Free Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett

“Thank you. That’s consent. Please step outside the vehicle.”
    Godo watched as they tossed the car, thinking: sly motherfucker. They found the pot but nothing else worth bagging and tagging, no open containers, no crank, no weapons. Half an hour later the dogs cornered Happy out among the sloughs on theriver’s far side, hiding in a patch of oleander. He and Godo were taken to lockup in separate cars. I’ll never see him again, Godo realized. The weed was a California misdemeanor, no more than a fine for him, his bigger problem would be public intoxication and even that was just another minor beef—a lecture from the bench, community service, counseling. But for Happy, the pot was an aggravated felony. No matter what any lawyer tried to do, no matter what Godo said under penalty of perjury—the pot was his, no one else’s, he’d paid for it, hidden it under the seat—none of it mattered. Happy wasn’t a citizen. His case was heard in immigration court and he drew a hanging judge. Not only did he get deported; he was barred from reentry for the rest of his life. Exile, for an ounce bag of Godo’s bud.
    It took only one time, looking into Tío Faustino’s eyes, for Godo to realize there was no other option. He had to go away, someplace strange and terrible. If he came back, he had to come back changed. And so he headed to the small featureless office downtown, where the man in the olive-green pants, the khaki shirt and tie, the famous high-and-tight buzz cut, sat behind his simple desk, Stars and Stripes on one side, Marine Corps colors on the other.
    “I just got popped on a weed charge,” Godo said. “That gonna be a problem?”

THE DULL CHIME SOUNDED BEYOND THE THICK DOOR. ROQUE cupped his hands, a gust of breath, hoping for warmth. A ten count, longer, then she appeared, dressed in paint-stained sweats, wiping her clay-muddied hands with a towel. Her eyes looked scalded.
    “You’re working,” he said, remembering the debris from last night.
    She forced him to endure an unnerving silence.
    “I thought I’d check in on you. Make sure you’re okay.”
    “I’m fine.” Her voice barely a whisper.
    Something in her reticence suggested shame. Given his own, Roque found this encouraging. “I was hoping we could talk. I hated leaving this morning, the way things stood.”
    Her eyes seemed focused on a spot several feet beyond him. “And how,” she said, “would you say things stood?”
    A sudden wind sent a shudder through the chinaberry tree, rattling loose a few pale leaves. “Can I come in?”
    Her eyes blinked slowly, just once, like a cat’s. She stepped back and he followed her to the kitchen, grateful for the warmth.
    She poured them both tea in the breakfast nook. A wooden statuette of a bodhisattva named Jizo—typically portrayed as a child monk, she’d once explained, guardian of women and travelers, enemy of fear, champion of optimism—rested on a teak-wood platform at the center of the table. Steam frosted the windows looking out on her terraced backyard. In the sink, adrip from the faucet made a soft drumbeat against the blade of a carving knife perched across a bowl.
    “Something strange has come up,” he said. “I kinda wanted someone to talk to.”
    She sat with her elbows propped on the tabletop, cup lifted, as though to hide behind it. “I thought you wanted to discuss what happened between us.”
    “I do. Yes. I’m just saying …” The thumping drip from the sink unnerved him. “Last night, why couldn’t you stop crying?”
    She regarded him with sad disbelief, then chuckled. “What a treat it would have been to get asked that at the time.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I gathered that. Or I wouldn’t have let you in.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “What will it take to get you to pay attention to what I’m feeling, Roque?”
    “I thought I did pay attention.”
    A rueful snort. “We had sex.”
    He felt his stomach pitch. The woody scent of the