The List

Manuel Salazar, better known as just plain Manny was a riding in a Yellow Cab through the streets of New York City. He was on his way to LaGuardia Air Port. A few hours after takeoff, he would be returning to Managua, the place of his birth.

All Manny can remember is that they took his mother by force in the middle of the night, and he has not seen her since. Buried deep in his memory is her voice crying out to him as they led her away, “Hijo mío, quédate allí y espérame. (My son, stay there and wait for me). He did not know at the time, these would be the last words he’d ever hear her say to him.

The days went by and she had not return. His Tia Gloria, his mother’s older sister brought him to the airport at Managua. Together they came to a fledgling Nicaraguan community in New York City in 1982. Most of his memory centered around the his place in the Big Apple.

Living in his tia’s house, a small two-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan, Manny rebelled at his tia’s strict household rules. He also rebelled at his teachers who did their best to teach him how to be a productive American citizen. His best friend, another refugee from Nicaragua, Raul de la Cruz got mixed up in illegal drug transactions and were arrested as juveniles. In their attempt to flee from the authorities, Raul was shot in the back. As the police surrounded Manny, he was holding his friend as he died in Manny’s arms. Tears were streaming down Manny’s face as they handcuffed him.

After a short stint in a juvenile rehab center, Manny out on the streets with no place to go. Gloria did not want him in her home where she was raising three children of her own. She did not trust him, and he had no wish to go back.

With no place to go, he ended up at the shelter where he would not be exposed to the cold New York winter. He met Brother Dante who was a grifter who wanted to teach Manny the ropes. Manny turned out to be an apt pupil in the art of grifting.

“Where you from, bro?” Dante asked him as the snow fell on them.

“I was born in Nicaragua.” He answered.

“Wow. Whacha doin’ here?”

“My mama was a school teacher.” He put his ice-cold hands in his pockets and stomped his feet on the sidewalk. “One night the Sandinistas came in and took her away. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Oh that’s a shame.” Dante shook his head as he took out a cigarette from his coat pocket. “My mother, she took off with some motorcycle dude when I was five. My old man did what he could, but he was so strung out all the time, I never talked much to him. The cops came and told they found him in an alley. He was already dead from of an overdose of meth.”

“Looks like life handed a shit sandwich for sure.” Manny tilted his head back and laughed.

Working with Dante put some money in Manny’s pocket, but when standing next to Dante who always dressed in grubby clothes wearing a stained hoodie over his pork pie hat. Dealing a deck of marked cards with his fingerless gloves, Dante was nothing short of a master with the sleight of hand. Manny would take the customer’s money as Dante with his ten o’clock shadow would deal the cards.

“Watch me.” One customer bragged, “I know how this all works.”

The young man standing next to him was obviously his son whom he wanted to teach about the sidewalk con artists. His teaching skills left him, however along with about a hundred dollars from his wallet

“You stick with me; kid and I’ll teach you the tricks of the trade.” He chuckled as he elbowed me as I put away another sucker’s money.

Walking back to the shelter for a warm meal and cot to sleep on, I passed a small shop. In the window was a ledger. Normally Manny was not interested in such memorabilia, but what caught his interest was the cover of the book, scrawled out in a Sharpie were words written in Spanish. Since coming to the Big Apple over ten years ago with his aunt, Manny spoke mainly in English since speaking in Spanish was looked down upon.

Ms. Ortega, his ESL (English is a Second Language) took a shine to him when he told her that his mother had disappeared while living in Managua. She gave him extra lessons. Because he was an intelligent student, Manny was able to master English by the time he got to high School. Even his aunt was not as adept in English, so he would do all the speaking whenever she went shopping. While in rehab, Manny learned the language of the streets.

“Hey, you interested?” The clerk asked him as he paged through the book.

“What is this?” He turned his head. She was pretty in a humble way. Quick to smile, she walked out from behind the counter.

“I don’t know to tell you the truth.” She continued to smile. He liked her smile, because most people didn’t. They did not trust him with his caramel colored skin.

“It looks like a list of names.” He shrugged.

“I don’t read Spanish.” She shook her head.

“This just a list of names.” He tilted his head and smiled, because he was drawn to her as she ran his hand through her shoulder-length brown hair.

“It was part of an estate sale.” She shook her head.

“Estate sale?” He said as a puzzled expression crossed his face.

“When someone dies, my boss and his son go and buy the stuff a dead person left behind.” She said as her eyes looked into his.

“So, this came from a dead guy?”

