Apology by Jon Pineda (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

left to fill his days with his own wanderings, breaking sticks or batting away rocks, anything remotely spherical, launching it all into the flora.

His boredom exhausted him.

When he approached the river, he found a matted spot that allowed him both to lie down and rest and to still listen to the water rushing below. It moved like the blood inside his body, he imagined.

His life, no matter where he was to go, would always be tied to here, this juncture. From far off came the scent of rain. Maybe a light shower, but nothing like a storm to fear. He closed his eyes. He waited for his future to come for him on its own.

The oldest of the men who had taken him looked to be his father’s age. They were ancient. At nine years old, he was not the best judge of age. He was certain only that there were five of them. All were dressed in a similar way. Their uniforms were evidence of their poverty. Soiled khaki pants and old shirts with prominent logos of American companies. If they wanted to, they could easily drop their weapons and return to their towns, disappearing into lean-tos or other such dwellings.

They had taken him to a spot where they had set up camp. It was near a scattering of things people had dumped and abandoned. This was how they had managed, in the periphery of the jungle, to have in their possession a small card table and even some chairs. This layout seemed extravagant. Otherworldly. The legs of each item refastened and repaired with crude materials.

With only a few chairs, though, some of the men had to stand.

Exequiel’s wrists were bound with twine. They had pushed him down onto his back and then set one of the chairs directly over the top of his chest, so that he couldn’t move from side to side. The oldest man, looming above Exequiel, bent down and asked him if he had any family. Though he was scared, Exequiel would not answer and thought only of Paul and the times they used to take one of their father’s T-shirts and fold and roll it a special way so that it would hold together as a ball. The two boys would kick it around, trying to weave it between each other’s legs, his brother Paul sometimes being generous and letting him win.

The oldest of the men, his name was Nestor, yelled at the others to get their guest some water. Nestor thought Exequiel must be thirsty. When the old man Nestor asked him with an earnest expression, his leathery face softening just briefly for the boy, Exequiel shook his head no, thinking it had been a trick question, that they were planning to throw him in the river should he respond yes. When he saw that they were, in fact, passing around a canteen, Exequiel felt his tongue scrape against the dryness of the roof of his mouth. He wished he had taken this old man up on his offer of water.

The old man Nestor took a long last gulp from the canteen and then leaned close to Exequiel’s face. The boy winced from the stench, the old man’s mouth reeking of wet bread. He asked the boy the names of every man in town. He wanted to know if the boy knew where weapons were kept.

Most especially guns.

The old man Nestor laughed when he mentioned these words, and his eyes, Exequiel could see, had brightened with mischief at the use of this word guns. As if the old man Nestor had become a boy again, briefly, and was conspiring to do something he knew he shouldn’t.

The others wanted to keep moving north along the river. As they openly discussed their plans, the old man Nestor shouted at them from where he sat. He was angered by their stupidity. He quickly chided them all for revealing any information in the presence of this boy.

“So should we wait here for you to come back?” the old man Nestor said to Exequiel. Exequiel writhed underneath the chair. His shoulders were beginning to burn from being held so long in one place. His legs, they had fallen asleep and it felt to him as if they had been thrust into a mound of ants, and the ants were no longer marching but had, instead, chosen to make a home in his skin. So had commenced the dutiful work of burrowing.

“Guns,” the old man Nestor said again, smiling.

He told the boy that if he were released, he must go back and tell no one that they were there. And further, the boy must go to the houses where he knew the guns were and bring them back. Or else the men who stared down at him now would stare down at the ones whom the boy loved, as the boy would be staring down at them all from heaven above.

“Do you understand?” the old man Nestor said.

Exequiel nodded.

“And what happens if you don’t find any guns?” the old man Nestor said, all teeth.

“I come back and tell you so.”

“That’s right. And then?”

“And then you leave here.”

“Good,” the old man Nestor said.

He looked at the others, who nodded, pleased.

The boy was untied and left to recover on the edge of the encampment. He wanted to run, but his legs would not allow it. Then, as if by magic, the movement of his blood resumed and he stood, wobbly at first like a newborn colt, and took off running.

Where were his idiotic friends, he wondered.

They must be hiding. They must have seen at least one of the men. He ran, moving wet leaves out of his way. The humid air lay so thickly in front of him that he felt as though he were running under a damp sheet, one his mother might have hung from a line to dry. When he reached the river itself, he dove in and was