You Don't Look American

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“Six Hundred dollars,” the mother said, lighting another candle in another window, “for an airbnb with no electricity.”

Two girls, of uneven heights and uneven hair, with the flat nose of their ancestors and the rich olive skin of the south, bound along the wooden planks of the floor, stumbling on their toes getting caught in the gaps.

“This place is ancient,” the older sister said.

“Yeah, ancient!” the little sister said. “A-N-C-H-E-N-T.”

No one corrected her.

The older sister observed the paintings of cabins on the cabin walls, the tacky kind exclusively sold in decor magazines from the aughts and which inevitably ended up in places like those. She tried to imagine the artist painting them, tried to wrap her head around what kind of brush strokes it took to make a tree, to make the worn planks of the cabin, to make the highlight of the sun. It seemed impossible.

“Must be a Rembrandt,” the older sister said.

“Or a Picasso,” the little sister said.

The mother smirked at her girls’ remarks.

The older sister then ran to the tiny black stove in the kitchen, adorned by a large, funneling oil stain behind it.

“Woah,” the older sister said. “A wood-burning stove. Just like Henry David Thoreau.” Walden was one of her father’s favorite books. He had left his copy behind for her, with her name written on the inside. The language was too dense and the material too boring for her to read, but she pretended to everyone that she had.

Their mother had managed to create a ring of dim orange glow around the cabin. The wax on the candles had dripped down the window ledges, looked like white fingers creeping down the wall.

The mother wrapped her arms around her girls, pulling them in, feeling their tiny skeletons, so soft, so delicate. Their shadows danced across the wall from the flickering flames.

“Mija,” she said. “This place was built in the 80s.”

✤

The sunrise, lurching up and through the curtainless windows, would have been enough to wake the mother up. The sun, however, was accompanied by the zeal of her two girls, dressed and ready for the day of fishing promised them by their mother.

“But first, breakfast,” the mother said. “Momma needs her coffee.”

The first setback that morning came early. The stove (gas, not wood burning as the older daughter had thought) did not work. The spark refused to ignite. Upon further inspection, the stove was not connected to anything. It just sat there, an illusion of homeliness. The mother snapped a photo for the nasty review she’d type up in a few days.

She’d begun muttering things, snide remarks about how much of a rathole the place was, opening and slamming the stove doors, swearing up and down in Spanish, looking for some indication that the stove had a maña, a secret trick that would get it to turn on, even if it was unconnected, because it couldn’t be that an expensive place like this wouldn’t have a working stove - and then she saw the look on her girls’ face as she snapped out, their eyes like saucers, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of what she sounded like.

Don’t ruin this, she thought. Like you always do.

✤

The girls made their way to the fire pit outdoors. It was 20 paces from the cabin, perfectly framed between two oaks dripping with leaves and moss, ringed with charming adirondack chairs, and a rack of complimentary firewood. The perfect airbnb money shot, a trap set for suckers like me, the mother thought, swaying with the pots and pans and carton of eggs and bacon and coffee piled up in her arms.

There was steady noise knifing up just beyond the cabin. It said, “Shhhhhh….” It was the Rio Grande. The cabin was built right on the river, the listing said.

“Is that where we’re gonna fish?” the little sister said.

Her mother nodded.

The girls plonked down on their chairs, munching on gooey pineapple empanadas in the meanwhile, and the mother got down on a knee to start the fire. She noticed, however, that embers burned red and hot down in the pit.

She caught herself almost asking the girls if they’d come out there at night and started a fire. A scenario sprung in her head, fully formed, of the two little girls chuckling like imps, going defiant out into the night. The heat rose in her temples.

The girls looked at her with their saucer eyes.

“Everything okay, mom?” the older sister said.

Based on the mother’s look, a familiar one, the little sister had premonitions that they were in trouble.

The mother shrugged and shook her head and smiled.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just sleepy still.”

Yes, the mother thought, these two tiny girls found themselves making smores at midnight with the witches of the Rio Grande. She thought back to the pitch-dark of the place when they’d first arrived in their van. No way the girls would have been brave enough. And the thought struck her that perhaps she didn’t know the girls well enough to know what they were capable of.

Must have been the last ones to stay here, she thought. Still, it was odd, but the mother was too hungry to think about it further.

✤

The girls had set up their fishing rods (barbie and blue’s clues themed) in the stony banks of the river. The water rushed by with great violence, cold and fresh and clear. The air picked up the humid, earthy smell of the river. The girls were both ankle deep, barefoot in their sun dresses and floppy hats.

“You gonna join?” the older sister said.

“Yeah! Come!” the little sister said.

The mother scrunched her face up.

