The Line Becomes a River

by Francisco Cantú

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Francisco Cantú

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Some of the material in this book originally appeared, in different form, in Edible Baja Arizona, Guernica, Orion, Ploughshares, J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and South Loop Review.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Les Figues Press for permission to quote from Antígona González by Sara Uribe and to Cristina Rivera Garza and her translator, Jen Hofer, for providing preliminary excerpts from the forthcoming English translation of Dolerse.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cantú, Francisco, author.

  Title: The line becomes a river : dispatches from the border / Francisco Cantú.

  Description: New York : Riverhead Books, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017014247 (print) | LCCN 2017042308 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735217720 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735217713 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Cantú, Francisco (Essayist) | Mexican-American Border Region—Emigration and immigration. | “Illegal aliens”—Mexican-American Border Region. | Border security—Social aspects—Mexican-American Border Region. | U.S. Border Patrol—Officials and employees—Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural Heritage. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

  Classification: LCC JV6565 (ebook) | LCC JV6565 .C37 2018 (print) | DDC 363.28/5092 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014247

  p. cm.

  This book is a work of memoir; it is a true story based on the author’s best recollections of various events in his life. The names and identifying characteristics of certain people mentioned in the book have been changed in order to protect their privacy. In some instances, the author has combined minor characters and rearranged and/or compressed events and time periods in service to the narrative, and dialogue has been re-created to match the author’s best recollection of those exchanges.

  Version_1

  To my mother and grandfather, for giving me life and a name; and to all those who risk their souls to traverse or patrol an unnatural divide

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  My mother and I drove east across the flatlands, along the vast floor of an ancient sea. We had come to West Texas to spend Thanksgiving in the national park where my mother worked as a ranger during the years when I formed my first childhood memories—images of wooded canyons and stone mountains rising up from the earth, the sound of wind whipping across low desert hills, the warmth of the sun beating down upon endless scrublands.

  As we neared the Guadalupe Mountains we passed an expanse of salt flats and I asked my mother to stop the car. She pulled onto the shoulder and we walked out together across broken earth. We stood looking north toward the Guadalupes, towering remnants of a Permian reef once submerged beneath the inland waters of Pangaea. A cool November wind blew against our bodies like a slow current of water and I bent down to touch the ground, breaking off a piece of white crust and rubbing it between my fingers. I touched my tongue and looked up at my mother. It tastes like salt, I told her.

  Inside the park, my mother and I waited at the visitor center while a uniformed woman stood at the reception desk with a pair of visitors, patiently explaining the park’s camping fees and hiking options. When the visitors turned to walk away, the woman caught sight of us and a smile spread across her face. She hurried over from behind the desk and reached out to hug my mother before taking a step back to look at me. She stood for a moment in disbelief. Ay mijo, the last time I saw you, you were barely this tall. She held her hand down at her knees. Are you still in Arizona? she asked us. Mom is, I said, but I went away for college in Washington. Her eyes grew wide. The capital? I nodded. Qué impresionante. And what are you studying? International relations, I told her. He’s studying the border, my mother added. We’re staying in El Paso on our way back so he can visit Ciudad Juárez.

  The woman shook her head. You better be careful, she said, Juárez is dangerous. She stared at me with her hands on her hips and then reached out to touch my shoulder. You know, I still remember babysitting you when you were a little chamaquito. She looked down at my shoes. All you wanted back then was to be a cowboy. You would wear those little cowboy boots and that little cowboy hat and run around with my boys in the backyard, chasing each other with those little plastic guns. My mother grinned. I remember it too, she said.

  The next morning, my mother and I woke early to hike through a canyon that stretched upward into the wooded backside of the Guadalupes. As we walked, my mother became a guide again, pointing at the quivering yellow leaves of a bigtooth maple, reaching out to touch the smooth red bark of a madrone tree. She bent down and plucked the dried shell of a dragonfly larva from a blade of grass and slowly turned it in her dirt-smudged hands. She looked up the trail toward the slow-rolling waters of the stream and began to speak to me of the glistening arthropod, explaining how it would have sloughed its skin to flit upon the swirling winds of the canyon. She cradled its exoskeleton in her hands like a sacred object. Dragonflies migrate as birds do, she told me, beating their papery wings for days on end across rolling plains, across long mountain chains, across the open sea.

  My mother left the trail and sat on a rock at the edge of the stream, removing her shoes and socks. She rolled her pants to the base of her knees and waded into the water, tensing her shoulders at its coolness. She invited me to join her, but I shook my head and sat alone in the dappled sunlight on the bank. My mother stepped over rocks and fallen branches, pointing at the way the water flowed over an exposed root, the way the sun shone brightly on a clump of green grass. She bent over and touched the surface of the water, rubbing her wet hands on her face. As I collected fallen maple leaves, my mother reached down and pulled a handful of pebbled limestone from the streambed. Come, she called to me with dripping hands. Touch the water.

  That night, as we sat in a backcountry research station eating precooked turkey and instant stuffing, I asked my mother why she had joined the Park Service all those years ago. She stabbed her fork at a piece of stuffing. I joined because I wanted to be outdoors, she told me, because the wildlands were a place where I could understand myself. I hoped that as a park ranger I could awaken people’s love for nature, that I could help foster their concern for the environment. She glanced up from her plate. I wanted to guard the landscape against ruin, she said, to protect the places I loved. I sat back in my chair. And how does it feel now, I asked, looking back on it? My mother set down her fork and ran her finger along the wood grain at the edge of the table. I don’t know yet, she said.

