Ferry to Caiman

But after Patria was gone the cafe con leche kicked in and I was fully awake. Wired with exhilaration and terror. What to do? Write about right now, here, how afraid I was to go to sleep on Isla Caiman without walls and doors, surrounded by strangers, with my son gone? Or do I write about how we got here?...Do I write about the thing I want to notice, or the thing I don't want to forget?...
05 11 11
3. ON THE FERRY
Isla Caiman Ferry
Arriving at Isla Caiman
Not forgetting won out. I wrote down as much as I could of my first conversation with Patria.
(De memoria)
Remembering.
To be in the present was to feel terror over Machi.
If he disappeared again I will be done going mad.
Then maybe I will be done with thoughts...
(But not with pain. Not with pain.)
12 21 10 01 20 11
(This is the first time since the chaos of arriving that) As always I had feelings I couldn't hold and I picked up my notebook. Just (one week ago) this afternoon, only eight hours ago, we were stood on the deck of the Isla Caiman ferry like happy tourists. We watched a pod of dolphins jump the ferry's wake. We were our own odd pod: my just reclaimed exfriend Julia, her six year old granddaughter Taina, my just returned disappeared 17 year old son Machi, and me, still reeling from getting laid off. We were on our way to Isla Caiman to find our disappeared men. Julia said to me, “Looking at the dolphins, we look like happy tourists.” The dolphins jumped out of the turquoise water into the brilliant air. Taina bounded with them yelling,“I can't keep up. I will keep up.” Julia said, “I just can't stop her.” I said, “How different than you were with David.” Julia glared at me and I was sorry. I always walked on eggshells with her. More so now that David was missing. Machi squatted and held Taina tight by the wrist. He stuck to her and I stuck to him. I was touched by his tenderness for Taina, child of his disappeared best friend David. With Taina he forgot his thugboy mask, the one he grew the year he was on the street, the year I missed between 16 and 17.
A young man in a green camouflage guardia uniform stood beside us,on the deck watching Taina jump. He looked at Machi and at me. “You look alike.” He laughed. “You look like a strange old boy with that short brown hair and small body, dressed the same.” Machi looked him over. I waited for the Machi glare but instead Machi approached him and they walked off toward the snack counter in the middle of the deck. I stared after them and said to Julia, “What is that about?” She shrugged. “You don't imagine he's going to be glued to your side?” I shook my head. “I do feel frightened whenever he walks away. I still can't believe he's back. ” I could see the two young men, the guardia wasn't much older than Machi, eating hot dogs and talking. “What do they have to talk about? When has Machi ever been friendly to somebody like a cop? Taina jumped again, her long black braids bounced, her body too small for her joy. Machi came back with a big grin and put his arm around my shoulder. He whispered, “That guardia Franz isn't what he looks like.” He kissed me on the top of my head. A dolphin leapt, showed its glistening belly. We were going on a terrible errand but I was utterly happy in that moment on that deck with my boy watching the dolphins.

(Somebody screamed somewhere behind our shelter. The congas swallowed the scream. When do people in this Encampment ever sleep? I looked all around, toward the beach, the Camp, the hills, always looking out for Machi's figure approaching, Machi coming home. I should look for Ori just as hard but I can't want to rescue both of them at once and Ori 's a grown man. I can't wait to tell Machi that Patria will go with me to Justice Works, that there is a Justice Works in Coral. My first lead, and she came to me. And now I won't disappoint my son again by doing nothing to find his Father.)

