Chapter 8: 12 Days Earlier

Rue:

It was Saturday morning—the day Rue had both dreaded and hoped for since the night he first learned about his papi’s arrest. Only ‘arrest’ wasn’t really the word. You’re arrested when you’ve committed a crime. Like graffitiing or battery or homicide. Then, you’re taken down to the local police station and locked up. You get your phone call. You get your lawyer. You get a date in court. This didn’t feel like any of that. This wasn’t arrest. This was detention. 

Rue’s papi had been moved overnight to a new detention center on the edge of town. It seemed to have sprung up almost overnight between 19th-20th December. Rue hadn’t heard a word about its construction, which — now he was standing in its imposing shadow — seemed absurd. Row upon row of chain link fencing topped with razor wire stretched for hundreds of feet in both directions, with a tall guard tower in the center looking out over what Rue could only assume were the cells. He couldn’t see inside very well, but the sheer size of the structure, combined with the ambient noise inside it, suggested it was home to more than just a few dozen undocumented migrants. 

There were protesters too — mostly wary African-Americans and Hispanics — holding makeshift banners, shifting, watching, testing the patience of the security forces. Rue didn’t recognize the uniforms the guards were wearing — private security, maybe; or a new government force fully-funded from MAGA-central, but not yet announced to the tax-paying public. But he recognized the men and women in them. He’d seen their sort on marches and in footage of rallies. MAGA voters, every one of them. So militant, so empowered, so utterly convinced of their own righteousness. But Rue wasn’t there to clash with them. Nor to test the strength of their conviction or their numbers. Today was his assigned visiting day. They were letting him see his papi. 

Rue expected to show his ID at the entrance. The man he handed it to — only a little older than himself and with a bad mustache — inspected it thoroughly before putting it near the scanner. What if it came back as fake? Would they throw him in the next cell beside his papi? It wasn’t, of course. He’d been born in San Silvestre Hospital right here in town. He had a US passport, though he wasn’t sure what that counted for anymore. The young man waved him through to the metal detector and body scanner. By the time he got inside, Rue felt dirty. 

He took his seat in a row of cheap plastic chairs alongside other family members of detainees. They wore the same sullied look as he did. Nobody was talking. Nobody looked at anyone outside their family. Everyone was waiting for their name to be called. Then they disappeared inside a small room for a few minutes and came out looking emotionally crushed. Rue didn’t know what happened in that room. What they had been told. But it couldn’t be good. He didn’t doubt he’d find out in a few minutes. 

As the minutes ticked past, Rue watched the room of people fill up. He’d counted the chairs three times while he was waiting, partly out of boredom, but mostly to figure out how many people the government had in there. There were 144 chairs exactly in their waiting room. An average of 2-3 people in each group. That meant over 50 people were being seen in the morning session. Another 50 in the afternoon. The same again on Sunday. Seven days in the week. This wasn’t a few undocumented migrants. This was an entire movement. 

Rue watched as family after family came and went. He was there alone. His uncle was working today and said he’d spoken to his brother — Rue’s papi — through their union lawyer anyway; Rue’s mother refused to come. She said something lame like she ‘Didn’t want her anger getting in the way of Rue’s feelings.’ His brother Pablo had an antenatal class with his wife Jessica and his sister Isa was working. It felt more and more like he was the man of the house. Damn that sucked. 

An hour rolled around and they still hadn’t called Rue’s name. He started to run through in his head what that meant. 

They were toying with him. 

That MAGA asshole had somehow gotten them to revoke his visitation. 

He got the wrong day and it was really tomorrow he needed to come. 

Eventually, when the clock wheeled around to 11am — a full two hours after he’d queued up outside — and the room had emptied out to maybe a dozen or so people, Rue got up and went to the desk to inquire. 

“Excuse me—” he said, approaching the guard’s desk. 

“Arms off the counter!” the guard ordered before Rue had even had the chance to finish what he was saying. He was a thick man in his forties. He might have been in the military once from his short, graying hair and firm-but-sagging physique. Rue lifted his hands up deliberately from the counter and set his jaw. 

“—I’m just wondering what time I can see my father?” Rue asked. 

“Detention number?” the guard asked from behind his thin glasses. 

