The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,117

the border. That San Diego television report, accompanied by the first officially issued photographs of Brandon and Keenan, caught the attention of the midday editor at a Miami Beach-based news aggregation website, who made the story his lead item, with a headline in the usual all-caps, tabloid-inspired, thirty-six point font. CLOSE THE BORDER! CALIFORNIA BOYS IN ALIEN KIDNAP DRAMA. Perusing this website’s unique blend of celebrity gossip, political news, and weird animal and weather stories was a guilty pleasure in office cubicles and on laptops and smart phones across the country, and its fans included millions of American mothers whose children were in the care of women named María, Lupe, and Soledad.

The morning after the Fourth of July, Brandon and Keenan wandered over to the backyard of the Luján home alone and listened to the roof of the tent pop as it caught the occasional breeze. They had left Araceli behind in Lucia’s room, snoring as she slept off four consecutive restless nights, next to a nightstand and a bubbling lava lamp that Brandon had turned on in the morning to read. They had moved quietly around their temporary guardian and through the silent house, past the bedroom door that vibrated with an older man’s tectonic snore, through the living room, where a pair of empty plastic cups with cigarette butts sat on the coffee table, and finally to the empty backyard. At the pit they used splintering pieces of discarded and weathered lumber they had found nearby to poke at the stones inside, wondering if they might get in trouble for doing so. They discovered scattered pieces of foil and bits of charcoal, and a few scattered bones that had been chewed and tossed inside and basted with ashes and dirt, but failed to discover flames, or melting rocks, or any other sources of combustion.

“It’s only rocks,” Keenan said, and looked at his older brother, aware of his disappointment.

“Maybe, maybe not. Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

They wandered around the backyard, kicking at the paper cylinders that once held firecrackers and picking up the sticks of bottle rockets. Brandon gathered some scattered beer cans and stacked them into pyramids and arranged them into small forts that he bombarded with the spent firecracker casings, and they collapsed with a realistic clank. Once they finished, they plopped themselves down on the rented picnic benches, resting their elbows and their heads on the tables like students struggling to stay awake in an afternoon class.

“I wanna go to Grandpa’s,” Keenan said.

“Yeah, me too.”

Keenan wondered if crying would help, even if it was not the spontaneous bawling that came from scraping your elbow or being called a nasty name by your brother, but rather the self-conscious, manipulative weeping he sometimes heard from his younger sister, Samantha, who cried for any reason, and who always seemed to get her way. He told himself he would employ this strategy with the next adult that came into view, and then he heard a screen door being pushed open and slamming shut, and saw Lucía Luján run toward him and his brother. Griselda Pulido trailed after her, both women wearing stylish evening clothes that suggested they had been up all night, their faces wide awake with strange expressions that merged surprise, delight, and concern.

“We just saw you guys on TV,” Lucía said. “You’re missing.”

“What?”

“The TV says you’re missing children. On the news.”

“We’re missing?”

“That’s what they said.”

“But I’m right here,” Brandon said. “How can I be missing?”

The boys followed Lucia and Griselda to the Luján family living room and the glowing television screen. They were disappointed to see images of a brush fire racing up a hillside. “Hey, you were on just a second ago,” Lucía said, and she picked up the remote control and began switching channels.

“¿Qué pasó?” Araceli said behind them, having been awakened by the sound of doors opening and slamming shut.

“We saw the boys on TV,” Griselda said.

“¿Qué?”

“On the news.”

Several images and voices cycled through the screen: a blond starlet on a red carpet, waving to a crowd; the green-clad members of Mexico’s national soccer team tackling and embracing a goal-scorer during a game from the night before; a supermarket with empty shelves and a floor covered with boxes and cans, the words BARSTOW EARTHQUAKE underneath; two Spanish news anchors in a studio, engaged in a chatty, light back-and-forth with the pregnant weather woman, who rubbed her belly and stuck out her tongue cartoonishly, causing the two anchors to slap

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