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We did everything we could. Everything Eli asked of us. The look in his eyes when we sat across from him, that glass partition between us. I knew he wanted me to keep my mouth shut, not only for my safety but for Ma’s as well.
So, I did.
I didn’t say anything as the judge sentenced my brother to five years at the Northern California Correctional Facility. I didn’t say anything as we hugged him one last time before the bailiff took my brother away, leaving me and my mom alone.
Leaving me alone to take up where he left off.
I had a very difficult decision to make.
Sitting here in my garage, staring at my brother’s car while my mom left to go to church and pray for my brother, I knew I would have to step up.
There was no way I could make enough money as a hair stylist to cover all the bills we had accrued over the last couple of years. We were already in debt, and Eli had been doing everything in his power to pay it off. But now that he’s in jail, it's up to me. I only knew one thing that brought in the kind of money we needed to survive.
Racing.
I knew a lot already, just from spending time with Eli. However, I had no idea if it was enough to win any real money. Still, I knew I would have to try.
The sound of a car door pulls me out of my thoughts. I look up just in time to see Mateo, the devil himself, waltz into the open bay door of my garage. He has two of his friends in tow.
“Hey Mami, what’s good?”
“Get out,” I breathe, my body shaking with so much terror and rage that I can’t yell.
He shakes his head, tsking as he draws closer.
“There’s no need to be rude, Mami,” he says.
“No need?” I ask, seething. I curl my fingers in until the biting of my nails against my palm is the only thing I feel.
“That’s right. We’re all friends here. At least I want us to be. You should, too.”
I want to lunge at this man. To claw out his eyes and scream in his face until he’s nothing more than the nightmare plaguing my dreams every night. But I don’t. I stay rooted in place, atop an old wooden stool I’d sat on so many times before, watching Eli work on this very car.
“Why?” I ask, referring to more than just his statement.
“Because you have something of mine, and if I don’t get it, then I’ll stop being so friendly. Do you know what happens when I stop being friendly, Mami?” He speaks quietly, mere feet from where I sit, but it’s like his voice rings throughout the room, reverberating off the walls like a voice lost within the hollow confines of an abandoned cathedral. Chills prick at my skin, and the dip of his eyes to my exposed arms tells me he knows what effect he has on me.
I shake my head in answer before he continues.
“When I stop being friendly, they stop being friendly. And trust me, darlin’, they aren’t the kind of guys you want on your bad side.”
“Oh, and you are?” I spit the words without thinking before rolling my lips between my teeth, wishing I could take them back.
“No, I’m not.”
His eyes bore into mine, and I fight every urge screaming for me to run.
“Now, like I said, you have something of mine.”
“What?” I whisper the question, terrified.
“Money,” he says, as if it should have been obvious.
I open my mouth to argue that I don’t have his money, but he continues speaking before I have the chance to speak.
“When I met Eli, all I wanted to do was help him out. I saw his potential to win, but he needed something I had. A ride. One that would actually get him across that finish line. So, I offered to help him for a fee. A small percentage of his winnings for loaning him my car and getting him into races. I had the connections he needed. So, we struck a deal, and he was all too eager to agree to my terms.”
I sit, jaw clenching, listening to the skewed and partly true story he weaves. Only, I know the truth. The version where Eli isn’t painted as some desperate fool.
