Chapter Two

“It’s already a done deal, brother. When I get my NTA I’m going to get deported.”

Bodie stared at his friend and employee in surprise. “But aren’t you one of the DREAMERS? I know the immigration laws are all messed up right now but they aren’t deporting DREAMERS yet-”

Pete shook his head slowly. “I told you about how I got busted selling weed back when I was a kid. I don’t fall under DACA’s rules anymore. It’s why I stopped reporting to ICE. I just…” Pete shook his head. “I fucked up my entire life while I was still a kid.”

Pete knew that it wasn’t just circumstances that had screwed him. He knew that the blame rested squarely on his shoulders. Because of his crime he was no longer under the protection of DACA and had basically gone into hiding.

He took a cigarette from a pack in his front pocket. His fingers were clean, an unusual sight for a mechanic. Bodie’s fingers were even now black with grease and engine debris and it was barely eight am.

Pete lit up and inhaled, squinting at his friend through the ribbons of smoke. “I just wanted to let you know what’s going down.”

“Can’t I write a letter or-?” Bodie tried but Pete was already shaking his head slowly.

“The only reason that I’m not in jail right now is because of Theresa and the baby-”

Bodie’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh my God, what about Theresa and the baby?”

Pete again was already shaking his head in anticipation of the question. It occurred to Bodie that he had probably already told this story many times before.

“She’ll be okay. She’ll move in with her parents until we can think of something.” He ran a hand through his straight dark hair even though it fell right back into his eyes.

Bodie felt his stomach cave in as it all began to sink in.

Pete was being deported.

Pete was going to leave behind his wife, his baby and his home.

There was nothing that Bodie could do. He felt stupid and useless. His muscles were big enough to fight and defend his friends and family. But how could he save Pete, Theresa and little Jace with only muscles?

He reached for the cigarette from his friend’s hand. It had been years since he’d last allowed a cigarette to part his lips but Shaun would understand. Pete handed it over without a word and lit another for himself. Bodie turned to him slowly.

“What if you just take off? I can help you, Pete-”

Pete smiled and it was a true smile where the tension lines that had settled between his brow disappeared for the first time in days.

“Why the fuck do you think I’m on this mountain in the first place? If ICE can find me on Cobb Hill in Estill County Kentucky then they’ll find me anywhere.” The smile fell from his face. “There is no place to run. I have to go back to Mexico.” He leaned against the counter, which was littered with greasy car parts and tools. Grimy work orders were jotted on scraps of paper along with disposable cups partially filled with old coffee. Pete knew that he was going to miss this place. He was going to miss the smell of a gummed up carburetor and the sight of oil that looked as thick as black tar. He was even going to miss towing a wrecked car that had taken a bend too fast and needed to be hauled of the side of a blind cliff—after midnight. And he was going to miss Bodie who had given him a chance without ever asking to see his papers like he was some runaway slave.

“How soon?” Bodie asked while staring out the opened set of garage doors into the rolling hills of the mountain.

“I don’t know. I’m out on bail but I’ll be getting a Notice to Appear letter to face the immigration judge. I don’t expect to go home from there.” Pete chuckled to himself and stared out into the beautiful mountain setting. He never thought that he would fall in love with this country-ass place filled with nothing but white faces. But then he’d met Bodie who was part Indian and then Bodie’s wife Shaundea who was black and finally his wife Theresa who was as white as Wonder bread, and he stopped thinking about race. He had just settled down and began to live.

His parents had fled to the states from Guatemala along with their three children and despite what most people thought it had never been an easy life. When he was sixteen his mother had passed away from what was surely cancer. She never got it treated due to her fear of deportation. His Dad had died years before in a work accident at a factory where the undocumented were able to work without papers for less pay and in dangerous conditions. His father had been one of the many casualties of an industry that worked every drop of sweat out of you before discarding your used carcass.

