Made in the U.S.A. (23 page)
Both man and boy studied each other then as if they were looking at a specimen of life rarely seen on Earth.
And perhaps they were.
T
YPICALLY, LUTIE WAS
the last one to crawl out of bed, growling and grumbling her way through her morning routine but always finding ways to make everyone within earshot miserable. But not today.
She got up before Fate, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and dressed, all without waking him, even though every movement brought fresh pain to some part of her body. Then, energy spent, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, she crawled back into bed.
For the next hour or so, she slept fitfully. Awake, bits and pieces of the beating she’d taken played and replayed in her memory. Asleep, her dreams reconnected her to the porn film, pulling up images of herself, first with Ebony, then with Lingo, images that bled into more dreams, each driven by greater shame and humiliation than the last.
She was relieved when Juan tapped at the door, waking Fate. A new day. Fresh. Clean. Untouched.
But given the right time, the right circumstances, she knew she’d find a way to screw it up.
After Fate unchained the lock, Juan came in balancing a tray of doughnuts, bananas, and hot chocolate.
“Sorry to wake up you, but we got another far day. Not so long as yesterday, but far.”
“How long?” Fate asked.
“I think a little less of five hundred miles. How’re you feeling, big sister?” She didn’t speak but tried to smile, an effort that caused her mouth to hurt. “Not ready to running a marathoner yet, huh?”
“Marathon,” Fate said.
“My English professor,” Juan said to Lutie while he cocked his head toward Fate. “How ’bout some breakfast?”
Fate took a doughnut for himself, then offered one to Lutie, but she closed her eyes, turned her face away.
“Where’d you get this stuff?” Fate asked as he reached for another doughnut.
“Down in the lobby. Free. A breakfast continental, they call it.”
Fate let that one go. He didn’t want to throw too much at Juan too fast. His abuse of English had been going on far too long to improve much.
“Have you gave her morning medicine yet?” Juan asked Fate.
“No, I just got up.”
“So, I will do now while you eat.” Juan dug around in the plastic sack until he came up with two bottles. He shook out one blue capsule, two white. Lutie swallowed them by sipping bottled water through a straw. Drinking directly from a container was impossible because of the stitches in her lip.
When she finished, Juan put his hand to her forehead. “You feel some warm, Lutie. Maybe you have the fever. I call Dr. Hector now.”
Juan spoke Spanish after he reached the doctor, a way—she believed—that was meant to keep her in the dark. Ordinarily, she would have pitched a fit, would have demanded to know why she was left out of a conversation about herself. But she was too tired, her mind too foggy, to jump into the middle of that fight.
After the call, Juan went to the car and returned with a box containing more medical supplies. After he filled a syringe, as the doctor had instructed, he injected Lutie in her hip. Odd, she thought, that she felt embarrassed when Juan had her lower her jeans and panties, considering that only days earlier she’d been filmed naked, acting her part in sex scenes that left her feeling dirty and degraded.
Minutes later, she was only slightly aware of Juan re-dressing her wounds before being helped to the car with Fate on one side, Juan on the other. And in the last moments of her consciousness, she felt Draco’s tongue lick her hand before she bedded down beside her.
Lutie was still out when, a hundred miles down the road, Fate was wrapping up his tell-all to Juan. He hadn’t left anything out: being abandoned by their father, then living with Floy until she died. Stealing her car to get to Las Vegas, learning their dad was dead, living on the streets, getting free meals when they could. Just trying to survive.
When he finished, Juan took a firm hold of Fate’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Life has not dealed you good cards. Not yet. But I’m—”
“Dealt,” Fate corrected. “Life hasn’t dealt. See, dealt is the past perfect form of the verb deal.”
A groan from the backseat put a temporary halt to their conversation.
“Is she awake?” Juan asked.
Fate took a look at Lutie, who was sleeping soundly. “No. Maybe she’s just dreaming.”
“I’ll check fever again when we stop to eating. You hungry?”
Fate shook his head. “Juan, how did you keep up with us? Back in Vegas? You were always just where you needed to be when we had trouble. How did you do that?”
“I have crystal ball,” Juan said, grinning.
“No, really. Like what were you doing at that construction site where we hid on our first night in Vegas?”
