The Border

by Steve Schafer

  Marcos sticks his head inside the back window of the cab.

  “Do you know where your children crossed?”

  The rushing wind in the open truck bed blurs Sr. Ortíz’s response.

  “But where exactly? We need to leave. What did the letters say?”

  After a few seconds, Marcos pulls his head out of the window, with a flustered expression.

  “Pato, you spent the most time with those letters from Ortíz’s kids. Do you have an idea where we’re headed?”

  I read them. I didn’t study them like it was a test. We didn’t plan on crossing by ourselves, or leaving the letters back at the motel in a frantic exit.

  “They went to a town called Ajo,” I say. I close my eyes and try to remember the map. “I think it’s almost directly north of Sonoyta. Maybe a little west. And we’re going west now, so it’s probably straight north. Maybe a little east if we go much farther.”

  “How far from there?”

  “They said it’s about fifty kilometers, but it’s not a straight shot, so it ends up taking longer.”

  “So how long is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “The letters said it took them three days.”

  Marcos turns his head and looks to the north.

  “We can do three days out there, guys.”

  A car pulls up behind us. We all tense. Nobody says anything. The vehicle lingers for a few seconds, then passes us.

  “Let me put it another way,” Marcos continues. “Even if we die out there, we’ll live longer than if we stay here. I’m serious. If anybody’s got a better idea, then speak up.”

  Nothing.

  “Okay,” Marcos says. “Then we get some supplies and get the hell off this road and out of this chingado country as soon as possible.”

  He reaches through the back window to Sr. Ortíz’s shoulder, then points to a gas station in the distance. The truck slows down.

  Marcos goes into the convenience store with Sr. Ortíz while the rest of us huddle low in the bed of the truck. They make a few quick trips back and forth. The haul: six four-liter jugs of water, a few smaller bottles, about fifteen cans of food, a few rolls of cookies, a can opener, and three small duffel bags to carry everything. I suppose the store is accustomed to stops like this.

  We drive, again moving west.

  I stare at the water and run the math. I already know we can’t carry as much as we’ll need, but I can’t help it. All that water, and it’s still only a day’s worth for each person.

  “Does it really matter where we leave from?” Marcos asks me.

  “Anywhere that looks deserted,” I say. Even if we knew the location of a trail, we wouldn’t be able to take it. We need to avoid other people.

  Marcos taps Sr. Ortíz through the cab window.

  “Go a couple of kilometers then find a place to pull off the road. We’ll leave from there,” he says.

  Five minutes down the road, we stop. It’s disappointingly perfect. There is nothing.

  The afternoon heat is no different here than it was back in Sonoyta, but I feel it more. There’s no end in sight. No cool drink of horchata around the corner, no shady spot to sit, not even a filthy mattress to rest on while waiting out the fever of the day. We’re climbing into an oven. You can see it. The ground shimmers in waves, like the earth has taken in too much heat and can hold no more, sending it back to the sun, roasting us in two directions. I sweat from everywhere. I hoist one of the duffel bags full of cans and water over a shoulder and feel a bead of sweat roll off my nose. I’m already losing precious water.

  Arbo slings his bag over his shoulder. The weight causes him to lean to one side. His expression says the same thing I feel—we haven’t even started and the load is uncomfortable.

  Marcos removes several items from Gladys’s bag and adds them to his load. Then he ties two water jugs to the bottom straps of his backpack. If the weight bothers him, he doesn’t show it.

  Cars whiz by on the highway, each one bringing a potential threat and reminding us that we don’t have time for a lengthy goodbye.

  “You’re going to make it,” Sr. Ortíz says.

  “It’s only a couple of days,” I say.

  “That’s right. A couple of days. You can do it.”

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slip of paper with an address and phone number on it.

  “In case you lost it with your bags, hold on to this. I don’t know if you’ll make it to Canada, but even if you don’t, get in touch with my children. They’re good people. And you can consider them family. I’m sending them a letter. They’ll know you’re coming and they’ll find a way to help you.”

