Hard Eyes casi casi

“Listen!” The high pitched whistle was Peri’s big brother Franco calling Gaby and Peri outside. They ran out by the kitchen door (Peri's mother at the stove didn't see them) 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 call him Hard Eyes. Franco let the two boys follow 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 along the river 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.
It was a long time until Peri spoke. "I heard my Viejo talking about torturas." Peri's voice was almost a whisper. Gaby looked Peri in the eyes. "If they torture me I'll know how not to talk." He too had heard the grownups talking of torturas during the saludos after church, and once when he listened outside the door of the empty room in the middle of the house where Papi kept a table and sometimes wrote his sermons. The man who visited was telling Papi he had been torturado. Papi had called out in his preacher voice, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He wished Papi had explained to the Lord exactly what torturas were, but the Lord knew everything. All Gaby knew was tortura was like rebelde, guerrilla and revolucion, adulto words.Maybe Peri had fallen asleep. Gaby didn't 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.

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. Gaby was afraid to ask Papi why the sargento opened one man's suitcase and took away a pair of caqui pants. Papi kissed Mami on the lips, hugged her from the side to avoid the big belly, and told her he would join them as soon as he got the telegram. He bent down, kissed Gaby, told him he was now an hombrecito, and must take good care of Mami in the Capital, and said soon he would meet his new little brother who maybe might turn out to be a sister. Papi walked them to their seats all the way in the back where he said Gaby would have room to stretch out and fall asleep so when he woke up he'd be in La Capital. Did he really think Gaby would ever fall asleep again and leave his eyeballs unwatched?
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. 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,who'd gone to the Sierra to be a rebelde.
Mami had been sleeping for a long time with her head wrapped in a small feather pillow but Gaby had his hard eyes 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 the Bible. 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 in Los Santos. 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.
Gaby 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. "I have to get to the Capital." She pointed to her belly. "I'm a punto of having a baby."
The Gunboy shrugged. 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. 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 Miguel must have once owned. He used the head like a giant crayon. He wrote Miguel Ajusticiado with blood on Gaby's bus.

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 didn't tell about the head. He took her suitcase and walked them to the busstop. Mami was 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 jumped up from their rockers and Tia Cari jumped up from where she sat in the big columpio beside a tall young man with a thin moustache.
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. Abuela Rosario kissed him and pummeled him with her fists at the same time. 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 introducing her novio Oscarito who grabbed Mami's suitcase and brought it inside. Prima Cari whispered in his ear, "We’ll go to the movies one of these days.." Cari remembered."Oscarito will take us in his car."

Maybe Mami was sleeping. She was lying on her side in the big bed where, usually, Prima Cari slept. For now Cari got to sleep with Abuela in her big bed in the next room. Gaby lay on the edge of the bed as far away from Mami as he could get without falling off, next to the bedside table near the wall. He listened to Cari laughing loud out on the porch with Oscarito and to the music from the novela Tia Catalina and Abuela were pretending to watch in the living room. Cari said they were really watching her and Oscarito through the window making sure they didn't get to kiss. Gaby stared at Oscarito's eyeballs in the photograph on Cari's bedside table, staring right back at him.
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 think about, not after what Peri's brother Franco told him. 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.
Mami moaned. He lay there wishing he could get Papi 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 had so many secrets. Here was another secret he was afraid to tell, la Senora del Ministro beats her son. If he asked her why she was moaning would she swing her hand back to slap him and yell at him," diantre Ojos Duros."
Maybe the time had come for the baby to leave his ocean.What would an hombrecito do? He'd rather watch grownups than be like them. He could hear Catalina's husband Tio Justo the policia clacking his heels down the hall. He was one of the best grownups to watch. He wore a dark blue uniform and had a gun (although not a long gun). He cursed whenever he wanted to and Papi said nothing, didn't even make a face. 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. Tio Justo didn't miss a thing. His eyes were always roaming, watching everything. He clacked back to the front of the house and came back with Abuela and Catalina.
Abuela Rosario 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 came back in from the porch and crawled into bed him. Gaby saw she was crying. She turned Oscarito's photo upside down. "He's going to leave me and go to the Sierra." She sobbed. Even with Cari crying it was better not to be alone. In the soft glow from the hallway light he could see straight into Cari's eyeballs. Why couldn't he see her thoughts? He wanted so much to tell her about Miguel's head. But what if he did and the men in bandannas came to kill them? He got closer and whispered in her ear. 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 upside down novio Oscarito. He was still awake when Abuela came to get Cari to go make the cafe con leche. Abuela kissed him and whispered, "You have a little sister.”

