The Miseducation of Riley Pranger

Chapter 3

Riley. Where are your vegetables, boy? He could practically hear his grandmother's voice in his ears.

He got up with a sigh and whipped himself up a quick salad before taking his seat and resuming his meal.

~*~

"It's already a done deal, brother. When I get my NTA I'm going to get deported."

Bodie stared at his friend and employee in surprise. "But aren't you one of the DREAMERS? I know the immigration laws are all messed up right now but they aren't deporting DREAMERS yet-"

Pete shook his head slowly. "I told you about how I got busted selling weed back when I was a kid. I don't fall under DACA's rules anymore. It's why I stopped reporting to ICE. I just…" Pete shook his head. "I f****d up my entire life while I was still a kid."

Pete knew that it wasn't just circumstances that had screwed him. He knew that the blame rested squarely on his shoulders. Because of his crime he was no longer under the protection of DACA and had basically gone into hiding.

He took a cigarette from a pack in his front pocket. His fingers were clean, an unusual sight for a mechanic. Bodie's fingers were even now black with grease and engine debris and it was barely eight am.

Pete lit up and inhaled, squinting at his friend through the ribbons of smoke. "I just wanted to let you know what's going down."

"Can't I write a letter or-?" Bodie tried but Pete was already shaking his head slowly.

"The only reason that I'm not in jail right now is because of Theresa and the baby-"

Bodie's heart skipped a beat. "Oh my God, what about Theresa and the baby?"

Pete again was already shaking his head in anticipation of the question. It occurred to Bodie that he had probably already told this story many times before.

"She'll be okay. She'll move in with her parents until we can think of something." He ran a hand through his straight dark hair even though it fell right back into his eyes.

Bodie felt his stomach cave in as it all began to sink in.

Pete was being deported.

Pete was going to leave behind his wife, his baby and his home.

There was nothing that Bodie could do. He felt stupid and useless. His muscles were big enough to fight and defend his friends and family. But how could he save Pete, Theresa and little Jace with only muscles?

He reached for the cigarette from his friend's hand. It had been years since he'd last allowed a cigarette to part his lips but Shaun would understand. Pete handed it over without a word and lit another for himself. Bodie turned to him slowly.

"What if you just take off? I can help you, Pete-"

Pete smiled and it was a true smile where the tension lines that had settled between his brow disappeared for the first time in days.

"Why the f**k do you think I'm on this mountain in the first place? If ICE can find me on Cobb Hill in Estill County Kentucky then they'll find me anywhere." The smile fell from his face. "There is no place to run. I have to go back to Mexico." He leaned against the counter, which was littered with greasy car parts and tools. Grimy work orders were jotted on scraps of paper along with disposable cups partially filled with old coffee. Pete knew that he was going to miss this place. He was going to miss the smell of a gummed up carburetor and the sight of oil that looked as thick as black tar. He was even going to miss towing a wrecked car that had taken a bend too fast and needed to be hauled of the side of a blind cliff—after midnight. And he was going to miss Bodie who had given him a chance without ever asking to see his papers like he was some runaway slave.

"How soon?" Bodie asked while staring out the opened set of garage doors into the rolling hills of the mountain.

"I don't know. I'm out on bail but I'll be getting a Notice to Appear letter to face the immigration judge. I don't expect to go home from there." Pete chuckled to himself and stared out into the beautiful mountain setting. He never thought that he would fall in love with this country-ass place filled with nothing but white faces. But then he'd met Bodie who was part Indian and then Bodie's wife Shaundea who was black and finally his wife Theresa who was as white as Wonder bread, and he stopped thinking about race. He had just settled down and began to live.

His parents had fled to the states from Guatemala along with their three children and despite what most people thought it had never been an easy life. When he was sixteen his mother had passed away from what was surely cancer. She never got it treated due to her fear of deportation. His Dad had died years before in a work accident at a factory where the undocumented were able to work without papers for less pay and in dangerous conditions. His father had been one of the many casualties of an industry that worked every drop of sweat out of you before discarding your used carcass.

His mother and older sister had been domestics and his brother had dropped out of school to work in the same factory that had killed his father. Selling weed had helped to make ends meet and nothing more. Unfortunately, he hadn't been any good at it and had gotten busted before making any real cash. When he hadn't been immediately deported he had vowed never to look at the stuff again. His mother had scraped together all the cash that she could and he had taken off, getting as far out of Texas as he could and had landed in the mountains of Kentucky to a place that he hadn't even known existed.

"How in the hell did they find you here?" When the young Hispanic man had approached him for a job, he was barely twenty, broke and hungry. He'd given him a chance, even allowing Pete to sleep in his office for a few weeks until he had enough to get a place of his own. He'd watched him quickly get on his feet. But when he had accepted the Social Security Card that the boy had given him, he'd wondered… Could it have been that? Even after seven years?

"Theresa is convinced that it has to do with the Prangers."

"The Prangers?" Bodie looked surprised.