  Gladys had it right from the beginning—we are amazingly lucky to have found Sr. Ortíz. It just took me longer to see this. I don’t know how much farther we’ll make it from here, but one thing is certain: without his help, we wouldn’t have made it here at all.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Write me a letter. Let me know when you get there,” he says.

  “We will,” Arbo responds.

  As I’m about to step away, something occurs to me—Sr. Ortíz is staying with the truck. How could I have been so selfish?

  “Sr. Ortíz, they’re looking for that truck, you have—”

  He puts a warm hand on my shoulder and interrupts. “I’m going to drive it back to the gas station and leave it. Somebody will give an old man a lift back into town. Don’t worry about me. Worry about you. Get there.”

  “Thank you. We need to go,” Marcos says.

  “He’s right. Go,” Sr. Ortíz answers. He looks at me once more with watery eyes, turns, and goes back to the truck.

  Seconds later, he drives away.

  This is it. Goodbye Mexico. Goodbye family…what’s left. Goodbye old life. Goodbye everything. All of this flashes through my head, but I can’t give it much attention. I’m overwhelmed by what lies in front of us—or rather, what doesn’t—a boundless emptiness.

  We walk into the desert.

  And I mean “into,” not “through.” There are no trails. It’s an endless maze of twists and turns to avoid getting poked and scratched. All the vegetation is armored, like each plant is at war with everything else in the desert. Spiny, prickly, thorny, scratchy limbs reach out in all directions. We weave our way through the gaps, sometimes wide and sometimes narrow, trying as best we can to maintain a straight line to the north. Which is an estimation anyway. Among the items left back in the hotel room is our compass. Not only do we not have a guía, but we don’t even have a tool to point us in the right direction. At least not during the day. Our only saving grace is that Arbo and I have stared at the night sky enough to know how to find north. For now, we march toward a mountain peak in the distance, which is more or less the direction we want.

  Necesitas un guía.

  Necesitas un guía.

  Marcos takes the lead. He walks fast.

  “We need to get out of sight of the road,” he says, several times. The two jugs on his bag swing like giant bull testes behind him, clanking together with dull thuds.

  The shrubs thin and thicken along the path we make, leaving us exposed to the road some of the time, and shielded at other times.

  Gladys walks behind Marcos. Arbo trails her and I bring up the rear. I watch Arbo shift his bag from one shoulder to the other, then back again, as I do the same. We finally settle on putting both arms through the straps and using the bag as the most uncomfortable backpack ever. The thin straps dig deep into my shoulders, grinding back and forth with each step. I try to fold my shirt over several times where the straps press against me, but it never holds. Within minutes I can feel my shoulders getting raw. I can’t imagine how I’m going to keep this up for days on end.

  Noise from the highway soon fades, and so does our view of it.

&nb
sp; Marcos slows.

  “We’re here,” he says.

  “Where?”

  “Welcome to the United States, amigos,” he says, pointing to a low fence in the distance. We’ve walked no more than ten minutes.

  “That’s it?” Arbo asks.

  “Yup.”

  It stands no more than shoulder high, with posts several body lengths apart and thin strands of barbed wire running between them. I wasn’t expecting a wall, but I was expecting something more than this. This fence looks like it would barely keep cattle from crossing. The cacti will slow us down more than this fence.

  It feels underwhelming. Way underwhelming. And the more I stare at it, the smaller it seems. Its puny frame is engulfed by the desert. It’s inconsequential. It’s nothing.

  Then I get it. I think back to what the man on the porch said, and I see his true meaning.

  The fence is insignificant because it can be. It’s a warning. I can almost hear those who built it say, “We don’t need a barricade here. Look around you. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  The closer we get, the more worthless and more threatening it becomes.

  Necesitas un guía.

  Necesitas un guía.

