Solito

by Javier Zamora

Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.

“The bad dreams, those you have to tell first thing in the morning so they don’t stay in your mind. And never in the kitchen, or else they get in your stomach. That’s how you get indigestion,”

It’s because our parents are not here and we’re not there that Mays and Junes are sad. For most of us, our grandparents are the ones who show up for Mother’s and Father’s Day assemblies.

Don Dago is the coyote who took Mom to La USA four years ago. He’s been coming around the house more often. I can put two and two together. I’m my grade’s valedictorian; I get a diploma every year for being the best student.

“Your parents, tontito.” I like it when she calls me that. The word sounds like rain slipping through holes in our roof, falling into tin buckets we place on the floor so the room won’t flood.

Mali is only twenty-three, but she’s heard placing your feet on the wall like this helps with “cel-u-li-tis.” I like that word, cel-u-li-tis.

I’m too shy. At school, the cool kids make fun of me and I don’t say anything. I hide.

We’d repeat until Grandpa passed out on the hammock. He always let me keep the change, which I stuffed into my Super Mario piggy bank I never cracked open, until last year when my parents said they didn’t have enough money to bring me to them. Abuelita cried when I told her why I broke it. I cried because she was crying and because she told me it wasn’t enough.

I overheard Abuelita say there’s more violence now, so more and more people need coyotes. Just last October, Papel-con-Caca got shot in front of our house at dawn.

It was days after my seventh birthday, after I’d gone to the U.S. embassy twice to get a visa and it became clear that leaving on an airplane wasn’t gonna happen.

I like that word: cruzó. I can see a crucifix. Maybe the fence is made up of a lot of little crosses.

Not because she makes the best fruit, but because her joy is infectious. Plus, she does know it all. She’s the one who first told me the story of the day Dad left for La USA.

The nuns called my grandparents and Margarita’s mom to tell them I was “too young for girlfriends.” I’m too young for love, I wrote on the blackboard one hundred times after school, the first and only detention of my life.

“Premonitions are to be honored. God always sends signs.”

El Salvador needs kids like me, that people like me will make this country better, that it would be a shame if I ever left, like some kids at school already have. —

Then Mali and Abuelita hug me at the same time. Only now, I cry. This is it. The thing I wanted to happen, but it’s happening so fast.

Grandpa grabs my arm. Walks me past the door. “Don’t look back,” he says. But I do. I see Abuelita and Mali in the middle of the door, holding each other, Lupe has a hand on each of their shoulders. “Come on,” Grandpa says. And we walk.

“I have your tickets. We’ll talk more in Tecún. Sit separately. Remember, I’m not your anything.”

“El Pulgarcito de América,” the nuns said about El Salvador.

The myth says God created a light cadejo to protect humans. The devil got jealous and created his own version, a dark one. Mom drew them like dogs or wolves, but with goat hooves and a goat tail.

cadejos have eyes “that burn like coals inside a stove,” that the eyes are the only thing most people can see, if and when they see one. He says his cadejo is gray, that there are different colors, different personalities, that it’s not so simple, not all good, not all bad, not all black, not all white.

Legend says if it’s far away, the whistle sounds close; if it’s close, the whistle sounds far. “They protect you when you need it.”

Eat as much as you can; you never know when you’re gonna eat again.

Grandpa taught me to hold my left hand out far in front, my arm straight. Then, like a flag, I shift my fingers to the right. I line my index to the bottom of the sun, until my fingers reach the horizon. However many fingers there are, each equals fifteen minutes to sunset. Four fingers equals an hour.

I love Grandpa like I love Abuelita. I didn’t know I did. I didn’t know he loved me. He’s been patient like Mali. I’ll miss him.

“migrantes” is what the locals call us. A word that’s hard to say. The gran to the tes like a mountain that’s hard for my tongue to climb. A word like there’s salt water in my throat.

I still feel dizzy. When I stand, I feel the waves trapped in my body, in my legs, in my tummy. I feel like I’m swaying.

“India pendeja, hija de sesenta mil putas, cerota mal parida.” Her mouth like a rabid dog’s, saliva spewing out from her like venom. I’ve never seen her this mad. “Pinches mojados,” the lady responds after a long pause.

“We’re from the only country in the world named after God. Think about it.”

“So that means He will help us get to ¡Los Estamos Unidos!” Chele screams the last part.

Los Estamos Unidos. I like that. It’s where we’re going. Together. To be with our families.

¿Are we gonna be ok? ¿Is she gonna call the cops? She knows we’re Salvadoran. Guanacos. Cerotes. Majes. Chambrosos. Chiflados. Cachimbones. There’s a pupusa on our foreheads.

¡Almost full moon! That’s a good sign. Cadejo, the moon, will be big.

He was “deportado.” My town was right; he’s a bad person. But we’re deportados. I want him to make it to his mom.

“Careful is for kids. Cautious is for adults.”

Last time, I listened for Cadejo’s whistle; now I know for sure he doesn’t exist. Bad things keep happening. He’s just a myth. Just like Marcelo, Cadejo is full of lies. If Cadejo was real, we wouldn’t have gotten caught. Patricia wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Coco Liso would still be here with us. Our prayers haven’t helped either.

Always at dusk in the desert. Sunrises, sunsets, I’m starting to hate them both.

Mom likes to call them my “angels,” but I worry that takes away their humanity and their nonreligious capacity for love and compassion they showed a stranger.

This book is for them and for every immigrant who has crossed, who has tried to, who is crossing right now, and who will keep trying.

And to Chino, Patricia, and Carla, wherever you are, I owe you my life, I carry you with me, siempre.