Full Moon on the Border, by Alex J. Barrio
They could smell you from a mile away. Deodorant, perfume, shampoo; none of that mattered. Nothing could cover up your blood, your sweat, your tears. “Your layers won’t protect you,” the coyote told me when he saw me bundled up.
He lifted his pant leg and pulled a knife from a holster around his calf. The blade was slightly curved and shined in the moonlight. “What have you heard about the Doble-Ve’s?”
“Nada,” I said.
“They ain’t la migra our parents dealt with. Silver makes them sick. If they get close, hold it in front of you like this” – he held the knife with both hands in the center of his stomach – “and thrust the blade forward with your elbows.” He jerked back and forth. “In and out, fast as you can, until they stop moving.”
“Won’t that kill them?”
“You or them, mija. You want to die, that’s fine. I already got paid.”
“Can I have a gun?” If they were anything like the rumors, a knife would be useless.
“Do you know how to use one?” I shook my head. “There’s no time to teach you. La frontera is that way. Don’t stop moving, don’t look back. You’ll be in gringolandia by dawn.” The coyotes only took you so far now. “Not a lot of people are willing to take the risk since they introduced Los Doble-Ves. You’re a brave little woman.”
Brave?
Stupid?
Or just out of options?
I walked alone. The night was cold, and the landscape barren, dry, and alien. It felt more like Mars than the border between two countries, the border between the past I desperately sought to escape and the new, safer future I hoped to build.
Hours passed, and my feet grew sore and blistered.
Should’ve stolen some better shoes along with that cash.
Miguel’s cash.
Beautiful, charming, wealthy Miguel.
Brutal, dangerous, sadistic Miguel.
Miguel, who did not believe in condoms. Miguel, who did not believe in asking before taking. Who refused to pay for doctors for his girls, preferring his fists to take care of the accidentes.
Miguel, who slept like a rock when the tequila flowed, carried a billfold thicker than my fist that he loved to flash along with the twin guns he always carried.
My mother had warned me about him when he first prowled around my neighborhood, about the kind of flashy man who told beautiful young women exactly what they wanted to hear before they were old enough to know better. A man like my father, who disappeared soon after my conception.
I ignored her until the bruises on my face warned her that if we did not act quickly, she would have no daughter to protect or worry about anymore.
Now, I prayed her own journey to la otra frontera in the south would go smoother than mine. She risked it all to help me escape after sacrificing so much to give me a good life. When she said goodbye, she kissed me on the forehead and told me through her tears, “Todo está perdonado” and gave me una bendición. All is forgiven. I wish I could say the same for myself.
Maybe en el otro lado.
I reached a steep hill and struggled on the journey up, clutching my belly as I stopped to catch my breath with every other step. My foot slipped on a loose rock. I rolled onto my back and slid down, screaming as the rocks ripped my pants and scraped the backs of my legs.
“Ow ow ow owooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
The howl sent a shiver up my spine. I had hoped they were not real, just a myth created by the gringos to discourage us from making the journey. A scary story to keep us out, like a monster in a closet full of the Christmas gifts that parents keep secret from their children.
“Ow ow ow owooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
I reached the top of the hill and scanned the countryside. The desert was dark and dead, like the mouth of a cave expanded to swallow the entire world. I walked sideways down through a patch of cactus, narrowly squeezing my body between the prickly plants with my backpack over my head.
“Ow ow ow owooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
I sprinted sideways through the narrow gaps between needles.
“Ow ow ow owooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Another howl, closer and louder than the last.
The patch of cacti ended, and the path was once again wide-open and desolate. I trudged forward. I asked the coyote when I would know I reached el otro lado. He shrugged and said I would know. “The world suddenly feels different. One moment, you are home, the next, you are not. You’ll see.”
I jogged, waiting for the unknowable feeling.
The bright white moonlight and twinkling stars provided enough light for me to see the shape when I heard the galloping. I froze and held the knife out in front of me as far as I could. Sweat and tears dripped down my face in a salty mess I could taste in my pores before the fluid reached my lips.
Like this, I heard the coyote’s voice in my mind.
I pulled the knife back and held it with both hands in the center of my chest, blade out and shaking in my hands.
El Doble-Ve initially looked like a large dog with thick, dark fur. Its massive snout dripped thick gobs of saliva. As it got closer, it went from running on all fours to standing up straight and running on its hind legs.
The creature stood up and looked at me, face dripping with what I now saw was dark red blood. It licked its jaw with a long black tongue.
