“We call it the Sweat Box,” Luis said.
“Sweat Box, Hot Box, infierno,” Miguel said.
“The Hot Box? I don’t understand,” Raulito said.
“You will,” Abraham said.
“Is Captain Henry the governor?”
“The grand jailer,” Abraham said.
“We call him Satan,” Luis said.
“Because he likes to send Puerto Ricans to hell,” Miguel said.
“Judge Wilcox hates Puerto Ricans more than murderers,” Luis said.
“More than negros and Chinamen?” Raulito thought there was no one more hated than negros and Chinamen.
“More than negros and Chinamen,” Abraham said. “Not even God can save you and me.”
Raulito knew that nothing could be worse in Hawaii than to be un negro puertorriqueño.
In his office at the Reef, Judge Wilcox liked to say to High Sheriff Henry of Oahu, “Give me a Porto Rican and I’ll make that boy sorry he ever been born.”
Raulito was sentenced to three months’ hard labor.
As Raulito was escorted out, High Sheriff Henry poured the judge a glass of his favorite pineapple juice concocted from the sweetest pineapples, sent to him specially by his pal Dole, the owner of the biggest pineapple plantation in all of Hawaii.
The Puerto Ricans squatted in the prison courtyard. They ate bread and drank foul-smelling liquid that was supposed to be black coffee. The guards prodded the prisoners with their rifles, forcing them down a dirt road. Sunlight streaked through the dark sky; soon it would be dawn. The wind sprayed flecks of rock on their skin and clothes. The perfume of this terrible place, this Oahu, took Raulito back to Puerto Rico, where, in the early morning fog of Cerro Morales, he listened as the tiny coquís croaked their last refrains. He’d never hear coquís again. Raulito wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. It was ridiculous to cry over frogs.
“Move it!” A guard’s rifle jabbed Raulito’s ribs.
The blast was like dynamite. Though they were still some distance away, they felt the earth shake. It reminded Raulito of the small earthquake after Hurricane San Ciriaco. Raulito tried not to piss on himself. When the wind blew, bits of stone fell through the foliage of the trees. When they reached the quarry, they saw a mountain broken open, revealing a world of stone the color of bones. The noise was like that of a small avalanche. They ducked the flying rocks.
“The Hot Box.” Abraham pointed.
Smoke escaped from the monster’s gaping mouth. A slab of stone the size of a train caboose dangled from its iron teeth.
The guards fed the Puerto Ricans into the monster, one by one. Sparks singed their hair, burning pinholes on their skin. The monster’s jaws crushed slabs of stone, swallowing the rocks before spitting them down the chute. Inside the belly of the stone crusher, Raulito and the other men stuck out their bare hands to catch the hot rocks and toss them aside. Raulito screamed, but no one could hear him over the din, not even himself.
His hands stank like charred meat.
“You survived,” Abraham said.
“Bet you wish you hadn’t.” Miguel’s hands hung from his wrists like trowels.
Someone placed a tin bowl of slop in Raulito’s hands. The bowl fell. The prisoner cook yelled at Raulito.
Raulito stared down at the unfamiliar things that dangled at his sides.
Abraham picked up the bowl and the prisoner cook spooned in some more slop.
“Don’t try to guess what it is,” Chico said. “It’s better not to know.”
“You! Porto Rican!” The guard pointed his rifle at Raulito. “Eat!”
“You’re no good to them dead.” Luis shoved brown mush into his mouth. “They’ll make you eat even if you don’t want to.”
Raulito scooped up some slop with the thing that was once his hand.
Raulito slept on the floor with his hands on his chest like the dearly departed; he was dreaming.
The guards clanged their iron rods against the machine. Rocks tumbled down the chute faster than they could catch them.
“Stop the machine!”
“Too many rocks!”
“Stop the machine!”
”¡Ayuda! Help!”
The stones hailed down on the Puerto Ricans; they couldn’t move, the stones trapped them up to the waist and still they didn’t stop. The Puerto Ricans stretched out their arms toward the Hot Box opening, where they could see the guard’s uniformed legs.
“Vicente! Marco! Save me!” Raulito shouted.
“Shut up, you bastard! Shut up!” Someone shook him.
Raulito opened his eyes.
“Sleep is the only time I can forget this hellhole, so shut the fuck up.” Miguel’s huge hand gripped Raulito’s shoulder.
Raulito closed his eyes.
Marco, wait for me.
On Sundays, the prisoners didn’t work the stone quarry because it was the Sabbath and the missionaries didn’t think it godly. Instead, Raulito and his fellow portorros attended a religious service in the prison yard. He gave thanks for religion, because it allowed him to get out of his prison cell and sit in the sun. He knew nothing about religion; his mother had never spoken about God, only about los espíritus and dead relatives. He had never gone to church or opened a Bible. He knew the fog of Cerro Morales that crept in during the night, and the sun that warmed the mountain after the fog had left for the day. He knew the birds that twirled in the sky above the creatures that made la tierra their home. Raulito knew his mother’s rare smiles and the sweetness of his brother’s love, a sweetness he savored like the taste of sugar in his coffee. He knew that he hoped more than anything to make it out alive so one day he would see Marco again. Was that God? If so, his heart ached for God, ached like a hot stone buried inside him.
“These white people want to save our souls,” Abraham said.
“What’s a soul?”
“Your mother or father never talked to you about your alma?”
“I never really had a father,” Raulito said. “Is it important?”
“Only as long as they keep talking,” Abraham said.
The prisoners set up wooden benches around a massive banyan tree; its blooms perfumed the yard where six days a week, rain or shine, they sat on the cold, wet ground and ate their wind-dusted meals. During the Sunday service, the sun shone on the prison yard as if it were the plaza of Any Town, Puerto Rico. Men in black suits and ladies in hats and long gowns sat opposite the prisoners. Armed guards watched from sentry towers. The missionary waved a black book and talked on and on. Raulito didn’t understand a single word, but he hoped the man in black talked all day long.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
HEAVEN
The butterfly landed on her open palm and she made a house for it with her cupped hands. It was gold with iridescent blue stripes; the flutter of its wings tickled. She brought her hands to her lips and whispered the words she wished she could say to her little girl. I hope what they say about heaven is true and that you are in a happy place with your brother. I hope that you know Sonia and that she can be a mother to you both. I love you. I miss you.
Valentina opened her hands and set the butterfly free. She watched it fly away up in the sky until the yellow disappeared into the blue.