The War Whisperer: Book 1: Geronimo Read online

  “I want to see that,” I said.

  “Got to get up early, Chico,” he said.

  “What are they for? The drones?” I said, “What are they for?”

  “Cops look for stuff, look for people. Speeders, dealers, killers, how big a fire is or windstorm damage, seeing who’s who in riots.” He poked me in my chest. “Go over the wire, Chico, they be lookin’ for you,” he said with a smile.

  Thiago was Mex leftover. Even so, he didn’t treat me like something he had to scrape off his shoe. He taught me all the Spanish he knew and a lot about how to take care of myself with a knife. Me, I liked him a lot. Bodaway I didn’t know much at all except for an occasional slap in the face. If it came down to a fight between the two of them, I knew who my heart wanted to win.

  The fight didn’t feel wrong somehow. I saw the two third-graders with knives in their hands threatening each other with death. I saw the blood on Bodey’s face.

  I heard it many times in my years at UCH: Every now and then the shit gets so deep and so crusty you simply have to spill some blood, cut someone, break some bones, knock out some teeth, work on yourself with razor blades, or go crazy. Fighting, cutting with knives, killing were all against the rules, but most rules at UCH were like other government rules: Not made for the real world. So, we watched, hoping to witness something real.

  What was not real surrounded—smothered us—every day: Classes purported to open doors to fabulous futures within the wisely administered framework of a benevolent government taught by indifferent and chemically impaired human husks most of whom had given up on their own futures. Fantasies living in fantasies and teaching more fantasies to gullible babies and street-sharp cynics enduring the present while awaiting the real on the other side of the wire. Inside the wire, though, we all wanted a respite from the fantasies. We hungered for the real. We saw it on computer wallpaper, carved into desks, scratched into walls, and marked on chalkboards: DGLBP (“Dear God Less Bullshit, Please”)

  Killing, defending yourself, knives, cuts, blood, bullets: these were things of reality, of truth. More real, in fact, than the rules prohibiting them. In this bleak monotonous place of flatlands, shitty little homes, mesquite, the odd cactus, parched grass, dust, heat, meager meals, hard work, nonsense rules, harsh punishments, and dead dreams, cutting someone was important enough—real enough—to stand on its own.

  Blood inside skin was boring; Blood outside skin, on shirts, pants, in the dust and dripped on bricks, that was significant. It was something of substance. It was authentic, courageous, necessary, a lack of blood lethal. Death meant worms, St. Peter, God, maybe the Devil, depending on who was shoveling the myths. One might meet instead the Monster Slayer, the Water Child, or the Coyote. Most though believed death was just death. The end. Escape.

  Blood had been spilled. So, on the playground no longer was it pushing, punches, taunts, and stupid pranks. The shit had moved up a serious notch. Now it was life and death; Heaven and Hell, blood and sand. It elevated our dreary lives from a meaningless, hopeless existence into contestants, our champions on the field of battle risking all. It was now real.

  Bodey and Todd used knives. A weapon such as a knife meant that the wielder of the weapon was laying claim to just a bit of his own time, his own space, his own freedom, his own life. Instead of being pushed about by faceless authority, stoned teachers, bullies, the whims of chance and regulation, a knife said, “Whatever you want, fine, jefe. But first you need to get around this.”

  There must have been twenty or more of us surrounding the two boys by then, watching, whispering support, desperate to see who would back down first.

  One of the boys would have to back down. That was what always happened when things began heading toward ashes and headstones. In some dark mental corner, though, we silently wished this time there would be no backing down, that this reality, this intensity, would make it all the way to conclusion. There was a piece of every one of us who wanted a cut, bright scarlet blood splashed across skin, clothes, the dust, storied scars to carry into the unknowable future. There was a piece of every one of us who wanted to see a real winner, a real loser—

  —Suddenly the two boys came together. It happened so quickly I almost missed it.

