Hard Eyes

Rebeldes v adultism: running away
Gaby and Peri clung to the iron fence, blending with the thick vines like two rebeldes heading for the Sierra Vertebral, the bleachers on the far side of the schoolyard. Through a break in the vines they watched their classmates in the plaza playing a los agarrados, chasing after the big boys. Only Gaby and Peri had to hang around the Escuela Protestante yard until Gaby's father, the Reverendo, was ready to walk them home, because of la situacion. Their boys from La Protestante in the tan pants chased after the boys from La Catolica in dark blue pants, and the Publica in wine red pants. Gaby grabbed Peri's arm. "Let's play El Rubio." Peri looked scared for a second then pointed to the back gate. They blended all the way to the rusted iron doors, padlocked with a heavy iron chain. Gaby pried the doors apart just far enough. They squeezed through and then they were outside.
They ran all the way to Peri's house, slowing down only when they passed the cuartel, in case the soldiers with the long guns could tell they were rebeldes. They pushed open the heavy double doors and ran past the Senoritas sitting with Peri's Sister Carmencita, drinking cafe and talking about the wedding Peri's sister was going to have in the Iglesia as soon as her novio El Rubio came down from La Sierra.
They collapsed onto Peri’s bed and wrestled until they calmed themselves. Maybe later Papi would have something to say about Gaby and Peri's escape from the schoolyard. Although now that Gaby wore long pants he could tell Papi was more proud than angry when Gaby did bad cosas de muchacho, the way Gaby could tell Papi was proud of El Rubio. It wasn't bad but good to be fed up with la situacion and run away to La Sierra to join the rebeldes. There was Mami to worry about with her swift hands for hitting and her sharp nails for pinching but now Mami with her fat baby belly was too slow to catch Gaby before he rolled under the bed to wait her screaming out.

El Rio, the eyeballs
“Listen!” The high pitched whistle was Peri’s big brother Franco calling them outside. They ran out by the kitchen door and followed the whistles to the back wall. Franco waved to them to follow him. Peri pulled Gaby's hand. "He's going to the Rio Caiman." Gaby bounded after him. This was the place in Los Santos Gaby was most dying to see and never got to see except in the bad dreams that gave him ojos duros and made Mami yell at him every night, calling him Hard Eyes. Franco still let the two boys follow even after he picked up his friend Marquitos and sped ahead. By the time they caught up with them Franco and Marquito were splashing hard, shoving each other's heads under water. Peri, then Gaby stripped fast and jumped into the water feet first.
Nothing had ever felt this good to Gaby. With Franco and Marquito and his best friend Peri with him not once did Gaby think of the caimanes of his bad dreams. He had at last gotten to go to the river and now he was in the river. Marquito put his arms under Gaby's knees and waist and Gaby floated on his back and looked straight up at the sky. The pink was fading, and within just one breath the sky was nearly black. Franco took Gaby's feet and pulled him to the shore. The boys climbed out, grabbed their clothes and walked naked along the river bank. Gaby shuddered in the cool breeze and ran when the others set off running with Marquito leading the way.
Gaby saw the eyes first and stopped and screamed. The eyeballs were in a little pile in a little hole in the ground. He'd almost stepped right on them, some brown, maybe one green. How many eyeballs were there? Gaby didn't count them. Franco and Marquito kicked dirt over the eyeballs and ran through the fields along the river path as far as they could get away with running naked. Not talking they dressed fast, then set off at a trot along the straightest maze of streets to Gaby's house. Marcos and Franco waited until the boys were inside before they left. Gaby and Peri walked through the almost bare living room, past the wooden cane seat sofa and two chairs, peeked into Papi and Mami's bedroom, saw it was empty. Had they gone to church without even knowing where Gaby was? They jumped into Gaby's bed and lay clutching each other, shaking.
This was so much more than Gaby wanted to know about the future world of grownups. It was a long time until Peri spoke. "I heard my Viejo talking about torturas." Peri's voice was almost a whisper. Gaby nodded. He too had heard the grownups talking of torturas during the saludos after church, and once when he listened in outside the door of the empty room in the middle of the house where Papi kept a table and sometimes wrote his sermons. Gaby had listened because he had never seen Papi take anyone into that room but him. The man who visited was telling Papi he had been torturado. Papi had offered to lead the man in prayer and then in his preacher voice, called out, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He wished Papi had explained to the Lord what torturas were so Gaby could find out, but the Lord knew everything. All Gaby knew was tortura was like rebelde, guerrilla and revolucion, adulto words. He could only picture them as empty rooms beyond empty rooms, empty except for miedo. And now the emptiness was beginning to populate with eyeballs. Where were the people who were now walking around with hollow eyesockets? Maybe Peri had fallen asleep. Gaby didn't move. He was afraid to close his eyes. Only by looking through them could he be sure his eyeballs would remain where they belonged. Mami said he had ojos duros. Well, he'd show her now just how hard his eyes could be.

