Muerte Con Carne (3 page)

But every time he looked at the cell phone display and saw it blank, his anger intensified. He opened his messages just to make sure he hadn’t missed it somehow, but his text message sat alone with no reply to accompany it.

Is she okay? What if something happened to her on her way home?

He knew she didn’t live in the best neighborhood, and though his apartment complex was no Wayne Manor, he still always felt better when she stayed over.

He squeezed the phone and typed in the message:
At least just let me know you’re okay and that you made it home all right.

He purposely spelled everything out instead of doing the normal text abbreviations, just to show her he was serious, but his thumb hovered over the send icon.
You’re just being paranoid
, he thought.
Just Relax.
He didn’t want to come off as desperate, but that’s exactly how he felt, and his thumb landed on the touch screen and the message was sent. Regret pulsed through him immediately.

He sipped his beer, stood up, and paced the apartment. Found himself in his bedroom, opening his sock drawer. The velvet jewelry box was buried deep, and he pulled it out, finished his beer, and sat on the bed. The sheets were still ruffled and tossed about, and Felix stared at the wet spot in the middle of the bed for a minute.

Why did you have to cum so quick, Felix?
He had been thinking about the time he had gotten so drunk that he crashed his car into a tree. His body had been thrown over the hood and his shoulder collided with the hard wood. The worst pain he had ever felt. And as Marta had been fucking him, her perfect breasts bouncing and her face contorted into a mask of ecstasy, he had tried reliving that pain in his mind. Anything to keep himself from cumming. But she just felt so goddamn good.

And then she left.

She had a lot on her mind, and he knew it. But hell, so did he. They were doing this thing together, and even though Felix was only coming along to keep her safe-something he would never come out and say-he was still going to go through with it.

He cracked open the box and stared at the ring. Fourteen karat yellow gold with one big square diamond sitting on top. It was the nicest ring he could afford, and he told himself that the wedding band that goes along with it would really make the diamond pop. He knew he would be in debt for the next five years-at least-but she was worth it. Marta was worth every penny and more.

Just thinking about actually asking her, getting on his knee and peering up into her eyes as she ogled the ring sliding down her finger sent tremors of anxiety through his flesh. He knew he had to pick the right moment, had to find a time when she was in one of her good moods, when she was being especially cuddly. Though a lifetime of Marta’s mood swings worried him, the good vastly outweighed the bad in his mind.

But when would the right time be? She’s probably stressed out of her skull right now.

Felix had put a lot of thought into that. He wondered if his timing was a bad idea. As dangerous as the next few days were sure to be, he had convinced himself he had to do this now. There was no telling what could happen, and he wanted her to know how he felt just in case he never again got the chance.

His cell phone vibrated.

His heart fell into his stomach. His palms seeped moisture as he grabbed the phone off his dresser, and it nearly slipped from his grasp. A smile stretched across his face, and he bit his lip as he opened the message.

Marta:
Seriously?

Felix sighed, stared at the text for a few minutes before tossing the phone across the room onto his bed. He nearly crushed the jewelry box in his shaking fist.

“Well fuck you too!” He growled as he paced back and forth, fighting the urge to send a message back to her. Any message he sent at that moment he would regret, he knew that for sure. Always walking on egg shells with her, never able to express his true emotions in fear of scaring her off.

“Shit…”

He took a deep breath, placed the jewelry box back in his drawer. On the dresser, lying on its side, was her chapstick. The beeswax kind with peppermint oil. He opened it, slathered his lips in it. Every time he kissed her, his lips had that peppermint burn afterward, just a slight tingling sensation. It calmed him down, and he smiled as he slid his sock drawer shut.

The cork popped free and he drank the wine straight from the bottle, leaning against the counter.

“I love you, Marta. Even if you can be a crazy bitch sometimes.” He laughed at himself, then realized he was drunker than he thought he was.

Tomorrow
, he thought.
I’ll ask her tomorrow, before it all starts.

