OOM: Salazar boys will be Salazar boys

[latino_menace]

Rafael

‘I don’t believe it,’ Rafael says, as he watches his father’s tail-lights disappear. ‘I don’t fucking believe it.’

He looks to his brother who just shrugs in obvious annoyance. Whether annoyance at him, or at their father, Rafael can’t tell. Raul’s always been a bit of a closed book. The younger turns away now, towards the pile of stuff left under a tree. Rafael watches him with a scowl and notices the cold for the first time; it’s already close to freezing. ‘Yeah,’ he says, to Raul’s back. ‘We should get warm.’

‘Either that, or start walking.’

‘At this time of night? In the dark?’

‘You want to get back don’t you?’

‘I want to fucking go home.’

Raul just shrugs again. Rafael sighs and curses under his breath. Just what he needs – Raul to start being an asshole as well. To Rafael, practically everyone’s an asshole and he’d love to stay pissed about it but it really is cold. And no matter what Raul says, he has no intention of hiking through a forest on the side of a mountain tonight.

‘What’s he left us?’ he calls over. ‘Cotton sheets and knives to hunt our own breakfast?’ He wouldn’t put it past him.

‘No,’ is the reply. ‘Proper stuff. Thermals, tent, food, a stove.’ Raul looks over his shoulder. ‘He doesn’t want us to die.’

Rafael snorts and wanders over, trying to appear disdainful of their supplies. ‘Sure he doesn’t.’ But he says nothing more as he helps Raul gather the stuff and shove everything inside. His brother makes no more comment about starting the trek tonight and he’s glad because he doesn’t want to look like the wimp who can’t hack the rough stuff. Truth is though, he just wants to sleep now. He doesn’t want to think about the work of the next couple of days. More than anything, he wants to be back in school.

When they’re in their sleeping bags and Raul is silent, Rafael has to ask him. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘Say what?’

‘That he doesn’t want to kill us?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Raul sounds like he’s explaining things to an idiot. ‘He needs us. That’s why we’re here. He wants us to work with him.’

‘He told you that?’

‘No, idiot. He doesn’t have to.’

Raul says nothing more and Rafael doesn’t ask any more questions. Why would Raul call him an idiot? He hardly ever does that and when he does, he’s usually joking. He thinks. They’ve always been quite close but sometimes – just sometimes – he gets the impression there’s a whole lot more going on in Raul’s head than the kid lets on.

* * *

Raul

Shut the hell up, Rafael.

The tent is fine, there are thermal clothes and sleeping bags. Food is edible.

So we have to walk for a bit. Get over it. So he left us here. Big deal.

He doesn’t often call his big brother names. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. And Rafael is an idiot, a lot of the time.

* * *

Rafael

Most of the next day passes in silence. Rafael didn’t sleep well and is not happy. What’s even more annoying is the way Raul hasn’t seemed to notice how pissed he is, so he can’t vent properly. At least the quiet has meant they’ve made good time and are almost halfway back to the cabin by the time it gets too dark to carry on. And after they’ve had some food, he’s surprised by a sudden question from Raul.

‘Why do you hate him so much?’

‘He’s...why would you ask that?’

Raul just shrugs.

‘You know we had an older brother, once.’

‘We had four.’

‘Yeah, but the others died from...things. Normal things.’ He pauses. ‘What’s mostly normal in our family anyway. They weren’t killed because he chose the business over them. He didn’t let them die.’

Raul’s face is unreadable.

‘And we haven’t seen him for years. When he does show up, he treats us like crap. He doesn’t give a fuck about us, that’s why I hate him.’

There’s a long silence. Then Raul just lies down.

‘Night.’

Rafael stares at him for a while but he doesn’t open his eyes so he doesn’t notice. He hasn’t seen the kid like this before. He’d always thought they were of the same mind when it came to their father but the way he’s been acting, he’s not so sure anymore. And that pisses him off because no, he’s not going to lose his one remaining brother to that man.

* * *

Raul

He knows about Emanuel. Their sister, Sabel, told him once when he was eleven. Their mother had written her a letter – only to her, not to the boys – once she knew she was dying. He’d read it. He’d read how his own mother was pleased to have cancer, was happy she wasn’t going to be around anymore. She was sorry that she wouldn’t get to see her youngest child – him – grow up but considered that a small price to pay for the freedom she would gain. She had told Sabel that she should get away and that all her sons were either monsters, or going to become them. She cursed the day she ever met their father and explained how, until Emanuel was killed, things weren’t so bad. But after that, it had become hell and she would have killed herself before now if it weren’t for the fact that she didn’t want to leave her only daughter at the whim of her husband. Cancer, she had written, was the release she had been praying for.

