Brown Odysseus by Christian H. Morales
An excerpt from Brown Odysseus, an as-yet-unpublished novel by Christian H. Morales.
Before Roque met Monzerrath he lived a logical, reasonable life. He played in his comfort zone all the time and never unexpected things happened to him, nothing ever worried him nor put him in distress; in short, his life was exactly what he wanted it to be. He had a good job as a manager in an American company—that provided customer services for other American companies—that gave him financial ease and status, he had a nice apartment near the beach in Puerto Cortés that many of his acquaintances envied him for; he didn’t have many friends, but the few he had were great and close to his heart; and he was not a bad looking guy—Monzerrath loved to emphasize this whenever he caught her staring at him with that look she only reserved for the moments her heart was filled with tenderness.
He couldn’t even consider the idea of getting a better deal than the one he already had, but when he met her—to his surprise—everything changed for the better. When Monzerrath entered his life, it felt as though he had won the lottery, but instead of money he won the very thing he always thought he'd never find—and never cared to find—for he considered its sole existence a chimera: true love. When they bumped into each other on a lost Thursday afternoon in what it felt like an eternity ago his only thought when his eyes met hers was “Jesus H Christ” and his mind went completely blank, he became speechless out of pure amazement. His perception of time and space changed; for a fraction of a second he perceived everything around him in a different light, it was as though the world had blurred out of the sudden and the only things clear for him to see were her beautiful eyes, her black hair and her smile.
But all good things come to an end. She was a smart young woman, top of her class in her university, and when one night she came to him with the “good” news—she had won a scholarship to continue studying medicine in New York City—he knew he had to let her go. It was the dream of her life to become a doctor. With what heart would he ask her to stay with him, to choose him over her dream if he had witnessed first-hand how passionate she was about it.
He saw her leave his life two weeks later. Roque’s perfect relationship lasted two years and once Monzerrath was out of the picture, he couldn’t find his balance anymore. It was as though he had lost her and the control he had over his own life in the same transaction. Nothing was the same again.
Four years after she was gone, he couldn’t get rid of the image of her face saved in his memory, of the sound of her voice, of her touch that sometimes he felt in the midst of a dream from which he woke up looking for her in his bedroom empty of her presence.
After a prolonged suffering, he came to the one conclusion he could live with: The only way to find his peace again was with her by his side and there was only one way to be with her again, he needed to take the journey through Mexico and cross the Rio Grande or die trying.
It was this almost physical eagerness and need that led him to do things he sometimes couldn’t believe he had done. If one day—sometime before meeting Monzerrath—some palm reader had told him that he would risk his life by jumping onto a moving train to escape from gang members on his way to Monterrey just to shorten the distance that separated him from the woman he loved, if a card reader had explained to him about how he abandoned his comfort zone and his lifestyle to later go through all types of dangerous situations in order to find her, he would have laughed at their faces in disbelief. But he ended up doing everything he could—he left his family and friends behind in the process; he ended up getting into all sorts of problems; he had to beg for Money in Mexico City, he slept on top of moving trains, suffered from extreme heat and cold, and spent days without food. All of that to be standing before Monzerrath and filling his retina with the beauty of her presence, to tell her one more time how much he loved her. Everything he did, he did it to be with her and experience again the joy of a heart filled with reciprocated love.
And all of it was for nothing, Roque thought, with bitterness, while sitting with his back against the old warehouse wall, in a corner away from the other guys, the spot he selected two weeks ago as his personal space to grief alone over his cruel destiny, with his spirit broken and his nose saturated with the stench enclosed in that place, the stench of dirty bodies, of rotten things, dead things. He was looking with empty eyes at the other four guys in captivity with him, the only ones left with him after his friends Wilfredo and Chon were released once their families paid for their rescue. They were about to start with their evening prayer when the youngest one of the group—a Honduran like himself—came to him and invited him to join the rest to pray to the Lord. They know the end is near, Roque thought, yet they refuse to accept it. He declined the boy’s invitation with a simple shake of his head. He saw the deception in the boy’s eyes and saw him struggle with the words stuck in his throat. The kid wanted to give him a reason to join him among the others but knew perfectly well that Roque was not on the same page, he never was. Now it was too late for him to be in sync with the others.