  Thiago’s knife was already stuck in Bodey’s belly all the way up to where Thiago was holding it with his hand. Bodey grunted and gasped, his eyes wide as his mouth opened and he seemed to choke. He bent over, then straightened, his switchblade already stuck deep into Thiago’s chest.

  Thiago whispered something between a tearful curse and an angry prayer only Bodey could hear, then he sawed his knife in and out of Bodey’s gut, pulling it up with both hands and all his strength, the cutting edge up, Bodey’s shirt splitting, his guts spilling out onto the dust, on top and beneath their dirty shoes, girls and boys both issuing a gasp and an involuntary, “Ew!”

  Then Thiago’s knife reached something immediately vital up in Bodey’s chest.

  Bodaway froze for an instant, eyes wide, then he looked into Thiago’s eyes. Both boys held each other as they sagged to their knees, then over onto the baked ground. Blood seemed to cover everything.

  As we stared at the two dying boys in their strange embrace, we were silent, washed in guilt, our darkest wishes fulfilled: No one had backed down. It had become a real fight. We got to see it all: blood and truth; Two losers and two winners. Consequence. The real.

  On the playground that day we had wished for the real, and the real had transpired. Now, perhaps, Hell awaited us all.

  No Tenemos Alma

  Mister Makin forced his way through the ring of children. When he made it, he stopped and looked down at the two boys. Thiago took one last ragged breath and let it out as he went still, his head resting upon Bodey’s head. Bodey was already still, his bleeding stopped, the side of his face in the dirt.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Mister Makin demanded, his face angry. “You two boys knock it off. Get up. Get up.”

  Neither of the boys moved or even acknowledged Kendall Makin’s presence. They were far beyond principal’s orders, UCH rules, and threats of punishment. They were free.

  Mister Makin was a tall man, maybe thirty years old, a bit thick in the middle with black curly hair and a reddish face. He wore a black denim suit, a white shirt, and a black string tie. When he went home for the day he would wear a cream colored cowboy hat. Kendall Makin was from Massachusetts and was the principle of UCH.

  We watched as Mister Makin’s face went pale. Three boys had died and two more had been cut up in a big fight at the BIA orphanage at El Paso. We’d all heard about that one and read about it on school computers. The EPCH principal had been fired, the assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs declaring in his news conference that an investigation was being launched to prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again.

  Mister Makin knelt down and felt for a pulse in Thiago’s neck, then in Bodey’s. He sat back on his heels for a moment, then leaned forward again, removed the weapons from the boy’s hands, stood, closed the knives, wrapped them in his handkerchief, wiped some of the blood from his fingers onto the handkerchief, and put the wrapped knives into his jacket pocket. Mister Makin looked around at us, his expression confused at first, then angry.

  “What . . . what in the hell is the matter with you kids? What were they fighting about? Why didn’t any of you call me?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he pulled out his mobile phone and called nine-one-one. ICIs were prohibitively expensive back then. No one had them except government workers, the military, and the very wealthy. Everyone though, except incarcerated orphans, had mobiles.

  “Why didn’t any of you call me?” he demanded again as he put his mobile back into his pocket. He looked around the circle of impassive faces. “Why?” No one said anything. “Tell me what in the hell is the matter with you kids?” he ordered.

  “No tenemos alma,” quietly said a third-grader girl I didn’t recognize
, her expression impassive. Her slender face was pretty, but her complexion was pale, her brownish hair cut long, her expression lifeless, her eyes seemed black and dead.

  “We have no souls,” said another girl with long black hair that covered most of her face. She stood with her arms crossed in front of her, her hands cupping her elbows. She nodded her head once toward the first girl. “That’s what she said.”

  I didn’t know what a soul was, but I didn’t think I had one. Her words sounded true.

  “I don’t need any smart remarks, Lucia,” Mister Makin barked at the girl with the long hair. “Y hablo Español. I want to know why none of you called me.”