“You mean one being builded on Harmon Avenue?”
“Yeah. Why were you there?”
“Had a job. Night watchman.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Had a cot on floor three. Seen you come in, seen Lutie turn car lights off. Watched you give the place the one-over.”
“Once-over.”
“Then you decided for Lutie to parking. Good place, too, ’cause that Pontiac hided from the street.”
“Then you’re the one who dropped rocks on our car.”
“I know when construction crew come, they call police and haul you to juvie, put you in system. I figure anyone work too hard to be not seen, need help. Besides, I would lost my job if boss founded you there.”
“And the note? About parking at the library. That was you, too?”
Juan nodded.
“Then how did you find us when we moved into the Gold Digger Inn?”
“Ah.” Juan tapped his head. “Detective work. Rodolfo Acosta took over.”
“Who’s Rodolfo Acosta?”
“Famous Mexican actor. Always play detective.”
“Okay, but how did you keep up with us?”
“I think, ‘Now, Rodolfo, where would two kids go if they ascared, but had no money? Cheap place, but room with door and locks.’ Did not take long for this detective to come up with answer. Gold Digger Inn. Cheapest motel in all Vegas. Dangerest but cheapest. So, me, Rodolfo, and Draco find your car. Case closed.”
On hearing her name, Draco’s ears perked up, causing Juan to reach back and rub the rottweiler’s head. “My detective dog.”
“But why did you do all that for us, Juan?”
“All what?”
“The warnings, the notes, food . . .”
“Why not?”
“You’ve been on the streets for a long time, long enough that you’ve seen a lot of people in trouble. Even kids. Did you help them the way you’ve helped us?”
“I try. Sometime I can. Sometime I can’t. Help not always what peoples want. Sometime running-away kids just keep running. Sometime peoples crazy. Sometime they ascared of law, might be to thinking I taking them to jail.”
“So you try to help them because . . .”
“Paying back. I tell you this story. My friends, Rosa and Dr. Hector, going every week to clinic on bad side of town to help homeless who sick, hurt, need medicine, doctoring. One night, Rosa saw me there on sidewalk. Filthy, drunk, old blood on my face, head. Clothes got stink with sick on pants, hair got bugs. No peoples want to touch me.
“But Hector and Rosa touch me, take me to center for detoxing. Month later, Hector come for me. Take me to their home, Rosa feed me, give me clean bed, and they take me to meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“Meeting for drunks, meeting for dopers. Give me book to read, let me hear stories by peoples like me. All stories different, but same. We drink, try to quitting but drink more. Again and again. But in meetings, we learn we cannot to quitting by ourselfs. Need help from Higher Power.”
“Is that God?”
“Maybe God, maybe Buddha, Muhammad, Creator, Virgin Mary mother of Jesus. Maybe just friends or all peoples in meetings trying to help each others. Listen:
Dios déme la serenidad para aceptar las cosas que no puedo cambiar, el valor para cambiar aquellas que puedo, y la sabiduría para reconocer la diferencia.
”
“What does that mean, Juan?”
“I asking for courage to be changing things I can change. Like you and big sister.”
“But me and Lutie, we aren’t drunks or addicts.”
“Not yet. But you live the streets in Las Vegas, can do bad things to you. Make sick your mind. You try to be better peoples, then one day you give up. Juan do not wants that for you and big sister.”
“So you are helping us because . . .”
“Paying back.”
At their next stop, Juan took Lutie’s temperature again, then, obviously concerned, went inside the Stop and Go where he’d parked and placed another call to Dr. Hector. When the conversation ended, he filled a plastic cup with crushed ice, bought a roll of paper towels, and hurried back to the car.
There he wrapped a few towels around a handful of ice and gently washed Lutie’s face, reddened now with fever.
She opened one eye, forced a crooked smile despite the stitches in her lip, and said, “Thanks, Angelo. That felt good.”
Juan turned a puzzled look to Fate, who said, “She thinks you’re Italian.”
“Oh.” Juan shrugged, as if he were accustomed to strangers mistaking him for “Angelo.”
He wet some towels with the last of the ice and placed them across her neck. After he injected her again with Rocephin, he added a yellow capsule to her blue and white ones as Hector had just advised, then he got them back on the road, pushing Matilda faster than he had been.
