Chapter 5: 17 Days Earlier

Aust:

“So, what’re doin’ with your last day off?” Irv asked his little brother. Irv was tall, like Aust, but a thickly set neck with an even thicker red mustache and sideburns made him look like a WWE wrestler. He had the frame for it too, an intimidation that his neatly-pressed uniform only magnified. 

Aust grinned back at him. When his dad had heard about the deal Aust cut with Principal Edwards, he shook him by the hand and brought him a beer. It was the old man’s idea to refer to the suspension as ‘days off’.  Aust had gone shooting on his first day off up at the range in the Heights. Shoulder-to-shoulder and toe-to-toe with all those rich, executive types who worked in the city but lived in the hills where it was summer-cool and spacious and green. On his second day off, he’d volunteered at the Young Republican Center, stuffing information flyers into envelopes and mailing them off to older voters. It was grunt work, he knew, but even Lincoln worked as a postmaster before he became president. But today? Today he had different ideas. 

“I thought I might tag along with you, Irv,” Aust replied, “see what it is you do at ICE.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement had its local offices in the shadow of the Hacienda Markets, a vast, vaulted building dating back to civil war times. Inside, a man could buy all manner of things, from livestock (on Mondays) to fresh produce, boots, dusters, and even the occasional home furnishing. A rich creole of cultures, languages and dialects mixed with local customs and street food stalls to create a patina of diverse Americana. The ICE offices themselves were a small, soulless, concrete block around the back. 

“Alright, now I didn’t get permission for you to come inside,” Irv told Aust pulling up outside the ICE offices, “so just hang out here in the car for a minute while I go talk to my boss and square this with him.”

“Nah, Ima get some breakfast,” Aust contradicted, stepping out of the car. Irv shot him a stern look. “I’ll be like two minutes,” Aust reassured him. “You want anything?”

“You know what, yeah,” Irv replied. “Pick me up one of those breakfast burritos from Garcia’s. It’s this little Mexican store in the east food court. Tell ‘em it’s for Irv and you’ll get a better price.”

“Alright,” Aust said, nodding. 

“And watch out for their chipotle,” Irv warned him. “It burns on the way in–”

“–And on the way out,” Aust chimed in. “Gotcha.”

Aust and Irv had been to the Hacienda Markets hundreds of times as kids. Stepping around the pigshit on livestock days and seeing how many candies they could lift from the various stores without getting caught and chased by some irate store owner. Aust knew the layout like it was his own backyard. But that didn’t stop the stores and store owners changing on what seemed like a daily basis. There was always something new at the Hacienda, always some optimistic, wide-eyed entrepreneur looking to buy into the American Dream. And most of them were immigrants. Aust wondered if that was why the ICE had chosen to set up shop there. To keep an eye on things. Maybe it was just for the breakfast burritos. Aust bought two, with extra chipotle, and headed back to the car to wait for his older brother. 

“Man, did you pick the right day to come to work with me!” Irv declared as Aust passed him a burrito. 

“Picked the right clothes too,” Aust announced, lifting his jacket a little from his body and turning to show off his second-favorite Romney shirt. “Why, where we goin’?” he added, as he saw a number of ICE employees exiting the building and moving with purpose to their cars. 

“Listen to you,” Irv teased. “One day trip and it’s already ‘We’!”

Aust smiled back at him. 

“We’re all in this together, right?” he asked. “Make America Great Again!”

“Not all of us,” Irv replied, looking again. “The Mayor is doing a tour of local businesses.”

“Dem Clem Williams?” Aust replied, biting down on his burrito. The burrito bit back. Damn, Irv was right about the chipotle!

“We just got the okay from the governor’s office,” Irv told him. “We’re gonna pay a little unannounced immigration inspection visit to where the Mayor is at. Press gonna be there with us, too.”

“I assume we have ‘prior knowledge’?” Aust asked. He knew how damaging it would be for the town’s Democratic mayor if even one of the employees he had gone to visit turned out to be an undocumented migrant. Especially if that person was carted off in handcuffs on live television. 

“Oh we got a whole bunch of ‘prior knowledge’,” Irv replied. “And some of them got a whole bunch of priors too.”

