L. Vocem

Alejandra heard stomping up and down the stairs, people walking, talking, punctuated by kitchen noises, cups, microwave oven beeps. She was trying to sleep in the basement, down in that corner of a hallway on a couch. Then the noises got closer and she heard two people close by. Someone leaned towards her and took a deep breath.

"They arrested Ana Maria." 

Alejandra's eyes peeled wide open as she pulled the covers from her face. 

"What happened?" She asked. They turned the light on. She saw Ana Maria's brother Carlos and her son. 

"We located her in Cumming. But we have no idea what is going on."

Alejandra remembered when she worked cleaning hotel rooms, and they arrested one of the women who used to work with her crew in the city. The police stopped her for no reason other than she looked Latina and arrested her because she had a fake ID. They took her children and eventually deported all of them. 

"Look, we're all heading out there, you don't have to come."

"I'll go," Alejandra said. 

"Come upstairs when you're ready," Carlos responded, turning around and rushing to the end of the basement.

They went in two vehicles. Carlos drove an SUV while Dona Teresa, Ana Maria’s mother, still sharp despite her advanced age, drove the minivan. Alejandra sat in the back. While being jerked around with every turn, she drifted in and out of the conversation where they mentioned that Forsyth County was extremely racist – at one point, kicking all the black people out, and now profiling every brown and Hispanic that dared flinch. 

They arrived at the county courtroom still in the dark. The clerk indicated that there would be a hearing at 6 am.  Until then, they could either go home or sit on the benches.

They slept in their vehicles until the early morning. Uniformed men brought Ana Maria out in front of a judge with a group of about six other people. The majority of them were charged with DUIs. Ana Maria was charged with driving without a license and going over the white line. 

"Going over the white line?" Carlos whispered to the group. "You get arrested for that?"

Doña Teresa and her husband, Forrest, paid the bail. Ana Maria looked at them in a state of shock. They all hugged and kissed and went back to the house. Ana Maria rushed to her downstairs little apartment and closed the door. 

#

The next day Carlos came to visit to see how Ana Maria was doing, so Doña Teresa, Forrest, Carlos, and Alejandra went downstairs and knocked on the door.

"Leave me alone," she whispered.

The door remained closed, so they all went upstairs to talk.

"What was Ana Maria doing out at 11 pm?" Carlos asked.

"Well, Ana Maria is so stressed out that she grinds her teeth," Doña Teresa responded. "She has a couple of cracked teeth. One of the families where she babysits manages at a Mexican restaurant. They offered her a job. She doesn't speak English, but she can bring chips and salsa, sit people, bus tables, that sort of thing. It's tough work, but she needs the money. I've told her so many times that she needs to learn English, so this type of thing would not happen, but you know how she is."

Alejandra remembered the lady who got arrested when she used to clean hotel rooms and how a few days after being released from a normal jail, ICE came and took her to a detention center in South Georgia and shipped her children to a facility where they slept in cages with blankets that looked like aluminum foil.

"Is she going to get deported?" Alejandra asked.

They all looked at each other. 

Doña Teresa took a deep breath. "Dios mio. I hope not. We had that talk a while back and she was going to file for political asylum, but after checking, they wanted all this kind of proof. Who is going to ask their assailants for proof?"

"And?" Carlos asked.

"Well, then the government designated Syria, Burma and Venezuela under Temporary Protected Status. So, Ana Maria and all her kids applied for TPS visas. That means they can all work, get driver's licenses and all that good stuff, but they cannot leave the country. If they do, they’ll lose everything."

"So why doesn't she have a license?" Carlos asked. 

“She has a Venezuelan license!”

#

Several days passed before Ana Maria emerged from her room. Without saying a word to anyone, she asked Alejandra to go with her. They got in Ana Maria's car and drove to an Abasto. Ana Maria bought Mexican antibiotics, incense and candles. She drove to the restaurant where she worked. She was greeted by Pablo, the manager who told her to take her time. 

"But I can't," Ana Maria responded. "I need the money. I have three cracked teeth that I have to take care of. It's a lot of money."

"Are you in pain?" Pablo asked.

"What do you think?"

Pablo asked Alejandra if she needed work. 

"I'm in her situation as well."

"Doesn't matter. Can you speak to customers in English?"

"Yes," Alejandra responded, switching to English.

"Very well, when can you start?" Pablo asked in English, with an accent. 