How to transition b present time and fback?
The ferry was Taina's first time on a boat. For the whole trip Julia stood close to her, cringed when she jumped with the dolphins and ran on the deck. Machi said what I'd said. “You give your grandchild more room than you used to give your son.” He didn't hide his resentment. “For years you didn't allow David to play with me and now here you are needing me to help you find him.” I nodded and didn't manage to bite my tongue. “Taina's safe with Machi, let her play,” came out of my mouth. Again, I was sorry to have spoken. Julia gave me her hard look and this time she didn't hold back. “What would you know about keeping a child safe?” She blurted this and walked away, trailing Taina who had run to the side of the Ferry where the dolphins were now gathering. I followed her. “I know you don't want to lose children. Well, neither do I.” Her hard look made me feel erased, like I'd just been hit. She stepped away and I followed. “On the ferry you can't cross the street or slam the door in my face.” Maybe if I hadn't been a bit hungry and irritated I would have stayed quiet. Mostly I stayed quiet or said too much. With Julia I'd been quiet for more than ten years. Time to say too much. “All these years later, and even though we found the boys right away, how can you still blame me for losing the boys on the train?” Even after all these years, just saying the words out loud conjured the pure sheer terror of that moment when we were parted by the huge crowd from the boys and they'd stayed on the train while the crowd pushed us onto the platform. The subway doors closed and they were gone.

She ignored me, stepped toward Taina and took her by the hand away from Machi, bribing her to part from her favorite with an offer of a hot dog from the snack bar. I could see the guardia Franz, leaning on the railing, watching us looking amused.
Too much inward stuff?

s
Machi walked toward Franz and I stood alone on the ferry's deck, not happy anymore. I followed to where they stood gazing at the water. Machi looked bereft without Taina. I said to Franz, “I suppose you must know if there are renditioned rebels in the Camp.” My voice shook. Franz said nothing, but his eyes held mine and he smiled. Machi glared at me. He hated my fear. “I'm not convinced my husband's being held in the Camp, but Machi is. Why would no authorities have contacted me?” Franz leaned toward me. “There's a group of lawyers with an office by the plaza in Coral, they're your best bet for following the official search protocol.” Machi shook his head. “I know he's there. What's the unofficial protocol?” He turned to me, “Don't want you asking me over and over how I know. Or your crazy friend asking me why I think David is hiding out in the Encampment.” I put my arm around him, and for a second he let me. Franz looked from Machi to me and then spoke with his eyes fixed on Machi's. “You've got my cell. Text me in two days.” He stepped away and looked down on me from his full height. “Like Pa always said, Ma, once you decide something you don't second guess.” I smiled. Maybe we had found ourselves our first ally. I walked over to the snack bar and got a hot dog too. Julia looked at me and smiled. “I'm sorry. I'm on edge.” She looked at Machi who had taken Taina by the hand over to where Franz was standing watching the dolphins. Julia said, “He doesn't need our fears to undermine his courage. Once he convinced me David went to the Encampment to hide and you that Ori was being held in the Camp, we need to stay convinced.” I finished the hot dog. “The world looks better with some food in my stomach.” I put my arm around Julia's waist. She put her hand on my hand. “Here we are,” she said. “Two grown women led by a desperate 17 year old.”

