Going to America
x
March 16
Dear papa,
It is Spring. The frost thaws in the mountains and the streams are alive again. Though the guns have sounded closer in the last week, and one of the villagers says he has seen soldiers running in the jungle. The smell of fire is everywhere now, staining the air with grey haze Uncle says comes from burning corn and trees. People have started moving up from the valley, talking of clearing new land higher up to plant their corn. They look ragged and sad, their faces as clouded as their air. Some of them burned. Some of them wounded.
Uncle questions each batch of strangers as they crawl up the muddy way. How far down on the soldiers? Has the road come closer?
The answers to both questions seems to make Uncle angry. No one seems to know anything for certain. Their talk is scattered with fear. They run from the shadows of soldiers if not the soldiers themselves, always just ahead of the flames.
Uncle worries over the coming of soldiers. He does not want to move again-- at least not this season. Maybe next, he says, when I am another year older and taller and strong enough to help him clear the jungle. He has grown weak with age. And tired. And often says he wishes to never move again.
I am afraid, too. But not of the soldiers so much as moving. I do not want to go deeper into the mountains away from the road. I think of you often, of the face that has been described to me over and over by my dying mother, a child's chant to make me cease crying when I was young.
You are the son of an American, she said. As if that made me special to anyone but her.
you son,
Billy
***********
March 20
Dear Papa,
Uncle has decided to fetch seed rather than wait to trade with the indians. He says the soil is soft and ripe for planting. But he is uncertain and wants to see for himself where the soldiers are and how far the road has come up the mountain. He wants to know if it is safe to plant another season here. If we plant and the soldiers come, we will have to abandon everything. But if we wait and they do not come we lose the early corn.
I do not wish to be here for another season and Uncle suspects as much. Only I wish to go down the mountain, not up, to find some way to come to you. I do not want to grow old and die here like my uncle does before my eyes. I do not want to plant corn all my life to have it taken from me and my land burned. Maybe it is just my mother's dream taking root in me, making me yern to see things that are beyond my sight.
I have asked Uncle to let me come with him. But he is suspicious. He knows I think about running away. And yet, the prospect of traveling the muddy path down mountain and up again, alone, terrifies him. He is afraid he will be mistaken for a rebel and shot-- or shot by soldiers thinking he's come to take back the land. With me, perhaps, the soldiers will not shoot so quickly. Many mistake my blond hair and blue eyes as being American. They are your hair and eyes mother told me. Uncle agrees to take me, but he will watch me close.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 23
Dear papa,
The sound of guns grows louder as we come down and the smell of smoke stronger. We see movement in the jungle, men running uphill. Uncle pays no attention to them and tells me not to look their way either. But his face is taunt. The shadow of his hat does not hide the fear in his eyes. They are rebels. They do not see us or our donkey. Or choose not to see us. Rumor has made them into all seeing beings, who live off the high mountain villages like thieves. As we come down, the lands change, too. The jungle fades into glade of burned out farms. Scorched corn still smoldering in some of these. The smell of death lingering in the air. But it is not the smell of dead animals this time.
Soldiers stop us, pointing their guns at us as they demand to know where we are going. Uncle tells them. He is frightened and stumbles over his words. Perhaps the soldiers think him funny. They let us go on. They do not even shoot our donkey.
Your son,
Billy
***********
March 24
Dear papa,
I cannot believe this thing Uncle calls "the road." So flat and black and hard, as if the very stones had been crushed and flattened, though it smells like the pitch we use to seal the roof against rain. This part, Uncle says, is new. His voice is fully of weariness and he looked to calculate where the road was last he saw it and how long ago that way. He does not trust his memory. He says he will ask the seed store man when we get there.
It is seeing the road that has made up my mind at last. I won't go back to the mountain to scatch out Uncle's corn. I will not stay and fear the coming of soldiers or move with Uncle higher up the mountain for another season free of the road.
