Dlo Nan Gòj
The courtroom air had that old-meat chill, the kind that sank into bone and made your knuckles ache when you tried to flex them warm again. Fluorescents hummed overhead; someone’s cheap cologne mixed with lemon cleaner, dust, and old varnish. Ricardo kept his face flat, hands folded where the deputy could see them, DOC green shirt ironed by the weight of a hundred hours sitting still.
Broussard stood at the lectern with his file squared to the edge. Voice even, city-lawyer calm. “Your Honor, the State’s case rested in material part on the testimony of Percy Anderson—testimony that a different division of this court has since discredited. Credibility isn’t a seasoning you sprinkle back on once it’s fallen off. Without Percy, the scaffolding around the defendant’s plea collapses.”
Ricardo stared at the seal on the wall and chewed the old-pennies taste out of his mouth. He pictured Percy’s jittery jaw, the way his eyes ran before the rest of him did.
Babin slid one step forward, navy suit clean. “Your Honor, the defendant confessed. He took a plea. The genesis of evidence doesn’t matter once he admits guilt in open court.” She didn’t look at Ricardo when she said it. She didn’t have to. Her voice did the looking for her.
Broussard didn’t flinch. “The record reflects pressure the State brought to bear beyond the four corners of the file. My client’s allocution didn’t happen in a vacuum. Immigration consequences were the unspoken third party in that room. His mother was placed in removal proceedings and ultimately sent back to Mexico. Fear travels faster than facts.”
Ricardo kept his eyes down, jaw tight. The word immigration moved under his ribs like a shadow. He thought of his mother’s words on a bad phone line. All those years boiled down to stamps, forms, a window you spoke through to a person who never looked up.
Babin lifted a page and let it fall. “The defense wants to relitigate the past using rumor and hindsight. Meanwhile, we have the present.” She angled her chin toward Ricardo’s hands on the table. “Visible gang tattoos, Your Honor. Those weren’t there at sentencing. The Court can take judicial notice that men don’t earn those without affiliating. It’s not a stretch to believe the original charging decisions were appropriate.”
Silence cut the hum.
The judge leaned forward. The bench light left half the face in shadow. “Mr. Fernandez… sir, those markings on your hand—when did you get them?”
Ricardo kept his voice level. “Inside, Your Honor.”
“And what are they?”
He let a breath out slowly. “Herencia. I’m proud of where I’m from.”
Broussard cleared his throat once, a small sound. “Your Honor, the State is proving our point. What happens inside these facilities—the alliances men adopt to avoid harm—should not back-form the narrative about who they were when Mr. Anderson’s story was carrying the weight. We’re not asking for a parade. We’re asking for law. On the lesser counts that would have been charged absent Mr. Anderson, a first-time offender’s exposure is typically measured in months, not decades. Eighteen months fits that range. We’re not asking the Court to erase anything—only to recalibrate the sentence to what the law would have imposed without poisoned evidence.”
The judge drummed a finger once, a dry wood tock that chased through the room. The judge looked from one table to the other, eyes heavy with the weight of too many calendars. “Counselors, I’m not deciding resentencing today,” came at last. “But the testimony issue is duly noted. I’ll set a hearing for argument and any evidence either side intends to present.” The judge glanced at a screen only the bench could see. “Three weeks.”
Babin’s pen made a small, satisfied click. Broussard’s shoulders didn’t move. Ricardo sat very still and felt time pull over him again.
“Is there anything further from either side?” the judge asked.
Broussard: “Not from the defense, Your Honor.”
Babin: “Nothing further.”
“Very well.” The gavel didn’t bang. The word adjourned did the work.
The deputy’s hand found Ricardo’s elbow. It wasn’t rough, but it didn’t need to be. Ricardo rose smoothly, eyes on the middle distance. He let himself look left just once. Babin was already stacking her papers with small, precise motions. She felt him before she saw him. When her gaze lifted, he caught it and let a slow wink slide across the space between them, then shaped his mouth into a kiss and blew it gentle like he had all the time in the world.
Her face didn’t change. But he saw the flash in her eyes—calculation, annoyance, something he couldn’t name. Good. Let her carry a little weight back to whatever office the State paid to keep cold.