"I don't know, I don't have transportation." Alejandra said, looking at Ana Maria.

"You can ride with me," Ana Maria responded. 

Alejandra gave Ana Maria a look as if saying are you crazy. 

“I’m scared,” said Ana Maria.  “But what choice do I have. I also have to come up with the money for the fine for when we go to court.”

"Can you start on Wednesday?” Pablo asked. “That is our slowest day. That way you can get a feel for what has to be done and learn the ropes."

On the way home, Alejandra looked at the undulating road with horse pastures interspersed with new subdivisions filled with opulent houses and three-car garages. Ana Maria was rather quiet until they arrived at the house. 

"Tu sabes, Chama. In our country, you can take a bus, the metro, a taxi anywhere. It's cheap and it connects everything. Here, in this country, you can't do that. Without a car, you're stuck, and what am I going to do, spend all I can make on Uber or taxis? Why even bother go to work."

Ana Maria's eyes watered. She sighed and continued. 

"Look at me now. I feel like I'm falling apart. But what else can I do? My son has already received his papers. But I have not received anything. Why do they take so long? It's not like I am going out there hurting people, speeding or driving drunk."

Alejandra held Ana Maria's hand and gave her a look of reassurance. Ana Maria had been with Alejandra when she first arrived and went through her miscarriage, her panic attacks, six months of severe depression. 

"You should apply for a TPS visa. Better yet, you should try applying for asylum. What you told me happened to your boyfriend should be enough for them to let you in,” Ana Maria said.

Asylum. It reverberated in Alejandra's head.

"Now, let's go light some candles," Ana Maria said as they got out of the car. 

They went down to the basement. While in the past Doña Teresa had up to ten refugees from Venezuela living in the basement, it was down to a person per room and Alejandra on a couch in the cove next to Ana Maria's room. They lit a candle and said a prayer for Ana Maria's sons who were still in Venezuela, another for Alejandra's mother who was diabetic and had a hard time finding insulin, then a candle and prayer for Alejandra's brother who was still in jail down there in a political prison. 

#

Alejandra found an immigration attorney to take her case pro bono. They spoke on the phone. The two had agreed to proceed with the Temporary Protected Status as well as the political asylum. But for political asylum they needed to create a case, so the attorney told Alejandra to write down everything that placed her in danger in Venezuela. She wrote down that her brother was a political prisoner because when he was a soldier he refused to burn ballots that came from precincts that endorsed the opposition; that her boyfriend was ambushed by the National Police, was kicked around, then shot in the knee and left there to bleed to death. She listed the number of demonstrations she attended, and the number of times she got hit with the plastic bullets. She wrote down the names of several friends who had gone to demonstrations with shields to protect the crowd from rubber bullets and tear gas, and weeks later were taken out walking on a busy street, or next to their houses, by men on motorcycles. She wrote down the name of the public hospital where they did her mother's appendectomy, and that a guard confiscated her medicines and extorted her. She suddenly could not write down anything else while her hand shook. She remembered seeing through a small window in the utility room of the hospital the little cloud on top of the Avila mountain as she smelled the acrid breath of the man behind her. She crunched the paper. She didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Alejandra went to see the immigration attorney. She was a thin blonde middle-aged woman with a motherly smile. She invited Alejandra into her office. They sat and the attorney looked through the list that Alejandra provided and noticed the bullet listing the public hospital with a question mark. She asked about what that meant. 

"I was. No, my mother was. She needed an appendectomy and you may not know, in Venezuela things are so bad you have to bring your own instruments, medicines, anesthesia and pain killers."

The attorney made some notes on a piece of paper.

"Well, I was… I was going to. When."

Alejandra turned red and her eyes filled with tears. When she tried to talk she hyperventilated. She wrapped her hands around her legs, placed her face down as far as she could – shaking. She remained in that position for a while. The attorney got up, brought a box of tissue paper and a bottle of water. She wrote more notes on her pad. 

"I'm so sorry," Alejandra finally said sitting straight up and taking a deep breath. "It's hard to talk about…"

"I understand. You don’t have to tell me. But I would like you to go see this person."

The attorney wrote in the corner of her notepad a name and a number, ripped it off, and handed it to Alejandra.

"She's a therapist. I see this type of situation so much, I even know her number by heart. Talk to her. We probably have enough here to build a case. But you need to talk to her for your own sake. Entiendes?"

"I understand."