For the flat black road leads west, down to the ocean, maybe even as far as America and you. I will follow it. But I must do so when Uncle is sleeping because he will try to stop me. He will try and made me go back to scratching corn.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 25
Dear papa,
Uncle knows and watches me. I could not leave last night the way I'd planned, and now we have come to the seed store already, only a half day's walk down the black road. He intends to stay here in the night and start back in the morning after both of us have rested. Therefore, I must slip away this night or not have a chance again. We are far down the mountain here, a long head start towards America if I cam to get there.
But Uncle fears this and has asked the seed seller to lock me in his shed for the night. He does not like to do this, but does so when Uncle insists. Then, for many hours, he and uncle talk, their voices rising and falling from the other room, half angry, half sad. Once the seed seller comes and gives me candy, saying he is sorry for my being locked away. He is not a soldier. He does not like to see living things caged. Then, Uncle comes. He seems to have made up his mind. The road comes too close to trust another season of planting corn. Even if the soldiers do not find our corn patch in the mountains this season, the fighting will come close. Soldiers and rebels will come and kill each other in our fields. It is better we move over the mountain to the other side where the road will never come, where we can scratch out our corn in peace and trade with the indians.
Then, the seed seller and Uncle leave, continuing their talk deep into the night.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
I am free! I found the loose board in the back of the shed after the seed seller and Uncle had gone to sleep. I thought the noise of my moving it would wake them both. But it did not and I slipped out into the dark without either seeing or hearing me. I am now on the road, resting after a long walk. It is easier moving than on the mud trails of the mountain or with the slow plodding of a mule to slow me down.
I wonder if Uncle will follow me. I know he will be hurt-- he much to help me when mother died, taking me on as if I was a son to him, teaching me how to scratch out corn. He will ache as if a son had died, his old face that much older for my loss. But I am not his son and I do not wish to spend my life as he did, fearing soldiers and planting corn.
I wish to be with you. My mother wished it, though she never wrote you to tell you about me. She did not want you to come back out of guilt. Maybe now with the flat road under my feet, I will reach you soon.
I am frightened, too. Of the changing land that has cropped up on either side of me, fences behind which cattle graze, meat-cows grunting in the dark like indian spirits. I walk carefully passed them, afraid their grunting will draw soldiers to me.
Nor are they the only thing. I did not expect machines to come on the road. great roaring machines with lights like eyes, rushing down at me. The first time I saw one, I leaped aside into the ditch afraid I would be devoured. It was an army truck full of soldiers. But others have passed. Glinting box-like machines with people sealed inside. While I did not jump away from them, they did not slow and their passing was like a hurricane wind. They make great speed down this flat road and I have vowed to stop one the next time one passes.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
I have met my first American.
He pulled up in his box-machine when I waved at him. He seemed disappointed when I climbed in. He thought me an American, too, with my blond hair. I told him my father is American and he nodded. I told him I am coming to see you, and he grinned.
He is not what I pictured Americans to be, slightly fat in wrinkled suit and tie. He tells me he is a salesman.
You sell seed, I say.
No, boy, he says. Beef and cotton. That's where the money is in these parts. Beef and cotton.
He asks how far I am going. I tell him America.
He looks at me funny for a moment, then laughs.
That's a damned good one, he says, and says he'll take me to La Libertad. I should be able to find transportation from there. Then, there is silence. Just the movement of the machine over the road and I fall to sleep. I wake to a glow on the horizon and think it is dawn and that we are travelling back towards the mountains rather than away from them.
The American laughs and says it's not dawn. It's the city. The lights make the sky glow just like those moments before dawn.
We are close to the city then, I ask?
Close? No. Not for hours yet.
I stare at the lights and I am frightened again. It is as if someone has set fire to the world. But I know moving this quickly Uncle will never catch me and I will see you soon.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
There is no word for it.
Even from a distance I am frightened of it. The air is like the haze in the mountains after a farm fire, only thicker and smelling more foul. A huge dark building appears out of the horizon, made of brick and with smoking towers. Like some dark mountain made by men for some evil purpose.
