Don't Tell Anyone

A young Mexican boy dreams of a better life north of the border in the U.S. and comes up with a plan to move north, trouble is, his friend can't keep his mouth shut.

“Don’t Tell Anyone”

By Robin Scott Johnson

 

            “Holá Raul, do you have the frijolés?” Jose asked as his friend Raul came to the front door.

            “Yes, a pound.  Here ya go,” replied Raul as he handed Jose the small burlap bag while crossing the threshold into the Martinez residence. 

            Throughout the small village of white and pink adobe houses, the warm and spicy aroma was ubiquitous like smoke through a forest during a wildfire.  Tonight was Jose’s birthday, and his mother and sister worked under the low ceiling in the kitchen as they fried up tortillas, chicken, beef, and a small and weevil infested handful of rice.  This was the house that Jose’s late father had built some twenty years earlier by hand.  Using adobe for walls, it had a flat roof with exposed timber beams exposed on its ceiling, which was only about six feet from the floor.  There were four rooms in all, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a common area, making the house a perfect square.  The floor below is merely the same dirt that its residence walked on before crossing over the threshold.  Despite the primitiveness of the house that could only be described as a hovel, it had been a home to Jose and his friends for all of their lives. 

            The house and the little cluster of homes were in a quiet corner of Agua Prieta, Sonora, just south of Douglas, Arizona on the U.S. side.  From word of mouth Jose and Raul had heard about money and jobs in America, and how Jose’s mother had described places like Phoenix as a dreamland, where everything was clean and new.

            As they sat on a small sofa, Raul plucking at a guitar tunelessly, Jose turned to his friend with very sullen eyes, “Raul, I want to tell you something, but you can’t tell a soul.”

            Raul immediately stopped playing and looked quizzically at his friend who was normally very jovial and care-free.  ‘What is dat?”

            “I want to go to Montana to work.  Tuesday I am going to sneak across and hitchhike up there and work.”

            “I’ve had the same ideas for a while, but never mentioned them to ya because I didn’t think ya had any interest in it.”

            “You’re welcome to go too, but you can’t tell anyone.  So let’s meet up mañana after school behind the mercado and come up with some kind of plan.  I am serious, I have to get out of here, I can’t live like this anymore.”  A small gato climbed up over the back of the sofa and over Jose’s shoulder, but he ignored it, it wasn’t important, his mind was moving a mile a minute conjuring up a new dream.

           

            The next day after school Jose sat on a milk crate sipping a stolen cervéza in a brown bag and watching a line of ants as they carried the remains of a mouse from the corpse to their hole.  Raul was late, and Jose was thinking about just leaving and pretending he’d never had the conversation about Montana with him.  Suddenly, Raul came running around the brick corner of the mercado, his face covered in sweat. 

            “Jose, Jose..holá!”

            “You’re late, es’e, where’ve you been?”

            “I was talking to my Aunt Maria, and she’s coming too.”

            “Stupidá!  I told you not to tell anybody.”  Jose exploded; shaking like someone had sucker punched him in the gut.  Jose’s gaze returned to the ants and their little column as he started to calm down. “Okay, okay… just please, don’t tell anyone else.  Let’s come up with a plan of some sort.  Now Tuesday I was thinking we’d wait until after dinner, and then we could meet up here.  Bring only one pair of clothes in a bag, some aguá, crackers, and a flashlight.”

            “Are you going to tell your mom?”

            “No, and don’t tell anyone else.  We’ve got to keep this quiet.”

            “Alright…Do you have the cervesás?”

            Jose got off the crate and revealed a large brown paper bag with a six pack of Corona Extra.  “You get thee this time, not four.” 

            Raul and Jose sat behind the mercado until the night had come and their beers finished off. 

            When Jose returned home, he tossed and turned in bed, and woke up many times dreaming about being in the middle of a parade and not being able to escape.  After around four in the morning he got up and simply got ready for school and went outside to take a walk. 

