Illegal

FIFTY-THREE

Marisol's lips were crusted together, and her mouth felt as if it were filled with sand.

The sheets were cool and clean but sweat poured from her. She tried to open her eyes, but the lids were heavy as church doors.

Her head throbbed.

Somewhere, a man's voice echoed, the words overlapping.

"You'll get used to it. It's better than picking melons."

She was naked under the sheet. She tried to remember where she was and how she got here.

A drink. She remembered being given a cold Pepsi. Then growing sleepy.

A patchwork of images. A man carrying her over his shoulder. Women's voices. Carpeted rooms. Soft music. Twinkling chandeliers.

The bed felt like a raft in a stormy sea. Her fingernails dug into the mattress to steady herself. In her mind, an eagle's claw gripped a tree limb. But if she were an eagle, she would fly away.

The man was talking again. The voice seemed familiar, but it bounced off the walls. Her eyes clouded over, and she could not put a face to the voice.

"You'll learn to like the club. No field hands. Gentlemen only." He laughed, a throaty growl. "Like me, panocha."

Panocha! Now, she remembered those first few moments after the van dumped out the migrants like a truckload of melons.

" I'm sixty-six and still filled with piss and vinegar, panocha."

El Patron. Mr. Rutledge.

Marisol felt his callused hand under the sheet, moving up her thigh.

Her eyes opened just enough to let in a slit of light. She saw his lips tighten, then crease into a smile sharp as a razor. A smile devoid of joy, but born of power and wickedness.

She closed her eyes and thought of the priest blessing her back home.

"Vaya con Dios, mija."

Wherever I am, Marisol thought, it is not with God.