The American laughs and tells me it is nothing to be frightened of. It's a meat-processing plant. It is where the beef comes after it has grown and is made ready for America.
It's how your country gets its money, the American says, and I watch it the whole time it is in view, then have new things to look at as the city nears. No more nice than the brick mountain, but smaller, stretched out-- wooden shacks on either side of the flat road with people everywhere, hollow-eyed people with babies and bare bones looking at the car, not with hate, but with lack of hope.
It is the look in the eyes of the indians after a bad year, after the rains have washed their village down the far side of the mountain and they have come begging food. But only some of these are indians, many are like my mother's people.
Who are they, I ask the American?
He looks up as if not seeing them at first. Who knows, he says. People from the hills looking for work.
They look hungry, I say.
Maybe, the American says, his voice sounding just a little annoyed.
But where is their corn, I ask. Where is their land?
The American stops the car and tells me to get out. You're here, he says angrilly, then rushes away the minute I am out, leaving behind a trail of dust and many hungry faces.
They look at me. There is hate in their eyes. I ask them where is America and they throw stones at me.
I run and run, calling for the American to stop. But he is gone. Eventually, I am passed the hungry people and into the city, a strange wonderous but dirty place. I walk and walk until I come to the sea.
Where is America?
Someone says it is over the water. I don't know how to reach over water, I say. But I will try.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
The old man folded the last of the letters back into the bundle as he finished reading them, his gnarled face weathered from years of sun. His gaze looked sad, almost lost as he fingered the paper and the splotches of brown thick on the outside of the packet. He looked up at the priest.
"And you say you found these on the boy?" he asked.
"Sie, senior," the priest said.
"And he had blond hair?"
"Sie?"
"Then he's dead after all," the man mumbled, tugging down his hat over his eyes, hiding the streaks of wet that bubbled down his cheeks. "Thank you, padre."
Then, slowly, he took up the reigns to the mule and started back along the long flat road, his back bent from the weight of years and the long road down from the mountains.
Dear papa,
It is Spring. The frost thaws in the mountains and the streams are alive again. Though the guns have sounded closer in the last week, and one of the villagers says he has seen soldiers running in the jungle. The smell of fire is everywhere now, staining the air with grey haze Uncle says comes from burning corn and trees. People have started moving up from the valley, talking of clearing new land higher up to plant their corn. They look ragged and sad, their faces as clouded as their air. Some of them burned. Some of them wounded.
Uncle questions each batch of strangers as they crawl up the muddy way. How far down on the soldiers? Has the road come closer?
The answers to both questions seems to make Uncle angry. No one seems to know anything for certain. Their talk is scattered with fear. They run from the shadows of soldiers if not the soldiers themselves, always just ahead of the flames.
Uncle worries over the coming of soldiers. He does not want to move again-- at least not this season. Maybe next, he says, when I am another year older and taller and strong enough to help him clear the jungle. He has grown weak with age. And tired. And often says he wishes to never move again.
I am afraid, too. But not of the soldiers so much as moving. I do not want to go deeper into the mountains away from the road. I think of you often, of the face that has been described to me over and over by my dying mother, a child's chant to make me cease crying when I was young.
You are the son of an American, she said. As if that made me special to anyone but her.
you son,
Billy
***********
March 20
Dear Papa,
Uncle has decided to fetch seed rather than wait to trade with the indians. He says the soil is soft and ripe for planting. But he is uncertain and wants to see for himself where the soldiers are and how far the road has come up the mountain. He wants to know if it is safe to plant another season here. If we plant and the soldiers come, we will have to abandon everything. But if we wait and they do not come we lose the early corn.
I do not wish to be here for another season and Uncle suspects as much. Only I wish to go down the mountain, not up, to find some way to come to you. I do not want to grow old and die here like my uncle does before my eyes. I do not want to plant corn all my life to have it taken from me and my land burned. Maybe it is just my mother's dream taking root in me, making me yern to see things that are beyond my sight.