The head
After the Sunday night culto Gaby almost never had to go to, Papi took Gaby and Mami straight to the bus terminal on the other side of the plaza. Soldados in caqui uniforms watched the people getting on the bus. One man's suitcase was opened and his tan colored pants were seized. Papi kissed Mami on the lips and hugged her from the side to avoid the big belly, and then he bent down and kissed Gaby and told him to take good care of Mami in the Capital, and of the new little brother he was about to meet, who maybe might turn out to be a sister. After the soldado nodded Papi put Mami's suitcase in the hole under the bus and walked them to their seats all the way in the back where Papi said Gaby would have room to stretch out and fall asleep. Gaby studied Papi. Knowing about the eyeballs by the river did he really think Gaby would ever fall asleep again and leave his eyeballs unwatched? Gaby settled in by the window and now Papi was peeking into it from outside. The bus had filled and the conductor shut the door. Papi told Mami he would follow the minute he got the telegram.Then just before the bus pulled away he told Gaby. "Pretty soon you'll fall asleep and when you wake up next morning you'll be in the Capital."
Papi had forgotten he had ojos duros. Gaby watched the people sitting on the benches in the plaza and walking on the narrow sidewalks. Sometimes under a streetlight he got a good look at a face. But so far, not one of them had been missing their eyes. He had no intention of sleeping and missing getting a good close look at the purple mountains of La Sierra Vertebral ringing Los Santos. He only got to see the mountains from very far most times. They were Heaven, he knew, and the stories they told in Sunday school happened there week by week. Sunday school was the only good part of church because he got the news from heaven. Maybe he'd catch a glimpse of some of the heaven people, maybe Jose with his coat of many colors. Or, maybe he'd catch a glimpse of Peri's sister's novio, El Rubio, because the mountains were also where the rebeldes were and the revolucion (the reason for the torturas) was happening.
Mami had long gone to sleep with her head snug in a small feather pillow she'd brought along to cradle her neck and cover her ears but Gaby had his ojos duros wide open when the two men with bandannas on their faces stepped right in front of the bus and made the driver stop short. These men with guns wore green and not caqui. They must be rebeldes and not Heaven people because there were no guns in Bible time. They walked through the bus all the way from front to back, bringing their faces (with eyeballs) close to each passenger and asking very loud. "Quien es Miguel Carlos?"
Then the men did a second pass, back to front, asking for contributions. This was like Church ofrenda but with long guns Gaby had never seen this close. He'd only seen them from across the street when he passed the soldiers' Cuartel and once in a cowboy movie. But that was very long ago because he seldom went to the Cine. He'd only gone that time because his Prima Cari was visiting from the Capital and Papi took pity that she was bored en el campo. For the most part, movies were sin. Because they were in the back seat Mami had been the second one to give her ofrenda. When the bandanna man came to her she hid the hand with the wedding ring and gave the man her little gold hoop earrings.
This man who took the jewels was barely older than Peri's brother Franco. He said Gracias very nicely. Gaby decided not to be scared, or maybe his body already held as much miedo as it could fit. He clutched Mami's hidden ring hand and they filed outside with the others, last on the long line. In the dark Gaby could make out another bus in front of them, and another one before that. Passengers gathered on the sides of the road saying nothing. A boy not much older than Gaby held a gun to the group Gaby and Mami were brought to. If only Peri were here to see this. How did you get to be a boy with a gun? He felt Mami's hand tremble and he squeezed it. She pulled him over to the boy with the gun and looked down into the Gunboy's shiny brown eyes. "I have to get to the Capital." She pointed to her belly. "I'm a punto of having a baby."
The Gunboy shrugged. Gaby knew he meant he might have a gun but he was just a boy. He pointed to a larger group gathered on the other side of the road. "Talk to them." Just then Gaby turned his ojos duros their way. Mami took two steps in their direction. The rebels had been yelling but just that instant there was a hush. Gaby saw what had made the silence. One of the men with guns raised his machete and swung it sideways and cut off a man's whole head in one swoop. Peri needed to have seen this because he was never going to believe it. Now his companion was saying Miguel Ajusticiado, Alto a la Impunidad, over and over very loud. The killer walked the severed head over to the buses Simon must have once owned. He used the head like a giant crayon. He wrote Miguel Ajusticiado with blood on the buses lined up along the road.
Just before dawn the Rebeldes vanished into the mountains and let the buses go. The leader carried the head by its mota of gray hair. The body they left by the side of the road. Gaby stared at it as the bus pulled slowly out of the cuneta and joined the convoy of buses and trucks ahead of it. He held on to Mami's shaking hand. Her eyes had the floaty gaze that always scared him. Maybe there was more than one way to take away somebody's eyes even when the eyes stayed in the person's head. She kept telling him, "No tengas miedo." He felt one pierce of longing for Papi but the feeling left him, like a punzada after he ran too fast winning races with Peri. If only Peri had also seen this. Maybe, besides Heaven the Cordillera also held Hell.
Gaby studied the towns they passed. Most of these houses had porches all across the front and were made of wood and not adobe like the porchless houses of Los Santos. He watched closely the people (all with eyes) sitting on the porches, entering bodegas and eating places, walking the roads with baskets on their heads. He wondered, did they know what went on in their roadsides at night? He was beginning to get an idea of what tortura, rebelde and revolucion might mean. He glanced at Mami. Her eyes were closed and not twitching so maybe she was asleep. He never intended to sleep again.