Rue fumbled about for the letter that had come in the mail. He passed it across the desk to the guard, being careful not to put his elbows on the counter like before. 

“His name is Alvaro Camposano,” Rue informed the guard. 

The guard took the sheet of paper and made no acknowledgement of Rue’s statement. He hacked at a few keys on the keyboard, typing in the number on the letter. Then he handed the paper back, cleared his throat, and looked at Rue across the tops of his spectacles. 

“Your appointment was cancelled,” he informed Rue coldly. 

“Wha— No,” Rue countered. “The letter only came yesterday. There wasn’t a phone call or anything.”

“Your appointment was cancelled by the detainee,” the guard clarified. 

“I don't understand,” Rue confessed. “What does that mean?”

“Means your daddy doesn’t wanna see you, kid,” the guard enunciated. 

Rue felt like he had been smashed in the chest. And there was no hiding from the crushing wound of it. It had to be a mistake. They’d done something to him. In that place. Maybe they’d beaten him and he didn’t want his son to see the scars. The thought of that left scars of a different kind on Rue. Were they torturing people in there? Making them confess to crimes. He had to get inside. He had to—

“Happens sometimes, son,” the guard added. “A few people can’t handle the shame.”

“My papi can handle anything you can throw at him,” Rue spat back. 

The guard smiled knowingly. 

“Yeah. I used to feel that way about my dad too. You can petition for another appointment. Detainees usually get antsy around the time of their deportation.”

Rue felt the ground fall beneath him.

“But he still has an appeal,” he countered. 

“They always do,” the guard replied, and gestured for Rue to move out of the way. 

Hope:

“You just looked like you needed some fun, is all,” Hope said as Tammy twisted in the grip of her hospitality. 

They were standing in the Highlands mall, on the edge of the out-of-town shopping district in the Heights and Hope had never seen Tammy look so uncomfortable. Even her black leather coat seemed tense, its silver zippers rattling like they might shake themselves loose from their straight, metallic chains.

“When you said ‘The Mall’, I thought you meant the Crossdale mall in Downtown,” Tammy replied as the buses set down and picked up behind her. 

“Euw, no,” Hope said before she could stop herself. Then quickly followed it up with, “I thought we could glam out uptown a bit.”

“I’m all about the glam, as you can see,” Tammy commented, opening her arms and letting her usual outfit speak for itself. 

Maybe this was a mistake. No. Change was good. Change was supposed to be uncomfortable.

“You wanna get a latté?” Hope asked from behind her scrunched up nose. 

“Lead the way,” Tammy sighed; she wanted one really, Hope could tell. 

“So this is where the rich and the famous hang out,” Tammy commented as she slurped on her mocha frappuccino. 

Why did Tammy throw up so many walls? She enclosed herself like a city of one.

“And now we’re hanging out here,” Hope offered. “Guess that makes us rich and famous too?”

“Nah,” Tammy replied, thumbing behind her to where two immaculately dressed and made-up girls were posing for cute selfies. “When I get famous, I want it to be for something worthwhile. Not for some wannabe influencer bullshit.”

“When you get famous?” Hope queried with a smile. 

Tammy smiled back. That was better. She didn’t look so ‘spikey’ when she smiled. 

“If I get famous,” Tammy corrected. 

“You’re practically famous already,” Hope told her. “I hear you reemed that senior boy in Mr Heineman’s Gov and Pol class.”

“That word means something kinda different downtown,” Tammy informed Hope, and looked away while slurping on her straw. “And anyway, I think that makes me more kind of infamous,” Tammy said. 

"Ooh, infamous. That’s got a better ring to it,” Hope mused, trying it on for size.

“If I get famous, I want it to be for something infamous…”

The two girls laughed; Tammy seemed a lot more relaxed now. This hanging out thing was working. 

“Now what in the hell do you supposed he’s doing here?” Tammy said suddenly, shooting across the bow of their new-found fun and nodding to the other side of the mall food court. Austin Freeman stood there, his red MAGA hat planted like a flag staking territory. He hadn’t seen them. 

“Let’s follow him,” Tammy suggested. “See what he does.”

“What?” Hope queried. 

“C’mon,” Tammy replied. “You said you wanted to have some fun: let’s have some fun.”