#

A few years back when Alejandra was laid off from her job in Venezuela, inflation was in the thousand percent range and unemployment was close to fifty percent.  She couldn't find work and soon had nothing to eat. She found herself with a group of street kids raiding the garbage bins of restaurants around Caracas. The image and smell of those raids went through her mind as she took out the garbage from the Mexican restaurant and threw it over into the garbage bin.

It had been several weeks since she started her new job and while it was not easy, she felt better. She went back to the kitchen and smiled at the Salvadoran dishwasher. Voices in Spanish repeated orders, cussing, laughing, following the lyrics of a song. There were cumbias, rancheras and raggeton music coming out of some speaker. She opened the door that separated the kitchen from the prepping area and the restaurant floor. The music was different, more in tune with what Americans thought Latin music should be. She went to the window and checked on an order and took three hot plates and delivered them to one of the tables. 

"Can we get more chips?" one of the guests asked. 

"Yes Ma'am," Alejandra responded. 

She headed to the front, where Ana Maria stood as hostess surrounded by people waiting. 

She went to the bar and picked up two margarita glasses. 

"Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Those are for table seven, yours are coming up next," said a man with a goatee, Paul the bartender, turning around and pouring a couple of shots of tequila for someone sitting at the bar. 

Alejandra picked up some chips, went to another table, took their order, went back to the bar, picked up the drinks and delivered them. As she moved around she noticed the manager coming out of the kitchen carrying several bags of take-out and placing them next to the entrance, checking with Ana Maria for how long was the waitlist, then going back to the kitchen. 

Several hours later, the crew sat around the bar. The wait staff counted their money and tipped the hostess, Ana Maria, the dishwasher, and the other bus persons. 

"So. What's your story?" Paul asked Alejandra, looking her up and down. 

"My story? Venezuelan. What's yours?"

"Brooklyn. Your English is not bad for one of you people. Did you learn it here?"

"No. Went to an international school."

Ana Maria drank a Coke, while Alejandra drank a beer. After they finished their drinks, counted their money, did their paperwork, they left. Alejandra did the driving. To minimize their risk, the two women had agreed to alternate. To avoid the cops they went out of their way by going through small country roads with rolling hills, curves, horse farms, small houses, interspersed with huge estates. 

"Watch out for Paul," Ana Maria said. "He can be pushy."

"I noticed."

#

"My attorney gave me your name. So, I do appreciate so much you seeing me," Alejandra said as she sat on a couch across from the therapist sitting on a chair with a pen and pad in her hand. 

"Tell me about yourself," the therapist asked. 

Alejandra did not know where to start, so she gave the therapist more of a historical recollection of what was going on in Venezuela than anything that had happened personally to her. She talked about the marches and demonstrations, about her brother being in jail for treason. The therapist asked her how she felt about that. Alejandra responded and then talked about her mother's appendectomy, and that something happened as a guard stole her medicines and instruments which she kept in a box. 

"Did you get them back?"

Alejandra froze. In the past, even at the attorney's office, she had a panic attack.  She felt a deep tension in her throat and shortness of breath and anxiety starting to take over.  She was about to say something when the therapist indicated that their time was up. 

"Look, Alejandra. I know there's something bottled up inside of you. We'll get there. But I don't want to rush you. Time is our ally."

The therapist gave her a set of instructions about what to do when she felt a panic attack and how to remain focused and calm and set an appointment for their next meeting.

#

One day at work the manager, Pablo looked stressed out, rushing everyone, going up and down checking on the staff. He was usually calmer. He could handle a rush hour with no problems, but he acted rather frantic. 

Alejandra commented in the kitchen about what was going on. 

"El patrón esta aquí," one of the cooks said.

"Mister Scapolini," another one responded. 

She picked up her orders and delivered them to her tables, then went to the bar and picked up several drinks and saw at the other end Paul, the bartender, talking to a thin older man with whitish hair. Alejandra picked up her drinks and served them. Through the night, the older man sat on the same spot, looking at something that looked like a tablet and back at Paul. She also noticed that the man drank not Mexican beer, or tequila, but their most expensive red wine. 

At the end of the shift, they all sat around the bar area. The kitchen staff preferred to gather together in a corner. Paul offered a beer on the house. Ana Maria had the night off, so she was not there. 

Pablo, the manager sat next to the white-haired man and whispered to him. They both laughed. The man turned around and faced everyone.

