Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
MALO
“ I t’s your fault, you little bastard!” she screams at me in Spanish, her finger jabbing in the air next to my head, her face streaked with tears, and her eyes blazing with fury. “Malo, that’s what you are! Malo!”
I blink. I can’t remember how I ended up back here, but it’s as vivid as the moment I experienced it in the first place. Chuy’s mother, yelling at me in the street, telling me off for losing track of her son, as though I had anything to do with it.
I’m fifteen, and one of my best friends, Chuy, has just vanished off the face of the earth. We ran the streets together, a group of us kids who thought we knew the world inside and out just because we had lived a life tougher than most. But we were nothing but children, with no idea of what actually lay beyond the walls of our little town.
Chuy’s mother thinks I’m evil. She’s never been good at hiding it, closing the door on me on those few occasions where Chuy brought me back to his place after a night of playing soccer and running around the streets. Most of the other mothers, they fuss over me, dragging me in to eat and wash and maybe even get some sleep, but she’s always looked at me like I’m nothing more than a nuisance. Even worse than that, now, with her beloved son having vanished into what seems like thin air.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know what happened to him,” I protest, and she lets out a derisive snort.
“Of course you do, Malo,” she snarls back at me. Even now, I can see that this is her grief and terror speaking, but it puts my hackles up anyway.
“I don’t!” I protest, but it’s futile. She’s already decided what kind of person I am, and nothing is going to change her mind on that. No matter how much I try to stand up for myself, she’s going to look at me and see the reason for her son’s vanishing.
She throws me out of her house, but her words ring in my ears— malo, malo, malo. It suits me, knowing there’s nothing I can do to deny it. I am that, I am bad, I have this badness that seems to follow me everywhere I go. Better I embrace it and lay it out up-front for everyone to see than try and deny it and pretend it’s not always been a part of me.
I search for Chuy for weeks, all of us do—L os M alditos, we called ourselves, before he went missing. Now that one of us has vanished, though, it feels dangerous to define ourselves like that. As though there could have been a target on our backs. In the months that follow, we stop reaching out to each other, until we eventually drift apart entirely. Chuy’s vanishing serves as the end of my childhood, once and for all, and I know I need to get my shit together and start figuring out how to handle myself. I can’t just run the streets with my friends and hope for the best; there are too many people out there who want to cause us harm, and I’m not willing to risk it any longer.
I turn my attention to building something for myself, starting to run errands for vendors at the local market. It’s not much, but it brings in some money, enough for me to live on. I can pay my way, for the most part, even if I still have to sleep on street corners sometimes.
And I don’t ever stop looking out for Chuy, not once. I search for his face in the crowds, squinting at any boy who reminds me of him. I know the chances of ever seeing him again are slim, because when people go missing in this place, they rarely live to come back. I’ve heard stories of what happens to them—sent out to traffic drugs, caught up in a bust, and forced to take the blame for it or worse. Used as soldiers in these wars between gangs, and given little in the way of protection, treated as dispensable because of their age.
But Chuy was one of my best friends, and it grinds in my chest to think of him out there, being used like that, hurt like that. He’s just the same age as me, our birthdays are only a couple of weeks apart, and I don’t know if I would have been able to survive what he’s been thrown into.
If he’s even still alive at all.
The next year passes without much incident, and I try to focus on what lies ahead of me, not what’s come before. Every time I catch a glimpse of Chuy’s mother at the market, I see her gaze darkening, her eyes black with hatred. She blames me for it entirely, probably because she doesn’t want to face up to the fact that she might have taken her eye off him for long enough to let something like this happen. I can’t blame her, for not wanting to face the truth. I can hardly take it myself, and I’m just his friend, not his mother.
A few weeks after my seventeenth birthday, I’m stacking crates for one of the stall owners I do plenty of work for, when someone catches my gaze out of the corner of my eye. He doesn’t look like Chuy, not exactly, but still, I find myself turning to face him, almost on instinct.
I freeze on the spot. It is him. It’s Chuy.
After all this time, he’s back.
He looks… different. Really different. His hair, once overgrown and curly, is shaved tight to his head. A long scar runs from below his left eye across the side of his mouth, a piercing in his top lip. He’s far removed from the boy I knew, something in the way he carries himself telling me to steer clear. I part my lips, intending to call out to him, but something in me thinks better of it.
I notice something tucked into the waistband of his pants—a gun. My heart twists in my chest. I don’t know what he’s doing with a gun, but the Chuy I knew hated guns. He would always call the guys who ran around with guns cowards. But if he had one now, something big must have changed.
I finish stacking the boxes and then, as subtly as I can, I follow him. I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, exactly, but I want to know where he’s going. Back to his mother? I know she would be so relieved to lay eyes on him, after all this time, but maybe she would have a hard time recognizing him the same way I did.
He doesn’t seem to notice me following him, but I keep a careful distance anyway, not wanting to push my luck more than I already have. A few people glance up at him as he goes by, and the way they look at him, I can tell they’re scared. They dive back into their houses, retreating behind their front doors to put some space between them. He’s clearly got some kind of reputation, and, judging by the way he swaggers down the street, he’s proud of it, too.
How can this be the same kid I grew up with? He looks so different, as though he’s someone else entirely. Where has he been all this time? He’s a grown adult now, even though I know he can’t be more than seventeen, like me. What is going on with him? And what’s he doing back here after all this time?
I track him to a large warehouse on the edge of town, usually used for storing livestock during the summer seasons before they’re shipped off to the city to be sold. I don’t have any idea what he’s doing here, and I have a hard time believing that he’s just working in agriculture with a gun tucked in his waistband.