In the hallway, the air was warmer by a degree and smelled like fried food ghosting someone’s clothes. A siren leaked in from the street—distant, relentless. The deputy guided him along, steps measured to a rhythm that wasn’t his. Ricardo rolled his shoulders once, easing the knot at the base of his neck.
~~~
The picnic table leaned a little to one side, a wobble you only noticed when you set something down and it slid toward the crack in the wood. Somewhere a fryer had been working too long—grease clung to the air and to the back of the throat—mixed with bleach from a stairwell and the faint iron tang of the sprinkler head that never worked right. Tires hissed by on wet patches where a hydrant wept.
Caine sat on the far side of the table with his forearms laid flat, watching a pair of cousins take turns on a bent basketball rim without a net. Each shot hit the metal with a hollow pang that carried. His hoodie was rolled tight into a pillow beside him. The folded clothes, a plastic bag knotted at the handles, sat on the bench like a promise he hadn’t decided to break or keep.
Sara crossed the grass with her shoulders set, a Tupperware balanced in one hand and that bag in the other. She didn’t speak until she’d put both down and smoothed the corner of the lid with a thumb. The nail was clean but the skin around it was raw from bleach. “I brought you your things.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“For after,” she said.
The table creaked when she sat. For a stretch they just listened—to the rim, to a dog throwing itself at a fence, to someone arguing two blocks over in a voice built to win even when it didn’t. A bus exhaled. Somewhere, a baby wailed and then stopped. The park took the sound and kept it.
“When you coming back to the house?” Sara asked.
He kept his eyes on the rim. “Am I allowed to?”
“You’re allowed where I am.” She didn’t raise her voice on it. Just set the words down like silverware.
He rubbed the edge of the table with a knuckle, catching splinters and brushing them away. A breeze moved heat from one cheek to the other. The cousins missed again. The ball rolled and thumped a root.
“Abuela didn’t put you out,” Sara said, softer now. “After what happened with Saul and Hector.”
He breathed through the nose, steady. “Hector cool with that?”
“Fuck Hector.” No apology in it. “But Abuela still made space.”
He let that sit. A shot dropped clean this time. The metal rang different when it took a ball right. He felt the note in his ribs and didn’t show it. “What you want me to do with that?” he asked.
“Not throw it away.” Sara’s eyes went to his hands—scar along the knuckle that had never faded, a nick that never learned it didn’t have to be new. “And not act like you alone when you’re not.”
He made a small sound that might’ve been agreement. The ball hit concrete again. A mother called somebody’s first and middle name like a spell.
“What you thinking about school?” she asked. “You ain’t brought it up since dinner with the Landrys.”
He shifted, not much. “A lot backed off. Said they looking at other targets. I know what it is though. They don’t want the hassle. I’m a red flag or whatever.”
“Anybody still there?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at her quickly, then back to the rim. “None in Louisiana.”
Sara’s mouth pressed thin. “Go,” she said. “If it’s there, you go. You have to go to college, mijo.”
He turned the words like he was testing their weight. “What about Mireya and Camila?”
“That’s something y’all gonna have to figure out.” Her tone was careful—strong enough to hold the line, soft enough to keep him from bristling. “But you talk to her. No disappearing. That’s what you do with people you love.”
He didn’t answer, not out loud. He was tracking the cousins again, the set of their shoulders before the release, how the smaller one needed to bend his knees more, how the bigger one let his wrist die early.
Sara popped the Tupperware. Steam rose and turned the air above the lid into a wavering mirage. “Eat,” she said.
He didn’t make a show of being hungry. He set his shoulders, took the fork, and slipped into the rhythm he fell back to when food came from hands that loved him—quick at first, then easing as the familiar spice settled something jangling behind his ribs. His jaw worked a shade too tight. On the second bite it loosened.
“Slower,” she said, almost smiling. “You still race yourself.”
He huffed a quiet laugh and slowed. A boy at the rim shouted, “Ayy!” when the ball kissed iron and dropped. Someone nearby dragged a trash bag along concrete, plastic squealing like a bad violin. A woman on a balcony smoked with the careful slowness of somebody counting her seconds.