This was getting better and better. Undocumented and felons? This was win-win for the ICE: catch a bunch of undocumenteds and make the Democratic Mayor look stupid. 

“So where we going?” Aust asked, finally. 

“You ever hear of Tomàs Santos?” Irv replied, starting the engine. 

“The tomato guy?” Aust confirmed. 

“Oh man,” Aust sighed, grinning. 

That place was full of undocumenteds. 

Tammy:

“This where the women’s health talk is?” Tammy asked, stepping inside the small reading room at the Sherman High library. 

There were about a dozen or so girls in there. Freshman, mostly, but a few sophomores like her and even a couple of seniors. The woman from Planned Parenthood was still setting up at the front. 

“You can’t be here, Tammy!” Alison Mills protested. “Miss Hernandez, tell him he can’t!”

The classroom assistant rose, “This a talk on women’s health, Tammy.”

“I am a woman,” Tammy hit back. 

“The talk is about women’s biology,” Hernandez explained. 

“Y’know, periods and pregnancies and uterus stuff?” Alison chastised. 

“It's okay,” the speaker from Planned Parenthood spoke up. “I think it’s just as important for students without uteruses to know about this stuff as students with uteruses.”

Tammy smiled at the way the speaker had chosen her words. She thought about dialing back the smile before it became an outright grin, but then she figured what the hey, and treated herself to it, breezing past the slackened jaws of Miss Hernandez and some of the other girls.

Hernandez shuffled her way over to the speaker. 

“This is a talk about abstinence, right?” she asked in a whisper. 

“Amongst other things,” the speaker confirmed in the same loud tone she had used earlier. Then added, “Let’s put it to a vote. We live in a democracy, right? All those who think — Tammy is it? — has a right to hear this stuff, raise your hands. Half the hands in the room went up even before Tammy had the chance to raise hers; Alison’s stayed down. 

“That settles it then,” the speaker decreed. 

Tammy brushed past Alison and went and sat down next to one of the girls whose hands had gone up. She was a sophomore, like Tammy. They shared a few classes. They weren’t really friends, but Tammy felt like she knew her. 

“Thanks for voting for me,” Tammy said, enthusiastically. 

“You’re welcome,” Hope replied politely, fidgeting in her seat a little and pulling her arms around her waist. Tammy shuffled one seat further down and gave the girl some space. 

Tammy sat and listened to the talk. It began with general feminine hygiene and health. There were one or two uncomfortable looks across at Tammy from some of the hands-down girls, but she just ignored it. This stuff fascinated her. She could dress a certain way and identify as whatever she liked, but there were some avenues of femininity that would be forever cut off to her, she knew. The other girls could talk about what they did to alleviate cramps and period pain, but Tammy could only sit and wonder emptily what it might feel like to have a period, to get pregnant, to feel life growing inside of her. She didn’t want any of those things right now, but it just felt so unfair to her that she knew — no matter how many battles she fought — some things she could win, never. It might have been the swell of that emptiness that compelled Tammy to share an Instagram post she’d seen online about this patch you could wear that was supposed to relieve bad period pain. 

“Y’know, just in case you hadn’t heard,” she offered, helpfully.

Alison rolled her eyes. 

When the topic got around to drinks- and drugs-spiking, a couple of the girls shared stories about what had happened to friends of theirs. Tammy stayed quiet on that one (she was still only 14 and didn’t go to those kinds of parties yet). But she noticed more than a few of the other girls shot dirty glances across at her row-partner, Hope. Tammy sat, fists clenched, ready to leap to the defense of the girl if anyone started talking about Senior Parties or Rainbow Girls. Nobody did. Though Tammy did notice, on more than one occasion, that the classroom assistant noticed these dirty glances herself but did nothing. More TERF bullshit, Tammy supposed. 

It was when the conversation got round to consent, abstinence and contraception that the room began to turn on Tammy. Alison Mills made a point of getting out of her seat and declaring in a loud whisper that, “Tammy Harrison is making me feel uncomfortable!”

“I bet he’s got a boner underneath there!” one of the girls added under her breath. 

Everyone turned to look at Tammy. Everyone including Hope. 