She just nodded. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf where he had gotten it.

“Sorry.” She had no idea what she was apologizing for, but he seemed disturbed by her explanation.

“It’s okay.” Manny nodded.

“There are a lot of things in here that used to belong to someone who is no longer alive. It’s the nature of the business. My boss, Mr. Ross, always tells me when he brings in a couple of boxes filled with stuff.”

“Uh, I see.” Manny smiled. He turned his head back to the merchandise on the shelf. In the corner of the ledger he had leafed through, was written in pencil “Property of Lisa Guzman, Managua, Nicaragua.” He reached out and snatched the ledger back into his hands, “How much?”

“The price tag is right there.” She pointed as her arm crossed under his nose. She put her finger on the tag, “Looks like it’s a dollar.”

“Is that all?” He shrugged and smiled at her.

“Appears to be so.” She returned his smile.

“Here.” He took a wadded up dollar out of his jeans pocket and handed it her to her.

“Alright.” She giggled walking back to the cash register on the counter, “Will there be anything else…um…”

“Manny.” He blurted out.

“Manny.” She affirmed what he told her.

“Si.” His eyes held her gaze for a moment.

“You’re all set.” She swallowed as his hand accidentally brushed over hers.

What Manny would discover when he got to the shelter, Dante was already eating dinner. He looked up and saw Manny, “Hey kid, where have you been?”

“Out and about.” He sat next to his friend.

“Get some grub.” Dante pointed toward the serving line that was thinning out. “It’s actually has flavor.”

“Alright.” He put the ledge down where he intended to sit once he got his supper. When he walked to the end of the serving line, Dante was curious at what Manny had left behind. He opened the ledger before wiping his mouth with his napkin.

When Manny walked back to the table with his dinner on a tray, his heart skipped a beat when he saw Dante leafing through the pagers.

“Where the heck did you get this?” Dante looked up at Manny before he sat down with his tray.

“Some antique shop on the way here.” He shook his head before grabbing his fork and burying it into his dinner.

“It’s a list.” Dante nodded.

“Can you read Spanish?” Manny asked as he put a fork full of shepherd’s pie into his mouth.

“Un poco.” He held up two fingers close together.

“I didn’t know you knew my native language.” Manny smiled.

“When I say un poco, I mean it.” He flipped another page of the ledger.

“What do you think this is?” He asked.

“What do you think it is?” He shrugged.

“It’s a list of names.” Manny put another forkful into his mouth.

“Yeah and?” Dante shook his head.

“Are you finished, sir?” Asked one of the shelter kitchen aides.

“Yeah, sure.” Dante handed the aide his tray.

“Thank you, sir.” He smiled as he walked to the dish washing window.

“From what I can gather, this is a list of people who were executed.” Dante glanced at Manny. “Right here.”

Dante put his index finger on some writing that was hard to read due to the yellowing of the pages. Manny read it and shook his head.

“I can barely make this out.” He sighed.

“This word is unmistakable.” He put his finger on the word “Ejecucion.”

“It is execution…in Spanish.” Manny swallowed hard.

“Yeah, that word I know.” Dante glanced over at Manny again. “The list are the names of the people who were executed by the Sandinistas back in the early 1980s.”

“My mama disappeared in 1982.” Manny bowed his head.

“Her name might be on this list.” Dante put his head on fist.

“I don’t wanna look.” Manny shook his head emphatically.

“Under the corrupt regime of Nicaragua at the time, those who opposed Daniel Ortega disappeared without a trace.” Dante exhaled.

“How come you know this?” Manny pushed his tray away.

“Because I have a dark past.” He laughed, “I worked for a covert unit that made sure the Sandinistas were supplied with what they needed.” Dante looked in all directions. “I used to fly some of the supplies into secret landing places. We’d unload the stuff, close the bay doors and take off. Gone in the blink of an eye. I still have to look over my shoulder to see if anyone is tailing me.”

“So, you knew?”

“Yes kid, I was the enemy.” Dante’s smile was unnerving to say the least. “What was her name?”

“Who?” Manny shrugged.

“You mother. What was her name?” Dante looked into Manny’s eyes, but unlike the clerk at the shop where he bought the ledger, Dante’s eyes went straight to Manny’s soul. Dante asked the shift supervisor, Mr. Landeau if they could sit in the lunchroom while they went through the ledger.

“Alright.” He waved his hand at them as if they were cockroaches he was trying to get rid of. “Lights out at nine.”