Sara watched him eat like it was the first thing all day that made sense.
He ate the rest in quiet. When he set the fork inside, she snapped the lid on and stacked the container on top of its twin, a small act that made the table look less like a mess and more like a plan. He slid the bag of clothes closer, thumbed the knot, then left it tied.
“I can walk you back,” he said.
“You can,” she answered. “But you gon’ change your shirt first. You got rice on it.”
He looked down, brushed at a single grain stuck just below the logo, and smirked with the side of his mouth that didn’t get used as much. He pulled the folded tee from the bag but didn’t put it on yet. The air moved around them.
They sat a while longer without talking. It wasn’t the stiff kind of quiet. It was theirs. He could feel her watching the same things he watched—the boys switching hands on the drive, the older man on the bench across the way worrying a lottery ticket until the paper went soft, the way the clouds kept pretending they might break and never did.
“You mad at me?” he asked, low.
“No.”
“Not even for the gun?”
“I’m mad about a lot of things that have happened.” She took a breath. “Not at you.”
He nodded. “He was gonna get himself killed fucking around like that. Either that or put in prison. I had to make him see he was fucking up.”
“You have to make yourself see you were fucking up,” she said, but there was no malice in it. “No tienes que llevar las cargas de todos. You have enough of your own.”
“Si, lo se.”
“Do you?” she asked. “C’mon, walk me. I picked up a shift tonight.”
He stood. He shouldered the bag of clothes and picked up the food. The grass scratched his ankles. A kid ran past with a snowball in a paper cup, red syrup spilling sticky down his wrist.
Sara’s gaze went past him, over his shoulder, up. The sound was small—plastic jittering against glass—as a window blind stuttered and stopped. Maria’s eyes looked out through the narrow V her fingers made in the slats. Sun cut a hard line across both irises. Sara didn’t blink. She didn’t lift a hand. She let the distance fill itself with all the things neither woman would ever say for the other’s benefit.
Across the table, Caine followed Sara’s line without turning his head.
The blinds snapped shut. The strip of light disappeared.
She gathered the containers. The bag handles worried against his knuckles. On the street, a car crept by with a speaker dangling somewhere in the door, rattling out a beat too low for the song it tried to carry.
~~~
The scanner chirped and the tag light blinked red. Mireya flipped the dress and tried the barcode again. The beep came clean this time. She folded the tissue paper, set the box lid just right, and slid the bag across with a practiced smile.
“Have a good one,” she said.
The woman’s perfume hung in the air even after the door chime faded. The AC rattled but could not keep up with the heat. Fabric sizing and a sweet vanilla candle mixed in the air and made the back of her throat tight. She wiped her palm on her pants and cleared the screen for the next order.
The back door popped and Trina came out with the bank bag in one hand and keys in the other. Her shirt was half tucked and her ponytail had slipped to one side. She had that look that said she had been talking in the stockroom instead of counting. She let the bank bag hit the counter with a little slap and leaned over the POS.
“You get that shit figured out with your baby daddy?” Trina asked. No hello. No warning.
Mireya kept her face still. “Dead end.”
“Damn shame,” Trina said. “Couldn’t be me. We eating steak and lobster at my house this week. I ain’t ever going back to not getting my stamps.”
Mireya snorted. It came out like a cough she tried to swallow. “Everybody ain’t able.”
Trina’s eyes slid over her. “You need a new plan if that boy not paying the right way.” She tapped the bank bag. “Whole lot of men out here think we easy because we got kids. They’ll trick because they think a lil’ money all it take to fuck.”
“I get money from Caine,” Mireya said. “It’s just never enough.”
Trina unlocked her phone and turned the screen so the green dollar sign glowed between them. CashApp sat open. Transfers stacked in a neat column. Names she did not explain. Numbers that added up.
“I am cool with my baby daddy,” Trina said. “Ain’t even sure this count as cheating. I just know my bills are paid.”
Mireya shook her head. “Not me.”
“Maybe not today,” Trina said, shrugging.
The door chimed and a couple came in with a gust of hot air. Mireya lifted her hand in greeting. She watched the woman drift to the front table where the new tops sat folded like they were precious. The man followed and pretended not to check his phone.