"Some of you know me, some of you don't. I'm Joe Scapolini. Pablo here is a great man. He's one of my best managers and runs a tight ship. But we're getting ready to expand, so we're looking for assistant managers. We're going to look outside, but I'd rather promote from within the ranks. Let Pablo or Paul know if anyone is interested."

They drank and chatted and at one point, Paul pointed at Alejandra and motioned her to come to where he was. Alejandra walked there and stood before the white-haired man Joe Scapolini and Paul. 

"This kid here is amazing, Joe," Paul said, putting his hand on Alejandra's shoulder, squeezing and rubbing it. "When this place is about to fall apart and everyone is in the weeds, she is cool, calm and collected moving shit up and down. She goes to the kitchen and talks to the cooks in Spanish and then comes out here and greets the customers with style in English."

They talked about other pleasantries. Alejandra moved back and conversed with Carolina, a Mexican-American girl who talked a lot about all the universities that she had been applying for and would love to get into Emory. 

"Look guys, we got to go," Paul said. "You wanna go to a club?" He asked Joe. Joe tilted his head to the side with a frown, like saying maybe. 

"Hey, second beers are on the house, capisce."

The two men left the restaurant. Pablo moved to the other side of the bar and smiled. He pointed at different people to see if they wanted that second beer. 

On her way home, Alejandra felt elated and full of positive energy. How could they think she was someone special? She was a basket case, prone to panic attacks, anxiety, depression, but she felt good – the best she had felt in years. She took to the curves, surrounded by the lights from mansions, small country houses, barns, a stone chimney in the middle of a field, where in the past a small house used to be. She drove fast, wishing it was a stick-shift, enjoying the shadows the moonlight cast in the countryside, until she arrived at civilization, traffic lights, with a couple of gas stations, burger and pizza joints, parking lots and supermarkets, so she slowed down, remembering what Ana Maria had said. "No, you do not drive the speed limit, you drive five miles slower. You need to be totally invisible if we are to survive."

#

Alejandra sat on the comfortable couch. At one point the therapist asked a question about Alejandra's father and mother. Alejandra mentioned that her father used to work for the government oil corporation, and when Chavez fired the whole company, it flooded the country with so many people looking for work, her father could not find any. That was okay, the old man improvised, made ends meet, but could not afford his hypertension medication, so one day had a heart attack and died. That shattered Alejandra's mother, who seemed to be in a state of shock and got worse when her brother got arrested. In several sessions, they talked about her brother, about his incarceration, about how he was supposed to be the man of the house but after his arrest, Alejandra had to assume that role. 

Alejandra mentioned her depression, but she tried not to tell the therapist how she visualized jumping from their nine-story floor condo into the pavement below, splattering like a watermelon. How she contemplated ending it all, feeling she was not good enough. 

The therapist asked poignant questions that left Alejandra thinking – turning ideas in her head, confused, yet not scared, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, seeing in the other side that train coming towards her, ready to smash her to pieces, and yet she knew she needed to go there, no stone unturned, even if it meant hitting that train, facing destruction. 

#

"Do you love him?" Ana Maria asked Alejandra, after talking about Alejandra's trip to Houston, where she tried to rekindle her relationship with her boyfriend. Alejandra was silent.

"Did you have sex?" Ana Maria asked. 

"Yes," Alejandra said, without saying anything else.

"But?" Ana Maria asked. 

"There's so much I wanted to share with him. There's so much I wanted to open up about."

"But?"

"I choked."

"Why?"

"Because I'm bad."

"Please, you're not bad. Okay. What makes you think you are bad?"

Alejandra took a deep breath. She remembered what her therapist had told her. She was not going to have a panic attack. She was stronger than that. Breathe. Deep. Breathe. She could do it. Breathe deep, let go.

"Because I'm weak," Alejandra responded. 

#

Alejandra, Ana Maria and Doña Teresa drove to downtown Atlanta to the federal building. They went through the metal detectors, showed their passports. Doña Teresa simply pulled her driver's license, since she was a US citizen. They went up an elevator into a State Department office and waited. They called Ana Maria's name. She looked in a state of terror at her mother and Alejandra. 

"It's going to be all right," Doña Teresa said. Alejandra made a fist and winked at her. She disappeared across the door. 

"These places are intimidating. They treat people like us like cattle," Doña Teresa said.

