Into the Beautiful North

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  “¡Ay!” he said. He put his hand over his heart and staggered backward. “Badass! She’s hard, brother!”

  He and Atómiko slapped palms.

  “Está firme, la morra,” Atómiko announced. “She’s so fierce, my little brown girl.”

  Nayeli hung her mouth open at Tacho in disbelief that Atómiko would say so many stupid things.

  “I can take you, no problem,” the driver said.

  “I doubt it,” Nayeli snapped.

  Tacho, the goodwill ambassador of Tres Camarones, stepped in.

  “How?” he asked. “What do we do?”

  The driver looked at him.

  “¿Y este?” he asked.

  “He’s cool,” Atómiko said.

  The driver said, “I’ll take you to Libertad. You know Colonia Libertad?”

  Tacho shook his head. Nayeli thought of the nonexistent Chavarín’s phone number. Yolo and Vampi stared at the ground in their despair.

  “It’s rough; I’m not going to lie,” the driver said. “But I’ll set you up with a good guide, and you’ll go under the fence and into the canyons. They’ll get you up to Otay.”

  “What’s Otay?”

  Atómiko smiled, spun his staff in front of him.

  “That,” he said, “is the United States.”

  Tacho and Nayeli looked at each other.

  “When?” she said.

  “Right now.”

  “How much?” Tacho asked.

  Atómiko and the driver muttered.

  “My socio here wants me to give you a good deal,” the driver said. “I’ll take you for one hundred and fifty. Each.”

  Tacho and Nayeli got together and acted as if they were discussing the proposal, but they didn’t know if the price was good or bad, or what they were doing.

  “I guess so,” Nayeli said.

  “Good!” Atómiko crowed. “Wait here!”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to get my stuff!” he cried, and ran off.

  Don Porfirio had sneaked out and swiped his jar of rum and milk and sugar from Araceli, and he’d poured the rest of the rum in and had it shaken up into a sweet foam, and he and Yolo powered down the whole thing.

  Yolo, feeling no pain at all, said, “That Atómiko, he is definitely not Yul Brynner!”

  “Mexico’s greatest movie star,” Nayeli said, with deep nostalgia for Irma and Tres Camarones.

  Nayeli was deeply opposed to Atómiko’s presence, but Tacho and the girls voted her down. They felt they could use another warrior for the crossing, and frankly, now that Yolo was drunk, she thought Atómiko was handsome and dashing. Nayeli couldn’t believe her ears—but she also knew the crossing was supposed to be deadly, and maybe Atómiko’s pole would be of use should they meet any bad men. He also carried a tiny Hello Kitty backpack. Maybe he had weapons in there. Vampi, to be helpful, gave him her switchblade.

  They said their farewells to Araceli and Porfirio. The couple absolutely refused any money for their hospitality, but Nayeli sneaked into their house as they were hugging and patting Vampi and left a twenty-dollar bill on their little table. Vampi cried disconsolately when she said good-bye to their hosts, and Araceli gave her a rose.

  Nayeli and Tacho and Atómiko crammed into the backseat, the staff out the window.

  “Why are you coming, again?” Nayeli asked him.

  “I’m bored. Nothing on TV,” Atómiko replied.

  Yolo laughed and threw him a wide drunken wink over the front seat.

  “Nayeli and Atómiko are going to get married,” she said to Vampi.

  “Really?” said Vampi.

  “We should go to Las Vegas,” Yolo said.

  “Oh, yes!” Vampi enthused. “Elvis!”

  “Enough,” Nayeli warned.

  “Want to hold my hand?” Atómiko asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Nayeli shouted.

  He looked out the window mildly.

  “Sweetheart,” he said.

  The driver’s name was Wino. The Camarones crew didn’t speak any version of Spanglish, so they didn’t know how dashing and bad it was to be called Wino. To them, it sounded like “¡Ay, no!” which was a cry of dread.

  He was an excellent tour guide—they realized to their shock that he loved Tijuana. On the way to Libertad, he veered off the road and drove up the tormented streets of a hillside colonia. “You have to see this,” Wino declared. They pulled into a dirt gulley and beheld a three-story house built in the shape of a nude woman. She was painted in flesh tones, and her nipples were large red ovals. There was a door in her pubis.

  “That,” Atómiko announced, “is great art.”

  “Oh,” Yolo said, “my God.”

  Tacho said, “If she gets pregnant, does she give birth to a garage?”