Trina zipped the bank bag and slid it under the counter. “You want me to drop this now or when the line dies?”
“Might as well do it now,” Mireya said. “You know how you get if you wait ‘til the end of the night.”
Trina rolled her eyes then walked the bag back with a little sway in her hips. She called over her shoulder without turning.
“For real,” she said. “You could rob these niggas if you wanted. You a lil’ bad bitch.”
Mireya scanned a bracelet and set it near the register display. But she didn’t say anything.
A hanger clinked on the rack behind her. Mireya turned. The couple had finished a lap of the store and were waiting. She slid back into the shape of the job. Smile at the woman. Ask about sizes. Offer to grab a small from the back even if she already knew the smalls were gone. Walk them to the mirror so they could look at themselves under better light. Make them feel less cheap for wanting more than they planned to spend.
“That fits you,” she said to the woman, and it was true. “Gives you a line.”
The woman’s face softened in the glass. The man nodded like he had picked it out.
“We will take it,” he said.
At the register she folded again. Her hands moved like they belonged to someone else. Card in the reader. Receipt slides out with that small buzz. Bag handles twist and whisper.
“You want your hanger?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” the woman said. She smiled like people do when they feel seen.
“Have a nice day,” Mireya said.
The chime answered for them when they left.
As she stood at the counter, she pictured Camila’s shoes with the toes scuffed white. She pictured the daycare lady’s tight mouth about the late fee. She pictured the way her mother’s eyes cut when the word help crossed Mireya’s lips. She pictured Caine’s tired face counting cash at the end of the week like he could turn ones into twenties with a stare. The images stacked and leaned and made her chest tight.
A new customer reached the counter and set down a stack. Mireya’s hands found their work again. Tag. Beep. Fold. Smile. She let the rhythm take her. The words Trina had thrown out floated for a second and then sank. She watched them go. She watched herself not reach after them.
When the line cleared she stepped to the end of the counter and straightened the impulse rack. Lip gloss. Clip-on charms. A cheap candle that smelled like birthday cake. She pushed the small things into neat rows. She breathed through the sweetness until it dulled.
Trina came back out of the office, checked her reflection in the window and fluffed her ponytail. “You straight?”
“Yeah,” Mireya said.
Trina hummed. “Alright then.” She headed back to the office to log the drop.
The chime worked again. Another person to ring up. Mireya lifted her head and set her hands where they belonged.
~~~
The plastic chair bowed just enough under Saul that his back found a groove in the seat. cut grass smell tried to beat back gasoline from the shed and failed. Somewhere close, oil popped in a pan. A neighbor’s radio pushed brass over the fence until the horn line broke and the DJ talked too fast.
Zoe sat close. Her knee brushed his. Not constant. Not an accident either. She had her legs folded in, heels on the edge of her chair, chin tucked into the hinge of her arms. Box braids high on her head. A few strays dusted her collarbone when the damp air moved. She watched the pecan tree like it was a TV that only played falling. The nuts hit dirt with little knocks and rolled to the bald patch under the low limb. The sound counted the day without a clock.
Saul kept his face angled away from her. The bruise had gone from purple to the sick yellow that meant it was leaving. The cut at his cheekbone pulled when he talked. He did not touch it. Touching turned the sound back up. He could still feel the moment Caine’s fist landed. No wind-up. No talk. Just a clean decision. It made the pain smaller and the shame bigger.
They did not speak for a long time. The silence was not a fight. It was the only thing that fit. He could feel her watching him. Not the bruise. Him. It helped and hurt at the same time.
Zoe broke it first. “So. He like in a gang or something?”
Saul rubbed his thumb over the soft plastic crack in the chair arm. “I don’t know.”
She waited. She was good at that. Letting him keep his own words until he decided to hand them over.
“He runs with some sketchy dudes,” he said. “Always has.”
Zoe tipped her head a little. “Them other dudes? They definitely clicked up.”
Saul tried to laugh. It scraped. “Caine grew up different I guess. Even in the same house.”
“You don’t look okay.”
He dragged in a slow breath. “I said I’m fine.”
