Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

Wetback by Murray Wolf

I should prefer not to preface this story in any manner whatever. I think you will understand why when you have finished reading it.

I will tell it now. All of it, and I hope well enough. It has taken five years to learn to tell it. Five years from the time of the knife to this time of the pen...

It was summer and Antonio laughed at me. It was the night of the party that my cousin Antonio laughed at me because I wouldn’t come away from the window, because I kept staring out over the city, at the buildings and the lights that went on and on into the distance, until the haze swallowed them up.

“Come away from the window, Juan,” Antonio said. “The city won’t go away.”

His friends laughed with him.

“Maybe he’s afraid he’ll go away,” Pepe said. “Maybe he’s afraid the border police will catch him, send him back to Mexico.”

I turned away from the city toward them, for a moment feeling a cold ache in my stomach. Yes, I thought, that’s what I’m afraid of, even if Antonio says it’s silly. Antonio says I’m here now, all I’ve got to do is learn English and I’ll be all right.

“Squares I’ve seen before,” Miguel said. “But this one...”

“This one is my cousin,” Antonio said. His voice wasn’t laughing now. He leaned toward Miguel, a strange, almost angry look on his face.

“Sure,” Miguel said. “Sure.”

They lapsed back into English. I tried to listen, to understand them, but I couldn’t understand too much. They were drinking wine, the same red wine I’d drunk at home, in San Ysidro, in the mountains of Sonora; the room had many of the home smells, wine and chili and garlic. But it wasn’t like my village.

I stared out over Los Angeles, toward the palm trees and the endless traffic and the people, so many people, more than I had ever imagined living in the entire world.

My cousin Antonio didn’t know how lucky he was. He was just my age, seventeen, three months younger than I, actually; yet already he had a big room of his own, with space for a cot and a chair and a table, a room he could visit his friends in without Mama and Papa and his sisters underfoot. He had good clothes too. He and his friends all had shiny purple jackets, with bulls’ heads on them. “Baje Los Toros,” the jackets said. “Down with the Bulls.” Antonio said it was a joke.

“Come, Juan,” Antonio called. “Have some wine.”

I shook my head. “Later.”

“He’s drunk with the bright lights,” Miguel said. Pepe laughed with him. My cousin didn’t laugh, and after a minute the other two stopped and they were all quiet.

Two weeks I’ve been here, I thought, fifteen days since I crossed the border... The village seemed far, far away in time. It was hard to believe that there, at home, my mother and my little brothers would be eating dinner as usual and maybe wondering where I was... I’ll never go back, I promised myself, staring out past the fire escape, over the roof of the house in front, across Chavez Ravine to the high buildings and the endless streams of cars on the freeway below. Maybe later, I thought, when I have the money, I can send for Mama and the boys.

I was just thinking this, looking forward to the day when I could mail the money home, when I heard the knock on the door. It was the knock all of Antonio’s friends used, two quick raps, a pause, and then two more.

“Come in,” Antonio called.

The door opened and Antonio’s other friend, the short, chunky one they called Switch, stepped inside. I was sorry, in a way, that he was there. I didn’t like Switch, though I’d never mentioned how I felt to Antonio. Why should I speak against my cousin’s friends? But Switch had a loose mouth; he called girls putas, and not only the girls from Mama Ortegas’. I’d heard him speak of Antonio’s sister Rosa this way once, and Rosa was a good girl, like an iceberg when you told her nice things. Once I’d seen him try to pinch Rosa; she’d hit him and said, “I’ll tell my brother,” and Switch had just laughed and walked away.

“That all you can do?” Switch said. “Sit around and swill wine, like old men?”

“What else?” my cousin said. “We should go to the YMCA, maybe?”

They all laughed. I laughed too, to be polite, though I didn’t understand the joke. Switch dropped down on the cot beside my cousin and reached for the wine bottle.

“I know of a party,” he said. “They’ve got lots of food, lots of liquor — they can’t ever put it all away without help.”

“Who?” Antonio said. “Some of the Aces?”

“It’s too hot for a rumble,” Miguel said, reaching for the wine.

“No,” Switch said. “Not the Aces. It’s a private party. One of the anglo kids is giving it. You know, Terry Fletcher, over on Avenue 60.”

“Might be an idea,” Pepe said. “They’d be real glad to see us, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Switch said. “Real glad.”

Miguel reached for his purple jacket. He’d taken it off earlier, when he’d said it was too hot.

“What’re we waiting for?” he asked.

My cousin hesitated. He looked over at me, then at the others.