“I’m good right here, girls,” the mother said, sitting on a towel and holding up her margarita and a dirty book her coworker had given her for Christmas. It was the girls’ father who had enjoyed fishing, not her. She toasted herself and drained her drink, enjoyed the liquid tracing a cold finger down her throat, felt the edges of her eyes turn to cotton, the saturation of the river and the trees deepening and going fuzzy at the same time. She laid back and felt her spine pop-pop-pop.

Yes, she thought. I think I will stay right here. Her eyes fluttered and closed.

✤

“They’re not biting today,” the older sister said, stabbing another piece of tortilla on her hook.

“It’s Sunday,” the little sister said. “They must be at church.”

The older sister giggled at her sibling’s wisdom.

“Hey…” the little sister said, approaching her next subject carefully. “What was that thing that dad always used to say?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” the older sister said, knowing full well what she meant, but getting a lump in her throat from thinking about it.

“What’s specific?” the little sister said.

“Nevermind,” the older sister said. She swallowed hard, and took a deep breath. “He’d say, Buenos dias y buenas noches.”

“Oh yeah, oh yeah! El Rio Bravo, no los Nacogdoches.”

And then, the remembering took away the pain and they could laugh. And then they went silent, and the cold chill that accompanied the thought of death creeped up on them.

The older sister turned and glanced at her mother. Her breathing had slowed, her belly swelling to the rhythm of her snores.

The older sister stabbed her pole deep into the bank, covered it with large stones and packed it all down, just like her father had shown her. The little sister followed suit.

“Let’s go exploring,” the older sister said, and they left their mother’s snores behind them.

✤

The sun stalked the girls directly overhead. Sweat poured into their eyes, burned them, made them blink, eyelashes like butterflies, mouth scrunching up in pain. They took cover in the trees about a mile out from the cabin and where they left their mother.

They continued down a worn path in the trees, an incline in which they had to push their tiny bodies uphill, spiny stickers stuck on the hems of their dresses, hands blistered from supporting themselves on tough bark. They reached a clearing - a cliff that overlooked the Rio Grande. It swept in dirty greens and browns, the harsh sunlight carving surreal shadows and highlights, waving like a crystal flag from the heat.

An urge was born in the sisters that would have been impossible to discourage - to jump off the cliff and into the cold waters of the river, washing off all their sweat, washing off all their heat. This would be the prize of their hike. They flung their dresses off, tied them to their waist. And with less than a breath, they plunged into the water for 30 feet. It felt like an eternity.

A figure in green fatigues, who had been following the girls in secret for forty minutes, stood on the cliff and watched.

✤

The girls surfaced and bobbed in the water. The current was not as strong there, that portion of the river having formed a sort of still pool.

The girls swam in little circles, taking an occasional break near the shallow edge of the river, tippy toeing on stones, then racing each other to the deeper middle. They stopped there, laughing.

Then the older sister’s expression changed, her eyebrows furrowed in anxiety.

“Do you feel that?” she said, looking down into the water.

“Feel what?” the little sister said, a lump growing in her throat.

“It’s like, something sticky brushing up against me… what is that?” and she lowered her head toward the water. Within the same second, she knifed straight down, her scream lost, hanging, turning to bubbles.

The little sister’s ears pulsed with her heartbeat and she cried out for her mother. She swam to shore at a snail’s pace, having lost her earlier grace from nerves, as if the water had turned to mud and she had to fight against it.

She was close to the shallow edge, close to the stones, close to being able to wade out of the water and onto the safety of the shore. And then she felt it - the stickiness, the slime, the creeping fingers… she thought back to the cabin, to the wax dripping down the candles in the dark. The hand grabbed her, pulled her in. She was sobbing and hiccuping by then, had forgotten how to breathe.

✤

The mother awoke. Her skin was a shade darker, and stung dully. She stretched up her head which rang like church bells, regretting her choice to put four shots in one margarita.

“Girls,” she said, groaning, turning her head, seeing only the lonely fishing poles.

She sprang up, realizing something was wrong. She checked the immediate area, screamed for the girls. To no avail.

She rushed back to the cabin, checked all the rooms. Nothing.

Shoving the cabin door back out into the wilderness, she was invaded by an image of the girls, pale and swollen, face down in the river, carried off by the current to who knows where. She ran back to the river, waded into the water, yelled frantically. Nothing.

Then, she saw the footprints. Two sets of bare feet, uneven in length, treading up the shore. She followed.

✤

The mother felt that she had been on the girls’ trail for hours. But the steps continued, on and on. How the hell they got so far was beyond her.

How the hell she let them get so far was, too. She swore at herself, called herself all the passive aggressive things her suegra, her mother-in-law, who reeked of mothballs, used to accuse her of.