2

Felix squeezed the steering wheel with sweaty palms as he drove toward Marta’s place. He had picked up donuts, just like she’d asked for. Hot and fresh, their smell filling his mouth with saliva and turning his stomach into a boiling cauldron. He sipped coffee, but the caffeine did nothing for the throbbing headache. He woke up on the living room floor that morning, already late, the empty bottle of Rosé‚ leaning on his neck. His mouth tasted like vomit, though he didn’t remember throwing up and found no evidence of it anywhere in the apartment.

He had to lean his head against the tile as he showered, moaning as his brain slammed itself against the wall of his skull over and over again, punishing him for killing so many of its cells the night before. The toothpaste tasted sour, but he brushed his teeth three times. The duffel bag had been packed earlier the previous day, so he pulled it out of the closet, double checked it. Everything seemed to be in order: old clothes he had bought at Goodwill, a few bottles of water, some protein bars, and most importantly, the necklace and cross pendant. The cross was a little big, but it was the smallest he could find. He was still impressed that they could fit a camera inside of it.

He had zipped up the bag, grabbed his laptop case from the bedside table, and headed out. Just outside of his bedroom, he stopped, snapped his fingers, and doubled back, pulled the jewelry box from his drawer and shoved it to the bottom of his bag.

When he pulled up to the curb in front of Marta’s duplex, it was already near noon, and he just sat there for a minute, loathing the look she would give him once she saw him. Now that Felix could think clearly, he knew his text message was a stupid idea. He was coming off as pathetic, and he just knew it was only a matter of time before Marta would pick up on it and dump his ass. Not that they were a couple. What they had going had no labels. Fuck buddies came to mind, but it was more than that. At least to Felix it was.

He had been staring blankly out the windshield, lost in his own thoughts when the knock at the window nearly made him spill the hot coffee over his lap.

“Where’s my donuts, bitch?” Marta smiled wide at him, puckered her lips and arched her eyebrows. She always made that face when she was trying to be silly, and Felix loved it.

A calm swept over him as he realized she was in one of her good moods, and he hit the unlock button, then stepped out of the car to help her with her bag. He tried his best to hide the discomfort of his pounding head, and he grabbed the bag from her, wrapped his arm around her, and hugged her. “Sorry I’m late.” He leaned in for a kiss, but she pulled away.

“It’s not a big deal. Today’s all about getting there. We won’t actually start until tomorrow anyway.”

But Felix was still only thinking about that kiss she pulled away from.

Relax. Don’t let that fuck up your mood.

His chest tightened, and a hot embarrassment glided over him, but he popped the trunk, tossed her bag in. When he looked back toward her, she was leaned against the car, mouth full of donut, the other half of it clamped between her fingers. She smiled, spoke through the chewed up dough. “These are so good. Sinfully yummy.”

“I made sure the neon sign was lit. Got hot coffee in there for you too.”

“My hero.”

She slid into the car, and Felix jogged over so he could shut the door for her. Her hair was wet as if she just stepped out of the shower, and the smell of lavender soap swirled off her. The rest of her donut was stuffed into her mouth, very unlady like, and as she chewed, her cheeks bulging, she was already reaching for another. Felix also loved that about her. Never worried about what others thought about her, especially Felix. He knew her signature belches were in his near future.

“So,” he said as they drove out of the neighborhood. “You ready for this?”

Her eyebrows lowered as she took another hefty bite from her donut, licked the glaze flakes from her lips. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m getting pretty goddamn nervous. I mean, I’m ready for it, but aren’t you at least a little scared?”

“Shit,” she said as she pulled her lips away from the coffee. “That shit’s hot.” She wiped her mouth, crossed her arms, eyes forward. “Of course I am. But that doesn’t matter. You know I have to do this, you know what this means to me. Look, if you want-”

“Don’t even start. I’m not going anywhere.” He clenched his teeth as a painful throb ignited in his head. “And honestly, you haven’t really told me much. All I know is we’re driving eight hours toward the border to make a documentary about the Border Patrol. That’s all you’ve told me. It’s like any time I ask about it, you change the subject.”

