But Depresión was a better fit for the United States-theme of the team. Super Coney’s cartwheel-focused move set and amusement park gimmick wasn’t quite “Americana” enough, not like Andy Warhol, or the son of both a president and a cartoon duck, or the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism.
La Gran Depresión would not take off his mask. Not for la migra, not for the television cameras, not for a fifteen-pound gold belt, not for the Holy Virgin. El Warhol had to do something about that.
“When I was a kid,” El Warhol said in his normal voice, not the fey affectation he used for cutting promos, “I went with my parents and my sister to visit Mexico. We lived in LA at the time.” Donald Jr. didn’t say anything, but a grunt came from the very back of the van, so Warhol continued. “My dad is Puerto Rican, my mother Cuban—”
“That why you look Swedish?” Donald Jr. asked. “You could star in a novela. You could be a kid in a wheelchair.”
“He doesn’t look Swedish,” La Gran Depresión said. His voice was deep, and he didn’t speak much so it was a surprise to hear from him at all.
“So, like I was saying, we crossed into Mexico, no problem. Crossed back, problem. La migra decided my dad had fake papers and that I was some sort of reverse-adoption kidnap baby. We kept telling the cops that there wasn’t a drop of Mexican blood anywhere between all of us. Boriqua and Cubana we told them, and don’t I have my mother’s delicate features? We asked.” El Warhol said. “More than my sister, who looks like my father. She they figured was legit, but not me. Maybe they were watching the novelas, too. Anyway, they take me away from my parents, I was just five years old, and they separate me.”
“They separate kids for real now,” Donald Jr. said.
“Shut up,” El Warhol said. “They take me too a little room and show me an orange. They ask me what they call it. I say ‘orange’, in English. I’m from the States, right?
“They say, ‘No, in Spanish, little boy. What do you call this in Spanish?’ You see, they wanted to know if I would say chee-na or naranja. They cut me a slice and tell me to lick it, so I can see if it’s sweet or sour. La migra knows a lot. Anyway, I said the right word, ‘china’, and proved my dad was Puerto Rican and they brought him back to the car and waved us through and the second I was back on US soil I shat myself and my sister started crying and hit me.”
“That’s a great story, Andy,” Donald Jr. said. “Really helps with passing the time. Are you warning us that you’re going to shit yourself again on this trip?”
“No, I’m telling you not to shit yourself. Just be cool,” said El Warhol. “Everything is in order. La migra keeps tabs on things. There will be a way through. We just need to cooperate, though.”
“Yes, they do keep tabs on things,” said La Gran Depresión.
“I’m just thinking about your masks.”
“You don’t understand,” said Donald Duck Jr. “The mask is sacred. It is not a mask at all, it is like a mirror deep in our heart, reflecting the real self.”
“Do you have your checks made out to ‘Donald Duck Junior’ then, or to Francisco Valencia, Francisco?” El Warhol asked. Donald Duck Jr. didn’t answer.
“How about you, La Depresión?” There was a shift in the shadows at the back of the van. El Warhol was surprised by himself for daring to ask, but his mouth kept moving anyway: “Is your mask your sacred self? You’ve never been north.”
“Don’t worry about it,” La Gran Depresión said, casually yet definitively, like a gun in someone’s hand.
El Warhol worried about it for the rest of the slow crawl up the highway to the port of entry. He recalled some photo he’d seen of a long line of climbers on a ridge near the summit of Mount Everest, all waiting for their moment of making it to the very top. A few more hours in subfreezing weather, a few more hours sucking precious oxygen out of a tank, shuffling ahead slowly for…what? A few people died on that line, and their bodies had to be left behind, to freeze and then over the years slowly thaw as the planet began to boil.
It just seemed like a lot to spend three days driving around southern California in the fifty-five-mile border zone, to wrestle in high school gymnasiums and at some taco truck street fair for a few hundred American dollars, plus all the free sleeps in the van their backs could handle.
Warhol wondered if all the exhaust from the hundreds upon hundreds of vehicles wasn’t getting to him. He glanced into the rear view mirror. Donald Duck Jr. was asleep, his head resting against his shoulder, a line of drool glistening against the garish orange of his mask’s “bill.” He was snoozing like a child in a car seat. In the far rear, La Gran Depresión’s black mask was lit by the light of the smartphone in his hands. He was holding it horizontally, thumbing away at something. El Warhol hadn’t pegged the heavyweight as a phone game type.