Three drunk young men arm in arm walked by my dying fire, almost stepped in it, tambaleandose, riendose. I felt both sorry and relieved it wasn't Machi and Lagarto and Robles. It ached to worry so much about my boy.
Way too much inward stuff. What to do about it?
12 15 10
The ferry rose and dropped on a swell and Julia gripped a plastic chair bolted to the deck. The wind moved her short bleached hair in one piece. I guessed I looked as scared as Julia. She walked back beside me, with the hostile mask on again. She screamed, “We've got to be crazy. You think Machi can keep any of us safe? Don't you see instead of getting your son off the street you let him take us all into the street with him?” Her anger still surprised me. “This won't work if your moods are going to be up and down like this.” I studied her face. “Not unless you know it's a mood. It will pass. Maybe the only way to save our sons is to go into the street with them. Or maybe it's them saving us.” She looked ashamed. I shook my head and don't know why I started to laugh and couldn't stop laughing. “Let's do this,” I said. “Let's take turns freaking out with terror.” I drew her into my arms. “Your turn.” I felt her tremble and I held her tighter. “I know how you feel. We're going to find David.” I held her until her trembling was done. She looked up at me and then gazed out toward the sea. “Look at that gorgeous turquoise water. We can see all the way to the bottom of the sea. How can we forget life is good?” She turned her gaze back to me. I whispered, “Always in the back of my mind is the dread that Machi too will disappear for good.” She held my gaze and nodded. I stepped close to her so she could hear me whisper. “When did men become the endangered species? Were they always?” I looked at Franz leaning with Machi against the railing and Julia followed my gaze. “Does it turn out that they are the most oppressed by capitalism, wound up like ticking bombs, fighting the wars? I motioned to Franz, “Official soldier.” and then to Machi, “Unofficial sodlier.” Julia gave me a small encouraging smile, wanting to keep me talking. “They are set up, they masquerade as our oppressor. Oppressors by default. Only those few rich white men plundering this planet while they ready their spaceships for the next, oppress, and they're crazy, run through by the irrational tyranny of market greed that is making them kill us all, unaware that as they do they also kill themselves?” I clenched my fists. “I forget I have all this fury. It's exhausting.” Julia let me push into her hand and then, for the moment, the fury was spent. I looked at Machi where he stood with Franz. “My indecision almost cost me my son. Could cost me my son again at any moment.” Tears ran down my face. “I can hardly believe he's back, Julia. He was gone for a year. What God or Saint can I thank?” I read her gaze. “We will find David. Machi will make sure we do.” Julia smiled. “What choice do I have but to believe?” We walked to Machi, Taina and Franz.
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Machi looked at me, rolled his eyes, and looked away. “Mami no empieces con la lloradera.” Next thing, I was in tears...Longing and raging. Julia looked at me, drew me into her arms, to console me and to hide me. Nobody was looking at us and I was past caring. “Que te pasa?” She smiled and said, “You turn for a terror freakout. I smiled even as I sobbed. In between sobs I got out, “I miss them all, even Machi and you standing right beside me. Why is my love always held back, secret even from me? Why can't I show love? Why does my loving hurt the people I love? Where does the idea that my loving hurts them come from? Why is it not enough? I love Machi and I love Ori and I love you and I hate City imperialism, and I am hidden and tied up. So much I wish I could say to him, to my son, but I can't. Why can't I?” Julia had her arms around me. I talked into her chest. She heard almost nothing of what I said “We are arriving at an Island where my husband may be penned, tortured, although the sea is turquoise and the dolphins perfect. Which is the real, the love or the murder?”

Machi called to me. I emerged from the shelter of Julia's arms and stood beside him. He pointed and I followed his gaze to a distant point in the water. He picked up Taina and sat her on his shoulders so that she could see. Here was what everyone on the boat was looking at. Taina pointed to the right. “Esa es la Isla!” I saw the distant yellow and green crescent. “Paradise,” Julia said. I let hope rise and said under my breath. “What if Machi is right and Ori's there, renditioned there?” Machi looked at me and put his arm around me. “Vamos a encontrar al Viejo.” He looked into my eyes. I knew he was looking for doubt. I knew he was willing me to believe. The ferry was turning and he walked with Taina on his shoulders and Franz to the left, to keep Isla Caiman in sight. Alone with Julia I felt the tide of terror and grief rise. Julia gripped my hand. “It's the love, that's real. Or at least that's what I have to believe. And I have to believe he's right. Where else could Ori and David be?” I shrug. “There's a whole world out there, no? They could be anywhere.” She shook her head and stepped toward where the others stood watching the Island now more clearly visible. I took her hand. “It's me, don't believe a word I say when I'm like this. I can't tell people are anywhere when they're not with me.” In my secret heart I didn't believe Ori was in the prison Camp and David in the Encampment of Isla Caiman. “Like all little girls I didn't believe those who were out of sight were anywhere the way I didn't believe my Father was anywhere when he was gone and I still don't.” Julia pulled away. “Well start believing. You know something, you wouldn't be here now if you didn't.” I watched them watching. I sat down on a bench and pulled out my notebook and here's what I wrote on the boat.

I fiercely hope Machi is right because if Julia doesn't find David she might lose what's left of her mind. If I don't find Ori I won't die. I said out loud, “Because I don't live nothing can kill me.” (Instead I write down as much as I can; like Taina I can never keep up or catch up with my dolphins. But like her, I will. I fight.) But the others, Machi and Julia and Taina, what will become of them if we fail?