(Can cut a lot of next section: nothing happens!!!)

In the Capital nobody was there to meet them even though Papi had telegrammed before they left. Mami said they'd probably given up waiting because the bus was half a day late. Mami asked a policia for directions but she said nothing about Miguel's head. The policia took her suitcase and walked her to the busstop. The severed head was going into the same emptiness the eyeballs had gone into. Mami was almost dragging the suitcase by the time they reached Abuela's house which stood wide, sandwiched between a small house and a warehouse. Abuela Rosario and Tia Catalina and Prima Cari jumped up from where they sat nestled in the big columpio and met them at the steps to the wide porch. What could be more wonderful than this porch? None of the houses in Los Santos had porches. This porch was like the movie screen and like the movie audience at once. On the porch you could both be the movie for the passersby and watch the movie they made as they passed. The steps were cracked and the pillars holding up the railing were missing pieces, or missing altogether.
Abuela Rosario grabbed Mami's suitcase. Prima Cari was screaming, "Llegaron, llegaron." Gaby felt himself hefted up into the air by Tia Catalina. Up close he saw too much of her eyeballs, huge through the thick lenses of her glasses. And here was his Prima Cari kissing him. Last time she'd been a little bit woman but mainly girl but now she was mostly woman. She grabbed the suitcase from Abuela's hand and kissed Mami. "We’ll go to the movies one of these days.." Cari remembered.