Hope looked Tammy up and down. Tammy could see she was trying not to fixate on her crotch, but the direction of travel was definitely there. She was the only person in the room who could get any of the others pregnant and suddenly the singularity of her being in that room full of ‘people with uteruses’, as the Planned Parenthood speaker had put it, was forced home to her like an iron nail being driven into a dividing wall.

Hope began to lean forward and then backwards in her chair. 

“Miss Hernandez!” she asked, eventually. “Can I change my vote?”

“Of course you can, Hope,” the classroom assistant announced. “Consent can be withdrawn, right?” she asked, looking at the speaker as she parroted her own words back at her. 

The speaker sighed. 

“Indeed it can,” she confirmed. 

“I’m sorry,” Hope said, meeting Tammy’s gaze; her face was so white. Was that just the fact of her withdrawing her consent, Tammy wondered, or had something else gotten in there and drained all the color away?

“Yeah, I wanna change my vote too,” another of the girls added. 

“I don’t feel as though it was properly explained what we were voting for!” another cried defiantly. 

“Yeah, Miss,” Alison said, rounding on Tammy. “This is for people who use the girls’ bathroom!”

“You were fine with it a minute ago,” Tammy pointed out. She didn’t mean to direct it to Hope, but somehow her gaze fell upon the girl. 

“I’m sorry,” Hope repeated. “You’re right. I’ll go.”

“Hey, why should she have to leave?” Alison interjected. 

“No, it’s okay,” Hope reassured. “I’ll go. I want to go. I don’t feel comfortable talking about this with— I don’t feel comfortable.”

Hope stood up and made for the door. 

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable too,” one of the girls whispered under her breath, “if I was a rainbow skank!”

The words caught under Tammy’s skin, caught the way a spark does when it takes hold of a forest and burns it to the ground.

“You watch your fucking mouth!” Tammy exploded. 

“Tammy Harrison. Principal’s Office. Now!” Hernandez ordered. 

“But she—” Tammy tried to defend. 

“Just go,” Hernandez demanded. 

Tammy looked at the speaker — her last friend in the room — but the woman just pursed her lips and shook her head slightly. Tammy followed Hope out of the door. 

Hope:

Hope was halfway down the hallway before Tammy caught up to her. 

“Hey. Hope, I—” Tammy opened, holding her open hands out in front of her and making herself seem as small as she could. 

“I’m sorry,” Hope replied. There were tears in her eyes. “I just—”

“You got nothing to apologize for,” Tammy reassured. “If anything, it’s me who should be saying sorry to you.”

“You—?” Hope queried. 

“I heard what that bitch said about you,” Tammy explained. “About that rainbow bullshit?”

“Oh—?” 

“And I know it’s bullshit, by the way,” Tammy added. “I heard it a while back now—”

“I know everyone’s been talking about it,” Hope confessed. 

“Well I’m sorry I didn’t stand up and say it sooner!” Tammy admitted. “That it’s bullshit and you shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

“I—?” Hope tried, but the tears had already begun to claim her. 

Hope let Tammy lead her away from the central hallway. A quieter spot down by the languages section of the school. Not her quiet spot, but at least out of the view of the hall monitors and any passing gawkers with a hall pass. She sat on a small stair, holding her hands around her stomach. 

“What did you hear?” Hope finally quizzed Tammy, as soon as she was satisfied no one else could hear them. 

“I heard the same rumor everyone heard,” Tammy replied, “about the seniors’ and the rainbow party.”

“It’s not true,” Hope challenged. 

“I know,” Tammy comforted. “I seen the players involved: the fishheads and JC. There’s bullshit on their bullshit.”

“He’s the worst,” Hope replied. “JC. He’s not what people say he is.”

“I say he’s an asshole!” Tammy declared. 

Hope permitted herself a little smile at that. It was true. He was. And yet there was something else lurking in Tammy’s anger. Was she taking this personally?

“He was so nice to me. At first,” Hope confessed, putting what she had noticed to the back of her mind. 

“We don’t have to talk about it if you—”

“No,” Hope countered. “I want to. I think I need to. He told me such nice things. Said my hair was pretty. Asked me if I was seeing anyone. Even went and stole a flower for me from the neighbor’s garden. I let him put it in my hair—”

“Your hair is pretty,” Tammy said, pulling at one the threads of her own. It coiled and bounced back where she let it go. 

