“We’re going!”
Cry Macho“We’re going!” is the shouted declaration at the center of Mike Milo’s escape from the police and, later, of Rafo’s understanding of what that escape meant. Mike uses the words as a defiant performance while drawing the officers’ attention toward himself; Rafo hears in them a last, protective expression of their bond. The phrase’s force lies in the gap between its plural promise and the separation that follows: Mike drives north toward Texas, while Rafo turns south toward Janasco.
The Cry During the Escape
Mike’s words come after a sequence of practical improvisations. He does not take the patrol car. Instead, he runs to the truck, discovers that the police have the key, opens the hood, jumps the circuit in the starter box, and gets the engine running. He slams one door, then the other, as if completing the hurried preparations for departure. The escape is not yet secure: he waits, unsure whether the officers have heard him, until the inn door bursts open.
At that instant, the danger exhilarates him. The narration compares his feeling to being back in the arena, with the same trial by danger, ecstatic lunacy, and bravura. The arena-like mood gives the words their theatrical charge. Rather than simply flee, Mike turns the escape into a display, shouting, “Hey, you cops! We’re going! Adiós! Adiós!” He then guns the truck and tears toward Texas, tires ripping against the grit road. The police sergeant rushes to the patrol car and takes the wheel before the driver has even shut his door. The shout has made Mike conspicuous, but that attention is part of the danger he accepts.
A Plural Declaration
The key word is “we.” Mike does not announce only his own escape. Rafo later emphasizes that Mike said “we,” not “I,” and understands the plural as a deliberate effort to protect him: Mike drew the gunfire toward himself so that Rafo could go safely southward. In Rafo’s reading, the shout is therefore more than bravado or a taunt to the officers. It gives public voice to a bond at the very moment Mike’s actions put distance between them.
The words also carry a tension between what they announce and what happens. The exclamation sounds like a joint departure, but the routes divide: Mike races toward Texas, while Rafo eventually makes his way back toward Janasco. The declaration is not literally fulfilled as a shared journey. Its emotional truth lies instead in the risk Mike takes on Rafo’s behalf. The phrase names a shared allegiance even as the escape requires them to separate.
Rafo’s Recollection
The phrase returns through Rafo’s thoughts after the gunshots stop. He wonders whether the silence means Mike has crossed the border and is free in Texas, or whether Mike has been killed; he cannot bear imagining Mike dead in the ravine. That uncertainty gives the remembered cry a new weight. What had sounded in the moment like a boast becomes evidence Rafo uses to understand Mike’s intentions and to hold on to the possibility that his friend is alive.
The recollection follows a sharp change in Rafo’s view. The night before, after learning the whole truth, he had returned to his old hatred and distrust, seeing Mike as a liar and promise-breaker. By morning, Mike’s dangerous gesture has unsettled that judgment. Rafo repeats, “We’re going.” The shift from the exclamation mark in Mike’s shout to the period in Rafo’s recollection turns a burst of action into a quiet, inward assertion: Rafo wishes the two were still together, and tells himself that they remain together in some lasting sense, whether Mike is alive or dead.
Meaning and Aftermath
For Rafo, the word “we” does not erase the separation or the deception that preceded it. Instead, it marks a moment in which Mike’s conduct contradicts the distrust Rafo has just recovered. Mike’s shout and flight give Rafo a reason to revise what he believes about him, even though they do not reunite the pair or settle Rafo’s fear about Mike’s fate. The phrase’s effect is intimate precisely because it is spoken aloud to the police but understood most deeply by the boy left behind.
After remembering it, Rafo turns south. He crosses the roof, copies the movements he had watched Mike make, jumps into the alley, checks the street, and walks out trying to look like an ordinary Mexican boy on his way to Janasco. The echo of “We’re going!” accompanies no shared departure; it precedes Rafo’s solitary return. Its lasting significance rests in that contrast: Mike’s plural cry becomes Rafo’s private assurance that their separation has not undone their friendship.
