The Jaguar's Children by John Vaillant Read Free Book Online Page B

but he told me back then never try to cross. Too dangerous, he said, and someone has to look after Abuelita Clara who is the mother of my mother. My tío is her only living son and when he stopped coming home it made the sadness from her husband even bigger.

6
    Thu Apr 5—20:33
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    It is a strange thing—how one day you can be praying no one will find you but on the next you are praying anyone will, and I can tell you it doesn’t take long in the dark to stop caring about the money. All we want now is water and light. Like plants. And soon—tomorrow—I think it will be water only—like the algae on these walls. You see then what a decoration our life is, una ilusión—the money, the clothes, the talking, the gods. It is all just a thin layer of paint—gone in a few hours. It is the same that makes a truck red or blue or brown, but underneath is only metal coming from the mountain. In the end, this truck is just a rock driving around pretending for a little while to be a truck. And here we are in the desert, AnniMac, breaking down.
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    Thu Apr 5—20:39
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    All this time I believed César will wake up because how can this be his fate—to stand up at the wrong moment? In school, you could not stop him. He was always thinking and moving faster than the rest of us and when he left I didn’t see him again until last week—seven years, más o menos. At home we talk a lot about Fate and God’s Will because not a lot of people believe in coincidence. Maybe in el Norte you have a name for it when you come out of the Club KittiLoco drunk with no girl and no money for a taxi but one stops in front of you and you get in anyway just because it’s there. Maybe you got a name for it also when the driver says, Where to? And you say, Mártires de Río Blanco. And he says, OK if I go up Suárez? Chapultepec is torn up at Venus.
    Well, it’s two in the morning after three mezcals and so many beers and what do you care about lost battles or other planets or black holes in the street? But there’s something familiar about the taxista’s voice and you look in the mirror and even through the glasses you notice his eyes because they are looking right back at you and in that moment there is a connection, a knowing, and you’re thinking, I’ve seen this guy before.
    That’s when I say, “Cheche?”
    His eyes get big and he looks away. So I lean forward over the seat. He’s wearing a beard and mustache, but this is like putting a coffee sack on a beautiful girl—some things you can’t hide. I’m sure it’s César under there and I’m drunk and I say, “¡Vato! What you doing back here? Driving a taxi?”
    â€œYou got the wrong guy.”
    â€œThe fuck I do! I
know
you, man. You’re Cheche Ramírez—from Guelatao. ¡Qué
paso!
”
    He pulls over hard and stops, and turns around fast and says to my face, “Listen. You think it’s me, but it’s not. You know what I’m saying? You did not see me here, and you don’t tell anyone. If you do, I’m fucked. And so are you.”
    Then he turns back and starts driving again. His words are moving slow through the beer and mezcal like bullets underwater, and I don’t look in the mirror again. I put my hands in my pockets because it’s cool out and then I remember that all I have besides my phone is a ten-peso coin and that little clay head from my abuelo. It’s not enough to pay for a taxi and I wonder if I should tell him this, but I’m having trouble thinking so I say nothing. This is how it is driving down Calle Independencia—no one looking, no one talking. This is how it is when we’re hit by the truck.
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    It is the last thing you expect after midnight in Oaxaca because it is quiet then, the streets are empty and you can drive how you like—the traffic signals are there, but red or green, no