“I don’t know about Juan,” he said uncertainly.

“Oh, bring the kid along.” Switch turned to me. “You’d like to go to an honest-to-God-American birthday party, wouldn’t you, kid?”

I didn’t like the way he said it, the half-smile on his face, but then, I never liked the way Switch said anything.

“Is it a fiesta?” I said.

“Yeah. That’s just what it’s going to be. A fiesta.”

“I’d like to go,” I said.

Antonio hesitated. Then he turned and went over to his closet and pulled out a purple jacket. One of the sleeves was torn and the colors were faded, but it had the bull’s head on the back.

“Good I didn’t throw this away,” Antonio said. “Here, Juan. Put this on.”

It was a little tight over my shoulders, but I didn’t care. I zipped it up and turned back and forth, looking at my reflection in the cracked glass hanging on the closet door. Now I look like an Americano, I thought. For the first time.

“Come on,” Switch said.

In the room outside, the family room where Mama Lopez had just finished cleaning up after dinner, Rosa stood watching us.

“Hi, baby,” Switch said in English.

She turned away from him. Her glance slid past Pepe and Miguel and her brother; it started to slide past me but stopped.

“Juan, you going with them?” she asked, and stared at me.

I wondered why her voice sounded so sad.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re going to a party.”

For the first time, she reached out to me. Her hand was soft against mine. She was so pretty it hurt to look at her, just at the stage where a girl starts turning into a woman. She smelled of soap and perfume and, underneath, the soft woman-smell the girls of San Ysidro had.

“Don’t go, Juan.”

Switch laughed.

Mama Lopez swung around toward him, as if about to say something, then tossed her head angrily and turned away.

“You want to go to the party, Rosa?” I said.

“No.” She pulled her hand away and turned her back on me.

“Come on.” Antonio started for the door. He sounded embarrassed.

I followed them, out into the street. I wished Rosa could have come with us, but maybe it wasn’t the custom for girls to go to this kind of party. I couldn’t get used to the customs, here in Los Angeles.

By now, after two weeks, I was no longer so terrified of the cars, the way my cousin drove, cutting in and out of traffic on the freeway, with other drivers honking and yelling at him. Besides, just about the time I really began to get scared, we pulled off the freeway and turned up a wide, quiet street, with big houses on either side, and lawns and rows of flowers and trees.

At the end of the block, one house was all lit up. Music poured out the open windows, the strange gringo music I’d never really learned to like. I heard laughter, both men’s and women’s, and I wondered, as we pulled up to park in front, why we couldn’t have brought Rosa. Unless maybe the women here were from Mama Ortegas’...

“That’s Luis’ car up ahead,” Switch said. “I told him and the Barros to meet us here. Better to have seven, eight guys, play it cool...”

We walked toward the house, toward the music and the laughter. From the other car three boys whom I’d never seen before got out and fell in beside us. They wore the purple jackets too.

“Do we knock?” one of them said.

“No,” Switch said. “We walk right in.”

I straightened my shoulders in the tight jacket as he pushed the door open. Inside, all I could see at first was a very big room, like something out of the moving pictures, with the furniture pushed back and couples dancing. There were so many girls in bright dresses it was hard to look on any one of them.

The others pushed past me inside. I just stood in the doorway, staring. I’d never dreamed the party would be like this. I’d never dreamed a house would be like this, except maybe in Hollywood — all shiny floors and great windows that filled up a whole wall and, beyond one window, a floodlighted terrace with a swimming pool.

I don’t know how long I stared before the music stopped and first one, then another, of the dancers swung around and faced us. The room had been full of noise, people talking and laughing over the music. As they turned to us, the laughter stopped.

“What’s the matter?” I said, in Spanish. No one answered me.

Switch was walking across the room, toward the table loaded with food that stood at the far end, up against a wall that was solid wood instead of a window. As he went toward it, the people fell back away from him, opening up an aisle for him to walk through, toward the table.

At the far end of the room, a boy stood waiting. There was a girl with him, but she stepped behind him as Switch came up, so that all I could see was the boy.

“Hello, Terry,” Switch said.

“What are you doing here?” I understood enough English to know what he was saying, but I didn’t understand why his voice was so choked up.

“Oh, we knew it was just a mistake you didn’t send us invitations, Terry. We knew you’d want us to come...”

It was so quiet I could hear the people out on the terrace splashing in the pool. Somebody dived off the high board and hit wrong, the water flying up all over, and a couple of girls in bright bathing caps laughed. They didn’t even glance toward the house. They hadn’t seen us yet.