“—But all the while, they kept filling my cup,” Hope went on, certain now that she had to get it all out before it broke her like a dam. “And their liquor was strong. When he took me upstairs it just all seemed so right, you know? Like, JC is the most liked guy in the school—”

“—Then why does he never date seniors?” Tammy asked. 

“Ha,” Hope grunted, ironically. “Because they know him, I guess.”

“They know his tricks,” Tammy declared. “What he’s like. The man’s a walking magnet for bullshit.”

“Where were you six weeks ago?” Hope asked, smiling through the hurt. “I didn’t know that. Then. He just made me feel so—”

“Special,” Tammy stated flatly. “Yeah, JC has a way of doing that.”

There it was again. That something in Tammy’s tone that made Hope want to ask more about that. But now didn’t seem like the right time. 

“In the moment when he asked me, it just seemed so right,” Hope admitted. “And he seemed so gentle and so caring. But he wasn’t any of those things.”

“JC McMillan is in things for himself,” Tammy characterized. 

“I didn't really know what was happening,” Hope admitted. “He just told me everything was normal. That this is what people did. That it was supposed to hurt. The first time.”

“They guy’s an asshole,” Tammy repeated, wearing a sneer that scrunched up her face. 

“Wait,” Hope stayed. “There’s more. I didn’t see them at first—”

“See them?” Tammy also, before she could even stop herself. 

“In the closet. In the bedroom. Two of the guys from the swim team. They were watching the whole thing!”

Hope watched as Tammy’s eyes widened. Then her face slackened with the horror of it all. 

“Hope, that’s so awful. I’m so, so sorry,” Tammy assured, and put her hand out gently for Hope to hold. Hope squeezed it and felt with it as though she was finally squeezing the festering terror of that day out to dry and crumble and maybe one day blow away. 

“They– filmed me,” Hope cried, allowing herself to break down into the warmth of that extended hand. “They filmed the whole thing!”

“Those motherfuckers!” Tammy swore. “That’s illegal.”

“They said if I told anyone, they’d publish it on the internet,” Hope wept. 

“You have to tell someone,” Tammy intoned. “The Principal. The police.”

“Wait,” Hope hit back, certain that she needed to get it all out now she had begun. “That’s not even the worst of it!”

She’d been keeping this in for so long, hiding it in the darkest, most stagnant corners of her mind. Letting it swell and balloon like the carcass of some animal taken by decay. Secrets grow monstrous in the dark and Hope knew it was time this one was dragged out and staked out in the sun. She could feel it, kicking, screaming inside of her to be left hidden, purulent unaddressed.

“There’s more?” Tammy asked, slow realisation breaking across her face. 

Hope let the weight of it out through the tiny crack Tammy had worked compassionately open, certain now it was in motion that its truth would drown her world and leave her castaway on an island of her own stupidity.

“He said he wore protection,” Hope recalled. “I saw him put it on. But he must have taken it off.”

“No—!” Tammy cried. 

“Tammy,” Hope confided. “He got me pregnant!”

Rue:

When Rue got home from school, his mother was already smoking in the family kitchen. The breakfast pans sat unwashed in the basin and her cellphone sat prone on the table in front of her next to an open pack of cigarettes. She looked a mess. 

Mrs Camposano had quit smoking four times – once for each of her children. Three times she had lapsed back, and even though she swore that this last time would stick, the overflowing ashtray and the stink of slightly stale cigarettes told Rue that something had happened. Something pretty big.

“Is everything alright?” Rue asked, looking around the kitchen nervously. 

How long had she been like this? Why hadn’t she called him?

“Sit down,” his mother replied, taking a long, desperate drag of the cigarette. She motioned to the chair. 

“Papi still at work?” Rue asked, sitting. 

He was fishing for clues. And managing his expectations. There was a very small list of things that would make his mother let her kitchen get into that state; very few things that would have her shuffle to the corner store to buy a pack of smokes and — from the looks of the ashtray on the table — go back and buy another.

“How was school?” she opened. 

“It was good,” Rue replied. 

It was true. Today had been a good day. No fights. No political sparring. No ASDs. School was fine; this was shit. 

“Did something happen?” Rue asked, trying and failing not to gesture at the washbasin.

“Something happened at the farm,” his mother revealed. 