His mother and older sister had been domestics and his brother had dropped out of school to work in the same factory that had killed his father. Selling weed had helped to make ends meet and nothing more. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been any good at it and had gotten busted before making any real cash. When he hadn’t been immediately deported he had vowed never to look at the stuff again. His mother had scraped together all the cash that she could and he had taken off, getting as far out of Texas as he could and had landed in the mountains of Kentucky to a place that he hadn’t even known existed.

“How in the hell did they find you here?” When the young Hispanic man had approached him for a job, he was barely twenty, broke and hungry. He’d given him a chance, even allowing Pete to sleep in his office for a few weeks until he had enough to get a place of his own. He’d watched him quickly get on his feet. But when he had accepted the Social Security Card that the boy had given him, he’d wondered… Could it have been that? Even after seven years?

“Theresa is convinced that it has to do with the Prangers.”

“The Prangers?” Bodie looked surprised.

“Yeah, remember that time Riley and I got into that argument? Theresa said that her uncle was in Stubby’s that night and heard him and the rest of the good ol’ boys talking shit about me. She said her uncle heard them using the word ICE. The thing is that we don’t talk about none of that. And it’s not a term that I’ve ever used in front of her.”

Bodie’s heart was slamming in his ribcage. God damned nosey ass, interfering troublemaking Prangers!

“I don’t know shit about Mexico,” Pete continued. “I was five years old when my parents brought me and my brother and sister over. My parents are passed on so I don’t even really have a contact over there. Plus if my people had money to take care of me then my parents wouldn’t have left in the first place.” He took another draw from the cigarette. “What the fuck do I know about being Mexican? I grew up thinking that I was just like the rest of you white people,” he tried to joke. But Bodie flashed him a quick look.

“I’m a quarter Cherokee and in these parts it means I’m all Cherokee.”

Pete briefly squeezed his shoulder and nodded before pushing off the counter. “For a while I forgot that I wasn’t actually American.” Pete shook his head and Bodie could see his eyes glisten. “I felt like an American, Bodie.”

Bodie had no response to that because these days even he wasn’t sure what that was supposed to feel like. “What are you going to do?” Bodie asked quietly. What would he do if someone tried to separate him from all that he knew?

Pete blinked and gave Bodie a half smile. “Learn how to speak Spanish again.”

Bodie went back into the office and then gave Pete his final check. It was twice as much as normal. He whispered to his friend that he would send him more once he got into Mexico City. Pete tried to tell him not to do that but Bodie continued as if he hadn’t interrupted.

“I want you to find a place to live and to get yourself settled. That check is for Theresa and Jace. I’m going to send you a couple of grand once you get down there. I can’t say whether or not any thing of value that you try to take with you won’t be confiscated, so better safe than sorry. Contact me as soon as you can. Don’t be too prideful, you hear me?”

Pete swallowed and his eyes once again took on a bright and glistening cast. “I hear you Bodie. I didn’t come here for that,” he continued when Bodie opened his mouth. “But I’ll take you up on it.”

Pete grabbed the older man into a bear hug. He’d worked for Bodie since he was twenty years old and seven years with a man like Bodie had given him ideas of owning his own shop, of being married and having children and living the American dream. Only thing is that somehow along the way he had forgotten that he wasn’t American.

 

 

Riley finished up his coffee and then washed the dish and set it in the drain board next to the plate and the skillet that he had used to fry the two over-easy eggs and four strips of bacon that he had each morning for breakfast.

He walked through the quiet house and sat on the worn wooden bench situated by the entrance, to pull on his work boots. They never reached further into the house then this three-foot entranceway unless he wanted to spend the next several hours cleaning grease marks from the wooden floors or the throw rugs.

Since Riley didn’t have a wife or a woman or a mother to do his cleaning for him, he had learned long ago that if he didn’t want to clean up he needed to make sure that he didn’t mess up.

