# A Week of Road

The last time I saw David, my ex-boss, was on the stairs of the Zócalo metro. We ran into each other while I was going down and he was going up. We barely raised our hands to say hi. We crossed paths quickly and awkwardly. Before turning down the hallway, I looked back and saw him running up the stairs. He also turned to look at me. We raised our hands again, even more shy. On the way to my apartment, I looked at my left wrist; there was no scar anymore. Only the memory of Eli's hand (brown, thin, tiny, almost nonexistent) around mine remained.

***

Three years earlier, we were coming back from a work trip to San Luis Potosí, the most exhausting and tedious one I remember. I woke up when we were already pulled over. It was almost midnight and there was a new moon. David was checking the GPS.

"Everything okay?" I asked while adjusting myself in the worn seat of the '97 Tsuru and opening a pack of Delicados. The Misfits were still playing on the stereo.

"Yeah, but I'm lost," he said with a smile while showing me his phone. "For like half an hour now, but I didn't want to wake you."

I looked at the screen: we were about ten kilometers from the highway to Ciudad Valles, a yellow line with lots of curves; we were a blue dot in the middle of the undefined white of the map.

"No big deal," I sighed while grabbing one of the many bags of Fritos and Mafer peanuts in the back seat. "We just have to stay on the road. We have to fucking hit a town or find a gas station eventually. We'll ask there."

David started the car. A few meters ahead, I noticed him glancing at the fuel gauge out of the corner of his eye. We had less than half a tank.

"Don't be paranoid, dude," I said between yawns. He mimicked me and I snapped my mouth shut, amused.

I decided to change the music to something calmer but my phone had no signal. I put on *Marquee Moon*, which was one of the few things I'd downloaded that morning.

Instead of the highway, the headlights stretched into emptiness and the zigzag of curves. On the right side, we had a bitten hill; on the left, huge ravines. In the distance, three radio antennas shone. They looked like Orion's belt.

We drove without talking for an hour. I couldn't fall asleep again.

"I haven't seen any signs or exits."

"Me neither," I lit another cigarette and pointed at two moving lights at the far end of the ravine while exhaling through my nose, "but down there's the highway. We'll get out, we'll get out."

I trusted David behind the wheel. During many work trips, when we were dead tired from conducting surveys and dumping data into spreadsheets like possessed people, he'd tell me: "You sleep now. I'll handle the drive back." We never had an accident and, even though he didn't smoke, he let me finish whole packs inside the car. It was fun to watch his eyes almost pop out when he held back his coughing.

During the eighteen months we worked at the same company, David never demanded we stay past closing time, we did remote work for weeks, and he protected us, risking his position, when the sales supervisor wanted to fire us for not delivering some spreadsheets that weren't our job. David was a boss like I'll never have again. I miss him.

*Marquee Moon* ended and I put on *Funkadelic*, which David had on his phone. A curve started that was too tight and almost made me drop the cigarette I'd just lit. I grabbed the door and felt the car pulling outward, I thought we were going off the road. I saw David downshift and managed to control the car, but had to slow down a lot. The curve became less sharp and we started seeing emergency triangles; I think I counted about twenty. Who carries that many in their trunk?

Just coming out of the curve, before David accelerated again, our headlights lit up a Valiant Acapulco on the shoulder, covered in rust and with a man beside it waving a red rag. We saw the car was held up by a jack. David parked further ahead and turned on the hazard lights.

"You're stopping?" My voice came out higher than usual.

"I think there's a girl in the back seat. Didn't you see?"

I stayed quiet, staring straight ahead. I saw someone in the back seat. That was all. The darkness was only cut by our light and by the sound of the motor waiting to flee. David put it in reverse and stopped next to the Valiant. The man, in flared jeans and a white denim shirt, worn and stained with oil, leaned on the passenger window. He smelled of sweat and Coca-Cola.

"Evening. I got a flat and my spare doesn't work."

"Evening," David responded while tilting his head to see the man's face. "Ours is back there."

"Thanks, I'll get the jack down."

David got out. I looked toward the Valiant. The interior light was on. There was a girl in the back seat.

I heard the man and David changing the tire. I preferred to look at the ravine and entertain myself thinking whether I'd survive a fall into it. When I turned to look for my boss, the girl was outside my window. Her dress looked like a first communion one, though already yellowed and torn. It scared me how fast she must have moved.

"Do you have food?"

I said yes. I got out, put out my cigarette on the shoulder, opened the back door and sat next to her.

"We only have chips, kid, and some water," I passed her a bottle.