“Whatcha playin’?” he asked.
“Shut up,” La Gran Depresión said.
“Are you nervous, about the US?”
“Shut up.”
“Just four car-lengths left.”
La Gran Depresión stomped his foot, sending the front of the van bucking like a low-rider. El Warhol nearly bit his tongue.
Now he was upset too. He’d always admired Andy Warhol’s ever-placid expression, like a wax dummy or an android. And those long rows and columns of the same famous face—Marilyn Monroe, Chairman Mao—unchanging despite the assaults of color in the individual frames. It was even part of his gimmick; El Warhol never “sold” the dropkicks and forearm smashes and submission holds of his opponents, he just gazed out at the audience or into the camera lens, and took his beating until one of his teammates saved him. El Warhol was upset, worried, but he wouldn’t show it. Not when he pulled up to the gates; not when the border patrol officer, himself a Latino darker than El Warhol, snorted and whispered something into his lapel radio; not when a half dozen men armed with rifles surrounded the van; not when he was told to wake up “that guy in the faggy mask.”
He frowned though, when they were taken into an office much like the one he visited as a child, sat at a well-worn table, and asked to present their visas. El Warhol just had his US passport. The armed border patrol members took up positions in the corners and by the one door.
“Oyola.”
“Yes,” said El Warhol.
“You’re an artist,” asked the border patrol officer. “Like that guy.” His nametag read paredes, which El Warhol figured was appropriate, if a little on-the-nose.
“A performer, yes,” El Warhol answered.
“You all walk around in your little costumes all the time?”
“Our masks are sacred,” Donald Duck Jr. told the man. “They are symbol of our ancient culture and physical prowess.”
One of the border cops left his position and showed Paredes something on a smart phone. Paredes smirked at it, then turned back to the trio. “And you’re a duck. That’s your gimmick?”
“He’s also the former president’s son,” said La Gran Depresión. It was the first thing he’d said. He didn’t even look up from the game on his phone. None of la migra were about to tell him to put it away.
“That’s funny,” Paredes said to La Gran Depresión. Then to Donald Duck Jr., “Your papers.” After a glance. “Ah, a P-3 visa. Also an artist, is it? Sacred ancient culture performance art, right?”
“Right,” said Donald Duck Jr.
“Walt Disney should sue your fucking ass. The Trump Organization too,” Paredes said. Donald Duck Jr.
Nobody said anything for two minutes. El Warhol knew it was two minutes because he’d started keeping a mental count—“One, pumpernickel. Two, pumpernickel…ninety-seven pumpernickel.” Parades worked up the courage to ask for La Gran Depresión’s papers, but not to speak. He just held out his hand.
“Here,” La Gran Depresión said as he reached into his fanny pack and withdrew them. He was big enough that his smartphone rested comfortably in his left palm.
“Turn that
shit off,” one of the other border guards said. He even gestured with his rifle, shifting it from pointing at the floor to gesturing broadly toward La Gran Depresión. He turned off his phone, or silenced it, or did something to it anyway.
“This is a P-1 visa,” Paredes said.
“That’s right,” La Gran Depresión said.
“That’s for athletes.”
“I’m an athlete.”
“For a real sport,” Paredes said.
“I’m for real,” La Gran Depresión said. The border patrolman said nothing. “I am for real,” La Gran Depresión said, a second time.
“What about this guy?” Paredes asked, gesturing toward Donald.
“He’s a duck.”
“I’m for real, too,” said Donald Duck Jr., but his voice quavered a bit.
“I am absolutely not for real,” said El Warhol.
“You’re the one who can go right now, if you want,” said Paredes.
“We’re a trio.”
“Not with two different visas purporting to cover to the same event you’re not,” said the standing officer who had gestured with his rifle. Paredes glared at him, then turned to La Gran Depresión.
“Take off your mask,” Paredes said. “I’ll run your face, your prints. See how real you are.”
“Maybe there’s another way to find out how real I am,” said La Gran Depresión, “and that’s to try and take my mask.”