It wore a dark green uniform: pants and a button-up shirt with “CPB” over its heart. It spoke in English into a radio on its shoulder, its voice like scraping gravel as the words struggled to form in its unnatural mouth. “Code 17 at my location. Female runner.” It sniffed the air. “About four months pregnant. I repeat, Code 17, second-trimester pregnant female.” It turned to me. “What’s your name?” he asked me in Spanish. ¿Cómo te llamas?
I walked backward, eyes darting in the hopes of seeing a place I could run to, but found nothing but more dirt, more sand, and more emptiness.
Its eyes shifted from the knife to my face and back again as it walked toward me. “My name is Bill.” Me llamo Bill.
Bill? The blandness of the name somehow made him more terrifying.
“Magdalena,” I said, shuffling backward in what I hoped was the right direction.
He inched toward me. “Nice to meet you, Magdalena. You look a little young to be all the way out here on your own. How old are you?”
“Stay away!” I screamed, swinging the knife.
“Why don’t you put the knife down, and we have a nice friendly talk in my truck?”
“No!” I thrust the knife forward, and he stopped, leaning away despite there being more than enough distance between us. “Leave me alone!” I yelled in English, remembering the phrase my mother told me to memorize if anyone dangerous came too close.
He seemed amused to hear my broken English. “Are you scared because of this?” He continued in Spanish, gesturing to the blood on his face. He pointed to his right arm, where the sleeve was torn and wet. “I had no choice with one of your primos. He had a gun. But you’ve done nothing wrong, so you have nothing to worry about.” He held his sharp claws out in front of him as if showing me those empty, monstrous hands would inspire trust. “You haven’t even crossed the border. You’re still in Mexico. I can get you home safely.”
Still in Mexico? “If I’m still in Mexico, why are you here?”
“Preventative enforcement.”
“Is that legal?”
“Legal? You really want to talk about what’s legal right now?” He stopped. “Just put the knife down and relax. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“How can I trust you?”
How many times have you made those promises to someone before tearing their bodies apart and leaving the scraps for the vultures?
He sighed, a deep exhale with a light whistle. “You don’t have a choice. More of us are coming. That silver butterknife of yours won’t protect you from a pack.”
“I’m not going back.”
Die here or die there––our bodies end up in the ground all the same.
The sun was beginning to rise behind him. North and the US border were to my left. I had to keep going. En el otro lado, there was a chance for my baby to break the cycle of pain that ensnared me and my mother and my grandmother, one generation after another, trapped without hope and opportunity. So many people had left our village through the years, never to return––they didn’t even write. Most believed they were dead. I hoped they had just found such joy that it hurt too much to lack back at the desolate place they abandoned.
He dropped to all fours and growled. He licked his chops and stepped toward me.
I walked backward towards el otro lado.
Bill sniffed the air. “It’s been a long time since someone like you came along.” He seemed to smile, showing off his jagged teeth.
“I won’t go back,” I repeated in English this time.
“You really willing to die to get to America? What do you think is waiting for you there?”
I thought of the money I stole from my child’s father, what he had done to push me to this point, and what he would do to me, my mother, or my baby if he caught me.
It did not matter what awaited me on the other side of la frontera; I had nowhere else.
Sirens blared. Two SUVs with lights flashing headed our way. The creature trotted to within a few feet of me and stood straight up again. “Unless you want to give birth to that baby while chained to a metal bed in a jail cell, put the knife down and come with me.”
I imagined the leather straps at my wrists and ankles and a thick strap around my neck. I saw my legs propped up and forced open as I pushed and breathed and pushed and breathed until my baby slid out into the arms of masked strangers who would take it away and sell it to some white Christian family that would claim to raise her as one of their own but treat her like a servant: the “ugly” little orphan they rescued always forced to do the most chores, always suffer the harshest punishments.
No.
I lunged forward, jabbing the knife up into his neck like I was taught to. Stunned, the creature staggered backward, screeching and howling as his head became a ball of pure fire.
Behind him, the CBP trucks drew closer— howls coming from the drivers’ seats.
“Ow ow ow owooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
I ran north, clung to the hope the unknowable feeling of crossing the border and entering the US was close. No matter the horrors ahead, I knew they were nothing compared to the horrors I left behind.
Alex J. Barrio is a Cuban-American political consultant and progressive advocate living in Washington, DC. He can be found onTwitter for poetry (@1001Tanka) and fiction (@AlexJBarrio). His stories have been published by The Colored Lens, Four Palaces Press, Roi Faineant, Bullshit Lit, Hearth and Coffin and Unstamatic.