“Okay, Switch,” Terry said. “Okay.”

He stepped back away from the table and waved his hands at the food, lots of bits of meat sliced up real small and little fishes and cheese and other things I didn’t recognize.

“Help yourselves.”

My cousin Antonio picked up some bread and a slice of meat.

“That’s just what we’re going to do,” he said. His voice didn’t sound at all like it usually did; it was rough like coarse sand.

He’s scared too, I thought. It made me feel better, to realize that my cousin, who’d been born in Los Angeles, was nervous in a house like this one. I smiled and went over to the nearest couple.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Juan.” It still seemed strange, hearing my own voice say things in English.

The girl backed away from me. The boy with her, a blond kid about my age, muttered, “Hello,” and then sort of looked past me, as if I wasn’t there. His Adam’s apple kept jumping up and down in his throat.

Up where Switch was, an older man and woman had just come in from some room in the back. The man put his hand on Terry Fletcher’s shoulder.

“I’m Ralph Fletcher,” he said. His voice sounded very loud over the quiet in the room. “This is my house. I don’t think I, or my son, invited you into it.”

“Oh, don’t feel bad, Mr. Fletcher,” Switch said. “We don’t carry grudges.”

The woman kept edging sideways, toward the telephone on the stand by the table. Switch stepped between her and it. He was smiling, more happy looking than I’d ever seen him, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife.

The woman froze. She let out a little gasp and stepped back, toward the man.

“Easy, Martha,” Mr. Fletcher said.

Switch snapped the blade open. If anything, the room grew stiller than ever. He made me nervous too, and I’d seen him play with the knife before; he was always playing with it, sometimes throwing it, but more often just snapping it open and shut.

“You wouldn’t want to call anyone, now would you, Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked. “You wouldn’t want to break up the party...”

He picked up the telephone cord and held it in his left hand.

“Course you wouldn’t,” he said, snapping the knife down, into the cord. The two cut halves fell loose at his feet. Why should he cut the cord? This I did not understand — not at all.

“Start up the music!” he cried. “Let’s have some fun!”

My cousin Antonio grabbed hold of the girl beside him. The boy she was with started to protest, then backed off. The music started up, a baile this time, with the good strong beat I’d always liked to hear, fiesta music. The girl was pretty stiff, but Antonio was a wonderful dancer. He knew all the steps. He led her through them, while the kids at the party stood back and watched them. Anyone, I thought, would stop to watch my cousin, when he was really dancing.

After a while Pepe and Miguel and the others joined in. Switch just stood by the table, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher; I couldn’t hear what he was saying, over the music. Then he swung around, facing out at the kids who’d been at the party before us.

“Hey, you squares, you dance too. Don’t just stand there gawking...”

The party started up again, with everyone dancing, but somehow it wasn’t the same as before. For one thing, no one was laughing. I thought it must be because of Switch and his knife.

I turned to the girl I’d said hello to earlier. She looked frightened.

“You want to dance?” I said.

She didn’t answer. The boy she was with pushed her forward.

“Don’t make them mad,” he said.

I danced with her until the music changed, but it wasn’t much fun. She was like lead in my arms. I thought, no, this girl isn’t from Mama Ortegas’ or anywhere like that; she’s too unfriendly. I tried dancing with another girl, but it wasn’t any better. If only I’d brought Rosa, I thought. She’d probably never been to a party like this.

After awhile I grew tired of dancing. Somehow, the longer I stayed at the party, the more disappointing it became. It didn’t seem like a fiesta. No one was having fun. I kept thinking, they were having fun until we came. Maybe we should have stayed away. Maybe they didn’t want us.

It made me feel bad, thinking like that. Even my purple jacket didn’t help. I went outside, past Mrs. Fletcher, who looked very white and sort of sick, out onto the terrace. Something was wrong, this I knew for a certainty. What... I didn’t know.

No one was swimming now. The kids had all come out of the pool and were huddled back at the far end of the terrace, by the diving boards. Then I saw Switch. He was down at the far end of the pool, beside a little house that first I thought must be for the plumbing and then I realized probably wasn’t, not here. He was talking to a girl.

My cousin Antonio was dancing and I didn’t want to bother him. Pepe and Miguel were dancing too. I thought, I want to go home. I don’t like the party; it doesn’t have the fiesta mood, at least, not for me. I don’t belong here.

I wanted to tell someone I was leaving. I didn’t want my cousin to worry about me, later. I started over toward Switch. Though I did not like to speak to him, he was near.