Julia just got up, half asleep, walked over to the clump of seagrapes behind us and squatted to pee. “You must truly love your son.” I whisper this to her back vanishing back into the leanto. She truly will do anything for him She left behind her youngest daughter Liani, Machi's milk sister, who refused to follow Machi anywhere, with the husband she got rid of years ago. She gave up her clean bunker of a home to live on the sand without even an outhouse nearby.
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For the last few minutes on the ferry, with the excitement of arrival, Taina commandeered the ferry's deck for her playground and the few other passengers watched her like she too was a fish. Julia and I watched Machi teach her and Franz to play slow motion tag, an indoor game I used to play with him. “What a good good boy,” I said to Julia, “not the looter and rapist others see.” Julia nodded. “He turned into a man, built up and strong, the year he lived on the street.” I frowned. “A year in La Terraza,” I corrected her. “Where's that?” Franz was slow running past us and invited himself into our conversation. Julia answered. “It's the mushroom town on Moon Park, close to where we live in South City.” He fixed his eyes on me. “A mushroom town, is that like the Encampment?” I thought about it. Julia said, “Yes, but with nobody to free.” I shook my head. “With everybody to free.”

Franz stepped closer to me. “He spent a year living in a park?” It was easy to want to talk to Franz and forget he was a guardia. “There and god knows where else. I wish he'd told me more of where he was and what he did. “Look at him now, almost a man's body. He just turned 17.” I let out a long breath. Franz looked surprised. “I thought he was my age, 21. He was a runaway?” Franz studied me and finally he couldn't stop himself from asking. “What were you thinking? How did you let him?” Julia laughed. “Let him? I'd like to see you stop either her son or my son.” Franz turned his attention on her. “Where is he?” Julia thought before she answered him. “Machi, we, think he's in the Encampment.” Just then Taina stopped chasing Machi and saw her chance to tag Franz. It again, he left us. “Thank god he left. What am I doing telling a guardia anything?” I smiled. After all, this was a guardia and we were used to need to know. She walked away and sat down on one of the plastic chairs bolted to the deck. Franz tagged Machi and returned to me.
“So you think your husband's in the Camp and she thinks her son's in the Encampment.”
I shrugged and looked away. “Where are you from Franz?” He smiled, “Born and raised in Caiman. All I've known all my life is that base the Camp they say doesn't exist exists in.” Whatever signals he and Machi exchanged made him trust me. I grew less panicked about everything I'd told him about us. “Have you been deployed?”
“Last Island War. My Dad fought in the first. Battle of Rio Tibio. One of the guys who crossed the River. Know what I mean?”
I shook my head. “Crossing the River is the guys who responded when the rebels called for surrender, and when the officers wouldn't put down arms they put down their own and walked across the Tibio with their arms in the air.”
He saw me cry, moved by this story and put his arm around my shoulder. “So why am I a guardia? It's the only job they got. Well, they got three, prison guard, prisoner and guardia...”
Machi had been looking over and now he let Taina, tired for a minute, throw herself on Julia's lap.

He joined us just as I was saying,
“So Franz, there's something I've always wanted to know, and you look like the person who might tell me.”
“Go ahead, ask.”
Machi looked us over, Franz with his arm around me, and me looking up at the tall young man. He smiled and I let the relief flow through me.
“So tell me then Franz, what is it like to be in battle? Do you think about death?”
While he thought, I went on, “You've got to be afraid, don't tell me you aren't. So what is it like to keep thinking when you're afraid?”
“Like I told you, it's a job. Where the work is to kill or get killed. A kind of job you do like any job where you've got to make yourself forget the thing about the job you hate.”
“So tell me, is it that you men can teach yourselves not to know you're afraid?”
“I'm not sure. I don't know.”
I looked at Machi. “I think my son and his Father are like that. Taught themselves
not to know they're afraid. Or to act even if they are afraid..”
With Machi there Franz clammed up. Our moment of crossing the river was over.