Raul hadn’t felt much when he’d read it. He’d thought about it often though and over the next few years, had become angry. Not at his father, at his mother. She was glad to be rid of her life, her children? Then fuck her and good riddance. He’d long waited for the day when he could tell his father that. But then he’d thought about it and came to the conclusion that it probably was his dad’s fault. Telling him that he thought his mother was a bitch might send the wrong message, his father might think he was like him. By all accounts, that’s not a good thing to be. Raul doesn’t know though. He doesn’t really know what he is so he just goes through life day to day, enjoying what he likes and avoiding what he doesn’t.

He enjoys sport. He likes it when they’re playing rugby and a fight breaks out. He likes the way you can throw sly punches out of the view of the ref and when, on the hockey pitch, you can beat someone’s legs black and blue and claim it was a mistimed attempt for the ball. He likes chemistry and maths and some history and he likes Renata Jordan, the girl who let him take her to bed over the summer. Maybe he likes the sex more than the girl but at fifteen, it’s usually all the same.

He doesn’t like teachers that hassle him, he doesn’t like homework. He likes the sun and also skiing, he hates rain and cats. He hates it when other boys get homesick and start complaining, or when they try to tell him what to do. He very much likes his allowance, which is generous. He’s an uncomplicated boy, really. At this moment in time, he really really doesn’t like Rafael’s attitude. It’s annoying.

We had an older brother and neither one of us met him. Papa liked him best, apparently. And then he was killed and that was bad but how do we know we would have liked him anyway? How do we know it wasn’t the only option? We like the money we’re given and the school we go to and would we have any of that if papa didn’t have a business anymore?

He wishes Rafael would stop staring at him.

Yeah, he’s been an asshole to us. So what? It might be more fun if he was nice but he doesn’t know us and we don’t know him so big deal.

He knows his father is watching the way they react to what he tells them to do. He wonders if he’s really noticed how angry Rafael is. He could tell him but why should he?

In the middle of the night he’s woken by his brother going outside to take a leak. When he comes back, he says into the darkness;

‘If you’re so pissed at him, you should do something about it.’

* * *

Rafael

I should do something about it.

But what? This stays with him all the next day as they get closer and closer to ‘home’. It’s cold and a freezing fog sets in that afternoon, making it hard to see and even harder work to navigate a proper path. His face feels red raw with cold and he’s cursing his father with every step he takes.

He knows he’s a piece of property to Ramon. He knows the man couldn’t give a shit about him. The question is what to do about it, because he has no intention of going through his life as his father’s pawn. Ironically enough, it’s the answer to the question what would he do? that provides him with the solution. His father’s response to being in a tight spot is always, always to fight his way out. He knows that.

‘We should stop for the night. It’s getting dark.’

Raul looks at him scornfully.

‘We’re only five miles away.’

‘Yeah but...’ he gestures towards the slightly darkening sky. ‘I don’t want to get caught out in this. And anyway, I’ve got an idea I want to talk over with you.’

* * *

Raul

When his brother tells him he wants to kill their father, it’s all he can do not to laugh. For a start, he doesn’t think Rafael would be able to kill anyone, let alone the man he’s so afraid of. For another, what if he did? No great loss to the world. Of course, there’s a chance their father would simply kill them both but Raul doesn’t think so. If he wanted rid of them, he wouldn’t do it himself and wouldn’t have brought them all the way out here for weeks on end. Besides, he needs them. Or...well, he needs one of them.

And why not?

‘It’s a stupid idea, Rafa.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’ll kill you.’

‘No he won’t. He won’t have the chance. We’ll leave really early tomorrow and he’ll still be asleep.’

‘He has that woman with him,’ he feels obliged to point out. His brother snorts.

‘So? She won’t do anything. Probably a prostitute anyway.’

‘Doesn’t look like one.’

‘How would you know? Anyway, are you with me or not?’

He makes sure he appears to think about it for a while, then sounds uneasy when he says, ‘I’ll back you up. But I’m not shooting anyone.’

He means that. He thinks. His father is no use to him dead, though the money he’d leave would be nice. But what’s the point of a fortune if you don’t know what to do with it? Better to get some use out of the old man first and working in a drug cartel has to be better than school.

‘You won’t have to,’ Rafael is saying, confidently. ‘I’ll do it. It’ll be easy.’

His brother seems happier than he has in weeks and Raul leaves him to it, getting to work on setting the tent up. Tomorrow promises to be interesting and he’ll have to make sure he plays it right. He can’t appear to want Rafa to succeed and he can’t let his father know that he wants what he hasn’t offered yet. The man has to make up his own mind otherwise Raul will always be the kid who begged to join the family business. There would never be any respect in that.

He smiles in the dark once the torches have been switched off. Tomorrow will indeed be interesting. As long as everyone survives it, of course.