As I moved to him, he pushed open the door of the little house and stepped in, pulling the girl after him. She started to cry out; then I heard her voice choke off as if Switch’s hand had come over her mouth. I stopped and looked back, toward the boys at the other end of the pool. They were too far away; they hadn’t heard anything. Probably, they hadn’t seen anything either.

I didn’t know what to do. Maybe this sort of thing always happened at parties in Los Angeles. I doubted it, though. My cousin Antonio wouldn’t make a girl go with him, I thought, not if she was crying. I remembered the day Switch had pinched Rosa, and how mad she’d been.

“Hey!” I called. “Switch!”

The door to the little house was unlocked. I pulled it open and went in after him. Inside it was very dark; all I could see was the vague outline of furniture and, against the far wall, two figures struggling. I could hear the girl’s muffled cries.

“You let her go,” I said.

“Keep out of this, kid...”

I could see them now, Switch holding the girl’s hands pinned behind her with one of his hands, while the other was over her mouth.

“You get out,” he said.

“Not till you let her go.”

“Why are you worried over her? She’s just a puta.”

“Then why’s she crying?”

I started toward him. There wasn’t any use arguing with him, I knew. I’d have to make him let her go. I knew now that I’d been right when I’d disliked Switch, when I’d wondered why he was my cousin’s friend. He was bad.

He had been holding the girl tight against him, much too tight. As I came up he pushed her roughly away. He reached into his pocket and I saw, in the dim light, the knife flash out.

“I told you to get out, kid...”

The girl huddled back against the wall. Her dress was ripped down from the shoulder, clear across her breast; for a moment, she didn’t seem to realize it. I saw her slight figure and thought, she’s no puta, she’s a child — and just then she sobbed and covered her breast with her hands and shrank back still farther away from us.

I kept coming, toward the knife. I didn’t feel mixed up now. I didn’t feel I had to make excuses for Switch. He was bad; there couldn’t be any doubts now that he was bad. I had to help the girl.

The knife blade flashed out at me. I laughed. I’d played with knives myself, in the mountains.

I jumped to the side and the knife went by me. I’d misjudged though; I felt it rip through the elbow of my purple jacket. Then, before Switch could hit again, I grabbed his wrist with one hand and his upper arm with the other and levered him forward at the same time I kicked him.

He screamed as he fell. I didn’t know if I’d broken his arm or not. I didn’t care.

“You fight with knives,” I said, “you should learn to use them better.”

There were a dozen men around my village better than Switch. Even I was better, and I didn’t like knives.

He kept moaning, on the floor. I picked up his knife and snapped the blade shut and put it in my jacket pocket. Then I reached out to the girl.

She backed away from me. She kept on crying, her hands over her breast. She was still crying when I carried Switch outside and dumped him down in the bright lights of the terrace.

The Fletchers were the first to come over to me. They stood staring down at Switch. After a minute, the couples started coming over, leaving the dance floor and crowding out around the pool.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “He tried to hurt the girl.”

She had followed me outside. She held up her torn dress and stared down at Switch. She had stopped crying, finally, and I was glad. I hated to see girls cry.

My cousin Antonio was staring at me across the crowd. He had a very strange look on his face, almost as if he hated me.

“We’d better leave,” I said to him, in Spanish. “I don’t think they’ll want any of us here, now.”

Antonio disappeared in the crowd. I looked around. I didn’t see any purple jackets anywhere, except Switch. I wondered if I should leave by myself and try to find my way back to my cousin’s or whether I should stay with Switch.

While I was still thinking about it, I heard the sirens.

The police were inside the house, coming toward me, before I realized what the sirens meant. I felt, all of a sudden, terribly frightened. They’ve come to take me back, I thought; they’ll send me back to the village. I turned to run, but the wall reached clear around the terrace and there was no way out except past the uniformed men who were coming toward me.

I stared around me, at the beautiful house and the girls in their rich, soft clothes, and I thought, If they send me back I’ll never see this again. Never.

“Don’t be afraid,” Mr. Fletcher said. “I’ll tell them what you did. I’ll tell them you helped us.”

I didn’t understand. I just stood there, with all the anglo kids staring at me and talking in English much too fast for me to understand them. Then the policemen had closed in around me and one of them grabbed hold of my arm.

“Okay, come on, you.”

The boys and girls stood back away from us as they led me out. Behind me, I could hear Switch crying and cursing as they dragged him after me. I felt ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry we ruined your party.”

They didn’t answer me.