The boy made a sad grin and nodded before walking away. Roque’s eyes kept at the boy’s back, at the dirty clothes and the worn shoes. The kid looked back at him as though he was expecting Roque to change his mind, to come to his senses and find in his heart the need for God that they had found since day one, the day their captors blocked the train tracks at gunpoint and made them climb down the train to put hoods over their heads and then take them to their lost prison, and locked them in that horrible place saturated with a vibe that made Roque feel sick the first days he spent there.
The boy sat with the others to complete the circle they had created. Roque saw them praying and weeping as they asked their Maker for a miracle, something to help them get out of that place alive. He heard the intonation of their voices while his heart filled with anger and a bitter taste settled in his mouth. How stupid of they to expect for a miracle when it was perfectly clear for him that God was not in that warehouse with them, if He ever existed their lives were not of His concern. For all Roque knew He could even be watching them right now, enjoying the show provided by the other fools who were naïve enough to believe that they were going to make it alive out of that place.
Roque spat on the dirty floor and put his eyes away from those men, the only thing they always managed to accomplish was to inspire vile feelings and thoughts out of him. He stood up from his spot and walked in circles in the section of the prison he had spent the last thirty days in, the corner from where he watched with sickening envy how people he met on the road left the warehouse to be released after their families and friends had paid the price for their ransoms. His eyes stopped at the sight of a big brown stain on the floor. The first time he saw it, it was clear for him that people had died in that rotten place and it was clear that people would continue to die there. Is this the price I have to pay for following my heart? He thought. His mind wanted to take him one more time, step by step, through the chain of events that led him to end up in there, in that old fucking warehouse, cover in dried sweat, dust and the stinky filth of fear, but he refused to go all over that again; it was painful and pointless, especially because every time his mind took him to review the past, almost every single thought was about Monzerrath, about her smile and the sound of her voice and that was just too much for him.
The night guard came with their dinner as the guys were finishing their prayers. Roque watched them split and hugged each other. The man with the revolver stuck to his belt ignored them and walked away to meet his partner—who did not lose sight of the prisoners—at the door. The dinner was one hard bread with white beans and water. After all the time in captivity Roque was still expecting a change in the menu and got disappointed every time he saw the same items on the plate. It’s the least they can do before they kill us, Roque thought when his dirty teeth bite the bread. The other guys looked as sad as he felt while they ate their dinner. Roque took the discouraging looking plate and held it in his hands for a few seconds, hoping to have the whole thing done with it any day now, expecting his captors to put an end to his suffering once and for all. He knew they wouldn’t keep him and the others in there for too long, a month was long enough.
After a couple bites to the hard bread, Roque put the almost untouched plate aside—he had no desire to finish his meal, wishing again that his captors would give them something different to eat one day, just for a change. Men in the death row had the right for a last meal, why couldn’t they have one good meal before they die too?
Night had fallen already but he was not tired. The door opened again and Roque’s face went blank while a wave of adrenaline spread from his stomach through his whole body. It was unusual to have visits after dinner. The four men who locked them up entered. Finally, Roque thought with a sudden feeling of peace overwhelming him. He was asking under his breath for the despair to be over, for his agony to come to an end and now his desire would finally be granted. The days before were the worst of it. Roque was mired in despair and longing. He was sure that he would die in Mexico and three things caused him unclassifiable pain: That he would never see Monzerrath again, would never again hug his mother or feel the warmth of her loving smile and that no one would know where his body would be poorly buried.
The four men from the cartel passed their eyes by him and the others with cold indifference before covering their heads with the dirty hoods and then took them out of the warehouse. Outside the walls the chill of the night made Roque tremble.
“Look,” said one of the guys in a jolly tone, “this one is about to shit his pants.”
The others laughed the joke.
Roque raised his head and through the fabric of the hoodie he saw the full moon high in the sky. It looked beautiful even with the filter that covered his eyes.
The guards put him with the others on the back of a truck. Roque's mind was blank, as though he had accepted the reality of his situation, as if he were making peace with his destiny and the fact that he would die in the attempt to see Monzerrath, the love of his life. He wanted to comfort himself by thinking that it would be a noble death, that at least he tried something to be with her rather than grow old and sorrow for never trying anything. Her face appeared to him in that darkness. He saw her more beautiful than ever, with longer hair, the most adorable and radiant smile displayed on her cute face. He would never again kiss her lips or taste the sweetness of her tongue, no longer caress her skin or listen to the music of her laughter, and he would never again dazzle with her smile or be completely fascinated with the intense beauty of her black eyes.