An hour later Ana Maria came out with paper towels covering her hands. They went down the elevators without saying a word. They got into the minivan. Doña Teresa drove to make sure they were all legal, just in case. 

"This is it.  You’re going to get approved." Doña Teresa said. Ana Maria began to cry.

"Hush. This is a new beginning, this is good."

"Yes, Mom. I know. It's just that being in there reminded me of when I got arrested. How humiliating that was. In Venezuela, you have to be really bad to end up in jail. Be a murderer. A bank robber." She paused, looked at Alejandra. "Or political, like Alejandra's brother."

"Ana Maria. Getting fingerprinted means your papers have been accepted. You're in."

"Into what? I lived in anxiety the last years that I was in Venezuela, and when I came here I felt safer. But after being in jail, I do not feel that way. I'm scared all the time. I question my future in this country."

"Did they do something bad when you were in jail?" Doña Teresa asked. 

"No. It was the humiliation. How they handcuff you, take your shoes, belt, watch, money and reduce you to an animal in a cage. Now everywhere I go I see those men in uniform, watching, wishing I was not here."

"How are your papers going?" Doña Teresa asked Alejandra. 

"We filed for TPS, but she wants to also go for asylum."

Ana Maria opened her hands and showed the women the ink-stained fingers and smiled then with the back of one hand cleaned some of her tears. 

#

Alejandra sat on the therapist's couch in silence, holding a plastic bottle of water while the therapist went through her notes and asked her about her mother's appendectomy and what had happened that day.

Alejandra heard her own heartbeat, felt a shortness of breath and pursed her lips.

"I got the box that contained my mother's medicines back."

There was silence, as if the therapist with her silence was asking deeper questions. 

"The guard. He pushed me forward." Alejandra then visualized the view from the little window of the mountain with the white cloud faintly caressing the top. She took another deep breath, felt the panic attack coming, wanting to consume her, reduce her to a fetal position. She closed her eyes. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. She opened her eyes and noticed her therapist intensely looking at her, and like a cascading waterfall, she spewed words, everything that came to her mind, from the disgusting smell of the guard to how guilty she felt, that it was all her fault.

"Why do you think is your fault, how could you have prevented it?"

"I should have known these men did that sort of thing. That was why the nurse told me to meet her outside of the Hospital not in. But I couldn't get a ride and was an hour late. I was careless, stupid.”

"But that's how they got your meds, not what happened after that. Do you see where I’m going?"

Alejandra turned red and mucus filled her nose, but she was not having a panic attack, she was keeping the anxiety at bay. She was filled with pure and simple rage. 

"I want you to do a thought experiment," the therapist said. "What would you do if you saw this person in the street, or better yet, behind bars? What would you tell him, would you want to punish him or would you forgive him? There are no right or wrong answers, but think about it."

#

Alejandra boarded the subway and on the way to the north of the city, where Ana Maria was going to pick her up, she could not help but study each person that boarded the train. Were they good fathers, good sons, did they beat up their girlfriends, wives, children? While the train stopped and started she felt like she was in the subway in Caracas. Then she saw across the crowd the guard standing surrounded by people. She took one whiff and she could smell him. She remembered telling him as a warning that her brother was in the military. What would her brother do? She imagined him standing next to her with the rifle he had used in military school, and at one time showed Alejandra how to take it apart and put it back together in less than a minute. Her brother sat next to her in the subway and from a gym bag pulled out the parts of the rifle, put it together, put a bullet in it, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. The guard was hit in the forehead, blood splashed all over behind him. Not a single person moved. They listened to their music through earphones, looking at their cell phones. Then the sound of the doors opening burst in unison and people went out. She was now in Atlanta. She got up and went to the area where the shot would have hit him and noticed a huge stain on the carpet. Alejandra walked out, went through the stairs, and found Ana Maria in the kiss ride area. She got inside the car. They drove off. 

"What's with you?" Ana Maria asked Alejandra. 

"I don't know. What do you mean?"

"You have, like this grin on your face."

#

Ana Maria and Alejandra had the same day off. They decided to go buy candles and incense. As they walked out of the Abasto, they noticed a consignment shop next door, so they went in. Some stalls sold old clothes, military memorabilia, old vinyl albums and record players. Ana Maria flipped through a box of albums. Alejandra gave Ana Maria a weird look. 

"What? Never seen vinyl records?"

"I grew up with CDs."

