the Rooftop

Chapter 1

 “I’m hungry Tomas” complained Daniel as he slowly and determinately rubbed his belly,  as if the motion would somehow make the hunger pains subside. “all I ate today was a handful of sabritas and half a Manzanita sol, and only because you shared with me”.  “Its ok carnalito we are going to eat good tomorrow you’ll see” Tomas smiled as he reassured his friend, his comrade, his brother.  But in the back of his mind he knew that they wouldn’t  that they would go through another day hungry and dirty  hoping the pain would stop and only feeling it increase,  screaming for attention: stifling any other bodily sensation. They were no longer tired, lonely, or afraid. They knew that they were going to survive by any means necessary, that it was just them against the world, a particularly cold and cruel world.

It had been seven weeks since Daniel’s parents abandoned him. Since they had run off searching for that elusive high that might never come back their way; pursuing the most important aspect of their life. They dropped him off at the border in El Paso, Tejas. They drove him to the nearest international crossing point, an aging old bridge in the heart of downtown with $50 and directions to his estranged grandmother home.  He was to cross into Cuidad Juarez Chihuahua, México and search for his mother’s mother. A lady, whom he knew very little about and, of course, never had the chance to meet. He was 15 years old and had been living in Denver Colorado his whole life.

As he stepped out of the rusted old red Buick his parents stole in Aurora, he already missed the fresh, clean rocky mountain air, the smell of evergreens and the beautiful green landscape that he had for so long taken for granted. He longed for his home and was surprised by how dirty and littered the streets looked, were, in this new city. He was anxious and his palms were sweaty. He was a little frightened by his parents’ demeanor and had to fight the tears back as his mother, smiling, but obviously dope sick, made the sign of the cross with her beaten, suddenly aged hands. She mumbled the words “que Dios te bendiga”. May God bless you. A statement, rather a wish, lost in faith, and faith itself, lost.   Before Daniel had a chance to reply, the old Buick had sped off, leaving a trail of smoky exhaust behind.

Daniel slowly and begrudgingly climbed the steep bridge. He stared blankly at the path in front of him, a cracked old sidewalk. Beside it were a few lanes of worn pavement. A mosaic of vehicles, slowly crawling the minute distance between America and Mexico He looked back at the golden looking city which he was departing, and strangely, a solemn sadness swept over him. He wiped the now flowing tears from his cheeks and  said  more to himself than out loud, ”que Dios te bendiga a ti mama”, may God bless YOU mom”

As he reached the apex of the bridge he noticed to his immediate right, right on his path actually, a sight he had never before seen. A sight that made his skin tighten into a million goose bumps. There was an immensely dirty little boy, not more than six years old, with stubs for legs and sickly crusty eyes. He was sitting on the floor, selling a colorful array and variety of candy. It was then that Daniel realized that he was entering a portal to another dimension; another realm where the unimaginable was reality and the unspeakable was heard through the vivacious streets. He was entering a place so hopeless, so lifeless,; that the overwhelming desire to turn back almost made his knees buckle, but something compelled him to continue walking. Perhaps it was his sense of adventure, perhaps he actually believed that his drug addicted parents would return. Regardless, something made him continue. To journey into an insanely strange world just yards away from a city that seemed too bizarre, too remote and, then, a place that defined him until that very moment, America.

The harsh, almost offensive, outline of the border was a stark contrast to the wide open spaces and grasslands of his rocky mountain valley. He quickly took notice of the way the people in the borderland never walked with leisure but rather hurriedly and a bit defeated by their daily grind—hunched and wrinkled, dirty and depressed.  Yet there was something beautiful about them. They shared something in common with Daniel that was rather peculiar, their skin was brown, brown like a weathered old cypress, like the bags that the old men wrapped around their big bottles of beer, like the dirt in the old beaten street that he now walked down; a gorgeous humble brown.