“Okay,” Hope caved almost immediately; when you pull someone out of their comfort zone, she knew you had to meet them halfway sometimes. But still there was something inside her that didn’t feel right snooping around following someone. 

They trailed him past a couple of stores. Hope tried not to look at the brands in the drugstore: Pregnacare, Pregnaplan, Prenatal DHA; the intrusive smiles and intrusive bumps on the women accompanying the ads. 

“Wait,” Hope directed as Tammy was about to break cover and head towards the next large support pillar. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“Hope, this guy is low-key sus,” Tammy muttered. Tammy replied. “What’s he doing all the way out here? Why doesn’t he go to his home mall?”

“You’re all the way out here?” Hope pointed out. 

“Yeah, cos you invited me,” Tammy shot back. 

“Maybe he’s meeting someone,” Hope conjectured. 

“Don’t you wanna know who it is?” Tammy asked. She was a little too into this for Hope’s liking. 

“Maybe he’s meeting a girl?” Hope offered. 

“Or a boy,”’Tammy countered. “Either way, if he’s doing it all the way out here, he doesn’t want to be seen. C’mon, before he get away!”

“Why are you so obsessed with that boy, Tammy?” Hope asked, not moving from her spot behind the second pillar. “Wait, do you like him?”

“Austin Freeman?!” Tammy reacted. “Euw, no! He’s like way too old for me. And he’s a guy!”

Something twisted in Hope’s gut, like butterflies with fists, hammering her insides. It wasn’t disgust. It was— Fear? Disappointment? Shame? She swallowed all three down with a gawkish smile. It had never occurred to Hope that Tammy was into anything other than regular guys. Like she was— Used to be. 

“But I thought you were—” Hope managed, before the rest of her brain kicked in and reined her mouth in with it. 

“—I’m a trans girl, Hope,” Tammy replied. “But I still like girls. My sexuality didn’t up and change because my gender did.”

“Oh,” Hope said, taking an involuntary step backwards. 

Something inside Hope Davidson was raging. She could hear the pounding of her heart knocking at the temples of her head; feel the cascade of blood draining away from her heart; her mouth was dry, her eyes unblinking. It was a biological response. Unconscious and unexpected, yet not quite uncontrollable. She fought with her own fears to wrestle back sensibility and consideration. What must Tammy think of her?

“Don’t worry, Hope,” Tammy said, keeping a respectful distance from her but extending an arm to bridge the gap like she had done that day in school. “I’m not about to go sweet on you or try and pull a JC McMoron move. I might have the same equipment as him, but trust me, it ain’t pointed at you, girl.”

Tammy was the second guy in as many days that had compared himself to JC McMillan in a reassuring way for Hope. No! Tammy was a girl! Hope brain hurt with the unthinking of years of conditioning. She only realized she’d been ignoring the extended hand when Tammy withdrew it. 

“I’m sorry if my sexuality bothers you,” Tammy said accusingly. “Or if I’m the first lesbian friend you had. But that’s all I want from you, Hope,” Tammy professed. “Your friendship. And your backup tailing this MAGA bully, cos if we don’t go now, we’re gonna lose him.”

Hope was caught in the ice wall of indecision. She wanted to be Tammy’s friend, but how could she be certain that’s all it would be? How could she trust Tammy wouldn’t ‘go sweet on her’, as she’d put it? That she wouldn’t suddenly decide to take advantage of Hope? Or force herself upon her?

“Aw do whatever you want,” Tammy directed and took off after Austin. 

“Wait!” Hope cried, extending her own hand out for Tammy as she had done at school. But it was too late, Tammy already had her back to her and was off after Austin Freeman. 

‘Dammit!’ she thought to herself, and took off after Tammy. 

They tailed Austin through the mall to the far end, where the trophy store was, and the old vinyl place, and the sporting goods store. Austin disappeared inside. Hope had never been to this end of the mall before. There was nothing down here that held her interest. 

“Sporting goods?” Tammy mused as Hope caught her up. 

“Maybe he’s a huge Lebron James fan?” Hope speculated, pointing at the signed shirt in the window with the overpriced tag on it. 

Tammy looked back at Hope and smirked. 

“Damn, you’re so white sometimes,”

she commented without further explanation. 

“I’m going to sneak in for a closer look,” Tammy announced after a few seconds. 