"And now even those are obsolete. Oh my God. Oh my God. I have to have this."

"What is it?"

Ana Maria pulled an album out with a bunch of guys with weird hair.

"Buffalo Springfield. The song goes like there's something happening here, ta ran, tan ta. Stop, taran tag ran on.”

Alejandra gave Ana Maria a strange look. 

"Ever heard of the British invasion?” Ana Maria asked.

"Yeah, but they are American, not British."

"American bands, British bands. Elton John, Joan Baez, Beatles, Bob Dylan."

"Oh my God, you're old."

Ana Maria was seriously quiet, then burst out laughing, Alejandra laughed as well. When they tried to stop, all they had to do was look at each other and laughed uncontrollably. Ana Maria bought a couple of albums and a record player. As they headed out with their treasure, Alejandra noticed in one stall that was going out of business, a mannequin with the body, head, legs, and arms separated and bound together in plastic wrap and a sign that said five dollars. She stopped and stared at it, pulled out of her small purse the money and purchased the cluster of body parts.

"Are you nuts?" Ana Maria said. 

"Yes," Alejandra responded, and both laughed, taking their treasures to the car. 

#

Alejandra went into the dry storage room at the restaurant looking for the big paper napkins so she could wrap them around forks and knives. When she got in, she found Paul in the back in an area with metal bars and a lock where they kept the liquor. Paul was pulling out some bottles of tequila and vodka. 

"Well look at you precious," he said looking at Alejandra. 

"Where are the big serviettes?” she asked.

"Serviettes? In America, we call them paper napkins. I think they are over there."

She moved in that direction.

"Look, Joe was impressed with you. I think I can put in a word. You could make a great manager. Joe already has three locations, but he wants to grow. He used to manage a couple of gentlemen's clubs in New York. You know, owned by some of the families. But he got tired of that. Too much bullshit. So he cashed out his chips and started anew. I used to manage one of his VIP clubs. But I don't want that kind of pressure. I'm happy with this. Bartending, being his eyes, manage every now and then."

"That's good," Alejandra said, still looking around the place filled with all kinds of dry goods, cans, bottles, bags of chips, jars. 

"I can put in a word for you," Paul said. 

"Oh, God, that would be so appreciated. Thank you."

Paul dropped the key chain on a shelf, moved next to Alejandra, lowered his head to be next to her height, held her shoulders and then pointed to a spot.

“There, serviettes,” Paul said.

"Oh, I see. This place is confusing."

"You'll get used to it."

He swiftly turned her around, leaned forward, and gave her a kiss. Alejandra froze. She realized then as well that she did not panic. She just did not do anything, like she was not inside her body and was just watching. Paul pulled back. Alejandra produced a slight frown.

"Look, I don't want to give you the wrong impression, but I’m attached," she responded. 

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean any harm. I thought you…"

"That's okay."

"The salt and pepper are over there. I’m still going to push for you. I think you'll make a great manager."

She got out. She did not hyperventilate. She did not have a panic attack. She rolled silverware in paper napkins, she filled all the salt and pepper to the top and as the customers arrived she moved up and down, serving tables, responding, taking orders, smiling at customers, collecting money, doing her job. At the end of the night, she tipped everyone, including Ana Maria and the dishwasher, and spent some time talking to Carolina, the Mexican girl who couldn't speak Spanish, about the universities that she had applied to. Whenever Alejandra got her papers, she wanted to go back to college, finish her degree. 

#

Alejandra went to see her attorney. They were almost ready to file for political asylum. They had found the video of her boyfriend being beaten up and shot in the knee. The attorney showed her a written transcript of the event. It shook Alejandra. The attorney wanted more information or maybe something in writing from the nurse at the hospital. Alejandra had no idea how to get in touch with her. Besides, she had stopped looking at social media or videos about Venezuela. It was not that she didn't care, but that it was information overload, and to what avail, there was nothing she could do to change anything. On her way home, she took an Uber to the consignment store and stared at one of the stalls that sold old military uniforms, duffel bags, empty ammo canisters, helmets and caps. She remembered her brother in uniform. She tried to recollect the color of the guard's uniform. Was it black or green? She couldn't remember. She ended up buying a pair of army fatigues, a shirt, a cap, and an old pair of army boots. When she arrived at the little cove of the basement where her couch was, she stashed the clothes next to the arms and legs and body of the mannequin.

