Why am I so small? You’re such a weakling.
I stared down at him. My fingers quivered and pain seeped into my heart. His curly hair tickled my nose as I leaned in to kiss him, hugging him tight to my body.
I’ll save you. Don’t worry, Dad.
He’s still warm, I told myself and squeezed him closer.
MY MOM’S VW Squareback climbed the Topanga Beach access road. The hard gray suitcase rattled in the back. We darted across the Pacific Coast Highway, turned up the canyon, then into my dad’s dirt driveway. Suddenly a guy on a motorcycle was coming right at us, a plume of dust around him. My mom slammed on the brakes and the bike swerved around us and I glimpsed Sandra’s silky hair. Her arms were around the guy’s stomach.
Sandra and I locked eyes for an instant. She looked angry and her mouth tightened. Hey I don’t even want to go, called my inner voice. You go. You go!
Then Sandra was whisked into the dirt cloud.
My God, said my mom. They almost ran right into us.
Where is she going? I said.
I have no idea, she said.
That’s how it always was with Sandra, a mystery. She just appeared one day with my dad down at Barrow’s and it was understood that she was his new girlfriend. Beer-Can Larry called her a feisty little honey and a dark Scot. Her skin would tan a dark caramel brown—except for her pink lips, thick compared to her otherwise delicate face—and her wide-set chocolate eyes blended in with her skin when she got really tan. Barrow said he was sure she was from a poor neighborhood in Scotland, even poorer than his and Dad’s old neighborhood. After fighting with my dad she would always come shrinking back. Once when they were broken up she came by my dad’s office and asked for money, desperate, and he gave her some. He even signed something so that she could extend her visa. He seemed to feel sorry for her, wanting to protect her all the time. Nonetheless Sandra hated that I always came first, her eyes flaring at me when Dad had to take me to hockey practice or away skiing.
When we got in the pickup truck the seats were already sticky. My dad wedged his guitar case behind the seat bench and tuned in a country station that was playing his favorite, Willie Nelson. It was dusk when we hit the Tijuana border. A fat man in a uniform and hat approached us. He circled around the truck bed, eyeing the tarped washing machine and our two surfboards rainbowing over the edge. He waddled to my dad’s window.
Buenas nochas, said my dad.
The man nodded and asked in Spanish for something. My dad reached in the glove compartment and handed the man the Sears receipt. The man inspected it for a long time. Then he said a number—I knew this because I had learned some Spanish while visiting my grandparents last summer.
My dad grumbled and said a different number.
The man smiled and flashed his gold teeth. Before the man spoke again my dad handed him some pesos. The man counted them. As he did my dad put the truck in gear and rolled forward. The man looked around before stuffing the money in his pocket, and my dad hit the gas.
Why’d you have to pay him?
They call it a tax. But it’s a bribe.
Isn’t that against the law?
Sure is. But he is the law.
He’s the police?
Basically.
If the police break the law then who arrests them?
I don’t know. Good question, Ollestad.
He let me stew over the paradoxes for a while. Then he spoke.
In a poor country like Mexico people try to get money any way they can. They even do it in a rich country like America. It’s not right. But sometimes—like with that guy—you play along because you understand the circumstances.
He checked on me a couple of times as we wound out of Tijuana and back along the coast. It was black outside. A few lights scattered around in the distance.
He’s a liar then, right? I said.
The border guard?
Yeah.
Uh-huh. That’s right.
I wanted to blurt out that I had lied too, about skateboarding, about where I got my scrapes. I pressed my forehead against the passenger’s window. I could feel my dad’s eyes on my back. I flashed on Nixon, his saggy jowls and hunched shoulders, and the policeman’s gold teeth, and him sitting in his box all night and him taking money from people and stuffing it in his pocket.
Take it easy on that window, Ollestad, said my dad.
Sorry.
You want to rest your head in my lap?
Yeah.
I swiveled around and put my cheek across his thigh and my bent knees up on the seat so my feet could fit against the door.
Sunlight poured in the truck’s window onto my head. I sat up and wiped my forehead with my T-shirt.
Buenos dias, said my dad.
I noticed the creases under my dad’s eyes—they were lined in an olive yellow, standing out against his smooth honey-brown skin. He looked older and more tired than I had ever seen him look. He drank coffee out of a Styrofoam cup.
Where are we? I said.
Just pulling out of Ensenada.
One eye was still blurry and I looked out the windshield. The sun cut across the sagebrush and the sage climbed the hills, spotting them with dull greens. It reminded me of Malibu. I looked west out the passenger’s window beyond the bald headland cliffs, and the Pacific Ocean spread as far as my eye could see, the water tinted peach in the morning light.
My dad yawned.
Did you sleep? I said.
Yeah. I pulled off to the side of the road in Rosarito and took a nap.
Why didn’t Sandra come?
His smile drained away like water seeping into sand. He stared out along the highway and his eyes narrowed.
She was pissed off at me about something, Ollestad.
What?
It’s complicated.
Did you fight?
Yeah. But that’s not why she’s mad.
Why’s she mad?
Nick’s brother. You know Vincent, right?
I nodded.
Yeah well he thought it was funny to take Sandra’s bird.
He took her little parrot?
Yeah.
Why?
To play a joke, he said shaking his head.
What kind of joke?
He pretended to be a birdnapper I guess. We even left money in that phone booth by George’s Market. We didn’t know it was him until he showed up with the bird.
My dad moved his puckered mouth from one side to the other just like Grandpa did sometimes.
Sandra wanted me to call the cops, he said.
Did you?
Naw.
So she left?
Yeah.