“What if he sees you?” Hope asked. 

“What if he sees us, you mean?” Tammy asked, and held up her hand again for Hope to take. This time she grasped it and they snuck in close to peer through the sharp angle of the door. Austin was standing at the counter, pulling out his wallet. He extracted his ID and about $300 in cash. In return, the cashier was pulling down boxes from the locked section behind the counter. 

“What are those?” Hope asked innocently. 

“They’re boxes of ammunition,” Tammy replied. “Look like rifle ammo from the size.”

“How can you tell?” Hope asked. 

Tammy shot her the you’re-so-white look again. 

“Trust me,” she replied. 

The two girls stole back to a more distant vantage point and waited for Austin to come out. When he did, his backpack was laden. Weighed down and sagging upon his back. 

“Why do you think he’s buying all that gun ammunition?” Hope asked, suddenly regretting even asking Tammy up to the mall. 

Tammy’s expression hardened. “Forget why he’s buying it. The real question is—why here? Why so far from home?”

Aust:

Aust kept his hat down low and his collar up high all the way to the parking lot. He kept checking behind him—no one there. Still, the feeling of being watched refused to give up its grip on him. Maybe it was just the adrenaline from his first real ammo purchase. He’d never bought sealed boxes of ammo before, just the open stuff they sell you at the firing range for preloading your rifle. And you couldn’t take that away with you. The weight of it all pressed against his spine, each bump in the pavement making it dig in harder. It didn’t matter. He’d be at his cousin’s SUV in a couple of minutes. Then he could unload it into the trunk and breathe. 

*

“Damn, you really stocked up," Jerry joked as Aust stacked box after box in the trunk.

“You think it’s too much?”’Aust asked. He kept reminding himself: he’d never done this before. But he knew those HRF rifles can chew through rounds if you flick them to fully-auto. 

“Nah, we’ll get through ‘em,” Jerry reassured him, and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “They give you any trouble?” Jerry asked as Aust unloaded the last one. 

“Barely even looked at my ID,” Aust responded. 

“Yeah, you got a trustworthy complexion,” Jerry joked and pressed the button to close the trunk. 

“You think they give out ammo this easy to everyone that comes in that shop?” he asked, ignoring his cousin’s not-so-coded race comment. 

“It’s why I sent you there,” Jerry replied, opening up the driver’s side door. Aust ducked into the passenger seat. 

*

“Now remember when we get there, you’re a seasoned pro at this kind of thing,” Jerry informed Aust as he pulled his black SUV off the highway and onto the dirt road. There were tire tracks in the dust, Aust noticed, at least three different gauges. 

"Who’re we meeting?" Aust asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Some good ol’ boys who believe in making America great again," Jerry replied.

He said no more, but swung the SUV around the tight corners of the narrow track with the finesse of an expert. 

When they got out of the car, the shooting had already started at the range. If you could call it a range. A wooden fence served as the only barrier between the shooter and the targets, maybe 100 yards in the distance. To Aust’s left, horses chewed tranquilly on hay that had been put in baskets in front of their stalls. If the crack of rifles bothered them, they gave no outward sign of it. There was an animal pen to his right; perhaps pigs had wallowed once in the mud and filth of it. It didn’t look to have been used in a long time. 

“Welcome son,” a guy in his 40s said, extending a thick arm and gripping Aust’s hand with a firm, dominating handshake. 

“You ever fired a rifle like this before?” the man asked, holding up a MODEL.

"He’s an old hand, Bert," Jerry said. "Takes down deer with me all the time.”

Bert looked at Aust for confirmation. 

“I don’t think I fired that exact model before,” Aust replied non-committally, “but sure this ain’t my first rodeo.”

“Good enough for me,” Bert replied, and passed Aust the gun. 

It felt light in his hands. Lighter than expected. Aust flexed his grip, anticipating the kickback. As a kid, his cousin had taken him out firing BB guns. One of them had a sight on it and Aust put it too close to his eye when lining up with it. Couldn’t decide what hurt more — the kickback or his cousin’s friends laughing. Either way, he had a black eye for about a week after that. 

“Feels kinda light,” Aust commented. 

“It won’t when you load it,” Bert replied, passing Aust an empty magazine. “You brought you own ammo, right?”