I have asked Uncle to let me come with him. But he is suspicious. He knows I think about running away. And yet, the prospect of traveling the muddy path down mountain and up again, alone, terrifies him. He is afraid he will be mistaken for a rebel and shot-- or shot by soldiers thinking he's come to take back the land. With me, perhaps, the soldiers will not shoot so quickly. Many mistake my blond hair and blue eyes as being American. They are your hair and eyes mother told me. Uncle agrees to take me, but he will watch me close.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 23
Dear papa,
The sound of guns grows louder as we come down and the smell of smoke stronger. We see movement in the jungle, men running uphill. Uncle pays no attention to them and tells me not to look their way either. But his face is taunt. The shadow of his hat does not hide the fear in his eyes. They are rebels. They do not see us or our donkey. Or choose not to see us. Rumor has made them into all seeing beings, who live off the high mountain villages like thieves. As we come down, the lands change, too. The jungle fades into glade of burned out farms. Scorched corn still smoldering in some of these. The smell of death lingering in the air. But it is not the smell of dead animals this time.
Soldiers stop us, pointing their guns at us as they demand to know where we are going. Uncle tells them. He is frightened and stumbles over his words. Perhaps the soldiers think him funny. They let us go on. They do not even shoot our donkey.
Your son,
Billy
***********
March 24
Dear papa,
I cannot believe this thing Uncle calls "the road." So flat and black and hard, as if the very stones had been crushed and flattened, though it smells like the pitch we use to seal the roof against rain. This part, Uncle says, is new. His voice is fully of weariness and he looked to calculate where the road was last he saw it and how long ago that way. He does not trust his memory. He says he will ask the seed store man when we get there.
It is seeing the road that has made up my mind at last. I won't go back to the mountain to scatch out Uncle's corn. I will not stay and fear the coming of soldiers or move with Uncle higher up the mountain for another season free of the road.
For the flat black road leads west, down to the ocean, maybe even as far as America and you. I will follow it. But I must do so when Uncle is sleeping because he will try to stop me. He will try and made me go back to scratching corn.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 25
Dear papa,
Uncle knows and watches me. I could not leave last night the way I'd planned, and now we have come to the seed store already, only a half day's walk down the black road. He intends to stay here in the night and start back in the morning after both of us have rested. Therefore, I must slip away this night or not have a chance again. We are far down the mountain here, a long head start towards America if I cam to get there.
But Uncle fears this and has asked the seed seller to lock me in his shed for the night. He does not like to do this, but does so when Uncle insists. Then, for many hours, he and uncle talk, their voices rising and falling from the other room, half angry, half sad. Once the seed seller comes and gives me candy, saying he is sorry for my being locked away. He is not a soldier. He does not like to see living things caged. Then, Uncle comes. He seems to have made up his mind. The road comes too close to trust another season of planting corn. Even if the soldiers do not find our corn patch in the mountains this season, the fighting will come close. Soldiers and rebels will come and kill each other in our fields. It is better we move over the mountain to the other side where the road will never come, where we can scratch out our corn in peace and trade with the indians.
Then, the seed seller and Uncle leave, continuing their talk deep into the night.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
I am free! I found the loose board in the back of the shed after the seed seller and Uncle had gone to sleep. I thought the noise of my moving it would wake them both. But it did not and I slipped out into the dark without either seeing or hearing me. I am now on the road, resting after a long walk. It is easier moving than on the mud trails of the mountain or with the slow plodding of a mule to slow me down.
I wonder if Uncle will follow me. I know he will be hurt-- he much to help me when mother died, taking me on as if I was a son to him, teaching me how to scratch out corn. He will ache as if a son had died, his old face that much older for my loss. But I am not his son and I do not wish to spend my life as he did, fearing soldiers and planting corn.
I wish to be with you. My mother wished it, though she never wrote you to tell you about me. She did not want you to come back out of guilt. Maybe now with the flat road under my feet, I will reach you soon.
