Border Disorder

Let Me Say
by Rafael Chávez Mx

 *For those who support the Arizonian mentality and the born again neo-Nazi idiocy in the Americas, it is too late to have your way because history has been made cyclically perpetual for the gente will keep coming in hordes, coming, coming and coming for we travel the original migration routes of our ancient indigenous ancestors, the same path the Spanish conquerors followed, the same path my father followed.  Go ahead take us away to where we belong for we are already here and as for those racist souls who insist to persevere in ignorance go back to Europe to your cave and let the rest share in peace the natural space of our mother Earth.   

 Let Me Tell You a Story

 He could see them far in the distance as he fell way behind and his tired pace slowed.  He paused for a second and looked at the little boy in his arms, then picked up the pace again.  It was a dark and moonless night, but still a warm gleaming afterthought lingered after a hot August day.  With each heavy step forward the desert seemed ever so desolate.

 He came to a fence, threw his suitcase over, and tucked the one year old into his sweater, zipped it up, and secured the little boy to his body with his belt.  He climbed up and over, but not before pausing at the top briefly surveying the fence line.  A bitter thought shot through his essence, “Ni de aquí, ni de allá,” as he gazed at the distant city lights right down the throat of oblivion.  He was now entering a world where he would remain a shadow para siempre, (forever) lost.  He then took a deep breath, whispered an adios to his tierra, and took a giant leap into the United States of America.

 He had now lost track of his eight month pregnant wife, who had gotten ahead of him together with the rest of the pollos (border crossers), about 20 or so others.  They were led through the brush by a short fat coyote (human smuggler), who somehow managed to keep running without regard to his top heavy physical disposition and his oddly proportioned body; short legs, ever protruding stomach, topped off by a huge Olmeca head, yet stood no more than five feet tall.  It further surprised him how his mujer, being in that far stage of pregnancy, could exert herself well beyond the limits of reason.  But what else is one to do when life offers you so little.

 His arms were burning in pain now to the point of going numb from the weight of his precious cargo.  A one year old could get quite heavy after a while of carrying one.  They had been at it for about three hours up until that point, way too much effort just to cover a few miles of desert terrain dodging la migra (INS agents).  He finally caught up with the rest of his gente as they rested underneath a shadowless Joshua tree.  Chest heaving beneath, the baby in his arms, he asked his wife if she was ok.  Then the short stump of coyote approached him:

—Oiga compa, por qué no tira ese muchacho por allí, porque así no la va hacer.—

(Hey man, why don’t you toss that kid to aside, otherwise you aren’t going to make it.)

 He just stared at el hijo de puta (the coyote) with silent dismay wondering how could someone even propose the idea of abandoning ones own child.  No tiene madre este cabrón, he thought, as he nodded a very obvious “¡no!” at the coyote as he turned and stared deep into his little boy’s big brown eyes as he clutched him evermore tighter into his heaving chest.  The little boy remained silent but alert listening to papa’s heart. 

 As the group of mojados (‘wetbacks’) moved further north, ironic though, because they had not crossed a single body of water up until that point, the night sky hazed over with the approaching gleam of the 20^th century.  Tijuana remained behind silent like a ill loved prostitute after a long night bidding them farewell, forever a vestige of a distant past where once upon a time they were Mexican and not sombras de lo que una vez fue (shadows of what they once were). Then the silence of the dark sky broke by the distant choppy sound of an approaching helicopter just about the time they were coming to a farm.  El coyote quickly and with experienced keen tucked them all into the cattle feeding troughs, throwing camouflaging hay upon there backs. (Haybacks?)

 He and his baby boy remained silent in a water trough.  As the search light from the helicopter scanned the area, he quickly looked at his child making sure the little one was not submerged underneath the water.  The little boy just stared back at his father with his big brown eyes, no crying, clutching his papa with his baby arms tight a lo macho, for the little one, even at the age of one, knew that he needed to remain silent for these were not ordinary events, they were making history.

 Soon the helicopter flew away with it’s insidious gleaming search light of an eye that came up with nothing.  Soon thereafter a young man, no more than 18, frantically screaming popped up from within the waking herd of cattle, where his hiding spot once on the move began to trample him down.  He called for help several times but the more he stirred the more the cattle went wild.  He died as his body was half crushed and half submerged head first by force drowned in the quagmire of green manure.  “Bienvenido America,” someone said, “donde solo eres mierda.”  No one could reach him in time to save him and besides they had to keep moving for the rancher and his shotgun were sure to becoming by soon enough.  The coyote did nothing to help.  Leading pollos across the border was business and not an act of compassion to say the least.  “Se murió a lo buey,” it was later commented, no pun intended.  The young man’s body never made back to his mother’s arms for a farewell blessing.  She missed him for a long time.

 Papa with baby boy went and pulled his esposa out from the interior of a pile of hay, she was okay.  The group soon made it to a dirt road, tired, dehydrated, and scared, sometime during the greening twilight.  There a long Oldsmobile pulled up, the type June Cleaver pearl necklaced grandmothers drive.  The type with a big enough trunks to fit eight mexicanos a lo lata de sardina.  However, because of the baby he carried in his arms and his wife’s pregnancy they were transported in a second vehicle, a van which took a different route to an unknown destination in Los Angeles.  Somehow they got past San Diego, past the check point in San Clemente, where the coyotes had certain crooked INS agents under their payroll, and past the lowest of the bunch, pocho migra; which if offered enough money those vendido bastards are capable of deporting their own mamás back to México. 

 They made it safely to their destination but the Oldsmobile and its passengers did not fair so well.  They were eventually pulled over by non-compliant INS agents.  Each mojadito was taken out of the trunk.  They were asked to take off their shoes, which they did.  Then each of them was struck on the face with their own footwear as some form of humiliation, racist subjugation with demeaning irony.  The ones that were wearing guaraches were but slapped across the face with Teutonic Michelin tire thread that composed the recycled soles of each sandal, but for those were shit kicking boots, llevaron una chinga de apocas.  ¡Pinches migras!

 Three weeks after papá and mamá settled to work in Northern California, baby brother was born, a healthy round headed little boy.  He would never know about crossing the border but for his older brother he forever would, for his big brown eyes captured that very moment in his soul. His father once in a while recounts the tale to those who will listen and if you stare into his eyes you can see the melancholy reminisces of old México, that one he will never return to, the one that dies each time one of our elders goes to meet the creator.  But somehow they manage to live, laugh, and love in the shadows this side of the fence line.

Tags: Arizona, border, culture, disorder, Don't Fence me in., ICE, Mexico, Nazi, opion, racism, viewpoint