  The rusty wire stretches wide as Marcos puts a foot on one strand and pulls up on another.

  Gladys ducks and glides through in a quick sweep. Arbo passes through next, though being Arbo, he finds a way to jab his side with a barb. He yips, rips his shirt, and takes his first step into the United States with his chin.

  All four of us are soon across, looking at each other as if something monumental has happened. Marcos picks up a rock and wings it back across the fence.

  “Screw you, Mexico!”

  We watch the rock disappear into the brush.

  “Yeah, screw you, Mexico!” Arbo yells. He throws a rock over the fence, then does a small, uncoordinated jig.

  Gladys giggles. Arbo’s smile widens.

  “¡A la mierda!” Marcos curses.

  “I’m standing at the frontera, so you can bite me, La Frontera!” Arbo kicks the dirt at his feet, sending a cloud of dust through the fence.

  Marcos throws his chest out, then leans his neck back and pipes a rolling-tongue screech into the air, “R-r-r-r-r-r-aaaa—haaa!”

  Gladys’s arms shoot high in victory.

  I try to smile, but my nerves take over. I look around to see if anyone can hear us. We are right on the border. The border. Of story, of legend, of dreams. But we might as well be on the moon. So famous, yet so desolate.

  A few tossed rocks later, our feet move, but the celebration continues.

  “Are we U.S. citizens now?” Gladys asks.

  “No, that takes eight years,” Marcos answers.

  “I heard it was five,” Arbo says.

  “I think it used to be, but they changed it,” Marcos says. “It’s not as easy now.”

  “So, if we stay there for eight years, then we’re citizens?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But how do you prove you’ve been there for eight years?”

  “I think you take a test.”

  Pause.

  “But why not study hard and try to take it after a year?” Arbo asks.

  Pause.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do!” Gladys says.

  “You know what I’m going to do, Pato?” Arbo asks me.

  “Dance more?”

  “Please!” Gladys says.

  “No! El Revolucionario is hereby an official U.S. citizen. No test. No eight years. He crossed and he’s in!”

  “Can you make him stop wrestling?” Gladys asks.

  “I second that,” Marcos says.

  “No! That’s what he does. Why should he be any different? He changed countries, not superpowers.”

  “Wrestling isn’t a superpower.”

  “It’s his.”

  “Fine, then you should also make him rich if he’s coming to the U.S. with us,” Marcos says. “Unless you want to kill him. I’d be okay with that too.”

  “No! He can’t die. And not everybody there is rich.”

  “Órale, güey… They buy all the mota the narcos can send them and everything we make in the factories. And everybody I’ve heard of that moves there sends money back home. So what do you think?” Marcos asks.

  “So, does that mean we’ll be rich?” Arbo asks.

  “In eight years,” Marcos says.

  “Unless we study hard for the test,” Gladys adds.

  “I’m studying,” Arbo says, then he throws both arms out to his side. “Wait, they don’t give you money when you pass the test. Do they?”

  “No! The money’s not free, you payaso,” Marcos says. “We’ll have to pay our dues for a couple of years, but there’s opportunity. Maybe it’s three years, maybe it’s eight. But if you work hard, you’ll get there.”

  “I don’t care about the money,” Gladys says. “I want to be a doctor.”

  “Do you know how much money doctors make?” Arbo asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to heal people.”

  “Good for you,” Marcos says.

  “You know what, I think El Revolucionario should be a doctor too. Yeah. He’s an American doctor now.”

  “No. You can’t just make him a doctor,” Gladys says.

  “Why not? I just made him an American.”

  “He can’t be a wrestler and be a doctor. Wrestlers put people in the hospital. Doctors get them out. They do opposite things.”

  “No. There’s good and there’s bad. That’s it. El Revolucionario does good and so do doctors. Same team. And if he puts some bad guys in the hospital, then he’ll be a busy doctor…and make lots of money!”