  Atómiko chuckled.

  “One point,” he said, “for the maricón.”

  Onward! Down the narrow and clogged road that accessed the free road to Ensenada but for them would be passage to the Centro! On to the center of town, past the back end of the Palacio Azteca hotel! A quick detour into the edge of Colonia Cacho, for a restorative stop at taco row! Eighteen-cent carne asada tacos at Tacos El Paisano! A brief gawk at the municipal bullring! And on—down to the traffic circles and pedestrian bridges and Mexican department stores! Conasupo and Pemex on every side! See that statue there of the Aztec king? Holding his sword by his side? He starts out every morning holding it over his head—but he gets tired and the sword droops! Across the boulevard and to the right, up the hill! Onward—Wino and Atómiko singing out the varied delights of Fair Tijuana, the planes coming in above them at Tijuana International Airport, the street dogs, the hot women in their impossible heels, the taxis, the multicolored buses, and into the labyrinth of Libertad.

  Onward, to the Crossing!

  Colonia Libertad was the notorious launching pad for a million border crossings. The United States had foiled the massive incursions of the 1970s and ’80s with the beefed-up new border fences and stadium lights and plowed-under acres of roadway on the other side, where white Border Patrol trucks cruised like sharks in a lagoon. Dirt streets and alleys piled up and down steep ravines. Houses went right up to the line. You could climb on a chicken coop and look into the windshield of a migra truck. People played soccer. Young men sat on the slopes and watched the fences, waiting for their moment. They were still going across, in spite of the heightened security. Now they weren’t gathered in hundreds but in dozens, and many of them would be caught. They’d be back tomorrow to try it again.

  All around, music blared from speakers in shop doorways and on the roofs of cars. Children ran through the scene, impervious to the plots and plans making their way among the groups of adventurers and their shady guides. The fence here was old and battered and patched. Taco carts blew smoke on corners and in empty lots, the fence runners having last meals in Mexico—cheap tripe and chicken tacos. Rabbit tacos were supposedly for sale over by the drugstore where the bottles of water were double the usual price. Coyotes, hanging cigarettes off their lips and demonstrating their tattoos and Slayer baseball caps, liked to quip, “Those rabbit tacos—I saw a guy unloading a truck by the cart, and those rabbits had long tails!” Ha-ha! The walkers got queasy every time!

  Christian do-gooders rolled through in vans. Their blond locks and shiny white faces shone in the sun like headlights. Nayeli watched to see if Matt’s face was among them.

  Atómiko and Wino negotiated with a vato with a deep slouch and a black porkpie hat. This character wore fingerless gloves and chain-smoked. The three girls would not admit it, but they were afraid of him. Afraid of the entire colonia, and the fence, and the border. Afraid of Tijuana. They hid behind Tacho, who threw out his chest and looked fierce and tried to hide his own fear.

  Wino kissed Vampi’s hand and pinched Yolo’s butt and decided not to touch Nayeli. They watched him drive away, honking his horn in that awful shave-and-a-haircut rhythm. Nayeli never imagined she would miss Wino, but there
it was.

  Suddenly, people were jumping up and yelling and trotting along the fence. Nayeli craned to look. The white roof of a Border Patrol truck showed over the top of the rusted metal wall as it cruised the other side. Boys threw rocks over the fence, and some of the rocks clanged off the sheet metal roof of the truck. It stopped. People cursed and laughed and hurried away. Nayeli saw the top of the agent’s head as he got out.

  The coyote sidled up to them.

  Nayeli asked, “Is he going to shoot at us?”

  The guy flicked his cigarette away.

  “Nel,” he said, which was his cholo way of saying no.

  The agent vanished behind the top of the fence as he walked around to the near side of the truck. In a moment, Nayeli saw his arm rise. His fist came up and he shot the finger to the Mexicans. They laughed and whistled insults back at him. She watched him walk back around the truck to his door. She caught a quick flash of his face—he was laughing. The truck moved on, kicking up dust that drifted over the fence and settled on their heads.

  “That dust,” said the coyote, “is the United States invading Mexico.”

  “It’s an act of war,” Atómiko proclaimed.

  Far to the east, the hills were still black from the last great California fires.

  The coyote said, “There was burned-up Mexicans all over those hills.”

  It seemed to amuse him.

  Yolo was almost sober. She nudged Nayeli with her elbow. “Girl,” she said, “there is still time to go home.”