            The next day at school Jose sat at his desk with a small steno pad and doodled drawings of the Statue of Liberty and expensive cars.  He was awoken from his day dreaming by Raul who threw himself into his seat next to him.

            “Guess what, cuz?”  Raul began.

            “What?” 

            “My Aunt told her girlfriend Theresa and now her girlfriend and her kids want to come too.”

            “Raul!  That’s eight of us now!  Tell them to shut up about what we’re doing or we’re not doing it, that’s it.” 

            “Sorry, Jose, but ya’re not the only one who wants to get out of this dump.”

            “Raul, one of her kids are three and the other is two. What the f**k are we supposed to do?  This is an adventure for us men, not women and kids. I thought your auntie was a bad idea, but this blows.”

            “Are we still going?”

            “Yeah, but you need to let them know not to tell anyone else. My mom’s gonna find out if you don’t, and then it will be over.”

            “So have you decided where we’ll cross?”

            “North of the mission on Camino del Guadeloupe there’s a trail which goes through the mountains and comes to a bit of the fence where there are no roads, migra, or anybody.  We can get under there and walk to Douglas.”

            “S**t, that’s miles—“

            “LANGUAGE!” Interrupted Señor Molina, their teacher.  “Raul, I’ll be sending a note home with you to your padre.” 

            “Sorry Señor Molina.”

            The lesson began and Raul and Jose kept quiet about their plans that were to commence in a mere four nights.  School let out at 2pm and the amigos met up behind the Mercado to drown their woes into oblivion thanks to the stolen cerversas. 

            The weekend came and Raul and Jose played soccer at the church with some of their other friends and lost.  After the game Jose sat on a log, nursing his bruises and pretending that his mind was on the loss.  Raul sat down next to him on the log.

            “Cuz, I need to tell you something.”

            Jose felt goosebumps raise up on his arms as he braced himself for the news which he knew was going to be about more bean spilling. “What now?”

            “Theresa told a few people: Her brother Carlos, who wants to bring his cousins Jose and Victor; Her mom and grandmother who want to go; her novio of course, and what’s worse is that there’s about twenty more people who’ve heard about this and all want to go with us to Douglas.”

            “Are you loco???!!!”  Jose stammered as he bolted upright. “That’s a whole crowd, we’ll never get away with that!”

            “I just wanted ya to know, Es’e.”  he replied, looking down into the dirt with a look of inexplicable guilt. 

            “Just forget it.”

            “What ya mean, Cuz?”

            “Stupida, it’s over, it’s not happening, tell them all it’s off.”

            “Alright,” Raul replied, a tear appearing out of nowhere to carve a small line in his dust covered cheek.  “I am sorry, Cuz.”

 

            The two did not speak again over the next couple of days.  On Tuesday night after dinner Jose kissed his mother’s cheek, stroked the gato’s fur, and walked outside to take a walk.  Nobody in the house noticed his satchel bag which he had swung over one shoulder.

            Jose crossed Agua Prieta’s main square and walked down an alley, to the church of Guadeloupe where he knelt down and prayed for his family, for forgiveness, and for providence.  He stood up and dusted the knees off his faded denim jeans, and walked over to the trail where he stopped and turned around. The lights of Agua Prieta gleamed and lit up the skies, behind him to the north was only darkness, mystery, and what he knew was his future.  Jose took a deep breath and turned around and began walking until he came to three strands of wire that separated his old life from his new. Getting down on his hands and knees and kissing the dirt as he crawled under, being careful not to let the barbs catch on his shirt. 

            Standing up, Jose felt very alone as a voice inside his head suddenly told him, “You’ve made it, you’re here, you’re in America.”  He walked around for a few moments and sat down on a rock and wept for well over an hour.  Finally, he returned to the fence, and climbed back under and into Mexico for what seemed like a very long walk home. 

“I will go back, it’s that simple, it’s that easy,” Jose spoke to God as he felt his future suddenly become much brighter.