  “No tenemos alma, Señor Makin,” the first girl repeated, her tone more insistent. “Heart, soul. Mira, you ask. I tell. Muerte. Mira, death is what we know.” She wiped her hands over her short brown hair and down her shoulders. “All over,” she said. “We know death.”

  I looked at Lucia, her face like a mask as she nodded. Many faces like that in the circle, both boys and girls, Mex and Apache, nodding, no one saying anything different. No smug grins, no jokes, no sly looks. There was actually something upon which we all agreed, Hispanics, Indians, upper schoolers, preschoolers, boys, girls.

  Death: We had all seen it and understood it for what it was. Of all the people on that playground that day, only two of them were truly free.

  No souls.

  We had no souls.

  I didn’t know what a soul was but I knew what death was. I was looking at it there on the ground. Stillness. Blood. Flies gathering. Everyone stunned, losses becoming emotionally visible, the measuring began.

  Kendall Makin, his face frozen in shock, ordered us into the closest classroom, one of the second grader rooms in the module facing the playground, and told us to wait there. The police would want to question us. He muttered something about dealing with what we had done—or failed to do—later.

  The first girl who answered Mister Makin was named Abril. I asked one of the Mexican boys, a hefty looking third-grader with very short hair and a scarred face named Santino, and he told me. “You stay away from that cunt, Jerónimo,” said Santino. “She think she a teacher.” He fluttered the fingers of his right hand next to the right side of his head. “Loco.”

  One of the teachers, Mister Castro, took us into the classroom complex and put us in a room with windows looking out over the playground. I could see the killing place from there. Mister Makin was standing alone over the bodies of the two dead boys, looking at them for maybe twenty minutes before two city police officers arrived. They came on foot, their blue and white patrol car parked on the other side of the wire in front of the school offices on Benson Road. They looked rushed.

  We could hear their conversation through the open windows. It seemed like all the police officers did was confirm that the two boys were dead. One officer explained to Mister Makin, “Look, a beaner and a feather head had it out, cut each other, and dropped dead. End of story. It’s what they do.”

  “Open and shut, and two more off the welfare rolls,” said the other cop.

  “Orphans, too. No parents to notify,” offered the first officer. This was one such silver lining as we had been told to look for in every cloud. Bunky’s dead and nobody else left who needs to be notified. Time to go home.

  The second officer followed his partner’s lead by muttering, “These two kids were wards of the federal government, Ken. Makes this FBI jurisdiction, not city.”

  He went back to his cruiser saying he would call the Feds.

  Mister Makin pointed up toward where we were waiting and said to the remaining officer, “I have the witnesses waiting in a classroom. Aren’t you going to question them?”

  The remaining cop shook his head. “Not our jurisdiction, man. Look, nothing to solve anyway, is there?” he asked. “No one to arrest. The two boys killed each other,” said the cop. “Case closed. FBI might want to talk to your witnesses, but I doubt it. If there isn’t some mullah with a bomb ticking in his girdle, a hillbilly with a gun who won’t pay his taxes, or a senator trying to get some in the men’s room, it’s not sexy enough for the Feebs.”

  “Don’t you want to find out why the boys did this?” demanded Mister Makin.

  “Not me,” said the first officer.

  His partner looked around at the orphanage playground, shook his head, and held out his hands. “Look, Ken, in this town we average maybe twelve or fifteen bodies a day. People drop dead and kill themselves and each other for all kinds of reasons. Bad potty training, not enough tacos, too much mescal, somebody’s teddy bear got stolen, some priest told ‘em it gets better when you die and go to Heaven, some just got up on the wrong side of the bed, and some just can’t stand being locked up. Who cares?”

  “Right now,” said the first officer, “there’s a riot going on in front of the county building downtown at Main and Getty.”

  His partner nodded. “Spics, chinks, rednecks, Afros, Injuns, and everybody’s bringing pickups and shotguns. Bodies dropping there, too, way above average, and those corpses do belong to our jurisdiction.”