The birth
Maybe Mami was sleeping. She was lying on her side in the big bed where, usually, Tia Cari slept. For now Cari got to sleep with Abuela in her big bed in the next room. Gaby heard them talk softly and laugh for a long time. They knew nothing of missing heads, or missing eyeballs and could whisper and laugh in the night. He imagined tiptoeing over to their bed and crawling in between them.
Mami had a pillow under her top leg and one under her head. He watched the huge belly and wondered if the baby swam all the time or sometimes slept and how it slept under water. How the baby got in there he didn't want to ask, not after Peri's brother Franco made it his business to tell him anyway. He touched his own penis and tried to picture Papi putting his into mami's pee hole in some kind of flat place between her legs.
Abuela and Cari had long since fallen silent but ojos duros Gaby was still up when Mami began to moan. He lay there wishing he could get Papi to help but he was kilometros away on the other side of the Sierra, in Los Santos, far away where no one had heard of Miguel's head. He was surrounded everywhere by people who went through their hours and days not knowing. And here was another secret he was afraid to tell. Should he ask her what was wrong? He should but who would dare? She might swing her hand back to slap him or, with one of her whispered hiss yells, tell him, "Callate diantre." This was his first big secret, la senora del ministro beats her son.
Gaby had to bite his tongue wanting to confront them with the secrets when they gathered after the sermon for cafe y bizcochos y saludos, or here in the Capital, when the family gathered around the long dining table for desayunos and comidas. Or just before bed when the the women gathered to feel the baby kicking inside Mami's belly. He'd like them all to know so they too could stay up all night safeguarding their eyeballs by keeping their eyes wide open. it must be Gaby's job to get help if Mami moaned. Maybe the time had come for the baby to leave his playa.
What would an hombrecito, an hombre, do? He'd rather watch these grownups than have anything to do with them, and here now was one of the best subjects of his inquiry approaching. Catalina’s husband Tio Justo, el policia. He could hear him getting closer, announcing his arrival with the clack of his heels.He wore a dark blue uniform and had a gun (although not a long gun). He said malas palabras whenever he wanted to and Papi said nothing about his curses, didn't even make a face . Mami just smiled even when Tio Justo called somebody a come mierda. Once when Gaby said the very same words (come mierda) she had dragged him over to the toilet bowl and yelled (loud because they were in the house far from the church where nobody could hear her), "Look in there." (There was an unflushed mojon because the toilet didn't always work). "If you say come mierda again you'll have to eat that."
Tio Justo was a policia. Usually when he came home from his patrulla he clacked his heels right past Gaby's room and went straight to his bedroom. But this night he paused by the door and listened to Mami's moans. He did what an hombre would do, what Gaby had been too scared to do, what the Tias had failed to do on their own, he paid attention. Gaby had noticed Tio Justo didn't miss a thing. His gaze was always roaming, watching everything. Maybe Gaby could trust him to take over the watching for a while and go to sleep.
Justo alerted the women. Abuela Rosario came in, put her hand on Mami's belly and announced it was time to take her to the Hospital de la Policia. Catalina, Justo and Abuela took Mami in a car borrowed from the neighbor two doors down. (Nobody on the block refused Justo anything.) Just when Gaby thought everyone had forgotten him Cari crawled into his bed. It was better not to be alone. In the soft glow from the sliver of moon he could see through the patio door, Cari looked sweet and completely his. He wanted so much to tell her about the head. But what if he did and the men in bandannas materialized to kill them?
Cari's eyes were closed and she was breathing but not so slow he could tell for sure she was asleep. He got closer. "Cari, Cari." She opened her picaro brown eyes.
He told her.
He could tell she didn't believe him. He was sorry the moment the words left his lips. He made her swear on the new baby not to tell, not Catalina, not Abuela, not Justo, not her novio Oscarito in the photo by her bed.
Afer she slept he lay watching the sky. The moon had disappeared and the sky was getting lighter. Maybe people didn't deserve his secrets. He was still awake when Justo, Catalina and Abuela passed his door. It was time for the women to start the day's kitchen chores. Gaby smelled the cafe brewing in the kitchen and he pretended to be just woken up when Abuela came for Cari, and gently stroked his head to tell him. "You have a little sister.”

La Nina comes home, Cari tells the secret

(straighten out sequence)

He strained to hear sounds from Abuelo's room across the hall where his parents were now sleeping siesta with La Nina.
Last night past midnight they'd all come home and walked past Gaby's door and none of them said a word to Gaby. First Papi came home, with Tio Justo and Mami and La Nina in the borrowed car and they all went into the room with La Nina. Then Abuelo came home from his job as conductor for a bus that traveled to the interior and back. (He still had a head). He'd gone into the room to see La Nina and come out and gone behind the kitchen to the spare room in the back.
Now Papi and Mami filed past Gaby's door, not looking his way, to the mesa del comedor. Mami had La Nina in a little bundle in her arms. From his bed he could watch the grownups gathering in the comedor for the afternoon merienda, adoring little Micaela. Papi was saying she was named, like Gaby, after an angel in the Bible. He heard Papi tell abuela he expected another boy and was going to name him Miguel. Miguel like the headless man! Abuela said thank God they didn't call her Miguelina because she didn't like that name.
None of them noticed Gaby wasn't with them. He felt a heat in his chest that curled his hands into fists and shot hot tears from his eyes. He hadn't been paying attention to Cari talking and now she raised her voice and he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"They cut off his head." She practically yelled the words. Cari, as always, found how to be the center. She would take attention away from Papi even if she had to tell Gaby's sworn secret to do it. Gaby jumped up from the bed and ran to the comedor and when he reached them Papi bent down and ran his finger across his neck. Mami kept looking at Micaela who as usual was sucking on her breast. Abuela and Catalina were all laughing. Tio Justo spit out his cafe con leche. Did they really think this was funny? Or did grownups laugh when they were scared? Abuelo was saying he'd heard all about it, Miguel had it coming. Gaby wanted to bite Cari's arm. Instead he dug his fingernails into his own palms. Cari told, even though she'd sworn on the new baby. He looked to see if anything was happening to La Nina. Maybe what would happen would come later like spells and curses in fairy tales.
Micaela unplugged herself from Mami and began to cry. Maybe she cried because now Cari had cursed her, or because she looked like a raisin and her jet black hair stuck out around her head like the sea urchin she must have been in her private ocean.

