Raulito didn’t want to go back to the plantation. Everyone would point to him as an example of what happened to a man without a woman. Nina would take his money and then put him to work crushing coffee beans in the pilón.
“Oye, can you help me get away?” Raulito addressed the Puerto Ricans.
“Claro,” somebody said.
“If they catch you, it’s back to the chain gang,” somebody else said.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Raulito said.
“You know better than that,” somebody said.
“I’m going to roll off the wagon,” Raulito said. “Can you make sure the guards don’t see me?”
“What about them chinos?” Somebody pointed to the Japanese.
“They got the same problems we have.” Raulito looked at the Japanese. They stared back at him; one bowed his head.
“I’ll sock them if they try anything,” said the first Puerto Rican.
When Raulito saw a group of trees up ahead, he slid off the wagon and rolled onto the dirt road into the brush. He crouched behind some bushes. He ran through the woodland. He gulped free air and wished that he could fly like a bird, over the sugarcane of this terrible Oahu and toward the island of Hawaii, where he would find his brother. He ran until he couldn’t lift his legs anymore, then he dropped down onto the soft grass and stared up at the sky. When he was a child, he thought that the birds flew into the sun and worried that they would catch fire until his brother explained how the sun was very far away. The birds here sang the same songs they sang to him in Puerto Rico. Some people thought nature was quiet at night, but it was loud with a thousand sounds. Creatures sang or chanted or buzzed or howled. Trees creaked in the wind. Owls announced the moon.
Raulito dozed off, and when he woke the moon was high in the sky. He ran through the woods, in the direction of Honolulu, where he planned to smuggle himself onto a boat bound for Hilo. Raulito’s shoes cracked on a broken branch and the sound pierced the clamor of the night creatures, stunned silent for a moment. He suspected that he was breathing too loud. He ate wild berries and drank from a stream. When he tired again, he climbed a tree, where he hoped he would be safe from animals, two- and four-footed alike, but he fell asleep again and tumbled down onto the grass. Luckily, he didn’t split his head open like a coconut! He found more berry bushes. He picked them too quickly in his hunger, squashing them with his fingers. Once again he drank fresh water from streams. He cracked a coconut against a tree trunk, drank the water, and broke the coconut meat into pieces. He thought of his mother.
Raulito ate the last of the coconut meat on the second day, and his stomach grumbled for the hard bread and meat paste of jail, the last real food it could remember. But his stomach didn’t rule him. He’d often gone hungry in Puerto Rico, and if he didn’t eat until he reached Hilo, then he didn’t eat.
•
The dogs came for Raulito when he was doing his business. He yanked his pants up and ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, faster than when he’d jumped off the wagon. He slid on patches of leaves wet from the morning dew. A tree with strong branches called out, I will hide you in my branches. If only he could reach it! Faster, run faster! Reach it! Hurry! Marco. Marco. ¡Marco! Shouts! Shouts . . . barks . . . Vicente . . . Hurry! Hurry! So close! Hot breath on his neck . . . smell of wet dog . . . ¡Marco! ¡Vicente! Brother . . . Help! Sharp teeth snapped at his heels . . . pain . . . heavy paws on his back . . . falling, falling . . . a rifle poking his head.
They searched him for discharge papers and his bango, but they only found shards of coconut. Raulito said he was Vicente Vega, and he gave them the name of Vicente’s plantation in Hilo. They looked confused. Their questions were in English.
The guard clanged the door shut, leaving Raulito in a crowded cell. Men slept, talked, urinated in a galvanized metal pail. It was more or less like the other jail.
A big man, negro like Raulito, greeted him en español.
“Vicente Vega de Utuado, a la orden,” Raulito said.
“Abraham Báez de Guánica, a la orden,” he said. “Where did you come from?”
“The Big Island of Hawaii,” Raulito said.
“You swim here?” Abraham said. “You a shark?”
“Something like that,” Raulito said.
Abraham laughed. “Tiburón. That’s what I’m going to call you.”
It was then that Raulito thought of going to Marco first; together they could find their way to Vicente.
“Everyone, meet Tiburón,” Abraham said. “Let me present our fellow countrymen.”
Miguel Romero was a skeleton with a lazy eye. Nobody believed that fifteen-year-old Chico Álvarez wasn’t full grown. Luis Compañero swayed as if he were about to fall, and when Raulito looked down at his tiny feet, he understood why.
“What kind of place is this?” Raulito sat on the filthy floor. “Some kind of stone mountain?”
“It’s a fortress, stronger than El Morro in San Juan that the Spaniards built,” Miguel said. “It’s Oahu Prison.”
“I’ve never seen El Morro,” Raulito said.
“And you never will,” Luis said.
“Welcome to the Reef, Tiburón,” Miguel said.
“ ‘Reef’ is American for infierno,” Luis said.
“I wouldn’t wish this place even on los españoles,” Abraham said.
“I would wish it on the Spaniards,” Miguel said.
“I would wish it on the Americans,” Luis said.
“Sí, los americanos,” Abraham said.
“I worked on a chain gang before.” Raulito leaned back against the wall; it was sticky with something he hoped wasn’t blood.
“You’re going to look back on that time like you was in heaven,” Luis said.
Chico cried out.
“Tranquilo, muchacho.” Abraham patted Chico’s shoulder.
“There are four different kinds of prisoners in the Reef.” Luis held up four fingers from a hand that was missing its thumb. “First kind—only the very lucky are this kind and they are always haoles—is in charge of the storeroom and the hospital and the cooks. These white men eat all the food they want and have real sugar in their coffee.”
“Next kind takes care of the stables and horses, they eat second-class food and drink real coffee with real sugar, too,” Miguel said.
“Gardeners, shoemakers, tailors, men like that, are the third kind,” Abraham said. “Then there are the work gangs—the Makíkí and the Kamoilllli and the Normal School and the Waikiki gangs. These kinds don’t eat so well and they don’t get sugar with their coffee.”
“What kind are the Puerto Ricans?” Raulito held his breath for the answer.
“We’re the fucked kind,” Luis said.
“No sugar for the Puerto Ricans,” Miguel said.
“I can live without sugar,” Raulito said, “but I wish I didn’t have to.”
“You won’t get any wishes granted here,” Abraham said.
“Judge Wilcox sends us to Captain Henry,” Miguel said. “Captain Henry sends us to the Hot Box.”