Vieja descuidada. Careless witch.

Un pinche sebo de la mama. Look at her, pretending she doesn’t see this.

No más los quiere para las fotos de facebook. She only wants them for the facebook photos.

It’s the kind of thing that would never happen on her suegra’s watch. Old school Mexican moms were omniscient.

Then she let her mind drift, convinced herself that she wasn’t terrible for needing a margarita every now and then, for needing a nap. That she couldn’t be everywhere for 24 hours straight, that she couldn’t be watching every second of her girls’ lives because then what happens to her own life? Old school Mexican moms made raising kids a personality trait. They had no idea about mental health, about the progress that’s been made.

Then she chided herself for having such thoughts, convinced that she should be the one lost, the one drowning.

✤

The older sister resurfaced, laughing. It was all an act. Anytime she was swimming she pulled the same joke about a sea monster that she always did. Like many of their tics, this was an inheritance from their father.

The joke had not gone well with her little sister, however, who punched at her through sobs.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” the older sister said. There was a stone in her stomach from the regret. “It was just for a laugh.”

The little one controlled herself. “I-it’s o-okay,” she said.

It hurt the older one even more that she was so easily forgiven. Their father had been that way with them, always eager to let little things go and move on.

“I-it’s just,” the little one said, taking a second to catch her breath. “Dad told me one time about the Rio Grande. He said people drown here. Good people, that they’re just looking for a better life, like me and you. It made me really sad when he told me that. And I just figured, if that’s true, then there must be ghosts down there.”

Their father had told the older sister about these people as well. A large cloud crossed the sun and the land grew dark.

“We don’t have to worry about those spirits,” the older sister said, taking her little sister’s hand. “They’re our ancestors. If anything, they’ll protect us.”

The figure in green fatigues approached the girls, emerging from the woods on a four-wheeler. He looked like the Marlboro man had succumbed to lung disease. Tails hung from the rear of his four-wheeler, the bodies of whatever animal they belonged to covered by a blue tarp.

“Wetbacks protect you, huh?” the man said. He stank of cheap beer, flashed a smile of yellow teeth like ripe corn. “Now who went and told you that?”

The girls didn’t answer, became aware of his gaze, slipping their sundresses back on and backing away into the water.

“You’ll be coming with me, now,” the man said. “I’m with the border patrol. You heard of them?”

The older sister knew exactly what the border patrol was. This man did not seem to be one. Not really. She knew better than to leave with him. She’d watched a ton of Forensic Files with her mother the past few months.

“Excuse me!” the mother’s voice said. The girls turned, as did the marlboro man. Their mother broke into a run, sloshing her shoes wet, embracing her girls.

She’d save her tears for later. The threat of the marlboro man hung in the air. She had heard every word.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“You their mother?” he said. She nodded, pulling her daughters in close. “You should keep a better eye on your girls here. They sure are pretty. Wouldn’t want anything happening to them. Was just about to give ‘em a ride.” He became casual now, averting his eyes. “To you, of course.”

She wanted to snap, could feel the blood rushing in her ears the way it did when she was about to blow up on someone. Instead, she ignored the man, grabbed her girls’ hands, and marched back where she came from.

“You staying in that old cabin?” the marlboro man said. There were flies stuck to his cheeks and neck, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Sun’s real hot, you should let me give you a ride.”

With sufficient distance between them, the mother turned back. He was gone. He didn’t follow.

✤

The three girls showered quickly. The mother had a bad taste in her mouth from the encounter with the marlboro man. Claiming he was border patrol. Claiming he wanted to help the girls. Knowing about their cabin. His casual racism meant that the mother had to explain to her little girl what a ‘wetback’ was.

“Are we wetbacks?” the little girl kept asking. It broke the mother’s heart.

No, they couldn’t stay there. Maybe she was being overly cautious, or paranoid, but she’d been watching a lot of Forensic Files lately. She wasn’t going to let themselves become fodder for that show.

“What are you doing?” the older sister said, watching her mother pack their belongings in a rush, her face gone pallid (pale as olive skin can get).

“I want ice cream,” the mother said, not wanting to scare the girls any more than they already were. “And I don’t see any around here. Do you?”

The girls jumped at the idea. “Okay,” they said, and they helped pack.

The girls, of course, sensed that something was off. They were equally rattled by their encounter with the marlboro man. But each in their own way felt safe. The older sister trusted that their mother would never let them get hurt. The little sister trusted that their ancestor’s spirits, awaiting nearby in the sparkling Rio Grande, would protect them.