Oscarito treats him like he's human
Gaby sat in the columpio in the front porch with Cari’s novio Oscarito. Cari was with La Nina because Papi had taken Mami to the Hospital de la Policia. Gaby prayed she wasn't about to have another Nina. Oscarito had stopped reading his Sucesos magazine so Gaby asked him to make him a dibujo of a horse. Oscarito took his fat black fountain pen from his top guayabera pocket and drew a horse, not a very good one, but still, Gaby could tell it was a horse. Gaby kept his eyes on the horse drawing. He said, "telefono", and Oscarito drew a boxy telephone. Gaby tried hard not to look at the photos Oscarito flipped past quickly to get to a page with some blank space. Still the images had invaded Gaby's eyeballs. A row of bodies on the side of a road; a hillside strewn with bodies missing parts. Some of the bodies looked like they were melting into the dirt. There was a photo of a man that looked like Miguel, still alive and with a head.
Oscarito drew another horse, this time a bigger one because the advertisement for a muebleria had lots of blank space around the pictures of rocking chairs and beds. He quickly drew another telephone. Gaby took hold of Oscarito's hand. "Let me see the photos." He expected Oscarito to hit him and call him diantre or muchacho presentao. But instead Oscarito said, "I didn't mean for you to see them but you did." Gaby got closer and leaned into Oscar who turned the pages slowly. "Estas son atrocidades." Oscarito's voice was soft but a little like Papi's sermon voice. "These atrocities are because of the Dictator's greed. We're going to stop him. La revolucion is going to change everything. They're frightening but don't stay scared. There are thousands of us fighting for a better world. They do these things to us and more of us rise up. After the rebeldes win there won't be any more need to chop off the heads of vende patrias."
Just then Tio Justo marched up the porch steps in his navy blue uniform. He paused by Oscarito and Gaby in the columpio, looked at the magazine spread open between them. "All we need is for you to fill his head with shit." He marched inside. Gaby sat stiff. For one second he pictured himself running into the house after Justo the way Gaby usually did because Justo would have liked that and it was always good to have Justo liking you. He looked up at Oscarito who was looking at him with a thoughtful smile. "You have to feel sorry for him. He doesn't even know which side in this fight is really his."
Gaby chose. He inched closer to Oscarito and crawled halfway onto his lap. Next thing he knew it was dark on the porch. He'd slept at last. What woke him was Miguel's head moving its lips. It wanted to say something but it had no throat. Oscarito had let Gaby sleep on his lap for a long time and now that he was up he said softly, "Vamos a merendar." He led him to the back of the house. As they proceeded along the long hallway he turned on the lights.