(Where is he? This is the section to cut...but where?)
Papi and Mami filed past Gaby's door, not looking his way, to the dining room. Mami had La Nina in a little bundle in her arms. From his bed Gaby could watch the grownups gathering 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!
None of them noticed Gaby wasn't with them. He felt heat in his chest curl his hands into fists and shoot 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. 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 bent over 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 on his bus route, 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 bad was happening to La Nina. She unplugged herself from Mami and began to cry. Maybe she cried because now Cari had cursed her, or because her jet black hair stuck out around her head like the sea urchin she must have been in her private ocean.

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 draw a horse. Oscarito took his fat black fountain pen from his top guayabera pocket and drew and 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.
Gaby took hold of Oscarito's hand. "Let me see." 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. They kill us and more rise up to fight. 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. He looked up at Oscarito who was looking at him. "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. He got very close and whispered in Oscarito's ear about the eyes. Oscarito shook his head. "A boy shouldn't have to know about torturas." 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.

Mami and Papi had come back from El Medico and Mami and La Nina were reunited in Abuelo's room. 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. He couldn't believe he'd gotten Mami to let him have one of La Nina's bottles. He was drinking milk now too. If he drank the milk very slowly his tongue found the way it was sweet. 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 La Nina's baptism. Tio Justo would commandeer the neighbor's car. How were they going to fit in the car? He shuddered. He never wanted to cross la Sierra Vertebral again.
He sat rocking and sucking and watching the grownups. He wondered how you could tell from looking at one if he was a rebelde or a torturer. Or what the difference was between a torturer who took out eyes and a rebelde who cut off heads. That was the mystery of grownups, were they good or were they bad? He rocked and sucked and watched and let the sweetness make a milky wall between him and 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. 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 to Papi, raised her arm and brought her hand hard onto his shouder blades. "Diantre. Ojos Duros. Estas loco?" 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, watching the beating from above like a movie about his own life. When Mami beat him he knew how not to show the pain, that was why he knew when he was torturado he wouldn't talk. Gaby didn't know exactly when the beating stopped but next thing he knew Abuelo Elpidio was looking at the broken slats and nodding his head."Calmense. Everything can be fixed." Gaby saw Oscarito come toward him. He hid his face against Oscarito's legs. Cari took his hand and said, "Vamos al cine."

Gaby sat between Oscarito and Cari looking through the windshield at La Capital. In Los Santos la Iglesia, la Escuela, la bodega, la casa de Peri, even el Rio were all places he could get to just by walking. He stared at houses with porches that gave way to buildings with three, four, five stories, each with balconies, and then to buildings as old as Los Santos houses but with many stories and little iron railed balcones barely big enough for one chair. He curled up with his head on Cari's lap staring at the blue sky, watching the drifts of clouds.
La pelicula was de vaqueros. The famoso de la pelicula sat on his white horse behind a clump of bushes and a big round rock waiting for los malos in their black clothes and dark horses. A man walked down the row behind them and patted Oscarito on the shoulder so he finally had to stop kissing Cari. After the man was done whispering into his ear Oscarito whispered to Cari, ruffled Gaby's hair, got up, and left.
Cari clutched Gaby's 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 cine lights went out and lots of police swarmed pointing flashlights, swinging night sticks, and telling everyone to leave.
Outside the movie house Gaby stopped short at the sight of crowds of people carrying signs and banners. He saw all the stores were shut. Cari yanked at his arm. A woman beside them who had also come out of the cine said this was the general strike the rebeldes had been promising. Cari began to sob again as she led them into the crowd, hundreds 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 thought of how he'd like to bring down the grownups who ran his life and for even a little while be the famoso of his own movie. Cari too began to chant. They walked and screamed and waved to the people hanging out of windows and balcones and looking from sidewalks.
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 felt his 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 seventh hour and General Olebre's army was doing a massacre. The way they said massacre he knew the word belonged with rebelde, revolucion, tortura. He turned his face toward the talkers. "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 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. As he drifted off to sleep he thought, La Nina knows everything, she just doesn't have the words.