch with the guy who called for me to follow.
I have planned so carefully. I have only started my trip. I cannot get caught so soon. In this moment this is what I think.
I am not caught by polis or dogs, not this time, but by this man who has tricked me. A hard lesson. With no sound, but with a big yank he snatches my sweater with the rawhide cord and the smell of Papi. Before he bounds away he yells, “Trusting fool! You will never reach the border!”
Inside myself I say, The little chicks, peep peep peep they go when they are hungry, when they are cold.