Broken bottle, punched door
Mami and Papi had come back from El Medico and Mami and La Nina were reunited in Abuelo's bedroom even though Abuelo was back from la Provincia. Gaby could see la Nina sucking away on Mami's tit from where he sat in a rocking chair in the big pasillo between his room and theirs. Gaby had seen puppies and kittens do that and had seen Abuela Rosario milk the tetas on the goat she kept in the big patio. The goat was lose and Gaby could see it through the barred window poking its snout into the shut bottom half of the patio door. He was drinking that goat milk now and trying to shut out talk of the Bautizo de la Nina. He couldn't believe he'd gotten Mami to let him have one of the bottles La Nina had been given as gifts but didn't yet need, since mostly, she got to suck on Mami. He gave himself over to the pleasure of drinking the warm milk. If he drank it very slowly his tongue found the way it was sweet. He held the milk in his mouth awhile and the sweet surprise came if he was patient.
By giving himself over to the sweet milk he could stop himself from hearing Papi and Tia Catalina and Prima Cari planning their trip to Los Santos for the Bautizo de la Nina. Tio Justo would commandeer the neighbor's car. How were they going to fit in the car? He certainly didn't want to hear plans for Gaby and Oscarito to go by bus on their own. Todo para la Nina. He shuddered. He never wanted to cross la Sierra Vertebral again, not in a car and especially not in a bus.
He sat very still in his rocker hoping to blend. If he sat very still maybe, maybe the world around him would hold still. He sat rocking and sucking and studying the human zoo of the adults. He rocked and sucked and watched and let the sweetness make a wall between him and them, a milky wall, like gauze.
And then the bottle slipped out of his hand and landed on the floor and smashed.
He got up and ran to the door to Cari's room. He heard himself scream and saw his own hand punch Cari's bedroom door. The hand had its own life and went right through the slats. He looked at his hand. The knuckles were bleeding. He felt pain only after he saw the blood. He was in big trouble now. Cari was screaming. "Mi puerta." He felt a hot energy rise up from the middle of his chest into his hands and he punched through the persianas again. He turned back to look at Cari who was coming toward him. Before she could reach him he punched the slats again. Mami handed La Nina go Papi and came at him. "Diantre. Estas loco?" She raised her arm and brought her hand hard onto his shouder blades. Mami had never hit him in front of Papi before. Maybe at last Papi was going to make her stop. She hit him again, in front of Tia Catalina and Abuela Rosario and Abuelo Elpidio and Oscarito.
Maybe now they would all stop her. Gaby looked to Papi but Papi was bouncing La Nina and patting her back. Mami left off being careful where the blows landed. Gaby felt himself floating up to the ceiling spying the beating from above. His body was far below, very far away from him and the aching in his ass and shoulders reached him from far away, like a movie about his own life. Gaby didn't know exactly when the beating stopped but next thing he knew Abuelo Elpidio was shaking his head as he studied the slats. "Calmense. Todo tiene arreglo." Abuelo could fix anything. Oscarito walked toward him. Gaby hid his face against Oscarito's legs. Cari took his hand and said, "Vamos a pasear."

Paseo, huelga

Oscarito had a beat up car that rattled but Gaby was excited sitting on the edge of the back seat looking out the window at the sights of La Capital. He couldn't remember ever riding in a car. In Los Santos they walked everyplace, la Iglesia, la Escuela, la bodega, la casa de Peri, even el Rio were all places he could get to just by walking. There were many more places in La Capital. When he came to La Capital with Mami before La Nina, he'd traveled with her on buses and tranvias to the dentist, to buy shoes. So far the car wasn't making him want to vomit like tranvias did. It didn't have that terrible burnt smell. He stared out the window at the houses with porches that gave way to buildings with three, four, five stories, each with balconies, and then to buildings that looked as old as Los Santos houses but with many stories and little iron railed balcones barely big enough for one chair. Gaby got to sit in the front seat in between the novios. He curled up with his head on Cari's lap staring at the blue sky through the windshield, watching the drifts of clouds. He felt a strange warmth tingling through his body and realized this was something he hadn't felt for a long, long, time. The feeling of not being scared at all. Oscarito said. "Vamos al cine."
La pelicula was de vaqueros. Gaby waited for the moment when the famoso de la pelicula sat on his white horse behind a clump of bushes and a big round rock ambushing los malos in their black clothes and dark horses. He was almost sure this was the very same bushes and rock he'd seen in the other cowboy movie, that the spot was as fixed as the corner outside Abuela Rosario's house, or the meadow by the river. Now suddenly the scene shifted to the house and el famoso was kissing the woman so Gaby turned his head away. He'd had enough kissing with Cari and Oscarito who had barely looked at the screen once during the movie. He saw the man walk down the row just behind them and pat Oscarito on the shoulder so he finally had to let go of the endless beso. After the man was done whispering into his ear Oscarito whispered to Cari, ruffled Gaby's hair, got up and left.
Cari moved next to Gaby, clutched his hand, and began to sob. Gaby kept his eyes on the screen. More than anything he wanted to know how el famoso got el malo and prayed Cari didn't make them get up and go. He never got to know because not long after Oscarito left the movie went off, the cine was pitch black and suddenly swarmed with police men wearing the same navy blue uniform Tio Justo wore, pointing flashlights, swinging their night sticks and telling everyone to leave.
Outside the movie house Gaby stopped short at the sight of swarms of people carrying signs and banners. He saw that almost all the stores were now shut. Cari yanked at his arm. A woman beside them who had also come out of the cine said this was the huelga general. Cari began to sob again as she led them into the throng of people flowing like the Rio Caiman. They were chanting and at last Gaby made out what they were saying and began to chant with them. "Abajo la tirania." He didn't know what they meant. But he thought of how he'd like to bring down the tirania of the grownups who ran his life and for even a little while be the famoso of his own pelicula. Cari too began to chant. It was a long time before Gaby again wondered how they'd get home or where it was they were heading. They walked and screamed and waved to the people hanging out of windows and balcones and looking from sidewalks. Lots of the people watching joined in as the march went by.
La tirania didn't have enough policias or enough horses to flank the swelling march. Gaby could see the scared face of the young policia high up on a horse. The horse reared like in the movie. He saw the boy policia raise his gun and shoot. Cari pulled Gaby into a side street with a tributary of people who were starting to be crazy. She ducked into the doorway of a shuttered store and pressed Gaby against it. People were running, screaming, falling, getting trampled. The policeman on the horse got pulled down and trapped by a wall of humans. Gaby watched men and women beat and kick him. Gaby willed his hard eyes to close but they wouldn't.

