A Window to the Other Side

I adjusted the camera angle , 30 degrees, until it was centered on my face, hit the record button and stepped back. The lights on our balcony began to twinkle as the sun had set just far enough to activate them. I dipped, twirled and flipped on Phillip’s lap as jerky as possible, laughing as I completed the Dance like a Dinosaur TikTok challenge, and captured his stunned reaction.  Yes! This would get hundreds of hits for sure, I thought. I could finally build my media influence for my new energy drink.

I posted the video to Facebook and zonked out on the couch, it was nearly midnight by the time I had done enough takes to be somewhat pleased with the results.  I would check in on all of the likes and comments first thing the next morning.

A ping woke me up somewhere in the middle of the night. Then another, and another. I opened my eyes slowly, rubbed them and stared at the clock on my nightstand. Four a.m.. I glanced, eyes squinted, and saw a notification indicating my video had been shared over 500,000 times in 4 hours. I had over 413 new unread messages on messenger, and 782 friend requests. What the hell?

I sank into the computer chair, scooting in toward the screen to read some of the comments.

“ Gnarly, dance moves. They were so bad he had to come out of hiding just to watch.” Read one.

“Yeah, if you danced on me like that, I’d give away my identity too.” Paul Dean posted with a winky emoji.

“ I’d go to jail for you.” Bryan Steel posted.

What the hell were they talking about?

I re-watched the video, it was only Phillip and I. Who could they be talking about?

Then I saw it at two minutes and thirty seconds in. A man, in the apartment across from our townhome, was standing on his balcony, watching. His face had a slight shadow crossing over one brow and down to his ear from the setting sun. But his profile was clear enough. For nearly two seconds, before he skulked back inside and pulled the curtains.

It was Javier Esteban, the man who’s face had been plastered in the news cycle continuously for the last two weeks. “Wanted, for the brutal beating of an immigration official. He is armed and dangerous. Any information on his whereabout should be reported to the Dallas police as soon as possible” a gruff news anchor’s voice echoed in my head.

Holy shit.

There was a knock at the door. A cold sweat tingled down my spine. I shakily rose from my computer and peered through my peep hole. Oh, thank goodness, it wasn’t Javier here to kill me. I half-laughed, half- cried. It was two uniformed officials, a tall slender man, with a classic cop mustache, and a woman, with a taut bun and a serious look.

I inched the door open, and greeted them. “Ms. Williams?” Deputy Warren questioned.

“Yes, call me Nadia.”

 I gestured to two empty stools at our shoulder high bar, and they promptly took a seat.

“We have reason to believe, a video you posted last night, has revealed the whereabouts of a man who is wanted for assault in the third degree, of an officer on duty. He is armed and dangerous and we are going to devise a plan to take him out. We need your help. We’d like to use your apartment as a stakeout post, to gather some information on his patterns and track his movements until we can get an open opportunity” Deputy Colson explained, while twisting his mustache, periodically.

What could I say? “I’ll be glad to help.” I whispered.

“Also, we think its best if you stay inside, until this whole thing is over.” Deputy Warren suggested, laying a hand on my forearm gently. Her eyes showed an understanding of the dread I felt.

“We’ll be back once we have gathered all of the surveillance equipment from the van and patrolled the neighborhood to feel it out” added Deputy Colson.

I showered quickly when they left. Who knows the next time I would have this privacy again. Then, curiosity got the best of me.

 I walked slowly toward the French doors, covered with two white cotton curtains, and gently pulled back the corner of one.

I peered across the twenty foot wide gap that separated our balconies searching the windows for any sign of him.

Something caught my eye in the small square window, to the right of the balcony, identical to my bedroom window. A movement, through the blinds.

There was a short thin figure, I could just make out long black ponytail. That’s definitely not who I saw last night.  

Then a tiny silhouette bounced up from what I assumed was a bed, and raced in circles around the woman, pushing a small red train with his tiny fingers.

A wife and child? I asked myself, perplexed.

I jumped into my computer chair and opened the Chrome browser to google. I searched Javier and pulled up just shy of a thousand articles, starring a grainy photo of his angry face, as he hunched over a cop, with a pulled back fist. The scene had been caught on the officer’s dash cam.

I clicked and read until my eyes watered and my lower back ached and I had to stand and quickly stretch.

The first article I’d opened, mentioned that he had grown up, as a child of illegal immigrants here in Texas. Last year ICE had caught up to them and he was told he would be deported back to Mexico immediately.

The next one went into detail, describing that his wife, who was pregnant, was a legal citizen of the United States, and they had one child, three year old Jose’, who would also be deported, with his father.

The third, took my breath away. Javier and his son Jose’ had been apprehend at the border six months later when trying to cross back into the U.S. through the a passage along the border.

I sat again, engrossed with his story. He wasn’t some madman who set out viciously attacking cops with no regard for human life. He was a father. A husband. A man who had been displaced from the only place he had ever called home. Told, he didn’t belong.