“Check him out,” Jerry called, producing four boxes of ammo from the trunk of his SUV. 

Aust smiled. He wondered what Bert would do if he pointed the gun at the horses. For a second, he wondered what he’d do too. 

“Alright ladies,” Bert announced to their all-male group. “Targets are your regular bowling pin. Distance is 100 yards. Let’s see who can score 10!”

Aust loaded the clip and readied his aim across the wooden fence. Some of the others had already started shooting. One guy — must have been about Aust’s age — had already racked up three headshots before Aust had even sighted the rifle. 

Aust took aim, remembering to keep his eye a good distance back from the sight, leant into the stock with his shoulder, and fired. The shot bucked harder than he’d expected and the first shot went pitifully wide. He could practically hear Jerry snicker behind him. He leant his shoulder in with more force and took aim at the distant bowling pin. The second shot was much closer. 

“Remember to exhale when you fire,” someone said next to him. “And keep your mouth open if you wanna keep your teeth in it.”

Aust turned to look. It was the three-headshots-guy. Only now it was five. 

“Thanks,” Aust replied and did as the guy had recommended. The shot clipped the lower portion of on of the pins, sending it spinning off behind the fence on which they were arrayed. 

“That’s good advice,” Aust added, but the other guy had already fallen back to cracking off his shots. It didn’t take long for the guy to reach 10. Aust was on two at the time. And neither of them headshots. 

“Alright, hold your fire,” Bert ordered and waited for rifles to be slung or otherwise positioned out of action. 

“Not bad Tenzig,” Bert praised. 

Aust looked across at the winner. 

“Tenzig?” he asked. 

“Don’t,” the kid replied. “My parents thought I’d be an explorer.”

"Not into that?" Aust asked. 

"I’d rather conquer," Tenzig said simply.

Once upon a time the two were not so very different, Aust supposed. 

“Alright Ladies,” Bert cried again with the vim of a man who thought that joke had an immortal lifespan. “This time we’re going one at a time. Fully auto. Hit as many targets as you can before a reload. New guy, you’re up.”

Aust stepped forward. He flicked the rifle to fully-automatic and lined up at one side of the pins. His whole body shook with the force of the recoil as he fired round after round in as straight of a sweeping line as he could manage. The vibrations felt good. He could see why Tenzig had said to keep his mouth open. His teeth were rattling in his head, but the vibrations felt good.

When he stopped, he checked to see how many he’d hit. Seven. Two with headshots. 

“Yeah,” you really showed those Mexicans a thing dintcha?” Jerry fired. 

Aust smiled. It was as much of an embarrassed smile as it was a prideful one. Jerry took things too far. Jerry always took things too far. 

“That was fun,” Aust said, handing the rifle back to Bert. 

“You not gonna  stick around and see how the others do?” Bert asked him. 

“Wasn’t competing against them,” Aust replied quizically.

“Well alright then,” Bert said back, and slapped him on the shoulder so hard that — if Aust hadn’t leaned into it — he might have knocked him clean over. 

*

"You were right,” Aust muttered as they drove. Then, almost to himself: “Bought way too much ammo.”

“There’s always next time,” Jerry replied coolly. 

“Yeah,” Aust returned.

He wondered how long that Tenzig guy had trained to get as good as he was. How many times he’d visited that unlicensed firing range? How many boxes of ammo he’d bought (or had bought for him)?

“Hey Jerry,” Aust asked once they had put that place far out of the glow of his cousins’s tail lights. “Excuse my ignorance, but why do they shoot at bowling pins out there? Why not regular targets like up at the range?”

Jerry shot him a look — half surprise, half disgust.

“Because a bowling pin’s shaped like a human torso," Jerry said flatly. "Y’know… just in case.”

Tammy:

Tammy sat with Hope under the glass-domed ceiling of the Highlands mall food court and contemplated how green it was inside. Outside, the gray grip of winter held everything in a frozen hush. The trees were only skeletons. Reaching desperately, as if pressing their branches together might summon the sun. Give them some reason to unfold their leaves and bathe in its life-giving light. What birds remained were quiet and thinly spread. Apart from the rock pigeons, of course. They thrived and strutted, courting each other all year round. That was what she wanted to talk to Hope about. That was why she came in the first place. Courting. Reproduction. Babies. 

