Land of the Cranes Read online

the sugary air across

  the yarda and through

  our windows

  and into

  our noses

  and into

  an

  ahh.

  Mami lights a candle daily

  to a small statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe

  and a picture of Tío Pedro faded in a frame.

  His whole face is a smile.

  His big wavy hair is like Mami’s

  but shorter

  and he’s got a reddish-brown

  hair donut around his mouth

  Mami doesn’t have

  except for one whisker

  that grows under her chin.

  Can I light the match? Por please?

  Con cuidado not to get burned, hijita.

  She prays for protection under her breath

  while she fusses with the roses

  in the vase and the little milagrito

  metal charms of hands and hearts

  scattered at La Virgencita’s feet.

  As I stare at Mami’s altar

  I notice each time, we are

  the brown of this Virgen

  the morena of her

  painted ceramic skin.

  I spot the slice of moon

  and the winged angel

  that holds her up.

  My favorite part.

  I smile to think maybe

  La Virgencita is a bird.

  Virgencita llena eres de gracia …

  Mami, excuse me, but I think …

  … protégenos con tu manto.

  La Virgencita has wings

  like her baby angel.

  Mami giggles

  and pokes my panza.

  Maybe she is hiding them in her robes!

  Or behind her arms!

  Our giggles tumble together

  under La Virgencita’s patient eyes.

  Mami. Is Tío Pedro with her?

  Mami’s smile melts.

  She nods her head a little

  and stares into her brother’s picture.

  Yes, mi’ja. He is with her now.

  Ms. Martinez teaches me magic.

  She casts the vocabulary words

  all fourth graders should know

  onto the white board

  for us to squeeze into memory.

  The funnest game.

  I love to loop and lift

  the lines to make shapes

  mean something

  on my paper.

  Words in English

  I don’t know at first

  but the more I draw the curves

  and lines, then hear the way they

  sound out loud, the more alive

  they are in my head.

  Words like:

  intonation        or        fortune

  energy              or        angle

  anguish            or        freedom

  myth                or        alchemy

  are the almost spells

  I spell

  with ink.

  From my cushy bed

  Saturday-morning sounds

  are a blast of rancheras

  swooshing into our house

  leftover music from

  Omar’s ritual car wash

  and el paletero’s bell

  ring,    ring,    ringing

  and Papi’s calling,

  ¡Para arriba, Betita Plumita!

  Los quince de Tina are today!

  I squeeze my ojos shut

  but my ears are two nets

  snatching more sounds

  the tiny cackle of Amparo’s baby brother

  and the fart noises I know she makes

  by catching air in her armpits

  make me giggle

  before Papi tickles my toes really awake.

  I tumble out of my blankets

  follow the smell of huevitos

  and café coming from the kitchen

  thinking about

  my cousin Tina’s

  round yellow dress.

  I run into Papi

  spin,    spin,    spinning

  Mami away from the stove

  he tucks her into a cheek-to-cheek

  two-step ranchera

  then pulls me

  into a close snug.

  I bury my face

  into Mami’s squishy belly

  feeling my mouth        stretch

  into the sappiest jelly grin

  as I bounce

  along to their

  two-step ranchera strides.

  When we sit to eat

  I bring my paper and crayons.

  Guarda eso, Betita, focus on eating.

  Mami slides me my dish.

  With a wink from Papi

  I drift into my drawing.

  Tina in her quince dress

  her straight blue-black hair

  that I use two colors to get just right.

  I draw myself in my new

  dusty-rose dress

  holding her hand

  my mouth so open

  a fly is about to go inside.

  Six raids in the last two days, Papi chews.

              Where?

  In the factories just over the tracks.

  People say there will be more.

  This administration is out to get us.

              But this is a sanctuary state.

  A what, Mami?

  Papi clears his throat and

  almost whispers,

  A “sanctuary” is a place where cranes can’t get caught.

  Caught for doing what?

  They look at each other

  and then at me.

  I can tell I’m not supposed to ask

  by the way their worried eyebrows

  push down

  on their blabber-mouth eyes.

  For just wanting to fly, Plumita.

  So can we get caught too?

  Betita, Mami quiets me, eat up, cielito.

  We have to get to church early

  before the ceremony. Mira, look

  at this beautiful bouquet I made from

  our rosales for Tina to offer La Virgen.