The girl devoured the Fritos, chewed with her mouth open and wiped her fingers on her dress. It made me tender.

"Do you live around here?" I asked her.

"In Matehuala."

"You're pretty far from home. What's your name?"

"Eli."

The girl kept eating. We stayed quiet for a while while I watched David and the man struggle with the Valiant's hood. I checked the pack: five cigarettes left. When I looked up, the girl was right next to my face. She smelled of cheese powder and saliva. She grabbed my left wrist and dug her nails in. Her hand was very small, thin, brown.

"Can I go with you guys? Please, I don't want to be in the car anymore. We have like a week of road. I want to take a bath and I'm hungry."

"Where are you going?" I tried to get her off me, but she was holding on tight.

"To my grandparents' house."

"Wait, you're hurting me," she loosened a bit. "Do they live very far?"

"I don't know. Let me go with you. My dad gets flat tires all the time. I asked him to stop going, but he says he has to drop off what he's got in the trunk. And we're just going in circles. We have like a week of road."

I heard the Valiant's choked motor. Once, twice, three times it tried to start. David got in the driver's seat. The girl let go of my hand.

"Yara, the guy's out of gas too. He asked if we could give him a lift."

David's look was confused. I started breathing really fast.

"You think there's trouble?" I nodded my head toward the Valiant man.

"I don't know."

David looked at the girl. She was leaning out the window looking at the ravine; maybe she too was calculating her death if she fell into it. My boss looked at me and I only saw my phone. We were still a blue dot lost in white. I lit another cigarette.

"Well, let's go. Does he know where there's a gas station?"

"I already asked him. He's just as lost as we are."

My boss got out of the car, said something to the man, they went to his trunk and I lost sight of them for a few seconds. They came back to the Tsuru. David was pale. The man stayed in the passenger seat and I was in the back with the girl. My boss, nervous, looked at me constantly through the rearview mirror. I felt a pit in my stomach. I turned toward the window and lit another cigarette.

We drove for about an hour. No one talked except the man, who made conversation with David; my boss answered "Yeah," "No," "Well yeah it's rained." After a while, I think the man got tired of those answers, rested his head on the seatback and closed his eyes. The only sounds inside the car were our Tsuru's motor and Eli devouring the Mafer peanuts. I checked the GPS obsessively: we were still nowhere.

After another tight curve, where again I thought we were going off the road (but neither the man opened his eyes nor Eli stopped eating the Mafer peanuts), we saw some lights. David accelerated. We got to a gas station. The man and David sat there for a moment, as if neither decided to get out. The man moved his head toward the OXXO at the gas station and told my boss that they (plural) were hungry. David got out and the man followed him close, right behind his back. They went to the trunk and took down a gas can to fill with gasoline. When they went into the OXXO, Eli jumped on me again and dug her nails into the same spot.

"So can I go with you guys? I don't want to go with my dad. I'm tired of the car and my dad won't stop until he drops off what he's got in the trunk. We keep running out of gas and getting flat tires. Please, we have like a week of road."

I got out of the car and told her to come with me to the OXXO; she looked at me angry, but also a little sad, and got out with a pouty face. We went into the store. I saw the man preparing a hot dog; Eli was picking out some chips. I stayed looking at the gift cards. Suddenly, David pulled my arm, put a finger to his mouth in a silence signal, and we started walking slowly toward the exit. He was still very pale. He watched the man with wide-open eyes. We slipped out in silence to the Tsuru.

David started the car and, for some reason I still can't explain, didn't floor it. Through the rearview mirror, we saw the man, with the gas can in one hand and Eli in the other. From far away, I thought I noticed she had the same look as when we got out of the car. The gas station lights were turning off as we moved away, until they disappeared completely. Our phones started ringing like crazy with all the notifications coming in. A few seconds later we saw a sign: "Ciudad Valles, 10 km." David took the turnoff and merged with the highway almost immediately.

I told him what Eli told me; I also asked if the man had told him anything about what he was carrying in the trunk. David said no, but that when he helped him put the spare back, he saw some dirty sheets with blood on them (or that's what he thought it was). The man pulled out a gun and a switchblade from under the sheets and put them in his waistband while holding his gaze. He said he barely had the strength to pull my arm in the OXXO and that his legs were still shaking.

I wanted to ask him what he thought had happened to us, but I guess neither of us had the energy to even put on music. I caressed my left wrist: there were the purple marks of four small nails. As I rolled down the window and lit the last Delicado I had left, I knew these were going to be the last words we'd exchange:

—Everything okay?

—No.