Eli stabbed Santos in the leg. With a knife. Like a fucking psychopath. When I went to help Santos he started stuttering. I don’t even know what I was thinking. It was loud and Santos was screaming and Eli was stuttering and I kicked Eli. Right in the groin. I shouldn’t have done it, but it did feel good. Actually standing up for someone, you know.
Eli left the room. I expected him to fight back, but he just left.
I tied an old shirt around Santos’s leg, real tight like they taught me the one time I went to scouts. I called 911 to get some help, but I remembered they’d ask for Santos’ ID at the hospital. So I called Mrs. Glass.
Not 5 minutes later Mrs. Glass was in our room helping me carry Santos to her car. She drove like I never saw anyone drive before. Well, anyone sober. Eli drove that fast once but it was after a few beers.
We pulled into an old shopping mall parking lot. There was a cell phone store and a copy center, so I started shouting. “Where the hell are we taking him?” That kind of thing.
Mrs. Glass pointed at a little brown building by the road. It was a vet’s office. “It’s not great but it’s as good as the hospital where he’s from.”
Mrs. Glass knocked on the back door that read “Cargo Only”. The vet wearing a lab coat opened the door and nodded, and we carried Santos in and laid him on a cot in the corner. There were a few bloodstained sheets but it was mostly clean I guess.
“One of y’all has to stay with him while I fix him up.” He started cutting around the knife with a pair of scissors off his desk.
I started to feel pretty dizzy. “Out,” Mrs. Glass said, pointing at the door. I sat in her car and tried to ignore the sound of Santos screaming. I could hear him clear out in the car.
A couple of hours passed, and the door swung open. Mrs. Glass told me to come help, and we carried Santos back to the car. He had stopped screaming but he was still crying pretty good.
Mrs. Glass slipped some cash to the vet and we drove off like nothing happened. “Eli never finds out,” she said, looking me dead in the eyes while she drove.
“About what?” I asked, cracking a smile. I guess even when stuff like this happens I can still joke. She slapped the back of my head.
After a while of driving, I asked why she did this. “You learn nothing at church, boy?” She always called me “boy” when I said something wrong.
“Guess not.”
“We’re from different places. He’s a Jew. And I guess I’m a damn Samaritan. Jesus helped out anyone and so do I. We’re all Jesus’s kids, you know.”
I nodded.
“That father of yours never taught you that, did he?”
“Eli?” I laughed.
“Don’t let all this bullshit turn you into him, you hear?”
I nodded again. The idea of turning into Eli terrified me.
When we got Santos home, Eli was asleep. I figured I’m not strong enough to get Santos up and down all night, so I called Jacob. His mom answered and tried to ask how I was doing. I just said it was an emergency and can Jacob come over for the night.
She sounded like she didn’t like the idea. “He’ll be with you the whole time, right?”
“Of course.” I wonder if she was more nervous about Santos or Eli.
Santos insisted he wouldn’t take my bed, even though he was still bleeding pretty bad. But that’s where Jacob and I put him, so he didn’t have another option. Besides, it would’ve been way more work picking him up from the floor rather than a bed if he had to get up.
He insisted we could all fit on the bed, so we did. All wrapped in our own blankets of course. “Just like home,” he said.
I told him to wake us up if he needed anything. He didn’t though, cause when my alarm went off for him to take antibiotics and pain pills, he looked really uncomfortable. We finally got him to admit he needed to use the restroom, and we helped him stand up enough to get to a toilet.
We couldn’t get to sleep when we got back, so Jacob asked Santos, “It true you were in a gang?”
Santos looked embarrassed and nodded. Jacob started beaming like he met a damn superhero, but it seemed to put Santos at ease a little.
“Got any good stories?”
Santos looked really hesitant.
“Ever kill anyone?”
Still embarrassed, Santos nodded. Jacob insisted for a few minutes, so Santos told us the story. About how someone from the other gang moved into their zone and wouldn’t pay for protection. How they asked him to leave but he wouldn’t. So they sent Santos.
I guess they teach them how to kill someone and make it look like an accident. Sometimes they’ll just shoot someone right there in the street, but they also can make it look like an accident. I guess he spiked the guy’s booze and made it look like he just had too much to drink.
He said that was when he started trying to leave home. Said it got to be too much for him. I guess he wanted to go to Mexico. I guess it’s a better place to go. But he knew a guy who was coming to the US so he came here with the guy instead.