✤

They piled into their van. The sun kissed the horizon now, cast a red shadow on the woods, on the cabin, on the river. It was calm and silent. The mother watched her girls in the mirror. They fell asleep on each other in the back seat. They could’ve been the subjects of a Diego Rivera painting, round cheeks and eyes dim in serenity, composed like his flower sellers. Among that moment of peace, the mother felt more than ever that she was being paranoid, but she was still glad to go. She’d paid for three nights and it did not hurt her whatsoever that they’d barely enjoyed one. Enjoy wasn’t even the word she’d use to describe the trip.

She turned the key. The engine turned over, the lights flicked on. She backed the van into the road, cast an eerie red beam on the trees.

Then, headlights came skating up the road. The dim buzz of old engines, like lawn mowers. Three four-wheelers. They parked themselves behind and around the car. It was the marlboro man and his buddies. They were dressed alike, the same green fatigues, and they dismounted and approached.

More headlights swept up, created a barrier around the car. The mother didn’t acknowledge the men, as if ignoring them might make them go away. The girls were still asleep. She hoped they’d stay that way. In the mirror, she saw guns holstered on the men. She evaluated. Risk trying to back up into the four wheeler barricade and they’ll dig into the van, slowing them practically to a stop. The chaos will just make them easy target practice. No, she’d have to be diplomatic about it.

The Marlboro man approached. The doors were locked, she checked and double-checked.

“Hey lady,” the marlboro man said. “Seems I forgot to check your papers.” His voice was all ground up and patchy. It made her’s itch just to hear it.

“I have a hunch that you’re wetbacks,” the man said. He was drunker than before, swaying. “And after all, we’re with the border patrol. Go ahead and step out of the vehicle for me.”

Ahh, with the border patrol now. Not the border patrol like before. She didn’t want to entertain their fantasy, hate burning in her from the implication that she didn’t look American, an accusation that an actual Border Patrol had made to her in the past. But she wanted to live, needed to protect her girls. She said nothing, the men’s eyes burning into the car as she reached over to the glove compartment. They put a hand instinctively on their guns, but rested their shoulders when she pulled out three cards. Passports. American. She held them up.

“We’re born and raised American, not that I need to prove that to you. I recommend you leave before my husband shows up with the police. They’re en route.”

The Marlboro man squinted, reading the cards from behind the glass.

“I didn’t see you come in with no husband, ma’am,” he said. “‘Sides, I think the police round here will be squarely on the side of what we tell them. Ain’t that right, Rich?” And he elbowed one of his partners, who smiled like the devil and flashed the badge on his hip. If they’re in with the cops, maybe they really were with the Border Patrol, too, she thought.

There was a rustling in the backseat. The little girl had heard her mother’s remark, unaware of the situation boiling around them. “Daddy’s coming?” the little sister said, rubbing at her eyes. And then she turned to her older sister who was coming to as well. “But you told me dead people don’t come back, don't ever.”

That was all the Marlboro man needed to hear to start banging on the van, yanking at the doors.

“I’m detaining you, now,” the man said. “Because, as far as we see it, you beaners, all of you, no matter what your little cards say, are all illegals. You came here to steal land and the Rio Grande from honest men like us.”

His men unsheathed bowie knives and shanked the tires on the van, felling the vehicle half a foot. The girls howled in terror at the sight of the men, teeth bared and ravenous, yelling obscenities at them (WETBACKS! ILLEGALS! BEANERS! SPICS! RIVER N****RS!), the glass of the windows just about to give into the dirty hands of the militia, the men who were with the border patrol.

The mother got the feeling that she wasn’t going to get out of there alive. But she’d damn well try. She floored the gas, sending the van, flopping on nothing but rim, through a clearing and beyond the cabin. It brought up plumes of dust, created a cloud. Light burst in the cloud, popping like fireworks and smelling like them too. The heat of the bullets rang around them, colliding and dinging off the metal. Then came the sound of the vehicle crumpling around them, the bumper of the van crashing into the bank of the river, where the girls had fished earlier.

There was heat in the mother’s shoulder. It felt stuck, so she swung it around, hoping to pop it in relief. Bad idea. The shoulder screamed out in pain. She’d been shot. No matter. There was no time to assess injuries. The mother unbuckled the girls, then herself, and told them to swim. They stumbled out of the car together. They trudged forward, gliding into the water. But already, they were surrounded by the men, who found there was no need to fire their guns any longer.

The Marlboro man grabbed the mother by the wound on her shoulder. She yelped the way a dog did when it stumbled into traffic and became roadkill. She buckled. Her two girls were caught in vice grips by two of the other men. The water lapped up at their legs, rushing cold.