03 29 11# 2
I couldn't interpret the look Machi gave me. Angry at me, or annoyed at least, because I'd been talking with his friend; or because I'd been revealing more than I should to someone who was not his friend? Or was he just joining the conversation with that thug boy mask on? “Knowing how to deal with fear is the reason Pa's probably doing better at the Camp...” Here, he stopped to look at me to see if I was going to bring up my fears. I'd decided Machi was not the one to whom I needed to be showing my fears and I managed to stop myself from going on and on about how we might never find Ori. He went on. “And I'm sure he's at the Camp.” He argued with my fears even when I didn't state them. They were probably showing on my face. “Well, I'm sure he's doing better at the Camp than you're doing outside.” Franz cut in. “Is it a contest? Men and women are different for a reason.” I smiled at him. What a kind young man to come to my defense. I went for Machi's hand but he stepped away. “I don't dare compare myself to Ori, my choices to his. I was a coward and so I'm free..” Franz said, “If this is freedom...” He looked hard at me. “And I don't agree. Men and women, maybe it's different kinds of courage. Sometimes it can be easier to be inside and harder to be on the street.”
Machi glared at both of us. “Pa did what needed doing and he was disappeared. Or do you think he got sick of you and just left?” My face was breaking into tears. Julia had just joined us. Taina said, “Va a llorar.” Julia came close and put her arm around my waist. Machi stepped toward me. Had my tears softened him? “He too put his arms around me. “You and I both know leaving us is not like Pa.” Julia pointed to the Island. “Tienen que estar ahi.”
“Dolphins...” Taina dragged Machi and Franz followed, a few feet away from us where they could better see the dolphins and Julia and I were left alone. I could feel her body tremble. I could feel myself tremble. “We've got to believe they're there, or we won't find them.” She wanted to convince me, convince herself. She clutched me. It was good to be close after our prickly moment. I could feel her espanta, scared look on my own face. The last decade of repression had marked fear into our faces. I pulled myself away. I could barely contain my own fear. Childhood night terrors (in the night the torture victims eyes gouged, fingernails-pulled appeared to me, the torturer gougers and pullers came after me) came back, came true. My mind conjured images from the photos leaked from this prison camp that did not officially exist, of stacked maimed bodies, so like the photos I was not allowed to look at but did in the uncensored editions of Camarilla magazine when I was 10. I could not, would not, speak of these things to Julia who wanted to be hopeful.
"Otro mas." Taina jumped. Julia and I turned to watch her pull Machi toward the stern, where the dolphins had begun to swim away from the wake, back out to sea. We followed. Huge, blue, big snouted, the wondrous sea mammals who liked to chase boats belonged in the water, rejoiced in the water. “What if I decided that oppression couldn't stop me from living in the air the way the dolphins live in water?” I turned to Julia. “I just remembered how right after we came to the City from Ventura in my first years in exile when I was just about Machi's age, I used to pretend the air was water.” Julia turned to face me. For a moment she was my old good friend. I remembered that sometimes she listened to me, sometimes we listened to each other. Julia looked into my eyes. “Maybe pretending air was water made those unreal, straight street canyons feel real to you.” Her eyes got bright with recognition. She took my arm. “I used to be a wolf and every night before I went to sleep I pretended I was underground, curled with my pack, completely hidden and safe. I used to tell David stories about us, together in our den.” We stood arm in arm close to Machi and Taina. The dolphins leapt out of the sea.

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Writing was the way to keep my mind off wondering where Machi was. Writing was like reading my own mind. Behind our blue tarp home there was a lull in all sound in the never ending party, and I heard the surf, and now a sex moan coming from the shelter to my left, and now the music was back, there was a sudden blare of canned salsa music on top of the live congas. And where was Machi?

