Kind of Kin Read online

  The clerk started calling the cases. Turned out that the ones she’d thought were family members were here for court, too—scraggly guys and their overweight girlfriends, a sullen-looking teenager with black chopped-off hair and black eyeliner and black tattoos on her neck, sitting with her grandparents. Each one came forward as the names were called: you are hereby charged with . . . public intoxication, driving without a seat belt, open container . . . Sweet barely listened. She was staring hard at her father, trying to will him to turn and look at her, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. She needed to talk to him. She needed to tell him about Dustin running off, and also tell him to quit talking crazy in public—he most assuredly was getting a lawyer—and also ask him what the blue blazes did he think he was doing. They’d barely spoken since Friday, just those short couple of minutes when he was allowed to make a phone call—well, that hadn’t turned out so good. Since then Sweet had phoned the jail a dozen times, but they wouldn’t let her speak to him. “Visitation’s on Sunday,” whoever answered always said. Probably they wouldn’t let her talk to him today, either. Probably she shouldn’t worry him about Dustin, at least no more than he was already worried—except he didn’t look all that worried. She didn’t know what he looked like, actually, sitting there with his hands in his lap and those durned handcuffs on. Oh, Daddy, she thought.

  It had been like pulling teeth to get Terry to go out to the farm to find Dustin. “How do you know that’s where the kid went?” he’d said, rubbing his face at the table. They were fighting in the kitchen, trying to keep their voices down. She’d let Carl Albert stay home from school. “It’s bound to be,” she’d whispered. “Where else would he go? He’s just a little boy, Tee. What if something happens? What if he gets snake bit?” “Oh for crying out loud, it’s February!” “Please, just drive out and take a look. I got to get ready to go to the arraignment.” “All right, all right!” He’d downed the rest of his coffee and stomped out the side door, and she’d hurried to the bedroom to give Mr. Bledsoe his eardrops. It was only after Terry left that she realized she didn’t have anybody to stay with the old man except her son.

  “State versus Jesus Garcia!” the clerk called out, pronouncing the name Jee-zus, not Hey-soos, and everybody jumped. The chunky pastor stood quietly in front of the bench while the clerk swore him in and Judge Yates read him the charges, but when the judge asked, “Do you understand the charges against you?,” Pastor Garcia made no answer. The judge repeated the question, and still he didn’t answer, not even so much as to shake his head. “Mr. Garcia, do you have an attorney?” No answer. “Sir, do you understand English?” The judge looked out over the courtroom. “Does anybody here speak Spanish?”

  Sweet raised her hand.

  “You speak Spanish?”

  “No, sir, I was just going to—”

  —tell him that Pastor Garcia understood English as well as she did, but the judge waved her off. “Does anybody here speak Spanish!” Nobody said anything. The judge, clearly exasperated, smacked his gavel. “Defendant is hereby remanded to custody until we can get a proper translator! Next case.” A little ripple went through the men in orange as Pastor Garcia returned and sat down.

  “Case number CFO-3-5673, State versus Robert John Brown!”

  Sweet watched her father march forward with his head high, shoulders squared: a small, compact man feeling the attention of the whole courtroom upon him. “Robert John Brown,” the judge said, “you are hereby charged with transporting, harboring, concealing, and sheltering undocumented aliens in furtherance of their illegal presence in the state of Oklahoma, a felony. You are further charged with interfering with a peace officer, drunk and disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, all misdemeanors.” Drunk and disorderly, my foot, Sweet thought. Her father hadn’t had a drink in thirty years. Her heart did a quiet flip. Had he? “Do you understand the charges against you?”

  Her father stood mute.

  “Mr. Brown, do you understand the charges?”

  When her father still said nothing, Judge Yates looked at him real steady a moment, then he droned quickly through the rest of the business, with the court reporter frowning up at him, typing as fast as she could. When he got to the part that said, “Do you have an attorney?,” Sweet thrust up her hand. The judge acknowledged her with a chilly look.

  “Your Honor, may I approach the bench?” She’d heard that on Law and Order. The judge nodded her forward. “He does have a lawyer, sir.”

  “Where is he? Or she.”

  “Well, we’re getting him one.”

