Kierney Scott - Holding The Line

“Please! Come back,” he screamed. A sob tore through his body, like an axe through a rotting carcass. His slim body shook with it. “Please!”

Torres closed his eyes and focused on the sound of the frogs. He could pick out the individual sounds, like an amphibian orchestra, the low resonant bass, reedy croaks, and then a higher silvery timbre.

But he couldn’t hear them tonight over the screams.

The screams turned to sobs and then finally a whimper.

*****

The boy was screaming again. Every night for a year it was the same: pleading screams that turned to tears and then finally an exhausted sleep.

If Torres could reach him, he would kill him.

He would do it when the boy finally lost himself to sleep. He would lay his forearm against his throat and press until the life drained out of him. The boy wouldn’t know it happened, he just wouldn’t wake up. There would be no more screaming then, no more suffering.

“Please!” the boy moaned.

Torres closed his eyes. He could feel his arm on his scrawny neck, pushing down until his frail body gave itself over to death. Five minutes, that is all it would take. If the boy knew, he would probably thank him, for giving him the only freedom he could hope to achieve.

The boy thrashed against his chains. A year and the boy still thought he could break free. Where the fuck did he think he was going to go?

“Stop pulling, you’re going to wear away your skin and you’ll never get back to the fields.”

“What?” The boy’s voice was pierced with shock. Torres never spoke to him, not even to tell him to shut up, so the boy had stopped trying to talk to him after a few weeks.

“Don’t pull on your chains. If your skin rips you’ll get an infection. Just lay still.”

“I can’t,” he whimpered. “I want to go home.”

Torres closed his eyes. The boy wasn’t going home. But Torres wouldn’t torture him further by telling him that. “Just close your eyes and think about your home. Think about everything waiting for you. Think about what you are going to do.” The boy was going to die here, either at the hands of a soldier, or an infection, or, if he were lucky, Torres would do it himself. Torres would provide him the only humane ending out of the three so he hoped for the boy’s sake he had the chance.

“I can’t,” he cried. “I can’t remember.” He started to cry again, sobs tearing through his slim body.

Torres adjusted himself so he would see him but it was too dark to see anything beyond a dark shadow. “Yes you can. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. You just got home. Who is there waiting for you?”

After a moment the boy responded. “My grandmother is there. She waited for me. She knew I would come home.”

“Good,” Torres encouraged. “She hugs you. Feel her arms around you. Everything is fine now, you are home. Feel it. She is happy you’re home and she makes you a big meal. What does she make you?”

“Pork with chili and fresh tortillas.”

“Good. Taste them. The meat is tender. Feel it melt in your mouth. Taste the sting of the chili. It is hot but it doesn’t burn it just makes your mouth warm. Can you taste it?”

“Yes,” the boy answered. His voice was eager, almost frantic with the need to believe.

“Good. Think about your grandmother. Think about being home.”

The boy was quiet for a long time. Torres thought he was finally asleep but eventually he asked. “What do you think about?”

Torres did not answer right away. The place he went to in his mind was private; it belonged to him alone. The tastes and smells were his. Sharing them would taint them, make them part of this ugliness. He wouldn’t do that. “Home,” he said simply.

“Who is waiting for you?”

Torres’ gut clenched. That was a question he only asked himself when he was strong enough for the answer. He wasn’t sure who was waiting, maybe no one, but he lied to himself and let himself see her. He saw the deep crevice between her eyes that appeared when she frowned. He felt himself rub his thumb over the deep ridge and felt it smooth as her face relaxed into a smile. He smelled the apple scent of her shampoo. He felt her arms wrap around his neck and heard her voice saying “welcome home”. He closed his eyes.

“Are you awake?” the boy asked.

“Yeah.”

“What do you think about?” he asked again.

This time he did answer because the boy would be dead soon. “My woman,” he answered.

“Is she pretty?”

Torres smiled. “She is beautiful.” He vaguely remembered that there was a time when he didn’t think she was pretty. He thought she was plain, now he could not remember for the life of him how he had been so blind. How had he not seen it all along? She was beautiful. Even when he tried to be objective, he could not think of a more beautiful woman.

“What is she like?”

His smile deepened, requiring muscles he had not used in a very long time. “She’s not very tall but you wouldn’t notice because she is strong. Pound for pound she could take most men. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her. She has a right hook that could shatter a jaw.” He warmed when he remembered her punching him square in the face, or more to the point the frantic needy sex that followed.

“What’s her name?”

Torres hesitated. That part he wouldn’t share. That was his. She belonged to him alone. He wouldn’t share her. “I call her Gatita ,” he said instead. “Because she reminds me of a wild cat.”

The boy seemed satisfied. No more questions followed and no more crying, just the cacophony of the nocturnal jungle coming to life.

Torres closed his eyes and thought about Beth, about holding her, about her smile, about her laugh. If he were lucky, he would dream about her. He didn’t very often but every night he thought about her and hoped he would.

It was almost time to make an escape. Girl was trained. He had one chance.

Tomorrow.

*****

His skin burned. The sun sat directly above him, radiating heat across his shoulders. Torres willed the sun not to move. Once the morning capitulated and let itself be conquered by the afternoon, his time in the fields would be over for the day. Coca leaves were supple in the morning when they were still wet. As the day wore on they dried and it became harder to pull them from the branch without tearing your skin in the process.

When he was first brought to the jungle, he had to wrap his hands in scraps of material to protect them. Even then, they blistered and bled but now he did it with his bare hands. It only hurt if he caught a branch the wrong way and it ripped off a callus, even then he rarely noticed until he saw the blood dripping from his hands.

It was worth it, the blisters and blood, just to feel the sun, but it was always over too soon and he was moved back into the jungle, under the dark canopy to continue the process of turning the simple coca leaf into the deadly white powder that entrapped millions.

A guard shouted that it was time for Torres to prepare yesterday’s leaves. They were dry now, ready for the powdered cement to be sprinkled over and then put into the 50-gallon drums and soaked in gasoline. That part wasn’t so different than his time in Los Zetas. They used 50-gallon drums and gasoline too – to burn bodies. At least the cocaine didn’t have the stench of burning flesh.

“El Capitan is coming. I think tomorrow. I heard them talking,” the boy said. He followed Torres around more closely than the dog. He couldn’t shit without the boy. He was by his side in the field, as they stood over the drums, and at night.

His name was Ignacio. Torres didn’t want to know his name, but he told him anyway. He also told him the name of his grandmother and his sister and the girl at the supermarket that Ignacio was sweet on. Torres didn’t give a fuck about any of it but he listened because the talking meant Ignacio had stopped crying at night. There was no more screaming just incessant talking. Occasionally Torres would nod but he wasn’t even sure that was necessary, Ignacio just wanted to talk.