Forty-Four Book Eleven (44 series 11) Read online

  “You know what it’s like?” he said.

  “No, what’s it like?”

  “Right now, you’re like the Spurs were two years ago. They had that championship ring in their hands, they could almost taste the champagne, and then they let it all slip away. It was devastating. But remember what happened last year?”

  “They came back and won the whole thing,” I mumbled, thinking that he had lost it, comparing basketball to the train wreck that was my life.

  “That’s how it can be for you. But do you think they saw that, sitting in that locker room after losing game seven? Parker not showing up. Duncan looking old. Ginobili blowing it in game six. No way. How could they? That’s how you’re feeling right now. But it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. The odds are stacked against you, but my money’s on you, Craigers.”

  I smiled but it quickly faded. There wasn’t going to be a “next year” for me where I was pouring champagne over somebody’s head. If I was lucky, my next year would mean I was still on the run and not in jail.

  “Hey,”’ Jesse said. “You know, we’re in Texas now. This is the closest I’ve ever been to San Antonio. It’s just five hundred miles or so in that direction. We could get on a bus right now and go watch a preseason game. What do you say?”

  A couple of men stumbled out of a bar across the street, their voices loud. Jessed pulled me to my feet.

  “Listen, I don’t want you wandering around here on your own,” he said, coming back to reality. “C’mon, let’s get you closer to the shelter. I don’t like this place.”

  “I don’t like it either.”

  There were probably nice parts of the city somewhere, but right now I wasn’t in those parts. We walked back to the main street, stopping in front of a closed-up store. I leaned up against the wall, grimacing as pain shot down my legs.

  “I see them everywhere now,” I said after one walked by, stumbling around like he was drunk and staring at me with needy eyes. “The ghosts, I mean. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I think it’s your energy. There’s a crack in it now. You’re more open and weaker, and they sense that. Just ignore them and concentrate on yourself. Nothing good can come from you getting involved with them right now.”

  We walked over to the shelter and I kissed him on the cheek.

  “I love you,” he said, hugging me.

  “I love you too, Jesse. I love you so much. You know, for a while there I thought that this hell I’m in included not having you around.”

  “If this was really Hell, I’d be there, too.” He let out a long sigh. “I’ll never leave you, Craigers. And not at a time like this. I’m sorry if you thought that. I’m always with you. It’s just that…”

  He trailed off and was quiet.

  “What?” I said. “What were you going to say?”

  “It’s this Samael character. I think he’s been keeping me away from you. I don’t know if it’s intentional. All I know is that whenever I’m trying to get to you, I sense his presence and then I can’t break through.”

  I thought about that for a long moment.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I don’t understand it either. But he’s not letting me near you. I’m right there, reaching out, and then… something stops me.”

  “But why?” I said.

  “I don’t know. All I know is there’s something wrong with him. The intensity of his focus on you reminds me of Mortimer.”

  “Really?” I said

  “He’s using you. I don’t know for what, but he definitely wants something.”

  “David thought he was an angel of memory,” I whispered. “You know, because he helped Charlie Modine see what he had done and helped him move on. That’s what worries me, Jesse. That maybe David’s right. That maybe I’ve done something.”

  “You haven’t done anything, Craigers. Things have been done to you and you’re trying to stay afloat. Just don’t trust him, okay? No matter what he says. And it would be good to keep in mind that not all angels are soft and fluffy with halos and wings. There are the other kinds too, you know.”

  I nodded.

  I had thought of that.

  “There’s something around him. I can see it. Something that’s not right,” he repeated. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Well, I think the first thing you need to—”

  And then Jesse suddenly vanished before he could finish the sentence.

  “You better get your spot for the night,” Samael said as he came toward me. “They’re filling up.”

  “Is it true?” I yelled. “Are you keeping Jesse away from me?”

  “He’ll just confuse things,” he said, his blue eyes flat.

  “Look, you need to tell me what this is all about. What you’re doing here. What I’m doing here. What you want.”

  “When the time comes,” he said, walking away. “When the time comes.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Even after the second bell rang at 2:35 the next morning, I had trouble pulling myself out of the dream.

  It had been a bad night. What Jesse had said about Samael had left me troubled. But even if my mind had let my body sleep, I was in too much pain, the thin mat separating me from the hard floor doing nothing to relieve the agony in my muscles. And on top of those things, all night long I heard loud, bear-like snoring coming from across the room.

  Then there was the nightmare.

  I was drowning again.

  As I fell down through the water, a murky sunlight filtered through the surface above me. I was sinking fast, faster than I ever remembered. But I wasn’t floating down like I usually did in my death. It was like I was the Titanic, dropping down through the water until I hit the dark bottom, except the trip only took a few seconds.

  A few terrible seconds.

  In the blackness I heard crying, a loud awful wail of grief that echoed all around. I tried to swim, to get free, but my arms and legs felt bound and I couldn’t move.