  “And just when were you expecting this attorney—”

  Right then the chorus of “Jesus, Take the Wheel” jingled into the room from inside Sweet’s purse. “Shit,” Sweet said. She hurried back to her seat, but by the time she dug the phone out, it had quit ringing, and when she turned back to the judge, she thought, This is not good. Judge Yates’s face had gone from stern to downright stony. She offered a small apologetic shrug, started across the courtroom toward him, but he stopped her with a look. Then the judge leaned forward and peered down at her father.

  “Mr. Brown, how do you plead, Guilty or Not Guilty?” He repeated the question, waited just long enough for it to be clear that the defendant refused to answer before announcing for the record, “A plea of Not Guilty is hereby entered on behalf of the defendant. Preliminary hearing is set for Thursday, March sixth, at nine thirty. Please advise your attorney of the date, Mr. Brown. If you intend to petition the state to appoint an attorney for you, you’ll have to have the application filed by Friday.” He turned to the D.A.’s table. “What’s the State’s recommendation concerning bail?”

  The assistant district attorney shuffled some papers. He didn’t look up. “Defendant has established ties to the community, Your Honor, no criminal record. State has no objection to his release on supervised recognizance.”

  It took Sweet half a beat to understand, then she jumped to her feet with relief. They were going to let him go home! The judge glared her back down. Then he sat pulling his upper lip, peering at the assistant D.A., who still didn’t raise his head. The guy’s skinny throat bobbed as he swallowed. He looked actually uncomfortable. Sweet didn’t know what that meant. At last the judge said, “Defendant is hereby released on his own recognizance with supervision. The clerk will draw up the papers. Mr. Brown, you may take your seat.” A rap of the gavel. “Next case.”

  Her father stayed where he was.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Brown. You can sign the release papers at the end of today’s hearing.”

  Her father remained standing before the bench, motionless, silent. Sweet couldn’t tell anything from his back. A flurry of whispers swept the courtroom. Even the boys in orange sat up straighter, paid attention. “Mr. Brown,” the judge said, “if you don’t return to your seat, I’ll have the bailiff remove you.” No movement. “You’re risking a contempt charge, sir.” Still nothing. Judge Yates whacked his gavel. “Robert John Brown, you are hereby charged with contempt of court. The fine will be five hundred dollars.” No response. “One thousand dollars!” Not even a flicker. “Two thousand dollars, and defendant will be remanded to custody until such time as he is willing to show respect for this court! Deputy!”

  The deputy started to get up, but her father swiveled on his heel and walked back to his seat. Just before he sat down he turned his bright, proud gaze her direction, and immediately Sweet’s heart sank. He wasn’t going to do it. He wouldn’t sign the papers, pay the fine, nothing. Not that her daddy had anything like two thousand dollars to pay a contempt fine with anyway—but that wasn’t even the point. The point was that, just exactly as Brother Oren had said, her father had no intention of getting out of jail. Sweet’s phone started singing again, and she jumped up, squeezing her purse tight like a baby she wanted to hush, and hurried out of the courtroom.

  Two missed calls, one from home, one from Terry’s cell. S
he tried him back but the call went straight to voice mail. Sweet stood staring at the phone’s face. Wait or try again? She and Tee could spend ten minutes trying to call each other back. Whichever one of them made the call was supposed to be the one to call again and the other was supposed to wait so they didn’t just keep getting each other’s voice mail, but half the time Terry didn’t remember, and anyhow, she couldn’t just sit here. She pushed the speed dial but got his voice mail again, then listened to the message, irritated as always by the fake-pleasant female voice: You have one unheard voice message. First unheard message, Terry’s voice: “Hi babe, he’s not out here, I checked every place, but there’s something weird going on. Call me.” If you would like to delete this message, press—

  Sweet flipped the phone closed, almost immediately opened it and called home. Her son answered with his mouth full and the Disney Channel blaring in the background. She’d forgotten to tell him he was grounded from TV. “Did Daddy get back?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he call?”

  “No. I’m hungry.”

  “How’s Mr. Bledsoe?”

  “Fine.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Sitting here. There’s no peanut butter left. The milk’s all gone.”

  “I’ll stop at the store. Listen, when Daddy gets home—”

  “How about tacos?” Her son’s voice ticked up in his I’m-being-good-Mom lilt.

  Sweet hesitated. Yes, all right, she thought. She didn’t have time to go grocery shopping now anyway. “Okay. Tell Daddy to call me.”