  I look down without their answer

  and quickly draw a bouquet of flowers

  in Tina’s other hand.

  The only wordspell I have time to cast

  is my curly name and the date

  on the bottom.

  Betita-September 15

  I looove Tina’s fancy dress

  big and bouncy golden-yellow satin

  with sparkly flowers at the hem.

  Her fanciness courtesy of

  Mami and Papi

  the padrinos of that dress

  ’cause they paid for all

  but the last one hundred dollars

  Tina’s dad, Tío Juan, threw in.

  Tío Juan is Papi’s brother

  and the first crane to fly here

  a long time ago.

  He helped Papi find a job in

  construction, and Tía Raquel,

  Tina’s mamá, helped Mami

  find work taking care of babies.

  They are part of the flock we have here.

  Tina shows me her Gram page

  with all the facial tutorials

  she likes and uses me

  to test them out.

  Then we take pictures and videos of our

  slathered green avocado faces

  and cucumber eyes

  she posts to her Gram story

  and we wait for the likes to pop in

  from her almost one thousand followers!

  Funny to think what she might look like

  in an oatmeal mask and poofy sparkly dress.

  But right now
our happiness

  is big and wide because she looks like Belle

  dancing a waltz with gruff Tío Juan

  in her Beauty and the Beast backyard ballroom.

  Paper flowers all around the tall rented canopy

  yellow ribbons woven into the chain-link fence.

  Tía Raquel stops her running around

  long enough to get weepy happy

  and wipe her tears with the

  corner of her plaid apron

  over her lacy navy dress.

  A bunch of Tina’s school friends

  are here wearing so much makeup

  and tiny dresses so tight, they look really old

  like grown-up old.

  Tío Desiderio is on guard

  at the bar, making sure some

  of her pimply-faced guy friends

  don’t try to get beer.

  Most of the smaller kids

  are weaving in and out of tables

  between the older tíos and tías sitting

  on folding chairs and fanning themselves

  because of the late-summer heat, but not me.

  My eyes are drinking up Tina

  floating

  and

  gliding

  like a dancing crane.

  I tug on Mami’s

  dress and point at Tina and

  then right back at me.

  One day, I wish to have a

  backyard Beauty and the Beast

  ballroom crane quince

  like Tina.

  By the way Mami squeezes

  my round cheeks

  with her manicured fingers

  I think she wants one for me too.

  At aftercare pickup

  Papi says,

  Now that you are a fourth grader

  it’s time for you to know

  the meaning of the word

  “cartel” in Spanish.

  “Cartel,” a cardboard sign

  to announce something

  as in “for sale”

  or “car wash here.”

  But also,

  a group of men who sell

  drugs

  guns

  and people

  sometimes.

  A cartel hurt Tío Pedro

  made him disappear

  when he didn’t give them

  the money they wanted

  and then, wanted to come

  for us too

  though we had nothing

  to do with it.

  It’s why we can’t see

  Abuelita Lola anymore.

  We were lucky Tío Juan

  petitioned for us

  to be here before we knew

  of cartels.

  Petition?

  It’s like getting on a wait list.

  For what?

  To fly free, Plumita.

  When I ask Papi

  if the men in cartels

  are cranes like us

  he says,

  It’s impossible, Betita

  because their souls

  are so mangled

  they have forgotten

  how to be birds.

  In Ms. Martinez’s class

  Amparo invites me to play

  a mapping game on a globe.

  She tilts her round head

  and her floppy ponytail whips

  to the side when she asks.

  I am always ready

  to play with Amparo.

  She explains,

  Okay, Betita,

  first I’ll find a random place

  then I’ll spin the globe

  and you have to find it.

  Ready …             Madagascar!

  I find it easy.

  Here!

  This big island floating

  in the sea next

  to Africa.

  When we switch

  I run my fingers over

  the bumps on the globe

  that mean mountains

  and continents

  and make my fingers dance.

  I start at Alaska

  and feel the ridges

  run into the Rocky Mountains

                                     then turn into the Sierra Madres

                                                 the bumpy mountains connected

                                     like a curvy spine

  all the way down

  the back of North America.

  These are all the places

  Papi said cranes fly.

  Amparo snaps,

  C’mon, Betita, give me a place!

  Without looking I say,

  Here, find Aztlán

  and spin.

