Blog 7-Lost Men

I stepped closer to Franz. “You must know if it's true 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. Was this the wrong time, or the wrong question? He hated my fear. “I'm not convinced my husband's being held in the Camp but Machi believes that he is. If he is why would no authorities have contacted me?” Franz laughed and shook his head. “You actually believe that they would contact you?” He leaned into me. “There's a Justice Works office by the plaza in Coral. They're your best bet for following the official tracking protocol.”
Machi brought his face close to Franz. “I don't need lawyers to tell me what I know. Pa's there. And I don't expect it's going to be lawyers that get him out.” He spoke in his shut the fuck up tone. “What's the unofficial protocol?” He addressed this question to Franz and then he turned to me. “Don't want you asking me over and over how I know what I know. Or your crazy friend Julia asking me why I think David is hiding out in the Encampment.” Franz smiled. “Sooner or later everybody turns up in Palenque.”
I wanted to ask him how the Encampment came to be called Palenque, the name taken for their settlements by the self liberated enslaved during the Primera Colonia, our colonization by Spain, but just then Machi put his arm around me. Machi showing affection for me emptied my head of anything but utter joy. 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 after you're there.” Machi stepped away from me and looked down on me from his full height. “Like Pa always said, once you decide something you don't second guess.” Franz laughed. “Sounds right.” Maybe we had found ourselves our first ally.
I left the young men, joined Julia at the snack bar, and got myself a hot dog too. Julia said she was sorry she bit off my head. She'd never apologized to me before. Taina ran to Machi who lifted her up so she could get a better look at the dolphins still following our ferry. Julia said, “Machi doesn't need our fears. Once he convinced me David went to the Encampment to hide and you that Ori had been renditioned to the Camp, we need to stay convinced. What else do we have?” I finished the hot dog. The world looked better with some food in my stomach, even that food. 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.” I watched the two young men, talking, heads close, thinking together. I shook my head. "He's not desperate."
The ferry rose and dropped on a swell. Julia ran to the seating area and gripped a plastic chair bolted to the deck. The wind barely moved her short, bleached, sprayed, helmet of hair. Did I wear the same look of chronic terror she did? The past twelve years of escalated repression had marked us. 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?”
“Screaming at me again?” Somehow, I was laughing and she caught herself, laughed with me. “You can't keep doing this. You decided, I didn't make you come. Just like you decided to go with me to the Parade all those years ago.” I was still laughing. I had no idea why I wasn't triggered by her rage into rage or terror of my own as I usually was. I studied her face. “You have every right to be angry, but it's not me you need to be angry at.” My voice was gentle. I don't know how my love for her was pushing through my urge to shake her. I almost crooned. “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 again. I couldn't stop laughing. “Let's do this,” she said. “Let's take turns with our rage and 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, gazed out toward the sea and whispered, “Look at that turquoise water. We can see all the way to the bottom of the Caribbean sea. How can we forget life is good?” We were still arm in arm, and I whispered, “God knows I try to keep my mind on goodness. But always in the back of my mind is the dread that Machi will disappear again.” She held my gaze and nodded. Still holding her I turned to face her. “When did our men become the endangered species? Were they always? Is that why they oppress us?”
I turned to look at Franz leaning with Machi against the railing. “Men, our dominators. Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out they are the most oppressed by capitalism, wound up like ticking bombs, to fight its wars?” I motioned to Franz. “Official soldier.” And then to Machi. “Unofficial soldier.” Julia gave me a small encouraging smile so I kept talking, saying thoughts I'd never spoken out loud before. “Only those few rich white men plundering this planet while they ready their spaceships for the next benefit from domination. Are they human anymore? They're so run through by the irrational tyranny of market greed they are killing us all.”
She hissed back. “I wish they did have spaceships and another planet to go to. Why can't they see that as they kill us they also kill themselves?” Her face hardened. Angry Julia was back. She yelled, “What do I care? David's father Arturo is a prick. I don't want to hear excuses for him spending half our married life in prison; then the last two times he was out he managed to have another baby with a different woman each time. He has new twins!..”
I clenched my fists. “I forget I have all this fury. It's exhausting.”
This time Julia laughed loud. “Believe me, your friends don't forget your rage.” (So she considered us friends!) This must be my turn to rage. She let me push into her hand. "In a rational world my son would have a thriving life...him and his friends, your David, all that talent, all those gifts, and there's no room for them. Most of their lives go to hell. So many of the boys he grew up with are already dead, or in prison." I studied her face, to see if I'd lost her, if she was thinking of her own son, afraid he might be dead. But she was with me. I pushed into her hand as hard as I could until I could push no more, let up, pushed again and again, and then, for the moment, the fury was spent.
Machi called to me. I emerged from the shelter of Julia's arms and stood beside him. He pointed and I followed his gaze. “Cayo Karaya”. He picked up Taina and sat her on his shoulders so that she could see. “Karaya quiere decir luna,” she said. “Abuela said so, Karaya means moon.” Everyone on the ferry gathered for the first sighting of La Isla. Taina pointed to the right. “Where's the moon?”
Franz grabbed my arm.“Look now. Right now. This is the only moment you can see both halves of the Island, see both Karaya and Ventura at once from the Ferry. That glittering silver line is the outer perimeter of the Base, where it straddles both halves. That strange base, my fucking base, actually has a border crossing deep in its bowels!" I looked at my beautiful island, my two motherlands, and longing pierced me both for socialist Ventura and colonized Karaya.
Julia and I stood arm in arm looking at the distant yellow and green crescent of land. “Paradise,” Julia said. I let hope rise and said under my breath. “What if Machi's right and Ori's there, renditioned there, and we find him? What if he's right and David is hiding in the Encampment, or the Territorio Libre, or even Ventura, and we find him?” Machi looked at me and put his arm around me. “Vamos a encontrar al Viejo.” He studied my face. I knew he was looking for doubt. I knew he was willing me to believe. The ferry was turning and he walked portside with Taina on his shoulders and with Franz, to keep Cayo Karaya in sight. “From here on, “ Franz said, “We are no longer leaving, we are arriving.”