Cari knew the way to walk and told Gaby they would get there and he believed her and let himself be led by her hand. He was very tired and he felt his small body moving on its own, separate from his mind which he let shut down as if he were getting a beating from Mami or having a bad dream. At any moment the Rio Caiman would appear and all he would have to do is resist the dream command to jump into the jaws of the caimanes. They didn't have to walk the whole way home, though. When they got to the beginning of the Doblevia a car pulled up beside them. The driver was one of their vecinos and the people in the back seat made room. They each sat on somebody's lap, Cari bent almost double with her head leaning over the front seat and Gaby squeezed into the door. Gaby listened to everybody in the car talk at once. The huelga general was now in its 7th hour and General Olebre's army was conducting a masacre. The way they said masacre he knew it belonged with rebelde, revolucion, tortura. He turned his face toward the talkers. "Que es eso? Que es masacre.?" He knew Oscarito would tell him if he was there. And now a young woman squeezed against the opposite door looked straight at him and said. "Cuando la tirania mata y mata y mata gente." He saw her clench her fists and bring them to her face and start to cry.
And then at last they were home. He ran in and Papi who was standing on the porch steps swept him up into his arms and kissed him and handed him to Mami and she hugged him and kissed him too and then everybody was hugging and kissing everybody, everybody who was there, Rosario, Catalina, Abuelo Elpidio. Gaby didn't ask where Oscarito or Tio Justo were.
They walked together down the hallway. Gaby saw Abuelo had already fixed the slats he'd punched through in Cari's door, except for the color. Abuela Rosario fed Cari and Gaby on the long comedor table, rice and beans and carne with olives in the sauce. No food ever tasted better.
Mami and Papi didn't say no when he followed them into the bedroom. Mami was by the dresser folding La Nina's clothes and Papi was stretched out on the bed next to La Nina. Gaby crawled alongside her. He waited for them to say, 'No la toques,' but nobody said a word.
So he lay with his face next to La Nina's. She was awake and she wasn't crying. Gaby looked into her eyes. They were light brown, soft, the color of brown sugar caramelos, and they had a deep light coming from inside. Watching his hermanita he felt a sweet warm tingling feeling from his chest to his fingertips. He kissed her tiny forehead and took one of her tiny little hands in his and kissed it. He wished she'd smile at him but he could tell she was loving him too anyway from the light in her eyes and he thought, La Nina knows everything, she just doesn't have the words.

Gaby sat in his dark cloud on the rocking chair in the wide hallway, sucking on the milk bottle Mami had let him have even though he was way too old for it. She'd let him keep for himself one of the regalos for the baby .