Kyle – ch. 1

As with all good stories, this one starts with a child smuggling drugs. We’ll call him Kyle. It’s not a good name, but it was his.

We’ll start as he entered the country for the first time. The queue to the shuttle advanced. A smarter child would be scared, seeing as he was carrying a backpack filled to the brim with insulin. Kyle stood tall, blond, handsome, and smiling. This was not bravery. Kyle was too dumb to be brave. Heck, he was too dumb to insult. And if you told him that, he’d thank you.

Kyle had never crossed the border to a new country. He had no idea what to do, but did what everyone around him did. He waddled forward. Once at the front, he changed out of the standard travel underwear. He’d changed into it back in Brazil, when Matón was still with him.

Esun “Matón” Teria was the resident ‘fixer’ for the São Paolo cartel. Short, bald, and fit, Matón’s most notable features were the tattoos that covered him head to toe. Across his back were the phrases, “diabo du morte,” “amante da suegra,” and “ligue para minha mãe para divertirse,” which were all insulting, misspelled, and insultingly misspelled. ¹ Kyle technically outranked Matón, as mules are more useful than workhorses. But it did not make sense not to leave Kyle alone on his first international trip.

Still, Matón had left him. He’d taken the $125 offer to take the next shuttle. It would mean shirking his duties, but $125 could buy three or four airport cocktails and Matón had been too sober to pass up such a good deal.

“Acuerdate – espareme en Georgia,” Matón slurred, spilling his Vuelo de la Selva. ² Their plan was to meet in Macon, Georgia, which had become a major port of entry since Florida sank into the ocean following the universally lauded Actively Sink Florida into the Ocean Act of 2033.

He emphasized that he would kill Kyle if he didn’t wait for him when his own shuttle arrived. Kyle had smiled. Matón’s death threats were how he showed love. It would be more scary if he told you he loved you. He never would, of course, because of machismo.

Now, Kyle had to cross the immigration threshold by himself. He grit his teeth and stepped forward, but the result was disappointing. Automated face and DNA-identification waved him through with a soft, green light. The cartel had not made any special arrangements: American software worked by flagging people based on the darkness of their skin. As Kyle’s skin color matched that of the guards, he was waved through.

Kyle looked to see when the next shuttle from South America would arrive. Kyle sat patiently to wait two hours for it to arrive. When the shuttle arrived, Matón was not one of the passengers that exited. He wasn’t on the next one, either.

Kyle remained in place until nightfall when a security guard came by to ask him to leave. Kyle made awkward, yet intense eye contact, but remained silent. A long-standing rule from his childhood was to never tell the truth to police officers, child protective services, or other mandatory reporters.

“Listen, it’s obvious you’re smuggling drugs and sneaking into this country illegally, but it is five o’clock and I’m tired. Please leave.”

Kyle stared for a few seconds before collecting his belongings and exiting. He was now ready to explore the former Eastern States of America.

You might think that Matón would return at some point. But this is a history of our lives, not fiction. Neither Matón nor anybody else in the Salazar crime family would ever bother Kyle again. Kyle has fully exited the life of a drug mule with no repercussions nor consequences of any sort. 🙂

#

How Kyle survived the next six months is somewhat unclear to this day. He had millions of dollars of drugs, but no market and no understanding of the part of the world in which he was living. He didn’t even speak the language! Still, somehow he made his way from Georgia to Durham, North Carolina. He went from being a homeless, undocumented immigrant to the second most reliable barista in a small lemonade-based franchise: Lemon-Yum! A demotion, really. He also grew a few inches, which is frustrating because he was already pretty tall for his age. We’re pretty sure it’s the same Kyle in both cases, at least.

These unknowns are extremely unsatisfying from a storytelling perspective. But history can be deeply unsatisfying. Especially if your teacher isn’t any good.

Kyle would have shrugged off any questions about this gap in the record if anybody had ever asked about it. But we were very busy and, if we’re being honest, nobody cared. Americans, as a rule, didn’t ask about the past or other countries — it made us feel bad to know better things were possible.
Perhaps he blocked out the memories connecting these events due to some sort of trauma. Maybe he resorted to consuming the flesh of unattended children and became history’s greatest monster. As the closest thing to a historian left, it would be irresponsible to speculate. Perhaps he didn’t commit many crimes against humanity. That’s just as plausible. More plausible, even.

Daddy!

Right. Sorry. Let’s jump to when Kyle met another child his own age: “Well.” His full name was Maxwell Goody Weber. He had really good hair at the time. You should have seen it. Wavy, medium length. Oh, it was a wonder. Combed? Messy? All good. Also, really, really funny, but people didn’t appreciate him in his time. Or place.