“It’s unfair to end up like this after all I’ve been through,” he said quietly in a wire voice of anger, once the truck started to move and gain speed. The cold wind of the Mexican spring was hitting his body but the anger rising within him with every image of Monzerrath that crossed his head kept him warm. “I can't die in this fucking place. I refuse. I can’t die in fucking Mexico. That's not how things were supposed to happen. I have a goal, a noble one. There's a woman waiting for me at the end of all this. I love that woman and I came all this way to be with her.” He wanted to scream at the realization that he wanted to live, he needed to live, his journey couldn’t finish like that. A new thought took hold of him. “Fortune favors the brave!” he whispered. “Fortune favors the brave! Fortune favors the brave!” He said one last time and calmed down, overrun by a wave of serene determination.
The truck stopped after what Roque felt as a drive of forty minutes, maybe fifty. His heart beat violently, fueled by the adrenaline running through his bloodstream. The other men sobbed and wept and prayed with despair to their deaf god. The laughter of their captors outside the car was the laughter of men who are about to gather in a convivial Saturday night to get some beers after a grueling week of work, they laughed as Roque could have done it in the company of his own friends or his former co-workers, they laughed as those men—who wept next to him—could have laughed on any given Sunday while watching the three o'clock football game at the neighbor’s place. The sound of the trucks coming and going, the voices of the men teasing each other and their mocking laughter reigned over the croak of frogs and the singing of crickets on that full moon night.
The doors of the truck opened, and after a second, Roque felt a strong grab on his head; the man grabbing him pulled the hood off. Roque's eyes took a moment to adapt to the new lighting of the surroundings.
“Climb down,” said the man to Roque.
“Let's take a walk, amigos,” said a man Roque had never seen before.
They made Roque and the other captives walk through uneven and mountainous terrain until they reached a point where other men waited, carrying lanterns and flashlights in their hands, revolvers held on their belts and machine guns and shotguns hanging from their shoulders. Roque measured the terrain with attentive eyes, looking for a route to flee at the first opportunity.
“It's time for the striptease,” said another man with a grimace of mockery on his face.
“Come on, get naked, culeros,” ordered another one.
Roque took off the shirt he wore for the trip back on the morning of a distant Tuesday, three or four months ago on the day he left Honduras in the search of his happiness. The other men did the same in the midst of sobs and begs that no one listened.
One man watched them while the other tied their hands behind their backs. They were taken barefoot on the ground. Roque felt the softness of the grass stroking the sole of his feet and the sensation led him to think about his childhood when in the afternoons—after arriving home from school—he ran out to meet his friends on the football field of his neighborhood and played barefoot on the grass for hours until his shirt was soaked in sweat and his legs couldn’t keep him standing.
They were taken to a clearing where ten men with flashlights were waiting for them. They were not in a circle, but their mere presence and the way they looked at the five naked men gave Roque the feeling that he was about to witness a ritual. The men had empty looks on their eyes, as if they were in a trance in which they had just plunged to. When the captives reached their level on the hill, they opened up and let them get into the clearing. Then the armed men stood before them, ten against five. Ten armed men against five men who were naked both physically and spiritually. Roque saw ten cold faces, indifferent eyes and the calmness of the everydayness in their postures as if they were doing another part of their daily duties.
Two men entered the clearing as apparitions in the midst of a nightmare and stood in front of the five victims. Roque saw the face of both clearly, as if his eyes had been endowed with greater sensitivity. The eldest of them was in his late fifties, the gray hairs and moustache made it clear in case the wrinkles led to confusion. The youngest was only a child, he could not be older than fifteen years old.
“Here we are now,” said the man to the boy's ear. The silence in the place was so overwhelming that the whisper had the amplified volume of a cry. “Now it's in your hands to decide who is going to walk alive from this valley, you or them.” The man put a shotgun in the nervous hands of the boy who looked at it with dilated eyes in a pale face. The five men were aligned one by one. Roque was the fifth one if the boy began executions from right to left. The man next to Roque peed himself when the boy picked up the cartridges and loaded the shotgun. The man with the greyish moustache—the one who looked like the leader—took three steps back from the boy, with a wolf grin drawn on his face from ear to ear. The boy took a final look back at the man who nodded only one time.
