Naomi Hirahara - Santa Cruz Noir

I was ruthless, and I was smart. The loyalty? Love changes a man.

The gun on the kitchen table is not mine. Yet there it lies, insisting upon its own fealdad, its ugliness. Infecting my home. Sunlight streams through the window above the sink where Martha has set a vase of flowers and glints upon the gun. It breeds disease. And there, on the table next to my daughter Lupe’s doll, the disease spreads.

The gun is not mine. Worse, it is my son’s.

Se sigue.

“Get it away from the doll, eso infecta ,” I say. Martha raises her eyebrow. Perhaps I have said a crazy thing, but I cannot think with the gun so close to Lupe’s doll. “ Por favor .”

I look away. Out the window, green berry fields stretch to the hills beyond. The cultivated rows are identical to the ones I hunched over sweating and picking just hours ago. My hands still ache, the fingers throbbing and slow to uncurl unless I will them. Martha purses her lips. She lays the gun on a dishtowel, checks the safety, wraps it, and carefully sets it on the chair beside her. She glances at me, her mouth so small I fear it will not open again.

“Luis,” Martha says.

I gaze into her eyes, wide and watering. A kitchen chair creaks in protest, resisting my heavy body. I heave myself into it. This life — I’m soft now, no longer the jefe’s right hand. I’m simply Papa, and I am happy. Was happy, until this moment. I wonder how my son caught the sickness.

“Luis,” Martha says again, and sits herself beside me. My hands tremble, and I thrust them beneath the table. She sees, but I pretend she does not.

“Where did you find it?” My voice coarse and hushed.

“Out back. In the shed. I knocked over a box on the shelf. It was in the box, Luis. Loaded. I checked. You said you’d never have one again, ever.”

“I know.” I tell myself to look down. To be ashamed. Bien . Maybe I can fool her after all. Just to buy time. All I need is time to think.

“Talk to me,” she says. “Just tell me. Why?”

The sunlight washes over me, and dust floats in the empty space, at peace. In the stillness, the refrigerator rattles to life. Beneath letter-shaped magnets our pictures cover the outside: Juan on his first day of school. Me and Martha after she got her license. (The test, all in English, was a mountain we climbed together.) Juan holding Lupita after she was born (so tiny she was, and Juan, so proud to hold her).

“After that day. We needed protection, just in case.”

She shakes her head. “But loaded, Luis? It’s not like you.”

I bang my hand on the table. “So I made a mistake! I cannot make mistakes? I was a tarado , I left it loaded!”

Her eyes widen again. They have seen something terrible. They have seen the truth. My theatrics pushed too far. A gasp escapes her, and her hand flies to cover her mouth. She presses her hand tight over her lips, as if the knowledge is airborne, and if only she does not breathe she will not know. She pushes herself backward, chair scraping the floor, and she is on her feet. Not saying a word, her eyes pleading, No, no . Tears spill down her cheeks.

“Talk to him. Now,” she says.

I stand and turn from her, my boots heavy on the floor, softer on the carpet down the hall toward Juan’s room. The music from one of his video games thumps through the wall. He told us he bought the speakers, the TV, the clothes, all from the money he made stocking shelves at the grocery store after school. I wonder when he became a better liar than me.

In front of his room my hand floats above the doorknob. If I open it, I do not know what will follow me inside. But too late for that. Time now to speak to my son of death.

Se sigue.

A policeman shot Arellano at a traffic stop, of all things. Arellano drew on the officer first, and in seconds both men lay dead on the road. The cartel fell into chaos after that, the narcos like chickens running around with their heads lopped off, or roosters fighting to dominate. Allegiances formed. Killing. Choosing a side was important. And I did not choose.

When Martha told me she was pregnant with Juan, I told her to pack her things. She looked at me in shock, in doubt. We had never thought the idea possible. But her face soon hardened into stone. She would go. For us, for her family.

We went north to Watsonville, a town with a community and work for Mexicanos . Hard work, picking the fields or cleaning. But we found friends. Lived with them, worked with them. I had some money left from my old life. Not much, but enough to help us create a new life.

Juan was five when they found me. That day, I drove home after work, my rusted Toyota pickup grinding through the field roads at the bottom of the Royal Oaks Hills. When I pulled into our driveway and saw the shiny black SUV, I knew. The wicked thing had come breathing hot on my back.

I stopped the truck, my sweatshirt damp and roasting in the cab’s stale heat. My throat suddenly dry. I squinted at the SUV, the tinted windows. No movement. Only sunlight glinting on the black paint. Please let Martha and Juan be okay, oh God, please let them—

No. Worry would not help me. I was not a hero. I was a man who had done bad things, and my family was in danger.

I got out of the truck and bit the inside of my cheek, to keep me sharp. Blood welled up, copper pain like an angry spark. I crouched down, crawled to the back of the SUV. Raised my fist and rapped on the back window. Waited. Pressed my ear to the car. Silence. I hunched over, back aching, and ran to the driver’s-side door. Tried the handle. The door opened and I squatted by the tire. Nothing from the SUV. I opened the door wider, pressed up on the leather driver’s seat, and peered inside.

No one in the car. They were inside the house.

I swayed through the front door, already open. Waiting for me. Laughter, loud and familiar, drifted from the kitchen. I followed.

“Señor Cruz! Good of you to join us! Good to see you, mi amigo !”

I had not heard that voice in many years, save perhaps in nightmares, but I could never forget it. My eyes flicked quickly, seeing without looking. Registering. Preparing.

Martha sat hunched at the table, eye swollen shut, puffed black, blood running down her chin. Still breathing, thank God. At the sight of her, I wanted to scream. But screaming would not save her. And where was Juan?

A man leaned back over the counter. Thin, corded with muscle, a mustache drooping down his face like a frown. Hair slicked back with grease. A gold plated AK-47 dangled in his hands. Too much for me, mano a mano , even if I somehow wrestled the rifle from him.

The other man, the one who had spoken, sat next to my wife — grinning at me through misshapen teeth stained the color of old urine. Clean shaven. Sharp eyes. Eyes that see beyond, we used to say in Mexico, cursed eyes. Wearing crocodile cowboy boots and a bolo tie. His rolled-up shirt sleeves, tattoos of skulls and M-16s creeping out like a rash on his skin. Waving around a diamond-encrusted Browning 9 millimeter, with a custom grip. A good gun. The type of gun I used once.

I nodded. “ Hola , Rojelio.”

“He remembers!” Rojelio said. “How good to be remembered. Especially by the great Señor Cruz, and after so much time. Your wife, she has not been hospitable; she did not offer us coffee. You know how I enjoy my coffee, Luis.” He tapped his piss-colored teeth with the barrel of his gun and laughed.

Perhaps they did not know I had a son. If they had killed him, Rojelio would tell me soon enough. Just to see my face. M’ijo, if you are hiding, stay hidden.

“I’ve missed you,” Rojelio said, still smiling, always smiling. We used to say he would smile even when la bala lo encuentra , the bullet finds him. “Sit down, sit down!” He pointed to a seat by Martha.