Neither Well nor Kyle remember when they met. Well didn’t, anyway. You could ask Kyle, but he’s all the way over there. Still, at some point when they were both 16, Well spent most days after school at the lemonade shop.

Well had lots of spare time. At the time, the government rented out schools to troll farms after 1 p.m. The kids that weren’t good enough at trolling often found themselves unattended. So they would hang around town, doing drugs or fooling around. If they were really popular, they might drink lemonade alone and talk to the barista. Oh, and you should probably know that ‘lemonade shop’ was street slang at the time. It referred to a shop that sold all manner of citrus beverages.

“I want to go to school with you,” Kyle said one day.

“Why? Lemonade is so cool. And school is boring.” Kyle and Well were alone, except for two tittering young girls who sat in the corner. Well noticed them first, which he never forgot.

   “You say that, but you go every day. I don’t do anything every day, even things I really like: like eat or sleep. And you get to hang out with your friends all day. All my friends keep telling me about how much I could get for my organs or use me for free lemonade.” Kyle smiled, one hand on the tip jar. Well liked to play a game in which he would count how long he could avoid giving tips without Kyle realizing. So far, it had lasted their entire friendship.

Well didn’t want to comment about how Kyle thought he had other friends. A lot of people at school considered Well annoying. Only the school counselor and service workers seemed to genuinely find him funny. And the school counselor always found the wrong things funny, which didn’t help.
“But that sounds so fun! School is just a big, boring cylinder. We just have to upvote the President’s posts nonstop because we never know when the teacher is watching.” Schools in the Americas trained kids for the jobs of the future: being prisoners.

Kyle went over to the young pair in the corner stools and shamelessly flirted: he smiled as he handed over the bill, asking them to come back soon. Well felt his face flush.

Kyle returned, picking up the conversation as if he had not just dropped his best friend for a cute face or two, “but you get lunch and recess! Even when I hang out with my friends, I’m waiting on them.”
That reminded Well that his lemonade was empty. Well had a goal that day to not leave until he had peed twice. He had already, but the first one didn’t count because it was left over from an earlier store. He’d used the second trip to get a better glimpse of the girls sitting at the corner. Both seemed to be about his age – one had blonde, curly hair and the other was Asian. He wished he could speak to them, but his mind went blank when he considered the possibility. His pick-up lines were better in his mind, weeks or years later.

“Lunch and recess are overrated. They watch your every move then ask you why you ate, played, and hung out how you did. It’s barely better than home,” Well continued, when he returned.

“What’s wrong with your house?” Kyle said as he brought Well’s sixth lemonade and set it down behind the tip jar so that Well had to reach around it to get his sweet, sweet lemonade.

“Oh, the house is fine. It’s the parents I can’t stand. My dad is annoyed because I keep referring to him by his old army rank.”

“Private First Class?”

“Yeah, I just think it’s funny.”

“Heh, I guess it is. Kind of.” Kyle paused. “But you still sleep in a bed rather than a pile of old eWaste and dog fur.”

Well liked this game. He’d been playing it with Kyle since he’d known him. They took turns saying sad things and whomever won would get a free lemonade. Nobody needed to explain the rules, they both just knew.

“Did you get kicked out of that group home? That must be so cool! You get to be out on your own, like me!”

Kyle looked down and paused before he turned his face up, contorted into a bright smile. Behind him, the young femme pair exited and said goodbye. Kyle waved as Well sulked.

“Speaking of which, I finally saved enough to rent my own apartment. I’m looking at a really good spot. I have to do chores every week and donate blood every month, but it’s only 50 percent of my salary. It even has a bed!”

“I didn’t know you were looking for a place to live?!” Well was shocked. He’d been planning on living with his parents until he could inherit it. That a teen his own age not only could afford his own place made him feel like he’d fallen behind. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could move in together!”

“That could be fun!” Well agreed, thinking about how Kyle’s cleaning abilities might come in handy.
You’re probably thinking this will end in tragedy, but you’re wrong! Well had already planned to move into his parents’ pool house, so this was a wonderful opportunity. He managed to convince Kyle to pay for food and utilities in exchange for getting the larger, unfinished bedroom. Well would get a roommate, an audience, and some spending money! On his way home, Well remembered smiling. Finally, he would not only get to live an independent life as an adult, but he’d still have his mother nearby if he needed anything.

   And just like that, Kyle and Well lived together.