That second day, Raulito decided to rest in the tall grasses along the road. He would make himself very small—as small as a skinny man with long limbs could make himself—and he would lie very still. A horse-drawn wagon rambled down the road and he parted the grasses. His gaze followed a yellow bonnet until it became a speck in the distance. Raulito wished that he could wear a yellow hat instead of rags; that he were free to ride in a wagon instead of hiding in the tall grasses.
That night, Raulito walked for hours until he reached a town. It was there that he found the newspaper on the street. He stared down at the drawing of the masked man, barefoot and wearing a straw hat like his, armed with a knife and pistol. He couldn’t read English but he could read the words Porto Rican. He folded it into a small square and tucked it into his bundle. He would show it to Vicente. He was careful to duck into the bushes or behind a building whenever he saw anyone, even at a distance. Carlito had warned him to avoid people, day or night.
He’d reached the outskirts of town on the morning of the third day. He filled his tin cup from a stream and hid behind some bushes. He used his knapsack as a pillow; when sleep came, Raulito dreamt that he was back in Puerto Rico.
Somebody kicked his leg. Two policemen, so tall they blocked out the sun, were pointing rifles at his head. One searched his bag and found the newspaper article and the map of dots and squiggles Carlito had drawn. He threw the papers on the ground. The policeman stepped on Raulito’s hand when he tried to pick them up.
They made him stand with his hands over his head. His legs shook. They asked him questions, and he stared at them, eyes wide.
“This one’s deaf and dumb.”
“Whaddaya think? Negro? Porto Rican?”
“Same thing.”
The stench of men in the cramped jail cell reminded Raulito of steerage on the ship. A galvanized metal pail filled with excrement overflowed in the corner. A bee tapped against the iron bars of the glassless window.
“Is that Vicente’s brother?” A man with a crack in his straw hat crushed Raulito in a big embrace. “It’s me, Gómez! Gómez from the boat!”
“¡Gómez!” Raulito cried a little on the big man’s shoulder.
There was no room on the floor, but Gómez pointed to someone who moved to make space.
“Gómez, have you seen Vicente?”
“I think he went with the group to Hilo, Hawaii. What they call the Big Island.”
It was true, then. Vicente was on the Big Island, and here he was on Oahu.
“This isn’t a place where a man can be weak.” Gómez noticed Raulito’s quivering lip.
“I’m not weak.” Raulito bit his lip.
Gómez introduced him as Vicente’s brother to the Puerto Rican cell mates.
“This is Raulito Villanueva, un negrito pero buena gente,” he said.
Several recalled Vicente as the man who had lost his son on the voyage. One man stared at him without blinking, and Raulito pretended that it didn’t bother him. He made believe that he was Vicente, strong like his brother. Gómez told him that the Puerto Ricans got along with all the Japanese, even the one who had beaten his wife to death: they didn’t hold it against him because that sometimes happened, even in Puerto Rico. Sometimes a woman deserved it and sometimes she didn’t, pero, bueno. (Gómez raised his palms in a gesture that meant it was inevitable.) And over there, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look at that white man. He had raped and killed a small boy.
“That one’s not human,” Gómez said.
Raulito shivered in the white man’s gray gaze, which reminded him of the ocean on that bitter day Javier tumbled down to his watery grave.
Gómez asked Raulito if he’d had it bad on the plantation. Raulito shrugged. What was bad, what was good, when there was no one to love or to love him?
The night was broken with the cries and moans of men. In his dream, Raulito was a small boy again and Vicente lifted him up onto his horse. Raulito laughed; the horse’s mane tickled his bare legs. His brother let him hold the reins. Don’t be afraid, Vicente said to five-year-old Raulito. I’m here.
The judge sat at a table. Next to a deputy was a prisoner whom Gómez had pointed out as Jones, one of the haoles. The judge banged his gavel, and a light-skinned Puerto Rican was shoved forward to the table.
The judge asked the prisoner a question in English and then turned to Jones.
“What is your name?” Jones said in Spanish.
The Puerto Ricans shouted the news to each other. El blanco speaks Spanish!
All this time with us and he speaks Spanish! He’s a maldito spy!
The judge pounded the gavel and the deputies shouted at the Puerto Ricans to shut up.
“I learned me some Spanish,” Jones said. “During the war.”
The judge banged the gavel again.
Jones repeated the question.
“Alberto Rodríguez.”
“What do you do?”
“Work,” Alberto Rodríguez said.
The Puerto Ricans laughed.
Bang! Bang! The judge sentenced Alberto Rodríguez to a month’s hard labor for vagrancy.
A deputy thrust Raulito forward. Jones translated.
“What’s your name?”
“Raulito Villanueva.”
“What do you do?”
“Work.”
More laughter.
“What plantation did you come from?” Jones stared at Raulito.
Raulito looked back at Gómez.
Gómez had warned Raulito that they would return him to the plantation. Even if he never found Vicente, Raulito didn’t want to go back there, where everyone would pity him.
“Come on now,” Jones said.
The judge shouted at Jones, “Hurry up, man.”
“Where your bango and discharge papers?”
“What papers?”
“Giving you permission to leave the plantation,” Jones said.
“I lost them,” Raulito said.
“Bango?”
“Lost.”
The judge sentenced him to one month’s hard labor for vagrancy.
“Sorry, boy, you going to jail for vagrancy.” Jones said “vagrancy” in English because he didn’t know the Spanish word.
“What’s vagrancy?”
“It means you lazy,” Jones said.
“I’m not lazy,” Raulito said. “I was working the cane the day before yesterday—or maybe the day before.”
“Hawaii needs workers. You gonna work, whether you get paid or not. Make your mind up to it, boy,” Jones said. “One way or another, you gonna work.”
Bob the jailer rapped his rifle butt against the bars of the cell. After eating a piece of bread and gagging on coffee the Puerto Ricans swore was mud mixed with water, the prisoners were herded to the construction site of the new railroad. Each clang of the hammer reminded Raulito that he was a slave. The jailers kept their guns pointed at the prisoners; when they shouted at them, Raulito knew that they were saying, You gonna work, boy, make up your mind to it.
Raulito lay next to Gómez, foot to head, head to foot, face turned away from the stink of Gómez’s feet. His eyes were closed; his thoughts were of a Puerto Rican in the other cell. Raulito looked at him when others weren’t looking; the other man looked at him, too. Raulito was happier than he’d ever been his whole life, even happier than when he was with his brother, and Raulito had never thought that possible. He didn’t even mind being in prison.