I am frightened, too. Of the changing land that has cropped up on either side of me, fences behind which cattle graze, meat-cows grunting in the dark like indian spirits. I walk carefully passed them, afraid their grunting will draw soldiers to me.
Nor are they the only thing. I did not expect machines to come on the road. great roaring machines with lights like eyes, rushing down at me. The first time I saw one, I leaped aside into the ditch afraid I would be devoured. It was an army truck full of soldiers. But others have passed. Glinting box-like machines with people sealed inside. While I did not jump away from them, they did not slow and their passing was like a hurricane wind. They make great speed down this flat road and I have vowed to stop one the next time one passes.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
I have met my first American.
He pulled up in his box-machine when I waved at him. He seemed disappointed when I climbed in. He thought me an American, too, with my blond hair. I told him my father is American and he nodded. I told him I am coming to see you, and he grinned.
He is not what I pictured Americans to be, slightly fat in wrinkled suit and tie. He tells me he is a salesman.
You sell seed, I say.
No, boy, he says. Beef and cotton. That's where the money is in these parts. Beef and cotton.
He asks how far I am going. I tell him America.
He looks at me funny for a moment, then laughs.
That's a damned good one, he says, and says he'll take me to La Libertad. I should be able to find transportation from there. Then, there is silence. Just the movement of the machine over the road and I fall to sleep. I wake to a glow on the horizon and think it is dawn and that we are travelling back towards the mountains rather than away from them.
The American laughs and says it's not dawn. It's the city. The lights make the sky glow just like those moments before dawn.
We are close to the city then, I ask?
Close? No. Not for hours yet.
I stare at the lights and I am frightened again. It is as if someone has set fire to the world. But I know moving this quickly Uncle will never catch me and I will see you soon.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
March 26
Dear papa,
There is no word for it.
Even from a distance I am frightened of it. The air is like the haze in the mountains after a farm fire, only thicker and smelling more foul. A huge dark building appears out of the horizon, made of brick and with smoking towers. Like some dark mountain made by men for some evil purpose.
The American laughs and tells me it is nothing to be frightened of. It's a meat-processing plant. It is where the beef comes after it has grown and is made ready for America.
It's how your country gets its money, the American says, and I watch it the whole time it is in view, then have new things to look at as the city nears. No more nice than the brick mountain, but smaller, stretched out-- wooden shacks on either side of the flat road with people everywhere, hollow-eyed people with babies and bare bones looking at the car, not with hate, but with lack of hope.
It is the look in the eyes of the indians after a bad year, after the rains have washed their village down the far side of the mountain and they have come begging food. But only some of these are indians, many are like my mother's people.
Who are they, I ask the American?
He looks up as if not seeing them at first. Who knows, he says. People from the hills looking for work.
They look hungry, I say.
Maybe, the American says, his voice sounding just a little annoyed.
But where is their corn, I ask. Where is their land?
The American stops the car and tells me to get out. You're here, he says angrilly, then rushes away the minute I am out, leaving behind a trail of dust and many hungry faces.
They look at me. There is hate in their eyes. I ask them where is America and they throw stones at me.
I run and run, calling for the American to stop. But he is gone. Eventually, I am passed the hungry people and into the city, a strange wonderous but dirty place. I walk and walk until I come to the sea.
Where is America?
Someone says it is over the water. I don't know how to reach over water, I say. But I will try.
Your Son,
Billy
***********
The old man folded the last of the letters back into the bundle as he finished reading them, his gnarled face weathered from years of sun. His gaze looked sad, almost lost as he fingered the paper and the splotches of brown thick on the outside of the packet. He looked up at the priest.
"And you say you found these on the boy?" he asked.
"Sie, senior," the priest said.
"And he had blond hair?"
"Sie?"
"Then he's dead after all," the man mumbled, tugging down his hat over his eyes, hiding the streaks of wet that bubbled down his cheeks. "Thank you, padre."
Then, slowly, he took up the reigns to the mule and started back along the long flat road, his back bent from the weight of years and the long road down from the mountains.
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