#

Alejandra went to see the therapist and told her what she had imagined in the subway. That she saw the guard standing there and was shot by her brother, splattering the cabin with blood. However, that image didn't startle her or gave her a panic attack, it made her feel good, empowered. They talked about what exactly was she feeling – hate, anger, rage? Eventually, she needed to move through those emotions, anger and hate could consume and eventually destroy her, so she needed to let go, perhaps find a place for forgiveness. 

That afternoon she pulled out the green camouflaged clothes she had bought and took them to the backyard of Doña Teresa's house where they had a fire pit area with chairs. She spray-painted them black. The guard wore a black uniform, not a green one, she was almost sure. That meant that he was not a National Guard who usually wore the green camouflage uniforms, but National Police, who usually wore black. She never thought about that until that moment, but it didn't matter. She tried to remember him when he was outside the hospital before he took her medicines. Only this time, when he approached inside the medicine box there was a gun. She pulled it out and shot every bullet into his face and body. She pushed the spray can over the fabric, imagining they were shots.

#

It was a slow night at work, so Alejandra hung out by the front with Ana Maria. They talked about the last time they had a vacation. It had been years. Some customers arrived. Ana Maria went to where they kept the chips warm and while taking the people to a table told Alejandra that they were running out of chips. 

"I'll get you more from the back," Alejandra said. Going towards the dry storage room where they kept large bags of them. Just as she was about to grab the door handle, it opened and Carolina came out. She had a perturbed expression, looked up at Alejandra, frowned, and walked away. Alejandra took a couple of steps back as the door opened wide and Paul came out. 

Alejandra made eye contact with Paul.

"So what did you promise her, another manager’s job?" Alejandra said, walking into the restaurant looking for Carolina. She went to the front and asked Ana Maria if she had seen Carolina. 

"I think I saw her rush to the bathroom."

Alejandra went to the women's bathroom and saw Carolina washing her face.

"Are you okay?"

“No. But I will be alright.”

"We can talk to Pablo."

"I should have known better. Paul is Paul. I'll keep my distance. I don't want any trouble."

Alejandra stormed out of the bathroom and went to the bar, where Paul was running a towel over the glasses that came out of the dishwasher. Alejandra got inside the bar and stood in front of Paul with a defiant expression. He continued to clean glasses. 

"What? What's your problem, never seen a man cleaning glasses?"

"You know what I mean."

"Don't get your panties up in a wad."

Alejandra wanted to punch him.  She took a deep breath.

Breathe, breathe.

She lifted her hand. She wanted to slap Paul on the face, tell him what she thought of him, but in that motion, she took a bottle of tequila from the counter, turned around, and walked toward the front of the restaurant.

"Take it out of my paycheck!" She screamed at Paul as she passed Pablo. 

At the front, Alejandra told Ana Maria that she was taking the evening off. She walked down the street, called an Uber and went home.

#

Alejandra went behind Doña Teresa's house, to the circle of chairs with a pit in the middle. Alejandra sat on one of the chairs then threw some logs on the pit and started a fire. She took a swig of tequila – it burned as it went down her throat. 

She remembered what her therapist had said, that she should try to find a sense of closure. But inside, all she could feel was anger and rage. All that kept her panic attacks at bay was her hate. Alejandra went inside the house and brought out the mannequin, the parts still bundled in plastic wrap. She plopped the whole thing on a chair, ripped the plastic and assembled the mannequin. She took another swig of tequila, went back to the house, pulled out the uniform that now was black. She dressed the mannequin in the uniform. She unlaced the boots and placed them inside the white plastic feet. She put the cap on the mannequin. 

The contours of the white plastic face had the shape of eyes, nose, lips, it could be a woman or it could be a man. She took her hand and grabbed moist dirt and smeared it below the nose and chin to give it a look of stubble. She was not happy, so she took some piece of burned wood from the side of the pit and painted a mustache on the face. 

She sat back. Took a swig of tequila. 

The fire popped. To the side of the perfectly stacked firewood were odd-sized branches, four to five inches wide and as long as a baseball bat. She grabbed one of the sticks and swung it around. She propped it and aimed it at the mannequin as if it were a rifle. In her head she heard the shot, she could see the face explode like a watermelon, yes like a watermelon falling from a nine-story high building. 

Alejandra swung the stick with all she had and hit the mannequin. Part of the face got a crack, she hit it again several times. The mannequin remained in one piece. 

