Free Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement Page B

Every day the lion and tiger excrement was picked up and wrapped into drug shipments bound for the United States. This practice kept the drug-sniffing border dogs away from the shipments.
    Paula’s job on the ranch was to sleep with McClane every now and again and to help pack the lion and tiger excrement around the drugs or rub a small film of the excrement on the outside of plastic packages.
    Someone told me they were fed human meat, Paula said.
    The sky began to darken as we sat on the log holding hands. In the dusk, small clouds of mosquitoes began to surround us, but since Paula continued to talk I sat there and let them bite. She didn’t seem to notice the feeling of insects crawling or biting her skin.
    I don’t need to tell you that along the way I was a plastic water bottle, right? Paula said. I was something you pick up and take a swig of.
    I shook my head. No, no.
    Those guys who stole me were from Matameros. They took me north to that party. It was McClane’s daughter’s birthday party. She was fifteen.
    A whole circus had been rented for the party. Several large tents had been set up in a field to one side of the ranch house. A man walked around giving away clouds of pink cotton candy on long wood sticks. There was a band and a large dance floor.
    Paula was taken to one of the tents that had been placed very far away from the party. She could hardly hear the band play. Inside this tent there were a few men and over thirty women. Rows of plastic chairs were set up at one side of the tent. In the middle of the open space there was a table with Cokes, beers, plastic glasses, and paper plates piled high with peanuts covered in red chili powder. The women in the tent had been stolen. The drugtraffickers, who’d killed Paula’s mother’s dogs and had stolen her wrapped naked in a white towel, were now going to sell her.
    McClane was in the tent. He looked at the women and asked them to smile. He wanted to see their teeth. But he didn’t look into Paula’s mouth.
    McClane picked Paula. He picked the most beautiful girl in Mexico. She should have been a legend. Her face should have covered magazines. Love songs should have been written to her.
    On the log beside me, Paula continued to look straight ahead as she spoke. When she seemed to grow tired she continued to tell her story only as a mix of impressions.
    You don’t need to know about the sun rising and setting, she said. You don’t need to know what I ate or where I slept. You need to know that McClane had over two hundred pairs of boots. They were made from every kind of animal and reptile that was in Noah’s Ark. He had a pair made from donkey penises. One pair he liked to wear on Sundays. These were a pale yellow and everyone said were made of human flesh.
    Paula’s impressions tumbled out of her as if they were a list she’d penciled down on a paper. She said that McClane’s daughter had over two hundred Barbie dolls. One doll had been dipped in gold and had real green emeralds for eyes. McClane had a box filled with feathers from the cocks he raised for cock fights. McClane had a scar across his belly as if he’d almost been cut in half by a magician. The sons all had their own toy cars. These were real cars, but miniatures, that even ran on gasoline. The ranch had a miniature gas station and a miniature OXXO store beside it.
    The women that Paula met in the tent, and saw at other times at parties, were Gloria, Aurora, Isabel, Esperanza, Lupe, Lola, Claudia, and Mercedes.
    Who are those women? I asked.
    Oh, girls like me, she said. And the daughter had a small house to play in with toilets that flushed.
    How much did you cost?
    Oh, I was a present.
    Why do you have those cigarette burns on your arm?
    Oh, but we all have them, Ladydi. She looked down at the inside of her arm, stretching it out before her as if she were showing me the page of a book.
    If you’ve been stolen, you burn the inside of your left arm with cigarettes.
    Why? I don’t