Zoe did not take the bait. She let her knee find his again. He felt the press through denim and forced himself not to pull away. The siren two blocks over wound up. The dog next door gave a tired bark. An AC unit thumped and then thumped again.
“He hasn’t been here since?” she asked.
“Nah.”
“Where he at then?”
“Probably at his baby mama’s.” The words came out flat. He tasted metal after. He hated that. He hated that he cared enough to hate it.
Zoe’s brows went up. “Baby mama?”
He nodded once.
She sat with that and then shrugged. “I guess that checks out.”
He wanted to ask what she meant and decided not to. He already knew. Caine moved like a man who belonged to somebody small and soft. It made people forgive him without knowing they were doing it. It made Saul angry for a reason he could not name without sounding like a child.
Zoe’s foot slid down. She planted both feet and leaned closer. “You ain’t gotta be embarrassed.”
“About what.”
“About not being that.”
“Being what.”
She flicked her eyes toward the street. Toward the place fights come from and go back to. “That.”
He wanted to say he was not embarrassed. His mouth did not bother. She could see him. She always did. The bruise told on him. The way he had gone quiet told on him louder.
He stared at the fence. There was a bubble in the paint on the second board from the right. The sun had raised it slow over months and made a small blister. Saul pressed the toe of his shoe into it until the skin of it collapsed.
“Come here,” she said, and he did without thinking. She cradled the back of his head like he might break and pressed her lips to the unhurt side of his forehead. Not a kiss for show. A kiss for quiet. He closed his eyes and let it sit there.
“You want ice?” she asked against his skin.
“I’m straight.”
“You sure?”
He lied. “Yeah.”
She pulled away just enough to give him the look that meant she was going to do what she wanted anyway. “I’m bringing it.”
The kitchen door squeaked. Her shadow crossed the thin curtain. He watched the sway of it and felt stupid for watching. He leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. The yard hummed. The pecans kept falling.
He thought about the way Caine’s face was empty the whole time. Not rage. Not even hate. A kind of cold.
The door swung open. Zoe came back with a towel-wrapped lump and a glass that sweated through her fingers. She put the lemonade in his hand and pressed the cold bundle over his cheek. Her touch was careful. He did not flinch. She tucked herself into his side like she had always belonged there.
“Hold it,” she said. “Don’t press. Just hold.”
He did. The cold burned first and then settled. His shoulders dropped a small inch. The lemonade was sweet to the point of wrong and still perfect. He drained half and set the glass on the step.
“You could be mad and not be stupid,” she said. “I’m not calling you stupid.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
They listened to the street try to cool down and fail. Someone dragged a hose. A bus sighed at the corner. A baby cried and then hiccuped its way out of it. The day kept going.
They sat with their shoulders touching. The yard breathed in and out. The pecans kept dropping. The radio faded down and came back with a slow love song that did not fit the light. Zoe hummed without thinking. He put his cheek to the top of her head and felt the hum move through her into him. It steadied something.
They fell back into quiet. Not the stiff kind. The kind that knew all the words and did not need them. A breeze finally found the yard and moved enough air to make the pecan leaves clap for a second. The shadow from the fence stretched across their ankles. The ice in the towel gave up and turned to water. She wrung it out on the concrete and the wet spot evaporated and then was gone.
Saul let his eyes close. Zoe’s shoulder stayed right there. The world kept making noise. The world kept pretending it could not see them. He rested inside the small circle they made anyway.
They did not speak. They did not have to.
~~~
The apartment held heat. The window unit rattled in the corner and breathed out air that felt like a wet towel after a late afternoon temperature spike. Mireya moved through it anyway. She had one palm under the plastic plate so it did not bend, the other steadying Camila’s cup with the purple lid. Rice and red beans, a few pan-fried plantains. The kitchen light was harsh and the tile was still damp from the morning mop. Bleach rode over the smell of oil that never fully left.
“Eat, mamas,” she said, sliding the plate in front of Camila and placing the fork in her small hand.
Camila swung her feet under the chair and hummed. She poked the rice into dunes and then started to eat for real. Chew. Sip. The plastic straw clicked against her teeth. A cartoon murmured from the living room with the sound turned low. Outside, a siren faded toward the river.