The first detonation exploded with the roar of a bomb. The men behind the boy cried with joy and cheered in congratulations. The first executed man's head exploded and his body was propelled back with so much power that it fell onto a cartoonish posture. Blood gushed out of the neck and the limbs shook violently. The other three men plead for their lives with hysterical screaming as Roque’s eyes stayed wide open and his mouth shut, unable to articulate a single sound. The spectators turned deaf ears and continued in their respective places, cheering and grinning, with the lanterns projecting evil shadows in their faces, making them look like demons wearing human flesh. The man behind the boy grinned—showing his yellow teeth—and nodded in approval when the boy turned on his axis, trembling to meet his eyes. Roque in his place also trembled, he tried to control the spasms the shock sent to his whole body, his hands moved compulsively behind his back in search of freedom, but the more they struggled in his ties the more the skin of his wrists hurt.
The boy took two steps to the left and stood in front of his next victim. Roque saw him move to execute the second man; he swallowed and lowered his head to avoid the glances of the men standing behind the boy, while he tried to untie the knot on his hands. The second shot exploded into the night, tensing Roque’s body one more time. The men behind the boy kept laughing and mocking the way the second body fell on the ground, some even took pictures and videos with their cell phones when the boy pulled the trigger for the second time that night. The pellets made a hole in the chest of the second victim, the other Salvadoran, who died with his eyes closed and an expression full of pain on his face.
Roque could read in the boy’s face that he had began to like the power he had over the men kneeling before him, the revulsion expression he had at the beginning of the night was replaced by a face where fascinated eyes contemplated the unique vision of the dead bodies. The boy had the looks of what he was: a mad child with a deadly toy in his hands, having fun like never before in his life.
The third man was executed with greater cruelty. He begged for his life with his tearful eyes locked in the boy’s but his respond to the begging was a cold grimace.
“Please!” cried the man to the boy, “look into your heart, you’re not a monster. Please don’t kill me. I have a family. Please, please, plea—”
The boy pulled the trigger for the third time that night and did not blink once when the executed body fell on its back and made a cross-legged four on the ground.
The boy lined up in front of his fourth victim, the Honduran kid who had no family in The United States and who would see his life blinded in the darkness of the existential void before the night was over. Roque's rage increased and his breathing caused his chest to go up and down as if driven by a manual pump. The fourth detonation shook the night as Roque's side was bathed in his compatriot's blood.
“Yeah!” The men shouted in taunts. “Eso!”
“He’s getting the taste for it,” said the leader, grinning to one guy on his right.
“They all look like dead numbers!” Shout one of the men.
“I bet this one falls face down,” said one man, staring at Roque.
“A hundred pesos said that this guy goes down as a number four too,” replied another.
“Orale, vas,” said the former guy, and shook the latter’s hand.
The boy stood in front of Roque, in his face a pair of demented eyes shone. Roque kept his eyes on the boy’s all the time until the boy lowered his face in an instant of nervousness, regaining for a moment the sanity and in extension feeling a little restless. Roque was the only one who hadn't cried or sobbed. The boy looked back, towards his companions to regain the suddenly lost courage and faced Roque once more.
Roque closed his eyes, expecting the inevitable, and the boy pulled the trigger.
Roque heard the empty click and the surprised silence killed the noise. He opened his eyes; before him the boy was looking at the gun with confused eyes and a stupid grimace on his face. He was about to pull the trigger again when Roque seized the moment of confusion, stood up and fled, leaving a commotion behind him. Shots flew in all directions hitting trees and leaves and grass and sometimes nothing but the air, as the men ran after Roque and his naked self. One of them got lucky in the end, hitting Roque in the shoulder, but he never stopped or fainted, he kept running and running aimlessly into the darkness.
Christian H. Morales is a Honduran writer living in Nashville, Tennessee. He focusses his writing in literary fiction, being Honduran characters the main focus of his work. Christian writes about everyday people, their routines, the things they love and the ones they struggle with. His work has been featured in Maudlin House and Latine Lit.