Pepe. Antonio doesn’t like Pepe because a month ago, Pepe found Jesus Christ and is now studying the ways he can save his soul. Slim and well-groomed Pepe says based on what he’s done and what he will be doing, he hopes if he knows enough about Jesus, his soul might be saved after all when his time eventually comes.
Antonio doesn’t know about souls, lost his belief in Jesus and God years back, and if Pepe were to go soft on him, he’d blow his head off. But so far, Pepe has done his job, and Antonio leaves him alone. He also leaves Ramon alone, who is sleeping in the second bedroom, along with the fourth person in this house, the chicken.
Back again on his trek, small kitchen, living room, his small bedroom, and back to the kitchen. He remembers as a boy, his father affording one day to take him and his sister to the Chapultepec Zoo outside of Mexico City, and he remembers a big black bear. The bear was pacing back and forth, back and forth, and he felt sad for the big guy. He should have been out in the wilderness, killing other creatures, eating what he wanted, humping any female bear in range.
Instead the bear was trapped.
Just like Antonio.
He goes back to his pacing.
This job isn’t like any other job he’s done for his jefe. He’s done lots of kidnapping jobs, and except for a few, most of them involved working over the victim and torturing him until his family came up with the money that the jefe was demanding.
But not this job.
This job is full of rules, and Antonio hates rules.
Don’t leave the house. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Keep things quiet. One of you to be awake at all times. No drinking. No drugs.
And worst of all…Don’t mark, harm, or even touch the chicken you are guarding.
Where’s the fun in that?
Most of the fun in jobs like this is seeing the fear in the chicken’s eyes, seeing how much he screams when a finger or toe is lopped off, how he begs and begs for mercy, and how friendly and forgiving he becomes at the end, when he is told that the ransom is paid and he will be released in just a short while.
Sweet Mary, the chicken—even if short toes or fingers—will hug and kiss them all, forgiving them for doing a dirty and necessary job, and he will be in a cheerful mood until Antonio and his associates drive him to an empty cornfield and toss him into a drainage ditch and shoot him in the head.
But not this chicken.
He is protected, and he is to stay here until some norteamericano knocks on the door, says a certain phrase, and then the chicken is to be released into this stranger’s care. Antonio, Pepe, and Ramon will leave a half hour later, cross the border, and go home to Ciudad Juárez, and then have a week off to make up for the monastic existence they’ve been suffering.
Back in the kitchen, Antonio stops, feeling hungry, thirsty, antsy. He opens the refrigerator, sees water and nothing else. Up in the freezer is a pile of frozen dinners—he’s come to hate frozen dinners. Most times the gas stove here either overcooks or undercooks the frozen chunks of pasta or white frozen meat pretending to be chicken.
He slams the door shut, goes back out to the living room. Pepe looks up at him. Pepe’s skin is darker than his and Ramon’s, and he’s got a beak of a nose that marks some Aztec blood, but that blood must be thinned out some for Pepe to have found Jesus.
He says to Antonio, “What’s up?”
“I’m going out.”
Pepe pauses, Bible in his lap, pen in his hand. “You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“The jefe won’t like it.”
“The jefe is hundreds of kilometers away,” Antonio says, picking up a light-tan jacket from the couch to wear over his polo shirt and his Smith & Wesson. “When we came here a few days ago, there was a McDonald’s that just opened up. It’s only five minutes away.”
Pepe says, “The jefe won’t like it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like that crap we’re forced to eat,” Antonio says. “I’m going up there, get some fries, two Big Macs, a nice cold drink. You can sit here and thump that Bible. I won’t be gone long.”
He goes to the door, feeling the truck keys in the jacket pocket. Like some deranged talking doll or toy, Pepe calls out,