  “Hey, llorona,” a voice above me said suddenly as I felt a sharp pain in the back of my thigh. “Llorona, you coming to work with us today or are you done playing already?”

  I opened my eyes and found Lupe staring down at me. She kicked at me again while her friend laughed.

  “Knock it off,” I said as I sat up quickly and glared at her.

  “Well, it’s either gonna be me kicking your sorry ass or that janitor kicking you out of here in a few hours. It’s your choice, whitey. But the bus is leaving in ten minutes. If you miss today, you don’t get to come back. Well, that’s how it is with us anyway. You seem to have some sort of special rules. Whatever. But you should at least thank my abuelita for giving a flying shit and sending me over here to get you. She is looking after you. Nobody else around here cares.”

  She started walking away, but then turned back, shaking her head.

  “You’re one sad bitch, weepy.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The next few days were again brutal, in some ways harder than the first, although uneventful. The second day in particular was bad because of the condition my hands were in and the terrible soreness that spread all over my body, affecting muscles I didn’t know I had. My knees hurt the most, feeling like nails had been hammered into them from all sides. The pain never went away but after warming up for an hour or two each morning, it became bearable.

  The watch was a comfort but it was also a curse. Now I knew every moment of the long day. We left El Paso just after three in the morning and began working at about five thirty. I took water breaks at eight and then again at ten-thirty. Quitting time was sometime after noon and we got on the bus again at about one. Learning those numbers helped a little, but I ended up looking at the watch way too much, the hands moving so slowly at times that I thought it was broken.

  Still, I began to settle into a routine.

  After the initial shock
of the first day, my mind went back to doing what it did as well. Thoughts came and went. Some good, some bad.

  I thought of Jesse and what he had said about Samael. Was he right? Was Samael a dark spirit taking advantage of my situation? Or was that just my darkness reflecting off of him? Or was he waiting for the right moment to show me the memory of something I refused to face? Questions without answers.

  Then my thoughts drifted to cooking school. Classes had started and they had started without me. I thought of the instructors and of the competition that would be taking place in Seattle next month. I thought of Miguel and how much I had been looking forward to seeing him again. I missed talking to him about different cuisines and cooking techniques. But then I wondered about his reaction to the news and if he believed what the police and the press had already decided. That I was a murderer.

  It rained the morning of the third day, leaving the fields muddy and surprisingly cold. My frozen hands were slowing me down, but I tried not to think about it. After the first hour, they had stopped aching and were now just numb. I stood up and clapped them together, trying to get some life back into them.

  The sun had chased away the clouds, but it was taking forever to climb up to where it needed to be at quitting time. I glanced up at the sky when I wasn’t checking my watch and at some point noticed I had forgotten my hat. The next time I took up my bucket, I looked for it on the bus and in my backpack but it wasn’t there. I must have forgotten it at the shelter.

  I went back to my spot by Ernesto, the nice man I had gotten into the habit of sitting next to on the bus. He was all work, fast and intense in his picking, and I was betting he must have been one of the highest earners out here.

  Every once in a while, the young guy with the cowboy hat walked through the field, saying a few words in Spanish. Things like buenos días, órale, or ándale. It sounded like his Spanish was almost as limited as mine and he probably did it mostly because he was bored. These workers didn’t need supervising or reminders to stay on task. There was no goofing around out here. The bottom line was that the more chiles they picked, the more money they made and these people had come to work.

  He continued to look my way from time to time and his eyes made me uncomfortable. Maybe he was still suspicious of what I was doing out there. Or maybe he found me attractive, although in my current condition I hardly saw how that would be possible. Either way, I didn’t need it.

  “Morning there, miss,” he said, tipping his hat.

  “Morning,” I mumbled, looking up, but then quickly dropping my eyes back down to the plants.

  He paused and dug his hands in his pockets.

  “My name’s Jake,” he said. “Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

  I nodded and forced a smile.

  “Callie,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, Callie.”

  I was hoping he’d just leave but he lingered like a toothache.

  “Looks like the clouds have cleared out. I’m happy for you folks out here. Don’t like to see you get rained upon.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Imagine so.” He laughed a little. “So where you from?”

  “California.”

  “Callie from California. It’s gotta nice ring to it. California. Yeah, I can see that. You look like one of those punk rockers.”

  I wondered what Mo would say to that.

  Please, just leave, I thought.

  “Well, take care of yourself,” he said finally, wandering away slowly.

  I exhaled and focused on the chiles and I envied them and how they didn’t need to talk to anyone or worry about blending in.

  CHAPTER 13

  It was almost eleven and my head was pounding.

  I hoped it wasn’t a migraine. I had never had one before, but Kate used to get them a lot from stress and they seemed awful. I would have to help her get into bed and turn out the lights, even tacking up a comforter over the blinds to make it super dark while she moaned in misery.

  I reached up and felt my cheeks and forehead. I was on fire.