  She squeezes

  her hazel eyes

  almost closed at me.

  She knows it’s a trick question

  but she goes along.

  Ay, your papi says Aztlán

  doesn’t exist in real life anymore.

  That the Aztecs left it a long time ago.

  Yes it DOES exist, tell me

  where is it now?

  She rolls her eyes but answers,

  Okay, we are rebuilding it here in East LA.

  Amparo points to LA on the globe

  then she places her hand over

  her chest and says,

  También in here.

  I get cartwheel happy

  because Amparo

  has been listening

  to Papi’s stories!

  She knows

  she is a crane too!

  On Monday

  Papi must be late. It’s six p.m.

  and aftercare closes at six fifteen.

  The ticks on the clock

  are honey-slow tocks

  I try not to count.

  I wonder if Papi’s broken a wing

  on the skyscrapers he helps build

  with hammers and steel?

  I wonder if Papi forgot

  I am waiting and rushed

  to the restaurant with too

  many dishes to wash?

  But that has never happened.

  Ms. Cassandra, the teacher’s aide,

  bends the creases of her forehead

  near her phone when Papi doesn’t answer.

  So she calls Mami, who is the nanny

  of toddler twins with bright red cheeks

  who can’t fly.

  Ms. Cassandra gives me a tissue

  to soak up my teariness because Mami

  can’t come for me right now either.

  She can’t leave those babies

  until their parents get home.

  Papi is coming, I whisper to myself.

  I’ll tuck my wings close and wait.

  When the hand of the clock

  is past six fifteen and there is no Papi

  the sun is still so bright outside.

  Principal Brown drives me

  to Mami’s work

  as far away as forever from school

  though close to where

  Principal Brown lives.

  She tells me,

  Everything will be okay, Betita.

  Your father probably got caught up.

  I’m not sure.

  I want Papi.

  Where Mami works is so big

  it could be a scraper Papi built.

  As we arrive, Mami is closing

  the wide wood front door behind her.

  She wraps one arm around me.

  Betita, nada pasa. Todo está bien.

  Her face doesn’t match her words.

  Something is happening, and it isn’t okay.

  I don’t get to see inside.

  I don’t get to meet the twins.

  I don’t get to
see how

  those who aren’t cranes live.

  Thank you, Principal Brown. Mami’s voice breaks.

  You’re welcome. Please let me know

  if there is anything else I can do,

  she tells Mami.

  We walk to the bus stop

  and watch Principal Brown drive off.

  Mami is on the phone

  now a faucet of drip-drop

  tears falling on the pavement.

  When I ask her what happened to Papi

  she shakes her head

  as if to say,

  Not now, Betita.

  From a string

  of weeping words

  I learn

  someone named ICE

  put Papi and other hammer workers

  in a cage

  and Mami doesn’t know

  how to set him free.

  I cry to think of Papi

  unable to fly.

  On the bus, Mami says

  here in El Norte

  there are walls we were not

  supposed to cross.

  We are sin papeles

  undocumented, her voice trembles.

  A word that means

  “without permission.”

  I remind Mami this is

  the land of the cranes.

  We have wings

  that can soar above walls.

  Sí, mi amor, but not

  when they have cages

  and can stop us from flying.

  She sweeps me into

  a one-handed hug and

  kisses the top of my head.

  I watch the traffic turn

  from smooth to crowded

  through the window of the bus

  taking us home.

  That night

  I crawl into Mami and Papi’s bed

  smell for Papi on his pillow.

  I stare at Mama’s Virgen altar.

  Will I ever see him again?

  I take scissors and cut out a square

  from his baby-blue pillowcase

  tuck the cloth into my blouse

  and secure it with a safety pin

  near my heart.

  I cut out another little piece

  and put it on Mami’s Virgencita

  smoosh it between the moon

  and the angel

  and pray for protection.

  Please, Virgencita, don’t

  take Papi with you too.

  Mami is in the living room

  with Amparo’s mom, Diana.

  They are two cranes murmuring.

  She arranges for Diana

  to get me after school

  until Mami comes for me

  at their casita just next door.

  Diana will never be able to carry

  Amparo

  her baby

  and me

  on her

  tiny

  shoulders.

  Could I fly without Papi?

  my crane poem

  the one about

  a poet bird, Juan Felipe