  She tried Terry’s cell again, no luck. She didn’t know whether to be mad or worried. She had the feeling he’d quit looking and had gone on back to work, knowing him. Sweet glanced around the empty lobby, not sure what to do next. It didn’t make sense to go back to the courtroom; the judge was mad enough, she wouldn’t be helping things there. Go to the bank to see about cashing in their CD? What good would that do? She’d seen in her father’s eyes that what Brother Oren had told her was true: Bob Brown had come to a conviction in his heart. When her daddy got convicted about something, well, there just wasn’t any changing him. Witness his leaving the church three years ago without one word of explanation. He’d got a conviction about something there, too, and he’d been carting that boy to every you-name-it church all over three counties ever since. Sweet glanced at her watch. It was almost time for Mr. Bledsoe’s pain medicine. All right. She’d go home and figure out the next step tomorrow.

  She was halfway to the highway before she remembered the tacos and had to turn around and drive back to La Abuelita. The restaurant was right on Main Street, by far the most popular place to eat in the county, and always crowded, especially through the noon hour, but the empty parking places out front made her hopeful they wouldn’t be too packed. She angled her Taurus nose-front to the high sidewalk, checked her wallet to make sure she had enough cash, but when she got out of the car she saw that something was wrong. The big plateglass windows were dark. The sign said OPEN, but the door was locked, and when she peered in a window she saw chairs stacked upside down on the tables.

  “They’re closed.” A large girl with several shades of spiky brown hair stood smoking a cigarette outside Kayla’s Klip’n’Kurl next door.

  “When did they start closing on Mondays?”

  “No, like, closed closed.” The girl tossed her cigarette toward the street. “They hadn’t been open since Friday. My boyfriend says all the Mexicans are leaving Oklahoma. I guess that includes Diego and them.”

  “But—” Surely this didn’t mean the folks from Abuelita’s? They’d been here for years, those efficient dark young men who showed you to your seat and motioned somebody to bring the chips and salsa and took your money at the register without ever glancing at a ticket or making a mistake, all the shy silent busboys, the deft young women who took your order and smiled and spoke better English than half of Latimer County. They couldn’t be illegal; they were fixtures—they belonged here as much as, well, as much as Indians or somebody. Why would they just up and leave?

  “On account of that law,” the girl said, as if answering Sweet’s thoughts. “Larry says they aim to run every Mexican in this state back to Texas.”

  “Texas?”

  “Well, yeah, or wherever. Won’t be a place fit to eat in this town.” The girl turned and went back inside the shop.

  Monday | February 18, 2008 | Evening

  Brown’s farm | Cedar

  The truck gears grind, scream out a bad sound, going up and up the side of the mountain, and then down, rocking side to side, swaying, the diesel motor roaring, too fast around the curves, his bones bumping the hard floor; there is not enough air, the space is too hot, too dark, why do the exhaust fumes come inside but not the air? Bang! A wounded sound, thup thup thup thup thup thup. Slower, slower, slower, until they are still, waiting for the door to open, waiting for air, waiting to hear the sound of iron tools, waiting, waiting, but there is only the soft swish of traffic far off. Bang!

  Luis jerks alert, his senses trembling. He holds his breath, listening, remembering where he is—not in the dark closed truck on the journey but inside the dark closed bin inside the barn. He has arrived in the North, yes, but still he is hiding. Bang! Carefully Luis raises his head to see between the slats. The light is dim on the barn floor. Bang! A splintering, chopping sound. A choked voice. Not the man. The little boy. The english words are harsh and thick. Then there is a quick scuttle of running feet, and sudden murky light bursts in as the boy lifts the bin lid. Luis cannot prevent the startled yip that snaps from his mouth, but the boy does not cry out. His eyes within their bruised circles are red and swollen. He holds the heavy box lid with both hands. He seems to be looking past Luis, or beneath him. With a grunt the child hoists the wooden lid completely open; it falls back against the wall. He says something to Luis, an accusation. An angry question.

  Pardon me, Luis says. I dont understand.

  ¿You dont speak english? the boy says.

  Luis shakes his head no. But the boy speaks spanish. How good. Luis reaches for the lip of the bin, pulls himself to a sitting position, his body stiff from being so long without moving.