4. ON THE FERRY/MEMORY OF DAVID DISAPPEARING
5.
03 23 11 04 02 11
David's Wanted Posters Again
Losing the Boys on the Train
On the boat deck I took Julia's hand. “I'm glad you're back in my life, even if it's like this.” She smiled. “It's only been a month,” she said. Ismiled to hide how much I resented her rejection all those years. “Why did we waste all those years my dear estranged old friend Julia from the Partido days?” She said nothing, looked at me hard, then closed her eyes. “Could it always have been simple for us to find our way to each other? Nothing for years and then here we are together, ever since that morning all the streetlights and tree trunks up and down the block were wrapped with wanted posters of your son. Ever since David's long sweet face was staring from that old school photo.” She spoke to herself. “Staring with that look of judgment he always has.” I wasn't finished. “Ever since that morning from hell. It was the morning after my so-called humanitarian lay-off. I was on my way to the first day of my last two weeks at my job. I ran down the stoop dreading it would be Machi's face I'd see on the poster. I looked close and saw it was almost as bad, his best friend David. I'm ashamed I was relieved, worried mostly because if David was in trouble Machi probably was too. It was an old photograph but I recognized his thin light skinned face and that intense gaze. I stood and clenched my fists, held back a scream but couldn't stop the tears.”
Julia said something that surprised me. “I'm ashamed. We lived on the same block and barely spoke since Machi and Liani were less than Taina's age, more than a decade ago.” She stopped and I could see her make the decision to talk about the thing we never talked about. “We never spoke since we nearly lost the boys on the subway on the way to the Island Day Desfile protest march you dragged me to.” I interrupted her. “It wasn't that we never spoke, it was that you refused to speakt to me.” She looked away from me, toward the water. “I wonder if dolphins are also always on the verge of losing their young?” I broke in. “You blamed me. And I was afraid of you. That morning of the posters a month ago my outrage pushed me through my fear of your wrath and disapproval. Instead of heading to work (I had lots of sick days I would lose) I walked across the street to your building and took the elevator to your fifth floor apartment. I banged on the door. I could see you look at me through the spyhole. I kept banging until you let me in.” Julia looked back right into my eyes. “You said, 'Que hacemos?' In that moment I felt ashamed. Thoughts tumbled through my mind faster than I could think them. I thought, I've been judging her way to be a mother and her way to be a friend, afraid to catch her way of mothering and fail to save my son, and here she is, the one who's come to try to help me. I fell into your arms sobbing.” I stepped closer to her. “You did everything a Mother could do for a son, everything.” She looked at me with hope. “I wish that was true,” she said. “I tried to keep him from ending up like Arturo, even kicked his father out to keep them apart.” I laughed. “You were standing at the door deciding if you were going to let me in and that was when Liani came up behind you, trying to get out the door to get to school.” Julia smiled thinking of her daughter. “She's 17 and half the time she's the one scolding me.” I laughed again. “She was pissed at us. She glared at both of us. I was just saying to you, 'Maybe Arturo's is the one career path and there was nothing you or I could have done as mothers to keep our boys from that life. Maybe it's the one industry that's hiring.” Julia laughed with me. She said, “Liani screamed, 'Bullshit' really loud, from behind my head and scared me. I didn't realize she was there.” I shook my head. “Little Liani, who had been Machi's milk sister and then his girlfriend for a few weeks year before last...”
“Until I broke them up...What good did it do, my trying to protect everyone, David from Arturo, Liani from Machi?”
I grabbed her hands. “As if you and I by ourselves could have stopped all that fucking oppression from crashing down on our boys. As if there's any way to fend off that tidal wave of oppression. It's going to take a revolution.” I looked into her eyes. “That was when you made your hands into fists and pounded on my back. 'Not my son. Not my little boy. Not my baby. He was my little baby boy.'”
She said, “Next moment you were crying in my arms.”
I said, “I borrowed your feelings to feel my own. I'd been surviving Machi's absence by going numb and it gave way and I let myself cry in your arms. Whenever you said, 'Not my boy. He was my baby boy,' a wave of tears overtook me.” Julia laughed. “You were shaking. We were both crying so hard we were shaking. That was when Liani pushed past us with her backpack. We were still blocking the door.” I caught Julia's laughter. “ Thank God for Liani. The way she said, 'You two are pathetic and my brother has a deathwish. I'm getting the fuck out of here and going to school' and slammed the door,” snapped us into the present. Julia nodded. “I wish she was here. I'm worried leaving her with Arturo and his current BabyMama and his twins.” I was still laughing. “Now she'll just have to straighten him out.” Julia held my gaze and I was afraid I'd gone further than our just reclaimed closeness allowed, but she laughed.
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