“Show these wetbacks their place, boys,” the marlboro man said, dunking the mother’s head under the water.

Things went black, the struggle for air shoving lumps of painful water into their lungs. Their thrashing went still, still, still, their bodies succumbing to the rhythm of the river, of the Rio Grande.

The mother felt, under the water, that something swam underneath her, brushed up against her, felt slimy fingers caress her face, felt cold lips on her ears, the smell of mothballs somehow reaching her.

“Nunca fuiste mamá horrible,” the cold lips said. “Al contrario. Yo fui suegra de la chingada.” You were never a horrible mother. On the contrary, I was a horrible mother-in-law.

And then, all at once, the men’s grip on them went loose, disappeared. The girls collapsed to their knees, able to resurface and take agonizing breaths. The mother was dripping in river water. It smelled lightly of sewage, but the air gave her strength and she managed to pull the limp bodies of her daughters to shore, set them down against the wreckage of the van. For some reason, the men were retreating.

✤

From the river, spirits emerged. Their faces were rotten and engorged, bodies covered in the filmy flora of the river, their clothing tattered, dripping and heavy with the ancient waters of the Rio Grande. It wasn’t just men and women in the t-shirts they drowned in, it was children, too – it was babies, it was people adorned in suits, and people in long johns, fishermen, people wearing capes and loincloths of intricate patterns. It was a heritage, an undead family tree.

“It’s the spirits,” the little sister said. “Of all the men and women who died fighting for a better life.”

“You were right,” the older sister said, in awe of the scene.

The spirits charged the men, whose shouts sounded like that of children. Some of the militia crossed themselves and begged for forgiveness, stretching their hands to the sky, feeling touched by an almighty miracle. The spirits approached these men as easy pickings, each grabbing a limb and pulling with superhuman strength, ripping the limbs clean off the torso, throwing the meat into the rivers.

“Algo para que comen los pescaditos,” the spirits would say. Something for the little fish to eat.

Other men attempted to subdue the spirits with firepower, but the bullets would zip straight through them and the spirits would laugh and say, “no duele.” It doesn’t hurt. They’d take the guns from the men and toss them, yank them by the feet onto their asses, pull them into the river with the ease of a field worker pulling a plow, and the men’s screams would turn into bubbles.

The marlboro man had retreated, had left his brothers-in-arms behind to fend for themselves. He’d made his way to the parked four-wheelers, looking behind his shoulders the whole while. Things were dark there. He was seeing eyes in the woods, hearing catcalls from the trees, heard a deadly scream from the cabin, like the war cry of the Aztec death whistle. He was drained of all color, was racing to get home and bring an army over, ranting of river demons, gripped by mania. He managed to hobble onto his four-wheeler, to turn the ignition, looking all about for any sign of a demon, able to turn the engine over, flick the headlights on.

Right there, in the high beams, a spirit materialized. His face was not as rotten as the others, but emaciated nonetheless. He was not very tall and he had the flat nose of his ancestors, and the olive skin of the south.

Warm piss trickled down the marlboro man’s pants. The spirit jumped, landed on the marlboro man’s back, tightening its legs around his torso, sending the four-wheeler into a spin, the spirit digging the bones of his fingers into the man’s eyes, blinding him, the four-wheeler out of control, barreling forward into the air and then into the Rio Grande.

The girls caught a flash of the Marlboro man’s demise, the blur of the four-wheeler popping in and out of existence, sinking into the murky depths. As the spirit descended into the water, he turned and looked at the girls, gave them a familiar look. The mother could not believe what she was seeing. The girls, on the other hand, thought of course. Of course, he’d come and visit on the fishing trip.

“Buenos dias y buenas noches,” the spirit said. “El Rio Bravo, no los Nacogdoches.”

And then the spirit was gone, and the battlefield outside the cabin had settled into silence.

✤

The girls glided down the highway on their stolen four-wheelers. They approached a white and green truck parked on the shoulder. Its windows were down, a 20-year-old Hispanic kid in the driver seat in the official hunter green uniform of the Border Patrol.

He took a look at the girls, did a double-take. They were a mess, still drying off from the river, smelling damp and marshy, the mother encrusted in glittery blood and near-collapse.

“Jesus, lady, do you need help?” the border patrol said.

The four-wheelers zipped past, gliding around his truck.

“We can find our own way,” the mother said.

The sun fringed on the horizon, the hospital in its silhouette. The mother hoped, with a shiver, that it would dry them off.

“Watch out for that pothole,” the mother said, omniscient. The older sister swerved, had the feeling she would never get away with anything any more. The little sister was planning her next trip to the Rio Grande, to visit her ancestors. The mother was craving a margarita, and a nap.

✤