  Autumn was just around the corner but out here it must have been over a hundred. I was close to the end of my shift, but I wasn’t sure I would make it. Maybe I was just close to the end. Period.

  I longed for some Advil and promised myself that if I lived, I would get some when I got back to the city. But that felt like a long, long way off.

  I stood up and drank some water and dumped the rest over my head. I tried to go back to work and at one point I heard Ty’s voice calling for me to come back home.

  “I’m coming,” I heard myself say. “Just a few more chiles.”

  I grew dizzy, my head spinning until I wasn’t sure which way was up. I stumbled over to the portable bathroom and sat in the dark, closing my eyes and not even caring about the smell. The small part of my mind that still seemed to be working began to panic.

  This is bad, it screamed. Oh, this is real bad. If you pass out, they’ll take you to the hospital. And you know what that means? Back to Bend. In handcuffs! You can’t pass out. You just can’t.

  I realized I was panting, taking in great lungfuls of the horrid air. I stepped back outside and made it over to the table with the giant plastic water containers. I filled up my bottle and drank some, glancing over at the cowboy and hoping he wouldn’t notice how much I was struggling.

  I went back out to the field and poured some more water over my head. It helped with the throbbing and while the dizziness wasn’t completely gone, I could once again tell the difference between the earth and the sky.

  I was about to get back to work when someone crept up behind me.

  It was the old woman.

  She spoke to me in Spanish.

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “No,” she said, pointing up to my head. “Ten cuidado, Dolores. El sol es un asesino.”

  She unwound one of the many scarves that were wrapped around her neck and handed it to me, once again gesturing toward my head.

  I nodded.

  “Gracias,” I said.

  She smiled and wandered back to her place in the field.

  CHAPTER 14

  I felt better, but I didn’t do much work after that. My hands had slowed to a crawl and barely filled the last bucket. I kneeled in the mud, waiting for the blast of the horn, not caring about tokens or multiples of eighty or much of anything else except being alive.

  My head still hurt when I boarded the bus, but it was now a dull ache and I could manage. We drove down the road and I was surprised when I cashed in my tokens. Somehow, I had made the most money of any day so far. Just over thirty-two dollars. I almost felt giddy. I wandered over to the food truck and bought two tacos and a couple of sodas, drinking one of them and saving the food for later even though I suddenly felt ravenous. With my head better, I didn’t want to push my luck. I still had the long ride ahead of me.

  Before getting back on the bus I saw that more thunderheads were gathering on the horizon. It was good to be going— I caught myself before saying the word. Home.

  I had no home. But I still held on to the belief of what home should be. Some place special. The shelter in El Paso was not that. Still, I was glad to have another day behind me.

  As I walked down the aisle to my seat in the back I saw her sitting next to Lupe. I handed the old woman the other Coke.

  “Gracias,” I said again, pointing at my head and feeling Lupe’s glaring eyes burning holes into the side of my face. “Thank you.”

  “Por nada,” she said, taking the can in her old, large hand.

  I handed back her scarf, but she shook her head. She rambled on but I only caught a few words.

  “She wants you to keep it, mensa,” Lupe said after a while. “Now, please, just take the damn thing and go away.”

  I thanked the old woman again and made my way to the back, collapsing into the seat and feeling like I had run a marathon. It just didn’t get any easier o
ut here. As the bus bounced along I stared at my hands, three shades darker from all the sun, mud, and green chiles, the black dirt embedded deep in my fingernails.

  A series of strong gusts blew through Hatch, huffing and puffing down the streets and threatening to bring down the overhead signs. I leaned my head on the window and looked out, the whole town smelling like a fire-roasted chile.

  We passed a store with all sorts of giant cement figurines out in front. Those weren’t going anywhere, I thought, the sand and dust bouncing off of them. My eyelids grew heavy and I almost missed her.

  A little girl, no older than four or five, was sitting perfectly still on a swing in a run-down park. She was staring at me with terrible dark eyes, saying something.

  I thought that I heard her voice in the wind.

  One word, over and over again.

  “Mamá.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I had seen a lot of ghosts lately, but mostly I looked right past them. I treated them the way I did the living. I kept my head down and kept moving. But there was something about the little girl that was different. Maybe it was her age. Or maybe it was how she had called out for her mother.

  I was still thinking about her when the bus pulled into El Paso.

  I remembered the two tacos I still had with me and they suddenly seemed so small. I had seen a Burger King on the way into town. A chocolate shake was calling my name. Maybe that was it. I thought that Ty had called to me earlier. And then the ghost of the little girl. Maybe the blistering sun, my screaming head, and the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day had all conspired against me.

  Jesse’s words echoed in my ears about how I needed to ignore them. This wasn’t business as usual. I didn’t have the time or energy to help them. I had to focus. I told myself that the only thing I should take seriously and listen to at that moment was my stomach.

  I stopped in at the shelter, washed by hands and face, and changed. I looked for my cap but it wasn’t there. I headed back out.