"You. You dirty mother-fucker. You, coño-e-madre, mal parido. You, yes you."

The mannequin slouched slightly to one side of the chair.

"Answer me! Why? Where’s your fucking humanity? Where's your self-respect? What gives you the right to destroy people? You don't deserve my forgiveness.”

She screamed at it with all she got.

“You're nothing,” she whispered.

Car lights illuminated the front of the house. A few minutes later Ana Maria came to the fire pit. 

"So, am I fired?" Alejandra asked.

"Nope. Pablo saw you and asked Carolina what happened."

"And. Did they fire Paul?"

"Are you kidding me?"

Alejandra grabbed the mannequin by the shirt, lifted it, and threw it on the fire. It landed in the middle in a pose as if trying to come out. The head was slightly tilted to the side. Flames started to consume it. 

Alejandra hit it with all she got, sending cinders into the sky like fireflies. 

"Can I try?" Ana Maria asked. Alejandra gave the stick to Ana Maria and she hit the burning mannequin several times. Alejandra passed the bottle to Ana Maria.

"You know I don't drink," she said, yet she lifted the bottle and took a swig. 

#

Alejandra didn't go to work for two weeks. She went back on Ana Maria's day off, so she drove by herself. When she arrived, the first thing she did was go to the bar and see if Paul was there. A different person tended the bar. 

She asked Pablo about Paul. Funny, they had the same name, one in Spanish, one in English, yet such different personalities. He had been moved to one of their other locations. Alejandra rolled her eyes. “Really, why not fired?”

“He’s good friends with the boss. They both come from the strip club business. So, you know how it goes. It's the best I could do.”

She went to the restaurant area and began to roll forks and knives inside the paper napkins. Carolina came in and smiled at Alejandra, sat at a different table, and did the same thing.

"I appreciate what you did," Carolina said.

"You're the one that talked to Pablo."

Alejandra heard the sound of doors being slammed from the back towards the kitchen and three men in black uniforms came into the dining room holding guns, screaming. 

“Hands where we can see them! All of you, move over there.”

They were ordered to move up to a platform. Pablo came out and asked then what was going on, then got on the phone. The ICE officers took all the kitchen staff and told them to sit on the floor by the entrance to the kitchen. 

“Papeles. I want to see all your IDs. Entienden?”

Carolina began to tremble, her eyes filled with tears. 

“I got accepted to college, this can’t be happening to me.”

“Carolina, do not let them see your fear,” Alejandra said. “Take a deep breath. Breathe. Calm down.”

Two of the ICE officers sat up an area where they brought each person to present their identification and after that, they either put plastic zips around their wrist and moved them towards the hallway by the kitchen or they told them that they were free and pointed towards the bar. One of the waitresses, an American girl pulled out her driver's license, they took one look at it, told her that it was expired and that she needed to renew it and let her go. 

They brought in the dishwasher, the woman from Salvador. The officer asked her about some tattoo on her arm, she covered it up and told him something. They asked her to stand up and an officer tied her hands together with zip ties. She was moved to the line.

After a while, the majority of their kitchen staff stood in the line, while most of the wait staff, which spoke English or were Americans were told to go to the bar area. 

They called Carolina. She sat down. She pulled out her driver's license and gave it to the officer. From behind the ICE officer Alejandra looked at Carolina and motioned with her hand to inhale. The ICE officer studied the front and back of the license with suspicion and gave it back to Carolina.

Breathe. Breathe.

Good thing it had been Ana Maria’s day off and she didn’t have to go through this. 

The officer pointed at Alejandra and asked her to come over and sit. Alejandra pulled out her passport, her Venezuelan driver’s license, and her cedula. The agent looked confused going through all her documents. Alejandra felt something strange, instead of hyperventilating, feeling a panic attack, fear or vertigo, she felt like she was not in her body, that she was just watching herself sit there. So she smiled at the officer. She looked around, remembering Venezuela, the National Guard, the National Police, the dictatorship. And now this. Where was the world going?

“You need to process your papers pronto," the officer told Alejandra. 

“Si. Yhess. I'm applying for asylum, political…” Alejandra said. “But…slow process.” 

"Next time I see you, we're taking you in," he said, handing Alejandra her papers.

She got up and went past the people standing on line with their wrist tightened together with zip ties towards the bar area, where the ones that were free gathered.

Black. Their uniforms are black.