Tammy watched as a group of small children threw pebbles into the ponds on the first floor of the mall. Each splash followed by a ripple of satisfied laughter. Tammy had read on one of the signs there were terrapins in there. Some weary parent, tired no doubt of cleaning out the tank, had decided to ‘give their pets a better home’ in the 90s. These terrapins were the descendants of those. The mall authorities had talked about removing them, but they were a hit with the kids, so the reptiles stayed and a thriving shanty-town of pop-up cotton candy stalls and fruit smoothie stands had grown up around them. Tammy wondered if the original owner ever returned to look at what had grown out of her magnanimity. Wondered if she’d known what it would bring, whether she would have just ‘Old Yellered’ them out in the country somewhere. 

There had to be a hundred good ways to begin to broach this topic with Hope. But as Tammy watched her new friend slurp down an extra-large babychino with caramel syrup, she couldn’t summon up a single one. She pressed her hands together and thought about the trees outside. 

"You think it'll be a warm summer?" Tammy asked, breaking the silence.

It wasn’t the best way to start, but she had an idea for working around to it. 

“Sorry, what?” Hope replied. She’d been far away too. 

“I read that a warm summer follows a mild winter,” Tammy explained. 

Hope remained silent. 

"Of course, you'll have a whole new wardrobe by then."

There it was. 

Clang!

The baby-bumping invitation to topic. 

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” Hope replied. 

Tammy tried to avoid narrowing her eyes, tried to avoid that telltale tilt of the head that might give away doubt. She had thought about it. How could she not have?

“Unless you’re thinking of…” she let the words hang fatally. The ultimate, suggestive, pregnant pause. 

Real subtle, Tams. Bang up job. 

Hope straightened up and put down her empty cup. 

“No,” she said firmly. “No. I wouldn’t do that. I go to church, Tammy,” she added, as if that settled everything.

“Girl, you gotta do what’s right for you,” Tammy informed her. “But right now, that other thing is nothing but a cluster of cells. If it’s even confirmed?” she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Did you see a real doctor yet?”

“It’s real, Tammy,” Hope replied, resolutely. 

“No, I don’t mean you're making it up,” Tammy reassured her. “I just meant—”

“It’s real, Tammy,” Hope repeated, picking up her empty cup and slurping vainly at the straw. 

“No, I guess you and JC will make good parents,” Tammy said as earnestly as she could. 

She watched as Hope’s shoulders sink. 

“I haven’t talked to him about it yet,” she admitted. 

“Still?!” Tammy exclaimed. 

Where did that tone come from? And was that disappointment slipping through it like a pebble drowning in a pond? Tammy sat up straight before continuing. 

“His parents are pretty well off, right? I mean, they could support a baby?”

“I might not tell him,” Hope confessed. 

There it was. The narrow-eyed tilt of Tammy’s head. The involuntary tell that wrapped judgment in disbelief and served it up cold. Raw. Indigestible

“You think he had a right to know?” Hope conjectured. 

“I think he has a responsibility to live up to!”

“Boys don’t do responsibility,” Hope replied sardonically. “They leave that up to us.”

“At the very least you should take his money. Hope, what he did to you— What he’s still doing to you—”

“—Is exactly the reason I don’t want him anywhere near my kid!” Hope replied, her face stiffening, her jaw locking tight. 

Tammy had to hand it to her: it was a pretty strong argument. Strong enough to erect silence between the two of them for more than a minute. 

“So you’re gonna keep it then?” Tammy asked, doing everything she could to purge any judgement from her tone. 

“I think I am,” Hope replied quietly, and she wiped at her left eye before the tear that had been glistening on her lower lashes could carve its way down her face. 

“Well you gotta do what you gotta do, girl,” Tammy told her. Then she placed a reassuring hand on top of Hope’s. “But you don’t gotta do it alone.”

Hope smiled thinly. 

“Thanks,” she replied, but she couldn’t meet Tammy’s gaze. Tammy traced her gaze carefully. They were locked on two little children staring and pointing at the terrapins in the mall pond. Staring and pointing and smiling and calling for their mommy to ‘Come lookat!’ Tammy pretended not to notice the tear slipping down Hope’s cheek and watched the terrapins as they bathed freely in the artificial warmth of the Highlands mall pond.