My heart sank and I read the next headline “Three year old, among dozens of children who have died at Crystal City Internment Camp.” I read and reread Carla Gibson’s expose’ article outlining how Jose’ was documented to have asthma, but was denied medical treatment in the camp, to get an inhaler. He died from asthmatic complications that could have been easily treatable.”

The date of his death, was identical to that from the headline picture, showing his enraged father, beating an ICE officer, before he’d disappeared. 

I wiped the tears that silently fell. My heart shattered into a thousand pieces in my chest. I pushed out a long, deep, breath.

I had to help them, I needed to figure out how. What had Javier come back to do? What was his plan?

An hour had passed before Deputy Warren and Colson returned and began setting up their equipment for the stakeout in our spare bedroom.

I questioned them when came out to take a break, before another patrol.

“So, do you know if Javier is all alone over there? I thought I read somewhere that he had a wife.”

“Yeah, that sicko has a wife and a kid now, it’s a shame. But we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do” stated Deputy Colson, unsympathetically. “ He hurt one of us, so he’s got to pay.”

I just stared, stunned, but didn’t say anything else. That had solidified my intuition. They were out for blood. They were the real monsters.

I decided to do the only thing I could think of. I typed Janelle Esteban’s name in to  Facebook and hit the search button.

To my elation, three faces down, I found her profile.

I clicked the messenger icon and began to type ferociously.

“ Janelle, you don’t know me but I want to help your family. My video has exposed Javier’s whereabouts and the police are tracking him now. They are in my house surveilling him. They…want to take him out.”

I jammed the send button, before I changed my mind.

Thirty seconds passed. Then forty. Then fifty. Finally, three little dots popped up on the chat, showing that Janelle was responding.

“How do I know you’re not the police?”

“ Please, I have read all of the articles, I know about Jose’ I am so sorry. Look at my video.” I sent her the link. “That’s me, I promise.”

“ They will kill him. They’ve already killed my baby. They just won’t stop. All we want to do is leave as a family. But I couldn’t do it alone. Javier came back to get us. He knew no one would help us, after what he did.”

“ I will.” As I typed the words, they restored my heart, and flooded me with warmness. I would help them. “ I will contact you soon.”

For the next few hours I tracked the deputies’ scheduled patrols, and snack breaks. Through the night and next day I documented shift changes with another pair of deputies.

I developed a clear depiction of their routes, schedules and habits.  I kept Janelle updated with the steady stream of information as I gathered it.

By noon I knew the window was slowly closing. We’d have to leave the next night, at 1 a.m, during their shift change.

We would have exactly 10 minutes to convene, and get to my car undetected, while Deputy Colson and Warren briefed the other two and shot the breeze a few minutes, before heading out.

“ We have to leave at exactly 1 a.m. meet me in the parking lot closest to the dumpster. I’ll be in a gold Toyota.”

“See you soon” Janelle replied. “Nadia, thank you.”

I paced anxiously, all afternoon. Thankfully, Warren and Colson stayed holed up in the room so I wouldn’t give myself away.

At 11 p.m. I passed the spare bedroom slowly, pretending to use the restroom before going to sleep for the night. Then, stopped just shy of the door frame to listen in.

“ I don’t see much movement, I think we could take him out now. Let’s call in the breach.” I heard Colson urge.

“But his wife and kid are in the bed…” Warren pleaded.

“We’re not going to have another opportunity, Em” he stated coldly.

“Give it another few minutes, to see if she can settle the baby, then call it in.”

I padded back to my room, as quickly and quietly as I could. I fumbled to pull my phone out of my hoodie’s front pocket.

“GO NOW! “ I typed frantically. “They’re coming.”

I bolted out of the room, mumbling about taking Jasper out to pee, “he had another puppy accident!” I need to grab some more puppy pads!” I yelled in case they were wondering. I grabbed the keys off of the hook hanging next to the front door, and quickly stumbled out.

I flew down the two flights of stairs leading from my apartment and crossed the parking lot in four long strides. I shoved into the driver’s seat, my knees and legs trembling, and my hands gripped the steering and in an attempt to steady them.

I peered out of my windshield, holding my breath.

I exhaled as three dark shadows quickly dashed across from the cover of the building’s terrace.

Janelle folded into the back seat, shoving her backpack on the floor in front of the bench. She bundled the toddler on her lap and buckled her seat belt before leaning on to the bench and covering herself with a thick black wool blanket.  Javier clambered into the trunk and pulled a similar blanket over himself.

I floored it out of the parking lot. Thinking about how Colson would have notice the movement in their apartment but assumed they had finally gotten the baby to sleep and were moving him to his bed. Janelle headed toward the bathroom at her usual time. Luckily, the back of the house wasn’t visible from my apartment and they’d been able to climb down from the low window in the baby’s room.

Within forty minutes we had made it to the border that Javier described from the trunk, dictating which back roads, and turns to take.

The dark black night was like a cloak around us, the cold desert air tingled my fingertips. But the chill didn’t reach my bones, the warmness that had enveloped my being remained, as I watched the three figures grow smaller and smaller with each step, and the glow of the single head lamp start to fade.

They would be alright. They would make it. As a family.

I don’t know what would happen when I got back. But in this moment, it didn’t matter.