  ¿Where is—where is the—how do you say? The boy makes the motion of digging, both hands furiously spading the air.

  ¿The shovel? Luis says.

  Yes. Shovel. The boy talks english then, spitting out the short sharp words between his small teeth. He turns and walks away very fast, but then he stops in the barn doorway as if the space outside will not let him go forward. His small figure is outlined in the square of lavender light. His shoulders are shaking. The smell comes to Luis then, a familiar smell, sickening, a little sweet. Stiffly he climbs out of the box and goes to where the boy stands. On the ground outside is the dead animal, a dog, yes, the carcass still holding that shape although the black coat is coming off in clumps. Luis can see the trail of black hair all the way from the fence line, where the boy has dragged it. The dog has been dead a long while; its eyes are gone, the skull almost naked, the teeth bared. The smell is bad but not so bad as a thing dead only a few days. Clamped on one of the hind legs is a steel trap; the spike on the end of the chain is crusted with dried clay. Above the exposed bones and matted hair, the black tail is perfect, a sleek dark whip, tipped with white hairs at the end. The lavender sky is turning purple.

  We will bury him, Luis says.

  The boy looks up. He swipes an arm across his eyes, wipes his nose on his sleeve. It is clear he does not understand. Luis makes the motion of digging. We will bury him, he says again.

  The boy nods, his jaw trembling. He is shaking with sobs, but also with cold. The shovel, the boy says.

  Yes. Luis looks inside the barn. In the dimness he can see the big metal toolbox upside down near the horse stall, the tools flung everywhere, a claw hammer, a sledge, many screwdrivers, a pry bar,
a hand saw, other tools he does not know the name of or what they are for. The blade of a small chopping axe is stuck in the wood of the horse stall. There are many chop marks in the wood. On the floor nearby, a hoe and a yard rake with a broken tine. He picks up the hoe, walks outside to the fading light. Show me where to dig. The boy looks up, his eyes cloudy. He does not understand the words. Luis steps over the dead dog and walks out beside the fence and begins to chop the hard winter ground. The boy comes to stand beside him. Again the choked words come from the boy’s throat.

  Monday | February 18, 2008 | 5:30 P.M.

  Brown’s farm | Cedar

  I cussed and cussed Mr. Herrington, but it didn’t help. I know it’s a sin to cuss somebody, but it’s a sin to kill somebody’s dog, too! Just set a stupid trap in the woods where any animal could get in it, and for what? A blamed coyote? Look how she died! I can’t stand to think of how long she suffered, barking and whining in the woods with her leg broke, gnawing at it, starving—I wish we’d shot her! I wish my grandpa had just shot her that day they killed the rooster, it would’ve been better than dying like that! Why didn’t Grandpa hear? I bet she barked for days. I bet she barked and whined and cried for me to come get her, I was supposed to take care of her, she trusted me to take care of her, and instead I was stupid in town fighting with my stupid cousin over his stupid Gameboy while Tipper was starving and hurt and crying for me to come get her and I didn’t know it. I didn’t hear. I’d like to kill him! If I had my grandpa’s .22, I thought, I’d go right to his stupid damn house! And I just kept cussing Mr. Herrington like that the whole time the man dug a hole big enough to put Tipper in.

  He was older than the other Mexicans, maybe almost as old as my grandpa, but he was strong. He cut the ground with the hoe like an axe chopping pond ice, and pretty soon the hole was big enough. He asked me something, but my Spanish ain’t that good. Then he went inside the barn and came back with an armful of old hay and an empty feedsack. He spread the hay all inside the grave, then he went and scooted Tipper onto the sack and picked her up, I mean picked her right up in his arms no matter how bad she stank, and he carried her over and laid her in the grave. The man said some more words, bowed his head and mumbled the Spanish words really fast. I couldn’t stop crying. When he was done, he crossed himself, and then he held the hoe out to me like he wanted me to take it. He made the motion for me to scrape the dirt and grass back over her, so I started but then I was crying too hard and the man took the hoe and finished. He motioned me to the yard hydrant and turned it on, oh, that water was freezing, but we both washed because Tipper was so nasty. That’s another thing that made me so mad. She’d laid there and rotted since Christmas! Crows and buzzards won’t hardly eat a dead dog—my grandpa told me that a long time ago—but she was almost all gone anyhow, even cold as it’s been.