Bulletproof Vest

My father slips the heavy white vest over his undershirt and snaps the Velcro side straps in place. Then he throws on his cowboy shirt, buttons it up and tucks it into his jeans. He sucks in his gut and fastens his silver belt buckle: a horse’s head inside a horseshoe.

‘Can you tell I’m wearing a vest?’ he asks us as he turns to one side, then the other.

‘Sort of,’ we tell him, pointing to his waistline, to the belt buckle, which appears to be pressing on the bottom edge of the vest.

By the time he was released from the hospital, Thomas’s two brothers were already asking questions around town: Where did Jose live? How many kids did he have? How many sons? Daughters?

‘Maybe you should pull your shirt out a bit,’ we tell him.

He retucks his shirt, making it a bit looser, throws on a black leather waistcoat.

‘Now can you tell?’

‘Not really.’

He slips one of his guns into the back of his Wrangler’s, grabs his black cowboy hat and goes out the door: Metal, leather, bulletproof – indestructible.

In early December, he begins preparing for his annual trip to Mexico. He packs boxes with towels and bathroom rugs from the factory where my mother works. Buys linens, pots, pans and a blender for his mother, men’s shirts and a small television for his father. We go through our closets and throw anything we no longer wear into the growing pile in the corner of the dining room. He takes his guns from the closet and lays them out on the living-room floor. Wraps each one in several layers of tin foil, than swathes each with a towel; brand-new towels covered with yellow butterflies, purple flowers and pink flamingos. Finally, he wraps each contraption tightly with duct tape. They look like sloppily wrapped Christmas presents.

The night before he leaves, his two friends come over and help him load the car. They drive his maroon Cutlass on to two red metal ramps in the driveway, pop the hood, remove the spare from the back, split the doors open by pulling away the inside panel. Propped up on the ramps, the car looks like a giant metal bird with four wings, about to take flight. They load it up. Carlos, his Puerto Rican friend who is helping him drive down, shows up with a duffel bag and a big grin. He’s excited; he’s never been to Mexico. He also has no idea that – on paper – he’s the legal owner of the maroon Cutlass. They pull out of the driveway before the sun comes up.

‘Your father is never coming back,’ my mother tells us a few days after he leaves.

‘How do you know?’ we ask.

‘Because God showed me in a vision that He has taken him away for good,’ she says.

‘Plus he took all of his things.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘He didn’t leave a single thing, not in the closet or the dresser or anywhere. Nothing.’

After he leaves we begin noticing things, like the two men who park and sit in their black car across the street from our house in the morning. We go out the back door, hop the fence, cross the neighbours’ yard and catch the bus on a different street. At night we start hearing noises. When I hear something outside my window, I roll out of bed, then drag myself by the elbows into the living room where, close to the hardwood floor, I bump into one of my sisters. They heard a noise too. We crawl to the phone, reach up and pull it off its ledge and on to the floor, dial 911.

‘911, what is your emergency?’ the operator asks.

‘Someone is trying to break into our house,’ we whisper.

Soon we hear police cars whizzing on the back street, the front street, speeding all around the house with their lights off. We watch flashlights make their way from the kitchen windows to the living-room windows while we sit under the ledge, breathing into the receiver.

‘Ma’am? Hello, ma’am, you there?’ the operator asks.

‘Yes,’ we whisper.

‘It appears the coast is clear,’ she tells us. ‘There is an officer at your front door, please let him in.’

My mother wakes when she hears the knock at the door.

‘Que andan haciendo?’ she calls out from her bedroom, then comes into the living room in her white slip, bra straps hanging halfway down her arms. ‘You called the police again?’ she asks, yawning. ‘Hay, no, no, no. Next thing you know they’re going to want to charge us,’ she says.

‘Mom, it’s 911,’ we tell her as we go to the front door. ‘It’s free,’ we open the door and the officer comes in.

‘Where exactly did you hear the noise?’ he asks.

‘Outside that window,’ I tell him, pointing towards my bedroom.

‘What did it sound like?’ He takes a few steps towards my bedroom door. ‘Did it sound like someone was trying to open the window?’

‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘It was like a scratching noise.’

Other times there had been a shadow standing outside the living- room window, a gentle tapping at the back door, a strange noise on the front porch. He glances at my mother, then at us, then back at my mother.

‘Where’s Jose?’ he asks her.

‘In Mexico,’ we tell him.

‘When is he coming back?’

‘He’s not.’

‘Doesn’t he have a court date?’ he asks.

We shrug.

‘Can you guys park a police car in our driveway and leave it there?’ I ask, though we’ve made this request before, have told them about Thomas’s brothers, but since they haven’t threatened us directly, since we don’t even know their names, there’s nothing the police can do to protect us.

‘Maybe you should consider moving,’ he says.