He walked outside thinking that it was going to be a miserable summer if it was already pushing eighty degrees at the ass crack of dawn. He tossed his lunch pale into the driver’s side of his truck. In it were roast beef sandwiches left over from yesterday’s Sunday dinner.

He turned on the radio and listened to a morning radio show as he drove to Bodie’s Garage. He’d done the same thing day in and day out for the last five years. It took no thought to knock the dings out of the body of a wrecked car or dis-assemble and reassemble an engine. Riley hadn’t really had to do much thinking since returning to the mountain. And although he hadn’t consciously operated in this way, it was the way he preferred it.

He got out of his truck and walked into the quiet garage. He was surprised that the radio wasn’t on. Pete usually got in before him and the place would be pumping out some channel from Richmond that played progressive music that made the hair on his skin rise up. Bodie would have the second pot of coffee going since he usually started work even before the sunrise.

Riley plopped his lunch box into the fridge and saw Bodie coming out of his office.

“Hey Bodie,” Riley said while reaching for his coveralls which hung on a hook.

“Riley. I need to talk to you.”

Riley paused taking the time to look at his boss for the first time. Both men were big but Bodie was built like a professional wrestler. He embraced his Cherokee heritage although he looked like most of the people on Cobb Hill besides his darker coloring. His eyes were grey and his brown hair was filled with red and blond highlights.

Something about the expression on the man’s face gave Riley pause.

“What’s up?”

“It’s about Pete.” Bodie said while staring at him.

“What about him?” Riley asked.

“He’s getting deported.”

Riley didn’t say anything as he absorbed the news. Pete didn’t like him all that much—a lot of people didn’t. They’d gotten into it once before and Riley had called him Pedro. Pedro was, in fact, his real name but Riley had spat it out as if it was a curse word and Pete had looked at him differently afterwards, the way some people in town looked at him. It didn’t make him no never mind if Pete looked down on him. Riley didn’t need to break bread with the man. They just shared a place to work.

“Wow, that’s a shame.” Riley said slowly. And he meant it. He knew the man had a woman and a little boy. He suddenly thought about all the cars out back that needed working on. Bodie was going to have to hire someone quick and he hoped that he wouldn’t think he would take on double shifts. He wouldn’t mind doing a little extra but the sign said Bodie’s Garage, not Riley’s-

“Did you have anything to do with immigration going after him?”

Riley’s attention jerked back to Bodie. Wait--? What did Bodie just say? Was he honestly asking him if he’d gotten Pete deported?

Bodie continued, “Because I know your cousin and the people you hang with, Riley-”

“What the fuck, man?” Riley said incredulously.

“You and Pete got into a shoving match-”

“That was nearly a year ago!”

“Look Riley,” Bodie growled. “Pete is a good person and he doesn’t deserve to be ripped from his home. There’s no reason for immigration to be up here sniffing around unless someone said something. Maybe you said something to Sully or one of the others-”

“I don’t have to say anything. Everybody knows he’s an illegal! He got caught, that’s all. Don’t make it my fault!”

Bodie looked away. His face had taken on a steely expression. When he met Riley’s eyes again they were blank of emotion.

“You’re going to have to get up out of here-”

“What?” Riley gave him an incredulous look. “Are you fucking firing me?”

“I don’t trust you!” Bodie yelled. “I don’t want a sympathizer around me and my family. And after this…I don’t trust you.” He gave him a final look. “Get your stuff. I’ll be fair and give you a week’s pay on top of what you earned.”

Riley’s face turned red in rage. “Fuck you Bodie! Fuck your week’s pay! Fuck this job and fuck your family!”

Bodie’s expression fluctuated between something that looked like regret and resolution.

Riley stormed back to his truck. When he realized that he was still holding his coveralls he threw them to the graveled ground. He glared at his former boss before climbing into his truck and abruptly starting the engine.

“Sorry son of a whore…” he muttered before ripping out of the parking space with his lunch box still in the refrigerator.