  “Yeah,” Vampi agreed. “We are making a terrible mistake.”

  “We don’t know this man,” Yolo said.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here,” Atómiko said.

  “We don’t know you, either!”

  Tacho ran his fingers along his money belt. He was this close. He wasn’t turning back.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  Nayeli said nothing, just stared over the fence as the dark spread and the noise behind them changed to the heavy breath of Tijuana at night.

  “Nayeli, what are we going to do when we get there?” asked Yolo.

  “I don’t know,” Nayeli admitted. “Call Matt?”

  “Oh.” Yolo started to smile. “All right.”

  And the coyote spoke.

  Orale. Gather around, gather around. You, what’s your name? Nayeli? You’re the leader? Good, listen up. My socio Atómiko here speaks highly of you, so I am going to take you quick, right in. No chingaderas, all right? Move fast, don’t cry, don’t give me any shit, understand? We’re going under the fence right there. The metal’s cut—we hit it with acetylene torches when the migra isn’t looking. There’s a doorway right there behind the bushes. I go first—if it’s clear, I’ll whistle. You haul ass. Girls first, the boy—what’s your name?—Tacho last. Atómiko will slide the door shut. He says he’ll follow. I think he’s in love with Nayeli—though it could be Tacho. Ha! I got my eye on the vampire. Hot. In another life, right, morra? Come see me when you get rich in Gringolandia! Orale. Run straight across the migra road. Straight! And fast, cabrones! Do you hear? Keep low and run fast. Right across the road, through the bushes, is an arroyo. I’ll be down there. Don’t jump on my head. But get down in there with me. We’ll haul ass to the north—that’s to the right, for you little girlies who don’t know what direction you’re going. Right. Pay attention. I don’t have time to repeat this shit. To the right, run fifty yards, and we cut sharp left. Keep close enough to see the person in front, because if you get separated, you stay behind. There’s junkies and monsters and rateros in there that’ll cut off your legs and fuck you as you die. I’m not kidding you. Stay close to me. Nayeli, you’re the leader, be right behind me. Atómiko will cover the end of the line. Single file. Hustle. Can you hustle? You better fuckin’ hustle like you never hustled before. If the migra catches you, they’ll crack your heads. If it looks like they’re going to catch us, you don’t know me. I’m not a coyote, just a guy from Sonora looking for work at the racetrack tending horses. You got that? You rat me out, and my socios will hunt you down and cut your throats. If we get separated, you girlies, you run for the road and hope the migra comes along before the rateros get you. Don’t be out there alone. If you get lost, I’m not going to come looking for you. Mama’s far away. Stay behind me or you’re on your own, and there’s no negotiating. All right. Straight, arroyo, right for fifty yards, hard left. We’ll be going down a canyon for a mile, and then we’ll get to a bridge. We can rest under that bridge. If the rateros jump us, and they’ve got guns or knives, I ain’t dying for you. No way. I’m gone. Good luck, cabrones. Give them what they want, and that includes your money. If you want to live. You, Tacho. Maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe there’s faggots in the canyons, too, and they won’t cut your legs. Maybe you can blow them. What? Have I offended you? ¡Ay, ay, ay! ¡Qué lástima! I’ll tell you what will offend you worse—having the tendons sliced in your legs so you flop like a fish, having ten filthy junkies or gang-bangers or white gangsters rape you and take your money. How’s that for offensive? God damn it, you’re wetbacks now! Nobody gives a shit about you! So stick to me like ticks, and I’ll get you through. When I tell you we’re there, we’re there, and I’m heading home. No whining, no complaining. I will take you far enough so you can figure it out for yourselves. You ain’t paying me real money. You want the deluxe crossing, you pay for it. Put you in the trunk of a car. But we’re not those coyotes in Libertad. I’ll get you in, but you have to take it from there. If you get caught and deported, I ain’t giving you your money back. Me vale madre. Tough shit—life is hard. But if you want to pay me again, orale, I’ll take you in again. Got it? Any questions? No? Good. Are we ready? Next stop, San Diego, Califas, los pinchis Yunaites!

  When the next Border Patrol vehicle came down the dusty trail across the fence, the gathered runners pelted it with stones. Suddenly, three other trucks appeared, and the agents leaned across their roofs and fired teargas grenades over the fence. The coyote took off running, and before Nayeli could ask what was going on, Atómiko had them up and running, too. Clouds of choking smoke swirled across the hill, stinking and choking. People ran from the border and charged between the small houses, as if walls and fences could protect them from the fumes. Boys with rags tied over their mouths and noses laughed and danced, taunting the agents, throwing more stones and bottles. The coyote stood with his fists raised, shouting, “Act of war! Act of war!”