Mireya wiped her palms on her shorts and walked down the narrow hall. She stopped at her bedroom doorway when she heard Caine’s voice. Not full sentences. Pieces cut by the phone and the fan. “Ready to compete… yes, sir… you won’t regret it… whatever y’all need to do to get me there.” The voice he used with strangers was low and respectful. It found an extra layer when he talked to coaches. It always had.
She stood with her shoulder on the doorframe. Her breath tightened without warning and she bit it back. The bed was half made. His duffel was open on the floor. Two pairs of socks lay like abandoned birds.
“Yeah. I’ll be ready,” he said. A beat. “Thank you.”
He ended the call and stared at the phone, thumb on the screen like it might ring again if he looked hard enough. When he noticed her, he straightened.
“Who was that?” she asked, already moving past him to grab her own phone off the dresser.
“A coach,” he said. “They still want me.”
She rolled her lips into her mouth. She nodded once. No quick joy. No fight either. Her thumb woke her phone though there was nothing on it that would help.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She pretended she did not hear. Checked the time. Checked nothing.
“What’s wrong, nena?” He switched to Spanish without thinking. The word sat softer in the room.
“Estoy cansada,” she said. “Eso es.”
“I got Camila,” he said. “Lay down. Close your eyes.”
She shook her head and headed for the door. “I need to finish the laundry. And I got some homework to do.”
“Mireya.”
She stopped. She did not turn all the way. He could see the curve of her cheek and one tired eye.
“I love you,” he said.
“Y yo a ti,” she said, quiet. She stepped back into the hall.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped and the metal frame clicked against the wall. He dragged his hand once through his dreads and stared at the floor until the scuff marks blurred. The room felt too small and too loud. The fan ticked. Somewhere in the wall a pipe knocked.
From the kitchen, Camila sang the alphabet out of order. B, D, A, M. She got stuck and started over. Caine stood and went back down the hall. He leaned in the doorway and watched her from there for a breath. Her curls lifted at the ends where the humidity had its way. She focused on the plate like it was a test. Her little jaw worked. There was bean on her cheek and a streak of yellow plantain oil near her lip.
“You good, mi vida?” he asked.
She nodded without looking up. “Good.”
He turned the faucet and ran water over a rag. He crouched and wiped her face. “Slow down,” he said. “It ain’t running away.”
She smiled with just her eyes. “No running.”
Mireya passed behind him with a basket of clean clothes. Fresh cotton and heat made a smell that filled the hall. She did not brush him but the closeness made everything land heavier. She set the basket on the couch and started to fold. Shirts first, then tiny leggings, then towels. Her movements had no wasted motion. When she picked up one of his shirts she paused. She folded it anyway.
“You want me to do that?” he asked, still crouched.
“What?”
“Fold those clothes.”
“I got it,” she said.
“You ain’t gotta do everything yourself. You know that, right?”
She shook her head. “I got it.”
“I’m just sayin—"
“I got it.”
Silence stepped between them for a moment. The cartoon on the TV threw colors across the living room wall. A commercial for a payday loan shouted even with the volume low and then vanished.
He took Camila’s empty cup and rinsed it until the water ran clear. The drain smelled a little like the dish soap Maria always bought from the discount store. Green apple. He didn’t like the scent, but when in Rome.
“Want anything else?” he asked Camila.
“Banana,” she said.
“We out,” he said. “How about an orange.”
“Orange,” she agreed, nodding her head so hard her hair whipped back and forth.
“En español,” Caine said, holding the orange up.
“Uh. Nar—Naranja,” she said, plenty of emphasis of the “ha” sound.
“Buen trabajo,” he smiled in that way he reserved only for her.
He peeled it at the sink and the room woke up with citrus. Mireya looked over because she could not help it. He broke it into small moons and set them in front of Camila. She pushed one against her tongue like she was testing the idea of it and then smiled.
He moved to the bedroom doorway again. Sat back on the edge of the bed and felt the spring remind him where he was. The phone was faceup beside him. A smudge of dust rimmed the screen because nothing in this place ever stayed clean.
It vibrated once.
He glanced down and the name lit up. Ramon. The message bloomed blue on the screen.
What you doing Saturday
if nec)