  “Batons out, body cam’s off,” said the first cop.

  Everybody was shorthanded, and they were really needed elsewhere. “Anyway,” as the officer said, “the two boys appeared to have found and punished their own killers. Nothing more to do here except pick up the meat.”

  The medical examiner’s wagon arrived in a beat up gray van, went through the gate and took the access road behind the Infant Care Unit coming out onto the playground between “A” Diaper and the Infant Care Unit. ME’s assistants got out, took one look at the two dead boys, and went to the back of the van for a stretcher and a couple of body bags.

  The cops said a few things to the assistant medical examiners, then the cops left. After the gloved MEAs loaded both bagged bodies and Bodey’s guts onto the one stretcher, wheeled it into the gray van and slammed the doors, they drove off leaving Mister Makin standing alone in the dust, slowly shaking his head, patches of drying blood at his feet.

  He held out his hands, shouted something at the sky, let his hands fall to his sides, wiped his eyes with the back of one hand, said something else to the blood on the ground. He wiped his eyes again with his sleeve, shook his head, turned, and headed for the school building. We kept looking at the playground.

  That spot on the dirt, the place that absorbed the blood of the two boys, became a shrine. Long after the blood disappeared and the footprints, the tracks of the stretcher were filled in by the eternal winds and passing feet, children at UCH would point to that spot and tell the story of what had happened there.

  They would talk about the fight, the blood, Mister Makin’s despair, but never put into words the most important thing they had witnessed: Real freedom. They were afraid of that concept. Think too long about that special kind of freedom beckoning, and the route to get there seems more and more attractive to a bunch of kids without futures.

  Feebs meant that the FBI would be called in. We all waited to see if the legendary FBI agents would look like the ones on the vids: Handsome men in sharp suits and neckties, nerds with glasses and high tech instruments, beautiful women with big hair, high heels, and much exposed cleavage, everybody armed to the teeth. We waited, and waited, until we got bored and it was past time for lunch.

  The FBI wasn’t coming. We weren’t going to get to see the first string.

  The Uvalde cop was right.

  Case closed. No need to get anyone’s shoes dusty.

  Abril, staring at the playground, whispered something to herself. She was taller than me.

  I went to her and touched her arm. She recoiled like my fingers were red hot. “Sorry,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  “What is a soul?”

  Her eyes studied me for a second then seemed to soften. “You’re the kid they call Geronimo, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Jerry,” I corrected, my face getting hot.

  She turne
d back to the window and looked through it at the playground. “I don’t know what a soul is, Jerry. I’ve never seen one.” She looked at me. “See, none of us has one. That’s why we can’t see or feel them.”

  “How come you don’t talk like you did on the playground? You talk different now.”

  She studied me for a long moment. Her eyes were gray-blue in that light, then she smiled. “I’m only half Mexican, Jer. My father was from Canada. He was an English teacher, the dumb bastard.”

  “So why don’t you talk good all the time?” I asked.

  “Well. Why don’t I talk well,” she corrected. Then she shrugged and said, “Never let them know all that you know. Not the important stuff, Jerry. If you do, they’ll twist it around and use it against you until there’s nothing of you left.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why,” she repeated. “I don’t know why. Ask Thiago and Bodaway. They might know.” Abril returned to looking at the playground.

  Mister Makin arrived at the classroom a long time later, his string tie untied, collar open, a scowl on his face, his breath smelling of alcohol. He stood at the open door, and looked at us each and every one. When he was finished, he asked, “Does anyone know what that fight was about?” He held up a hand. “Anyone?”

  Mister Castro got up and left the room. He seemed to disapprove of something about Mister Makin.

  An older boy with black hair worn long and held in place with a headband said, “Thiago and Bodey tired bein’ locked up, señor. They was wire-happy.”

  “Wha— What nonsense, Mangas,” Mister Makin said. “Third graders? Couple of nine year olds? Depressed? Hopeless? They had their whole lives in front of them!”