Crossing The Border #43
San Miguel #43
After school that day, I made it back to the hotel in about fifteen minutes and I stepped over the wooden barrier and was headed back to the kitchen to see if Manuelito was around.
I stop, back up and look into the bar. Mom is sitting there at a table by the window, the table where we used to play checkers. The checkers board is missing.
Hi honey. Come on in here a minute.
I walk in, put my backpack on the floor and sit down in the chair across from her.
Do you think Bill would be a good Daddy for you?
We both sit there looking at each other.
She smiles, tiny wrinkles appearing at the corners of her mouth and at the top of her forehead where skin meets hair.
OK honey, you can be dismissed.
She turns back to the window and pulls her cigarette to her mouth and sucks it and lets the smoke come back out slowly through her nose and mouth.
I stand up, put my backpack on and walk out the door toward the kitchen.
The next afternoon I leave school and it takes me exactly fifteen minutes again. I could do it faster, but I waste at least two minutes every day now looking for the old man with the candy and bread shop.
I am headed to the kitchen again when I hear Mom’s voice, then Mister Bill Sproul’s. They must be in the corner of the courtyard. They can’t see me where I am standing so I stop and listen. I can’t understand every word, but sometimes they raise their voices and it’s easier. I hear words from Mom like:
and words like this from Mister Bill.
and the word I hear most from Mister Bill:
I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around and it’s Jose. He nods his head toward the kitchen while looking at me and I walk off. I look back when I’m across the courtyard and Jose is approaching Mom and Mister Bill. Once I’m under the overhang, I stop and watch. Jose steps close to them and then stops and says something and Mister Bill looks over at Jose and puts both his arms out and Jose reaches his hand behind him and pulls out something that looks like those guns on TV shows and points it at Mister Bill and Mister Bill steps back and Mom puts her hand in front of her mouth and I hear Jose say something then OUT and Mister Bill steps carefully around Jose like he’s a snake and walks out of the courtyard and through the entryway that can hold a wagon and six horses and over the wooden plank and disappears to the right, then appears again and disappears again to the left this time and I look back and Jose puts the thing that looks like a gun back in behind him between his pants and his back or maybe between his belt and his pants and he walks over and hugs Mom who is crying now and then he kisses her on the forehead and walks away and I make sure I turn around before he can see me and head to the kitchen to find Manuelito like I was doing before.
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