“Got it.” Dante nodded as they sat in the corner of the large room with the ledger.

“I don’t know if I wanna look.” Manny said as Dante sat next to him as he opened the ledger. “It really gives me the creeps.”

“I get it, kid, but do you wanna know what really happened to her?” He raised his eyebrow.

Did he really want to know? Manny had lived with this vision of his mother as some kind of angel, but angels are spirits of people who have died. Dante turned the aging pages of the ledger. Each page made a crinkle sound.

“There isn’t any kind of order to this.” Dante shook his head and then he saw it, “The entire list is in chronical order.”

“Huh?”

“It’s kept by date of the execution.” He pointed to the column label “date.”

“Yeah.” Manny looked away.

“C’mon kid, if it were my mother, I’d wanna know.” Dante licked his finger as he turned another page.

With each page he turned, he came closer and closer to 1982 when the soldiers took him mother. His father was already in the military fighting against the Sandinistas. His mother would cry herself to sleep, because she had received no news about his whereabouts and she was told that it was a bad omen. According to the Sandinistas, teachers were a threat to the government that was being supported by the United States. Manny had learned all of this in some of the history classes he attended.

“How are you today, Manuel?” Ms. Ortega would ask when he walked into her small classroom for ESL instruction.

“The students are teasing me because of my accent.” He moped.

“Don’t listen to them.” She shook her head, “You are a very smart student, Manuel.”

“I don’t feel very smart.” He shook his head.

“How many of these classmates know how to speak two languages?” She tilted her head.

“None.”

“So, you are twice as smart as they are.” She chuckled.

He would always smile when she said that, because she was right. He was twice as smart as most of them.

“Her name was Louisa.” Manny finally told Dante.

“Pretty name.” He smiled at Manny.

“She was pretty.” He affirmed.

“Do you have a picture of her?” He asked.

“I had one, but I left it at my Aunt Gloria’s house. She was my mother’s older sister.”

“Is she still alive?” Dante leaned his head in his open palm.

“Yes. But she does not want to see me after my drug arrest.” Manny bowed his head.

“I think we should take a bus ride to see her.” Dante laughed.

“Oh, she will not like that.”

“We won’t give her a choice, eh?”

Five minutes later, Dante put his finger on an entry Louisa Andre Salazar. Her maiden name was Andre, and the date was marked as September 5, 1982. Manny took the ledger from Dante without a single word.

He sat there reading her name over and over hoping it would disappear from the page.

“Enemy of the people” was written in the column “Motovio de Ejecucion (reason for execution)

Tears rolled down his reddened cheeks and smeared some of the writing in the ledger.

“I am so sorry.” Dante patted him on the back.

“I now know the truth.” He said in a hoarse whisper.

“Sometimes the truth is not what we wish for.” Dante bowed his head.

“Are you two finished yet?” Mr. Landeau asked.

“Give us a few minutes.” Dante requested.

“It’s all ya got.” He grumbled as he walked away.

“I’ll be alright.” Manny sniffed and wiped away another tear before it fell on to the page. “I want to visit my tia.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Dante asked.

“No, that won’t be necessary.” He shook his head, “She’s afraid of strangers.”

“And I’m as strange as they get.” He chuckled.

“Manuel.” His aunt’s eyes went wide when she opened the door.

“I know I should’ve called, but I have something to show you.” He removed the ledge from his old school backpack.

Tears filled Gloria’s eyes when he pointed to his mother’s name.

“Did you know?” Manny asked her.

“I always suspected, but things back then were kept as secrets.” She wiped the tear from her cheek.

“My father? Pedro?”

“He was captured and executed.” She closed her eyes. “They would have executed you if you stayed in Managua.”

“Thank you for saving my life.” He hugged his aunt.

“So, now what?” Gloria asked.

“I am going to go to Managua.” Manny told her.

“What for?” She asked astounded.

“I want to see it all for myself.” He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.

“Take care, mijo.” She hugged him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. She dug into her purse and gave him some money, “It’s not much, but it will help.”

“Thank you.” He swallowed hard. “I heard there is a monument for all of the victims. I want to put some flowers there for her.” He put the money in his jeans pocket.

Dante helped him pay for a two-way ticket to visit the city of his birth and pay homage to his mother.

As he sat in the plane, he bowed his head, “I promise that I will make you proud of me. I wanna be the son you always dreamed I’d be.”

He was grateful that someone had written her name on the list in the ledger.

The plane cabin shook as the engines pushed against the natural forces that held close to the ground.