“Is dad okay?” Rue asked, his throat hardening as he feared the worst. “Is he hurt?”

Oh please let him be just hurt. 

“Your papi’s not at the farm,”’his mother replied. “They took him away.”

“They?” Rue pressed. “Who’s ‘they’? And where’s ’away’?”

“Those I.C.E. pigs have him,” his mother finally revealed. 

“Immigration?” Rue asked, confusion seared into his brow. “But he’s a naturalized citizen. You both are.”

Rue’s mother drew long on her cigarette and then stubbed it out. 

“Aren’t you?”

“What happened, Mama?” Rue asked. 

His mother went to light up another cigarette. 

“You’ll see it on the news,” she replied. “Everyone will.”

Rue turned the TV on. The main feature was already partway through. He didn’t catch the narration, but the video showed images of ICE officers leading men away in handcuffs. One of them was his father. 

“What the hell happened, Mama?!” Rue demanded, his stomach twisting with rage and shame. 

“Your Papi came across the border same as me. But when his work visa expired, he didn’t renew it. I told him. Three years I’ve been telling him. Kept saying we didn’t have the money.”

She took another long drag on her cigarette. 

“Tio Esteban is down at the station with them now,” his mother informed him as numbly as if she’d been telling him the weather. 

“I should go too,” Rue offered. Then followed it up with, “How many people did they take?”

“Este says 22,” she replied, blowing her smoke up and above the table. 

“All without paperwork?” Rue asked. 

“TV’s calling them ‘undocumented migrants’, she informed him. “Talking about ‘detention centers’.”

“That is not going to happen!” Rue decreed. 

The wall was painted with headlights as a black pickup truck pulled up outside their house. It was Uncle Esteban’s; he was the only person inside the cabin. 

“I couldn’t get him,” Esteban announced as he entered the kitchen. Then his eyes fell on Rue and the glare of the television screen. 

“He knows,” Rue’s mother said. 

“Look, I’m sorry, Rue,” Esteban confessed. “I thought the union lawyers could get them out. But Homeland Security is not budging. Going to keep them in at least overnight.”

“Well, we should organize!” Rue declared. “Get everybody down there and protest!”

“We will,” Esteban replied. 

“I mean now!” Rue demanded. 

“Rue, it’s not that simple,” his uncle replied. “It takes time. Banners. Permissions. People. If we go off without a plan, we’re not a protest, we’re a rabble. And a rabble is one lost temper away from a riot.”

“Then they’re locking more of us up,” Rue’s mother chimed in. 

“So we just do nothing?!” Rue cried. 

“Listen to me,” Esteban said, placing his hands on Rue’s shoulders. “I know it hurts. I know it’s burning you up to do something. Take action. But it needs to be the right action!”

“You mean no action?” Rue chastised. 

“How is it going to look if you march down there and things go off, huh?” Esteban directed. “You’re a politics student. Think! How is that narrative going to play out on the evening news? Brave Son Rescues Father From Evil Authorities? Or Troublemaking Latinos Are Everything We Said They Were?”

Rue hung his head. His uncle was right. He knew he was. 

“We need to do this thing through the courts and due process,” Esteban ordered. “Otherwise, we’re playing right into their hands. And then more of us are locked up. You. Me. Hell, they lock enough of us up and there won’t be anybody left to get us out.”

“I don’t recognize this America anymore,” Rue’s mother sighed, ejecting another puff of smoke. “The dream — this dream they sold us all on — it’s like we’ve woken up and seen that it’s not for people like us. Poor people. Latino people.”

“We’re exactly who the dream is for, Mama,” Rue countered. “This is a country of immigrants. English, Irish, Italian, German and Spanish. Everyone who came here came to make a better version of their life. With better chances.”

“That’s better,” Esteban said, placing a reassuring hand on Rue’s shoulder. “We’re going to get him out, Rue,” he promised. “And you know the union has got your back, Manuela,” he added, turning to Rue’s mother. He didn’t mention money. He didn’t have to. Rue’s mother took another long drag of her cigarette.

Rue didn’t say a thing. 

He pushed his thought somewhere deep inside of him. 

Where it could burn and blacken and mark his insides. 

‘And when we get Papi back, we’re gonna make somebody pay!’