“How high is her fever?” Fate asked.
“Too high.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Sure. We must only need to get her to Hugo.”
“Does every circus have a doctor?”
“No. Too much expensive. Circus use doctors in the towns where circus is booked. But not to worry. Good doctor in Hugo. We be there soon.”
“Juan, tell me about the place where we’re going. Hugo.”
“A small town, especially when all the circuses are on road.”
“All? What do you mean, ‘all’?”
“Five circuses winter in Hugo.”
“Why?”
“Circus only stay on the road for six months or so. When weather is good. But the animals must to being housed in winter, and Hugo has good winter, not many snows, not many ices. Very nice. How you say word for good air, good weather? Huh?”
“Climate?”
“Ah, yes. In Spanish is
clima
. Climate in Hugo is better for animals. So a owner of some circus find enough land for crew, performers, animals, outbuildings. Word moved to more circuses, and them come to Hugo, too. They stay from October to April, then go on road for about six months before they come back home.”
“Home?”
“Yeah, much circus people buy homes there. Kids go regular to school; the others all work through winter to being ready for next circus season.”
“Who keeps the babies, the little kids, while the circus is traveling?”
“Oh, kids go, babies, too. Remember what I tell you about the circus family, the tribe? The other folks keep check on teenagers ’cause, well, they got sex on their thinking. Anyway, the teenagers take care for toddlers, and grandmas take care for babies.”
“What about school?”
“Each circus has teacher. Maybe two. The kids in class every day. So because students leave regular school early and return weeks after school starts, the circus teachers make sure their kids staying up to their sniff.”
“Snuff.”
“Up to their snuff. Why? Because of good teachers who travel with them.”
“Will the circus be in Hugo now?”
“Maybe. You know if they back as soon as we get close.”
“How?”
“So many ways. Many. Roar of tigers, lions, bears. Moaning and bawling sounds of camels, trumpets of elephants. Donkeys braying, horses whinnying.”
Fate could tell that Juan was reliving a pleasant past but saying nothing about his homecoming.
“And good smells. Popcorn, fried onions, cotton candy. Animals’ odors. To me, is wonderful. The smell of life.”
“Juan, why did you leave the circus?”
“Oh, I’ll tell for another time.” Juan hunched over the steering wheel as if he needed to concentrate more on his driving. “Better check on big sister. That fever.”
“Okay, but when did you leave Hugo?”
“Why you got so many questions?”
“Well, fair is fair. I told you about me and Lutie, so why don’t you—”
“I leave Hugo, my family, fifteen years ago,” Juan said, keeping his eyes on the highway so Fate couldn’t read his expression.
“And when was the last time you came home to visit?”
When Juan didn’t answer, Fate wondered if it was because he didn’t want to or because he was tallying up the time.
Finally, he said, “Fifteen years ago. The day I left.”
Both were quiet as Juan maneuvered Matilda around eighteen-wheelers, cutting lanes to avoid slower vehicles. Once, caught behind two slow drivers, Juan passed them on the right shoulder, causing Fate to close his eyes.
Finally, to break the silence and because of his unlimited curiosity, Fate asked, “What’d you do, Juan? In the circus, I mean.”
“Oh, lots of jobs. Circus need animal trainers, truck driver, ringmaster, cooks, clowns, jugglers, trick riders, midway novelties, roustabouts—”
“Yes, but what did
you
do?”
“I was aerialist.”
Fate’s excitement was obvious. “Tell me about being an aerialist.”
“Maybe another time. I need map. Please look there.” Juan pointed to the glove compartment.
“Sure.”
Juan didn’t need a map. The route was imprinted on his brain, in his heart. But the boy’s request, “Tell me about being an aerialist,” blew away years of sand and silt under which Juan had buried his memories. And he wasn’t ready to dig them up.
J
UAN PULLED INTO
Hugo shortly before eleven that night. The few businesses that dotted Main Street, those that weren’t shut down and boarded up, were closed for the night, with the exception of a bar where three pickups and a motorcycle were parked. A neon sign in the window said, ALVA AND ROY’S TAVERN.
When he reached the residential part of town two blocks away, all the houses were dark except for one.