In the police car, going down to the jail, Switch turned his back on me. I was just as glad. I had enough troubles. The handcuffs made me feel I’d done something really bad, for which I’d be punished. Something much worse than just slipping across the border without papers. The police car turned onto the freeway, and the city began sliding past us, and, finally, the lights of the police building were just ahead.

I wanted to jump from the car, run out into the city and keep on running. But I couldn’t. I knew there was nothing I could do now.

Once we reached the jail, two of the policemen took me away from Switch, into a little room. They started asking me questions about what had happened, but they were talking English much too fast and I couldn’t quite understand. I shook my head.

“Get Jose,” one of them said. “He can talk to the kid.”

I didn’t know what I should do. I didn’t know if I should tell them about Switch or not. After all, he was my cousin’s friend. Then I saw the door open and the Fletchers come in, the father and the mother and the son. I looked down, at my hands.

Mr. Fletcher came over to me.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you, I’d help you, if I can.”

“Is the girl all right?” I said.

“She’s pretty upset,” he said. “You know what could have happened.”

I nodded. I thought of Rosa, backing away from Switch. I thought of how Rosa always avoided him, of how she’d never stay around if he was in the house, unless Antonio was there.

“He’s bad,” I said.

A policeman who had just come into the room walked over to me. He was Mexican; it made me feel better to see him.

“Yes,” he said in Spanish. “He’s bad, all right.” And then he asked me what had happened.

I found myself telling the Mexican policeman everything. He wasn’t rough, like the others; he didn’t yell at me. He just kept nodding his head and saying, “Yes, I see why you did that. Yes, I understand...”

I felt better when I’d told him. I felt better still when they put me in a cell all by myself, where I didn’t have to listen to Switch cursing at me.

In the morning the family came, Antonio and Rosa and Mama. Mama just cried. Rosa came up to me and her hands touched mine through the wire screen that separated me from the visiting room.

“Oh, Juan. I told you not to go to the party.”

“You were right, Rosa.”

Her fingers were cool against mine. She’s so pretty, I thought, so much prettier than any of those girls last night. I didn’t like to see her crying for me.

“But if I hadn’t gone,” I said, “look what might have happened. You know what Switch would have done to that girl.”

“I don’t care.” She sobbed. “I don’t care...”

She walked away from me, over to Mama. Antonio came up. All the time Rosa had been with me, he’d just hung back, watching.

“I hope you’re satisfied, Juan,” he said. “My cousin. My own cousin.”

I just stared at him.

“They’re holding Switch for trial,” he said. “I suppose you know that, don’t you, Juan?”

I shook my head. Besides, I thought, even if they were, it was a good thing. If you were bad, like Switch, you shouldn’t be left loose to hurt other people.

“We take you in,” Antonio said. “We give you a home. Because you’re family.” He spat on the floor. “A wetback rat, that’s what you are, butting in on things you don’t know anything about.”

His eyes weren’t Antonio’s eyes at all. They were ugly, as if he really hated me, as if he’d have killed me if he got the chance.

“You squealed,” he said. “You better be glad they’re deporting you, Juan. You better be glad they’re shipping you back to Mexico. Because if you stayed here, you wouldn’t live very long. You know that, don’t you?”

The only thing that meant anything to me, at the time he spoke to me, was what he’d said about them deporting me. I believed him. It was what I’d been sure would happen, ever since the police had caught me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble.”

He started to walk away, then swung around and came right up to the wire screen.

“The jacket,” he said. “You give it back, right now, you hear? Why’d I ever let you wear it, you—”

I took the jacket off. It made me feel real bad, not having it any more, even if it was faded and torn and with the new big slit in the elbow where Switch had cut it the night before.

“Just drop it on the floor,” my cousin said. “I want to be sure you don’t have it when they take you back.”

I let the jacket fall. I wanted to try to explain, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know the customs and besides, even if I had known them, maybe I still couldn’t have explained. It looked, now, as if Antonio would rather have let Switch have the girl. I couldn’t understand.

I looked over his head at Rosa. She had stopped crying and was standing very stiff, as if braced against tears. She waved to me when the guards came up and led me away.

“Adios, Juan,” she said.

Not, “hasta la vista... until we meet again...” but the formal, final good-bye.

“Adios, Rosa.”

She was gone when the truck with the bars in it picked us up, me and some other Mexicans who had come across the border for the harvest. The truck was headed for the border. It had no windows, but the guards let me go to the back and stare out through the heavy screens, at the freeway behind me and the great tall buildings and the city, sleepy now in the early morning, the great, beautiful city I knew I’d never see again.