  “Ugh,” Gladys groans.

  They continue their banter as we trudge onward. I zone it out. Crossing the border for them was like some kind of drug. It’s as if they forgot about all that we’re up against, or why we’re crossing in the first place. Not me. I can’t, no matter how hard I try. We’re twenty minutes into a three-day slog, if we’re lucky. The bag feels heavier with every step, the sun pushes against me like a blistering headwind, my neck is scratched from multiple branches I’ve brushed up against, and I’m already thirsty. Whine, whine, whine. I’m out of sync completely, and I know it. So I keep to myself and stay in the back of our line.

  “A toast,” Arbo says, grabbing for his bag.

  “No,” Marcos says.

  “Why?”

  “We haven’t even been walking for half an hour. We drink every hour.”

  “Who made you God?”

  “I’m not God, I’m reason. We have to make it last,” Marcos says.

  “I’m only going to take a sip,” Arbo says.

  “On the hour.”

  “I’m carrying it. I’m going to do it,” Arbo says.

  “Don’t.”

  “Or what?”

  We stop. Gladys stands between the two of them, their eyes locked on each other. Neither move.

  “Or we’ll end up like whatever’s over there,” I say, pointing to a group of vultures circling in the distance.

  Both turn to see.

  “Yeah,” Marcos says. “Like that.”

  Arbo scowls. “Fine.”

  We start to walk again.

  “I want to see what it is,” Arbo says.

  “What are you talking about?” Marcos asks.

  “I want to see what the buzzards are circling.”

  “Why?” Marcos asks.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not where we’re going.”

  “It’s just off to the side,” Arbo shouts back over Gladys’s head.

  This is a detour from the straight line toward our mountain peak, but not by much. And we’re
not walking in straight lines anyway.

  “It’s more or less north,” Gladys says.

  “Fine,” Marcos replies.

  Our zigs and our zags curve to our left and the conversation stops. I watch the vultures slice effortlessly through the wind, rising and falling on the current of air drifting up from where we are, from where it feels still and suffocating. Never in my life have I so wished I were a bird, even one as disgusting as a vulture waiting to eat rotting meat.

  Soon they are high overhead and our steps soften, each of us looking for the unfortunate creature that’s meeting, or has already met, its end.

  “Oh my God,” Gladys says.

  “Oh boy,” Marcos follows.

  Through the wispy brush, I catch a flash of dark blue beneath the speckled shade of a lonely mesquite tree. I squint, trying to figure out what it is. I put a hand to my forehead to shade my eyes. Then it hits me.

  Blue jeans.

  We all freeze, waiting for the legs inside those jeans to either move or stay put. They do the latter.

  Marcos puts a finger to his lips, motions for us to stay where we are, then crouches and moves slowly through the brush.

  I stare at the body. I’m thinking two things. One, I hope the person is dead. And two, what an awful person I must be to think such a thing.

  Marcos stands tall and waves us over.

  With each step toward the tree, the scene becomes clearer. A dark red stain covers his belly and has soaked through his plaid shirt. He lies next to the tree, his head propped up against the trunk with his body stretching away like one of the roots, ending in a tall pair of tan boots, which are laced up high. The legs of his jeans are bunched upward, as if he slid down the trunk of the tree. A large stick runs along the length of his body—maybe this was how he got here, or maybe this was why the buzzards weren’t here yet. Enough flies dance across his face to produce a quiet hum. His lips are cracked. They look dry, almost wooden.

  Marcos lightly kicks at his leg.

  Nothing.

  I stare at his face. Who was he? How did he get here? How did he die? Then a wave a fear runs through my body. He looks like Marcos.

  I look at Marcos, then back at the body. I wouldn’t have mistaken him, but they have similar features. He looks a year or two older than me, has a lean and muscular frame, strong jawline, wide nostrils, a thick buzz cut of hair, and a sparse mustache and beard…waiting for age to thicken it.