I watch as he glances around, and then goes inside, pulling the heavy metal door shut behind him with a clang. There’s something about this that reminds me of that awful mess I got into before, when I was nearly kidnapped and trafficked across the border. It’s been years since I’ve even thought about that now, but the dust that kicks up in the air from his footsteps is taking me right back there again.
I slip toward the warehouse, not sure what I’m going to see in there, not sure I want to know either, but there’s a part of me that insists on knowing, insists on finding out just what Chuy has gotten himself involved in. Where the hell that kid I grew up with has gone.
Sneaking around the back, I find a door that’s hanging off its hinges, and push it open. The air is filled with the smell of blood and metal, thick and metallic, and I have to hold my breath to keep from gagging. I’ve worked for a few butchers in my time, but this… this isn’t the smell of animal blood, I’m sure of it. No, this is…
When I round the corner, I find myself faced with the last thing I want to see.
A line of people, all chained up to the far wall—most of them women, a few boys scattered amongst them, too. Arms above their heads, hands hanging in these thick metal shackles that have chafed away at their skin enough to cause the bleeding that I could smell when I walked in. I freeze, sheer horror crashing over me like a bucket of ice-water.
They’re being held here like animals, and I know damn well that it isn’t going to end here. What are they being kept here for? But I already know the answer. Exploitation. To be used and abused as their owners see fit. But Chuy would never do something like this, would he? He would never have allowed something like this to happen under his watch. I’d told him about what happened to me, when I’d nearly been taken, the terror I’d lived under, and he had listened with sympathy, even anger—anger that someone was capable of doing something as twisted as that to a kid my age.
But now? Now, I barely have time to pull back behind one of the stalls before he emerges from a room in the back, casting a cold eye over the people in front of him. He’s the one who put them here, I’m sure of it. One of the women tries to mutter something to him, but he snarls at her to be quiet, and lifts a hand, ready to strike her.
I can’t hold back. I call out before I can stop myself, trying to save her before he can land the blow, but he spins around to face me, his eyes flashing with fury. His hand is already on his gun as I emerge, holding my hands up, praying to God that he will show me some kind of mercy, even if the look in his eyes seems to indicate the complete opposite right now.
“Chuy?” I mutter.
He takes a step toward me, eyes narrowed, not taking his hand off his gun.
“Malo,” he whispers. There’s that name again, the one his mother gifted to me. I hate hearing it come out of his mouth, but at least he recognizes me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, gesturing to the people who are chained up against the wall. Some of the boys look barely older than ten. What could they have possibly done to deserve something like this? To land themselves in this kind of trouble?
“None of your fucking business,” he snarls. He closes the distance between us, pushing his face against mine. Though he still has some of the same features as the Chuy I knew, he’s not the same person, I can see that now. There’s no way that Chuy could have looked at me like that, with this kind of loathing and hatred in his eyes.
“Let them go,” I protest, though I know it’s futile. He’s already made his mind up, and he’s not going to let these people get away. He’s already decided what he’s going to do, and there’s no way I can talk him out of it.
“You need to get out of here, Malo,” he warns me, pointing to the door.
I hesitate. I don’t know what to do. There’s a part of me that wants to fight him on this, remind him of all the ways that he wasn’t the kind of person who would do this, but looking at him now, I know he is.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You go, or I come after everyone else in Los Malditos,” he growls. “Every single one of them. You hear me?”
“What the hell?—”
“I’m giving you a chance to get out of here, Malo,” he tells me, and, for the barest split second, I can see some mercy in his gaze. Is this his way of repaying me for the friendship we shared all those years?
Guilt twists in my gut as I look at the people chained against the wall. I need to do something. I can’t just turn around and walk away from them.
But Chuy has his hand on his gun, and I know what he’s trying to tell me. Either I get out of here, or I’m going to end up just like they are. And what good is that going to do anyone? It’s better that I put some distance between myself and this place, and maybe I can send back help somehow.
Chuy pulls his gun. He doesn’t point it at me, but it’s clear what he’s trying to communicate. I look into his eyes one last time, trying to get him to see sense, but he’s not having it. I turn, and walk away, the sound of my footsteps filling the air around us.
“Keep walking, Malo,” Chuy calls after me. It’s as much advice as it is a warning.
“Keep walking, and don’t look back.”
I think I can hear a hint of regret in his tone, but I’m not sticking around to find out.
Outside, the sunlight sears my senses. I know that this isn’t far enough, not yet. And I know that I can’t stay here, having seen what I’ve just seen; I have to get out. I know the people Chuy works for will come looking for me, and I realize I need to take what I know to someone who can make a difference but the problem is there is no one bigger than the cartel. Not the cops, they’re useless, there is no help.
I’ll take the small savings I have, and pay for a bus ticket to get me to the border, I’ll figure out how to cross it when I get there. I don’t know where the hell I’m going to go, but I can’t stay here.
I stare out of the window of the bus as we head toward the border, looking back over the country that’s been my home for as long as I can remember. I have no idea what is waiting for me on the other side, but I don’t have any choice—I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to put as much distance between myself and that place as I can.
I somehow make it to Houston by the time my cash runs out. The air smells different here, but at least it’s somewhere safe. I have no idea what I’m going to do now I’ve arrived, but all that matters is that that place is behind me.
Though, every night, I find myself tossing and turning first in cheap motel rooms and then on street corners, tortured by the memory of what I saw. Tortured by knowing that a man I considered a friend could do something like that.
And tortured by the fear that it might be all too easy to fall into that darkness if I’m not careful.
I need something to take the edge off, something to push those thoughts further down in my mind, but it feels impossible. Until, one night at a bar, one of the men who’s buying me drinks because I’m from the same small town his grandfather hailed from offers me something.
And, as soon as I take the first hit, everything falls away.