He could see right away that whatever good mood she’d been clinging to was dissolving quickly. It didn’t take much, and though he was risking a long awkward drive, Felix pressed on.

“No matter what, I’ve got your back. Know that. But don’t you think maybe I should know what it is we’re really doing? Marta, dressing up like illegals and getting caught on purpose sounds pretty fucking crazy when I don’t have any details. Why is this so important to you?”

She blew on her coffee, sipped it. Turned to face Felix. “You’re right. You of all people deserve to know. I don’t know why I act the way I do sometimes, I just…” She chuckled. “I’m just a crazy bitch, I guess.”

Felix smiled. “Well, I’d say you got that about half right.”

Her jaw dropped, but she held her smile. “The crazy part or the bitch part?”

“I think I’ve said enough.”

She punched him in the shoulder and snorted. Burped and patted her chest.

“I was wondering when that first donut burp was coming.”

“Just wait til the coffee farts start.”

It hurt his head to laugh that hard, but Felix couldn’t help it.

Marta placed a hand on his arm. “We’re not making a documentary
about
the Border Patrol. Not really. It’s about the way they mistreat the immigrants that they take into custody. Do you have any idea what they do to them? It’s…it’s fucking horrible. And it’s like nobody gives a shit, like Mexican immigrants are less than human, you know? Makes me sick.”

“I know a lot of them get deported. Guy I used to work with, his wife got sent back to Mexico. She’d been here for over six years, had a life started, and they just sent her away. They had a two-year-old, a home. He was pretty broken up about it, I remember that shit.”

“And that’s not the worst of it,” Marta said. “The ones that get caught crossing into the States? La Migra has a tendency to beat the living fuck out of them, even reports of people getting beaten to death or shot. They take them to prisons, sometimes in a different state, with no way of that person’s family to know where they are or what happened to them. And the prisons-”

“Wait a minute. I just want to make sure I’m following along here. You are trying to get caught.
Trying
to. And you want Border Patrol to either beat the shit out of us, possibly to death, shoot us, or take us to a prison? And you’re telling me this prison may be in another state?” He slowed the car, looked at her, though she wouldn’t look back. “Marta, what the hell are we doing?”

“I told you. You don’t have to come. But my mind is made up, and I’m doing this. People need to know how bad it is. You’re scared and I get that, but this is happening to people every day. Look, I’ve been planning this a long time, since before I even met you, so why don’t you just take me back home, and you can go on back to your sparkly clean apartment, okay?”

“I’m not letting you do this-”

“You can’t fucking stop me!”

Felix sighed, pulled the car over. “I was going to say that I’m not letting you do this alone. If you’re going to do it, I can’t do a damn thing to stop you, even though I wish I could. But I care about you too much to just let you go out there by yourself.”

“Then why the fuck are we stopped? If you’re coming with me, then let’s get going.
Shit!
”

Felix put his hands up in surrender. “This obviously means something to you. As fucked up as it is, I can’t see you going through all of this because you feel bad for the illegals. What’s really going on, Marta?”

She bucked up like she was about to hit him, her eyes hard, bright red like she’d been holding her breath. Then all at once, her eyes went soft, her lips trembled, and she was leaned over the middle console, face planted into Felix’s shoulder. Her body shook as she whimpered.

She still held her coffee cup, and Felix grabbed it, placed it in the cup holder. He stroked her hair, staring blankly out the passenger window.

“Marta…what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“M-my parents,” she said, her voice wet and high-pitched. “They were…they were deported. I was five when it happened. You said your friend…y-you said his wife was sent away, and she had to leave her child, her entire life? M-my parents, they were sent away just like that. I was born here…so they made me stay. Was put into foster care.”

“Ah shit, Marta. I had no…I’m so sorry, I…”

She pulled away from him, her face glowing red. Her shaking hands wiped away the tears, and she ran her forearm under her nose. “I got a letter. I don’t know how it got to me, I just remember getting it. From my parents. I don’t even remember who I was staying with at that point. It said they were coming back for me. Said they would come get me, and we could be a family again. They were sorry, said they loved me. I never saw them again.”