  Atómiko was laughing. He’d gotten them to a perch far enough away from the gas that only Tacho’s eyes were watering.

  “Welcome to Palestine!” he yelled.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Nayeli said.

  “I love it,” Atómiko replied.

  Tacho hawked and spit.

  “You don’t see this on TV,” he said.

  “Sábado Gigante,” said Nayeli. “Today, we feature Chinese jugglers, the song stylings of Ricardo Arjona and Juanes, and border war!”

  The girls laughed, sort of, more nervous than amused. They had stepped into the apocalypse and wanted nothing more than to be bored in Tres Camarones.

  It took about a half hour for the gas to fade and drift away. The runners, wiping their eyes, moved back to the fence. The coyote signaled them and walked back to his spot.

  It was as dark as Nayeli had ever seen it. Far to the west, she could see the eerie hazy glow of searchlights on their tall poles. She coughed, dust clogging her throat, small tendrils of the gas still lingering in the air. They huddled on their haunches behind the coyote, hands on one another’s backs like monkeys. She clutched the coyote’s shirttail. He slapped her hand away. “Don’t mess up my clothes,” he said. There was no whispering. She’d thought there would be whispering.

  Behind Tacho, Atómiko squatted with his staff across his knees.

  “If we get separated and you get caught,” he said, “I’ll meet you where they drop off the deportees in Tijuana.”

  “What do you mean, meet us?”
>
  “Nobody’s catching Atómiko,” Atómiko proclaimed. “I’m not going in a Border Patrol cage! Never been in a cage, and will never go in a cage!”

  Nayeli was suddenly scared to face the border without the Warrior.

  “I will be there,” he said. “Come back to me, brown girl.”

  “Where will you be?” Nayeli said.

  “Don’t worry—they all get left in the same spot. I’ll wait for you there. Nobody will touch you.”

  “Our hero,” said Yolo, perhaps not completely sober yet, but so scared that her buzz was evaporating through her pores.

  “Listen,” the coyote said.

  They heard an engine approach. Headlights made pinholes in the wall light up like stars. The engine receded. The truck moved on.

  “Let’s go. We have about fifteen minutes,” the coyote said.

  He squat-walked to the fence and knocked the dry bushes aside and yanked a section of fence loose. It squealed loudly.

  He popped through and was gone.

  Nayeli followed, trying to make herself small, but she caught her scalp on the edge of the metal and cut a small wound in her forehead. Blood ran into her right eye, and though she wiped it away, it looked like she was weeping blood.

  Vampi went through on her hands and knees. “My rose!” she cried. “I dropped my rose!” Yolo shoved her. She followed. Tacho crawled through and panicked for a moment when he saw no one on the dirt road. Then he remembered the arroyo across the way, and he ran and plunged through the creosote bushes and came flying down upon the group like a cat falling off a roof. “Hey, idiot!” the coyote cried as he crashed into them.

  Atómiko stepped through the gap, bent back to the doorway, and kicked the metal back into place. He might as well have rung a bell, it was so loud. He raised his staff over his head and yelled, “Atómiko is in the house!” in trash dump English. He swung his staff all around, then laid it across his shoulders and strolled across the road.

  “So much for secrecy,” the coyote said.

  And he was off.

  Nayeli had to run to keep up. She clutched a tattered wad of tissue to her forehead with one hand and knocked branches out of her face with the other. Vampi yelped and trotted after her, and Yolo grabbed the back of Vampi’s shirt to hang on. Vampi took the brunt of the whipping branches Nayeli charged through. She cried out a hundred times as she got smacked. She was alarmed to see a pregnant woman running beside her. Where did she come from? The woman held her belly up with both hands and charged ahead. Tacho was a few paces behind them all, watching the pale ghosts of the running girls. They seemed to vanish. He knew they’d found the left turn. He passed it, fumbled back, and heard them breaking through the brush in the dark. He never saw any gap. It was all just more shadows. Headlights suddenly cut across the valley from the road along the fence. Tacho plunged into the darkest clump of shadow and prayed he didn’t step on a rattlesnake or fall into some pit full of tarantulas. Atómiko had completely vanished.