Juarez Square and Other Stories Read Online Free Page A

stretched to the horizon, domed by a cloudless, turquoise sky.
    He spoke as he stared into the distance. “What’s to talk about? We can’t afford visas.”
    “We don’t have to get visas.”
    He turned halfway around. “Crossing over illegal? You can’t be serious. We’d be worse off than we are now. Penniless and illegal.”
    “That’s how my parents did it, and it worked out okay for them.”
    Sure it did , he thought. Her mom cleaned motel rooms for thirty years. Her dad cut grass in the brutal San Antonio heat. Both died before sixty. So, yes, if dying young with nothing to show for it after three decades of backbreaking work was success, then his in-laws had lived the American dream.
    Ford kept these thoughts to himself. Esmeralda didn’t see it the same way he did, and there was no point in trying to convince her otherwise.
    “I won’t do that,” he said firmly, turning again to the window. He felt her simmering behind him.
    “Things aren’t going to get better, amor . How long has it been since either of us had a paying job?” She looked at the baby. “We can’t wait any longer,” she said, a quiver of desperation in her voice. The crib’s rusty springs squeaked as the dozing baby fidgeted.
    Ford gazed out at the bleak, unending landscape. “I’ll get the money. I’ll work something out.” He heard the lack of conviction in his voice. He knew his wife heard it as well.
    It was the same end to the same argument they’d had nearly every day since the baby was born. A rift between them growing wider. But with each passing day as they watched the baby grow thinner, Ford’s position felt less tenable, becoming harder to justify even to himself.
    A loud knock on the door startled them. The baby jerked awake and began to cry. Esmeralda rushed to the crib, picked up Manuelito, and shot Ford a concerned look.
    “Were you expecting anyone?” she whispered.
    Ford shook his head and stepped lightly to the peephole. A man the size of a pro wrestler with a shotgun slung across his shoulder stood in the hallway.
    “Who is it?” Esmeralda asked.
    Ford’s stomach tightened as he noticed a bible verse embroidered in large black letters on the visitor’s gun belt.
    He swallowed. “It’s a Fundie,” he answered.
    ***
    The large man drove them through the crumbling remains of Fort Stockton in a natgas-converted Jeep. Ford sat in the passenger seat of the roofless, ancient vehicle. They headed west on I-10 and the sun blazed down with the merciless oven-heat of midday June. The vehicle’s shocks squeaked like old bed springs as they passed over countless cracks and gaps in the pavement. The driver braked and carefully steered around the larger fissures, their locations given away by telltale clumps of weeds and bushes growing up and out, gradually reclaiming the highway with the slow determination only desert plants knew.
    The driver was Fundie security. Ford had seen him around town, escorting Fundie big shots and watching crowds like a hawk during public rallies. Back at the apartment he’d asked Ford to please come with him in a calm, businesslike tone. Ford had been too stunned to ask questions. He’d simply nodded, tried to assure Esmeralda everything was fine, and numbly followed the huge man down the stairs. Neither had spoken since.
    Ford baked in the oppressive heat. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, growing more worried about what the Fundamentalist Church of Divine Wrath might want with him. His father used to say Fundies were like copperhead snakes, best avoided and dangerous if provoked. Ford had followed this advice, though lately avoiding Fundies had become nearly impossible. These days they seemed to be everywhere, these zealots who in Ford’s youth had been a mere handful of oddballs creeping around the fringes of town. Since Secession the Fundie faith had made a remarkable expansion, spreading like an unstoppable drought-fire across all of the state’s territories. The