El Warhol inhaled sharply.
“You used to wrestle, William Paredes,” La Gran Depresión said. “In school. All-state. College scholarship. I looked it up. All you guys were doxxed years ago. I got fans, real nerds, they, what do you call it, ‘cross-referenced’ the names. Wrestlers, football players, lacrosse. Whatever wannabe tough guy signs up to cage kids and arrest gringos leaving water in the desert. It’s just lucky that you used to know how to wrestle. So what do you say? We wrestle. You win, you get our masks. I win, we cross the border without having to take them off.”
Paredes turned to El Warhol. “Is this guy for real for real?”
“Do I look like I am familiar with reality?” El Warhol answered.
“Look, I don’t care about your bullshit,” Paredes said to the trios. “You don’t take off your masks, you’re not crossing the border. You’re not going to talk you’re way out of here, or do a springboard whatever over the fence, or dropkick me before Charlie takes you out. So just take off your masks, or get back in your van and go to Tijuana and get drunk and get crabs or whatever you want to do.”
“We got a lot of cars out there to check,” said the patrolman at the door. Charlie, El Warhol surmised.
“We take off our masks and we’re allowed in?” asked Donald Duck Jr.
“He didn’t say that,” El Warhol said. “He said that if you didn’t take off your masks, you wouldn’t be allowed into the States, not that if you did take off your masks you would.”
“Last chance, gentlemen,” said Paredes.
“‘Gentlemen’—listen to this maricón,” said Donald Duck Jr. El Warhol twitched.
Parades looked at Charlie. Charlie clicked a button on the walkie-talkie clipped to his lapel. The room filled with officers like a clown car in reverse. La Gran Depresión stood up and that was enough to put the officers on their heels. Donald Duck Jr. took a swing at one of them, and then was dog-piled. El Warhol kept his hands up, explained he was American, born in America, with an American passport, but nobody paid him any attention. When one of the officers reared back to kick at Donald Duck Jr’s blue and orange mask, La Gran Depresión said “Don’t,” in a tone that used every molecule of air in the room. The officer stopped short, wobbling on one leg.
“Let him up,” La Gran Depresión said. And, they did let Donald Duck Jr. up, all of them peering querulously at Parades as they stood—Paredes who had his hand on the butt of his sidearm, and his lower jaw hanging open.
“Let’s go,” said La Gran Depresión.
In the van, El Warhol again took the wheel. “Fucking piece of shit,” Donald Duck Jr., riding shotgun now to better glare at Ysidro LPOE. El Warhol understood that Donald was speaking universally—America was a piece of shit, as was la migra, as was the situation including La Gran Depresión’s challenge, the visa situation, the ridiculous commitment to mask-wearing, all of it. A piece of shit you could stick your dick into. El Warhol too was a fucking piece of shit, for being an American, for being small, for having a maricon gimmick.
“I never cancelled an appearance in my life,” Donald Duck Jr. said. “Not even Reno.”
“You spent how much on that charter plane to the private airfield that happened to have a fan as the sole TSA agent thanks to the promoter pulling strings? And all to make sure nobody knows you have acne, eh?”
“I had a lot of money then. Pay-per-view. Action figures. Japan tours. Those were the days,” said Donald Duck Jr. “It cost me more than your mother paid me to suck my dick, El Warhol.”
“Warhol’s seventy-year-old mother sucking your dick was ‘the days’?” La Gran La Gran Depresión sounded almost jovial for once.
“Fuck you, man,” Donald Duck Jr. said. “What were you trying to pull, with the challenge, and the P-1 visa?”
“I set up a little MMA match for a small audience of discerning fight fans. I guess I gotta cancel that too.” He sounded sad again.
“No,” said El Warhol. “We’re going through.”
“Tough talk, El Maricon…El Americón. Now you’re a tough guy, like Andy Warhol?” Donald Duck Jr’s sneer was audible in his voice.
“Let me tell you a story about Andy Warhol,” El Warhol said.
“Fuck you.”
“Shut up,” La Gran Depresión told Donald Duck Jr.
