Hector Dialectical Journal

The air was thick with the stink of sweat, piss and stale tobacco that clung to Hector's clothes. The taste of his last cigarette still lingered on his tongue, and he ached for another, but the driver had taken his whole pack.

“Can't have you smoking in the truck,” Joe said as he stuck one of Hector's prized cigarettes between his lips. “Might catch on fire.” Hector had bit the inside of his cheek. He couldn't afford to make Joe mad. Hector's five hundred dollars was in Joe's pocket, and Hector didn't trust him not to kick him off the truck and keep the money.

Hector had been loaded up into the back of a cargo truck with thirty men, huddled together in the dark, hoping that their trust in Joe hadn't been misplaced.

“Where you headed?” The truck had been silent for so
The inside of the truck was deafeningly quiet. It was a long time before Hector heard footsteps outside the door, so long that Hector wondered if they had been abandoned.

The door lifted open and blindingly white sunlight illuminated the cargo hold.

“Out!” Joe barked and began pulling men out of the truck and throwing them onto the dry sand. Some of the men staggered a few feet before steadying themselves, some rolled out of the truck and lay motionless on the ground. “Damn," Joe muttered under his breath as he nudged one unmoving man with his toe. He turned and found Hector watching him. “What are you looking at? Get the hell out of here before I shoot you and leave you here with him.”

Hector looked down at the face of the man at Joe's feet. A small smile was on the young man's lips, as if he had drifted to sleep dreaming of oranges.

Hector turned and joined the other men as they began a long shuffle through the desert on their way to jobs and families that waited for them. He turned and gave the young man one last look as Joe tossed one of Hector's prized cigarettes on the ground before going back to Mexico for another