“Andy was tough. He was shot once, you know? Point-blank range, by some crazy lady called Valarie Solanas. Two shots. Got him in the lungs, the spleen, stomach, liver. The bullets bounced around the ribs like two guys in a cage match. He had to wear a girdle for the rest of his life to keep his guts from spilling out.” El Warhol made a lazy turn as he spoke, eliciting a few honking horns and shouts in three languages as he cut across the traffic lanes, nice and slow.
“Wow. Another amazing story,” said Donald Duck Jr. “Hey, watch where you’re going.’”
“That’s not the end of the story,” said El Warhol. “This is the end of the story.
“Twenty years he lives like this; a sneeze away from dying. The girl’s crazy—she gets out of prison there years later. They share a city; they both live in Manhattan. Andy gets more and more famous. A writer, Fran Leibowitz—” More honking, the van rolls over something big and important seeming.
“Who? Hey! Watch out!” That was Donald Duck Jr. again. La Gran Depresión said nothing.
“Famous writer…she goes to Warhol’s studio, the Factory. There’s a big metal door, an intercom. The guy got shot years before; he built a fortress. You have to press the button and identify yourself to get it.” El Warhol revved the engine.
“She presses the button. She hears Andy’s voice asking ‘Who is it?’”
“Warhol…” La Gran Depresión said.
“She says, ‘It’s Valarie Solanas.’”
El Warhol takes his gaze from the road ahead—which is just a short span that ends with a barrier, a booth, and some of the armed man who had just escorted the trio back to the van—and looks at Donald Duck Jr.
“And Andy, he opens the door.”
And El Warhol, he stepped on the gas.
90 MILES
Alex Segura
November 12, 1992
Joaquin Carmona tried to close his eyes. He knew it was a bad idea. Everything he’d been told said to do otherwise. Keep your eyes open. Don’t lose sight of the horizon. Marta had said these things before they set off, knowing her husband, unlike her and their son, Angel, was not a water person.
Had the circumstances been better, he would have laughed at the memory—of
beaches, uncomfortable dips in Cuba’s crisp, blue waters; of his son’s bubbly laughter as Joaquin picked him up and tossed him into the air, the sun casting half his small, olive-skinned face in shadow. But laughter was for another time.
Now they were in hell.
Rigoberto, the older man, was at the front of the small, rickety boat. He was the captain of their doomed vessel. A raft, really. A tiny flotation device of his creation that was supposed to carry the four of them to freedom. Actually, freedom didn’t matter anymore. It was about safety. It was about land and feeling their toes in the sand or concrete. Anything, really. Joaquin didn’t care anymore. He wanted off this maldito boat and to be anywhere else.
Joaquin felt the raft lurch left, and his stomach turned right. His empty stomach. There’d been some tostadas before boarding but he couldn’t bring himself to eat. Couldn’t bring himself to do anything even mildly celebratory before they reached the other side.
Freedom. Miami. Or so they were told.
was nestled next to Marta, his tiny, toddler face buried in her armpit like a tiny bird waiting for food. His mood was a blend of fear, anger, and sadness. They’d woken him up suddenly, rushed him outside of their tiny house, rushed him down the empty streets—sliding into alleys and dark corners if they caught wind of anyone. He was a smart boy. He caught on quick. He knew something was wrong. They weren’t leaving de vacación. There were no bags. Plus, he knew—had known for years— that vacations and trips and adventures like that were for other families. Families with more.
Joaquin felt a sharp jolt of regret as he met his son’s eyes—for a moment, before Manolito’s dark brown pupils turned back to his mother. This was on him. He’d made this decision. He, in a fit of anger at their lot in life, had reached out to Rigoberto.
The bar—La Bodeguita del Medio, on Empedrado—had been dark and empty when Joaquin stepped in and met Rigoberto in the back. A cold beer was waiting for him. It was a tourist spot, that bar. The checkered floor, the writing on the wall, photos of American celebrities hanging everywhere. Joaquin didn’t belong here. Would get kicked out if he stuck around too long. But this beer. This frigid dream materialized in front of him. He felt the dirt on his palms mix with the condensation on the bottle and he could almost taste the Presidente before he brought the bottle to his chapped, peeling lips. Desperate for the cold liquid to help fend off the tropical heat that had coated his body for what felt like a century. The bar’s sputtering air conditioner felt like an arctic para
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