  The following day, my mother and I left the park and drove west. As we came into El Paso that evening, I gazed out at the lights spreading across the floor of the desert valley, trying to make out where the United States ended and Mexico began. At our motel, a b
espectacled clerk made small talk with my mother as he checked us in. What brings you to El Paso? he asked. My mother smiled. My son is researching the border, she said. The border? The man looked at us over the top of his glasses. I’ll tell you about the border. He pointed beyond the glass doors of the motel to a grassy hillside at the parking lot’s edge. You see out there? Used to be I would watch that grass move every night. Wasn’t long before I realized it wasn’t wind moving the grass, it was wetbacks sneaking across the line. The man smirked. But the grass hardly moves anymore, if you know what I mean. You don’t see wets in people’s yards these days. My mother and I nodded awkwardly as the man chuckled, handing us the keys to our room.

  The next morning we parked at the Santa Fe Street Bridge and walked south toward the border. We followed a steady stream of crossers through a caged walkway that stretched over the concrete channel where the barely flowing water of the Rio Grande separated El Paso from Ciudad Juárez. As we neared the other end of the bridge, I watched as a bleary-eyed man said goodbye to his wife and son. The boy stood crying next to a groaning turnstile as his mother and father held each other in a long embrace. On the other side of the revolving gate, my mother and I were waved past an inspection table by a Mexican customs agent dressed in black. My mother turned to me. They don’t want to see our passports? she asked. I shrugged. I guess not.

  We left the port of entry and made our way down Avenida Benito Juárez past throngs of taxi drivers and snack vendors. We walked by blaring speakers and brightly painted storefronts—past liquor stores and pawn shops, dental offices and discount pharmacies, past taquerías and casas de cambio and signs advertising seguros, ropa, botas. After several blocks my mother asked if we could find somewhere to sit. We crossed the street to Plaza Misión de Guadalupe, where she quickly slumped down onto a bench. I need to catch my breath, she said, my heart’s racing. Are you all right? I asked. She took in a breath and looked all around her, placing a hand on her chest. I’m fine, just a little overwhelmed. I glanced up at the sun. Listen, I’m going to get you some water. I touched her shoulder and pointed at a market across the street.

  Inside the shop I stood behind two women discussing politics in the checkout line. I’m glad it will be Calderón, one woman said to the other. We need a president who will be hard on crime, someone to take on the delincuentes and clean up the streets. The other woman shook her head vigorously as she paid the shopkeeper for a carton of cigarettes and package of pan dulce. No entiendes, she said to her friend. The problem doesn’t come from the streets.

  My mother drank thirstily from the bottle of water, sighing deeply as I consulted a pocket map we had taken from the hotel. We’re close to Mercado Juárez, I told her, we can sit there and get something to eat while you rest. She nodded and took her time looking up and down the street before lifting herself from the park bench. We walked slowly down the sidewalk past the brick dome of the Aduana Fronteriza and turned to make our way down Calle 16 de Septiembre. A block from the mercado we stood at an intersection choked with cars, waiting for the signal to turn green. Then, as we made our way across four lanes of traffic, my mother cried out and fell to her hands in the middle of the street. I turned in panic and kneeled down at her side with my arms around her shoulders. Are you okay? I asked. She breathed through her teeth and gestured down at her foot, twisted in a pothole. You’ve got to get up, I told her, we’ve got to get out of the street. I looked up at the signal, flashing its red hand. I tried to drag her to her feet, but she shouted and winced, breathing in short gasps. It’s my ankle, she said, I can’t move it.

  I stood in the intersection as the light turned green, holding my hands out to the line of cars. I glanced toward the mercado and saw a man running from the sidewalk. In front of us, a woman stepped out of her car and came to kneel at my mother’s side. Tranquila, she whispered, tranquila.

  A man in a cowboy hat stepped down from his idling truck and turned to the cars behind him, motioning for them to stand by. The man who had run from the mercado touched me on the back. Te ayudo, he told me, qué pasó? My hands were shaking as I gestured at my mother. No puede caminar. The man stood on the other side of her and made a lifting motion with his hands outstretched. We bent down together and slung my mother’s arms around our shoulders. The woman at my mother’s side reached out to touch her—vas a estar bien, she told her before turning to walk back to her car. My mother hopped up on one leg as I lifted her with the other man, and we shuffled together toward the sidewalk. We helped my mother sit against a concrete wall and I turned to watch the traffic roll again down the street.

  I kneeled down and looked at my mother’s hands, smudged black from the asphalt. Do we need to call an ambulance? I asked her. She opened her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. I don’t think so, she said. Just let me sit. I looked up at the man and stood to take his hand. Gracias, I told him, not knowing what else to say. The man shook his head. It’s nothing. In Juárez we take care of one another. He patted me on the back and gestured for me to sit down with my mother. When you’re done here, he suggested, come visit my stand in the mercado. I’ll be there with my mother, we’ll make some quesadillas for the both of you. Before turning to leave he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Aquí están en su casa.

  I

  In the dream I am hunched over in the darkness. The floor of the cave is covered with black shapes, arms and legs severed from the bodies that once carried them. I touch them and hold them in my hands, feeling dirt and blood and cold skin. I sort through the parts for a head, for the remnants of a face, for something to identify the people who were deposited here. I leave the cave empty-handed, emerging into a landscape devoid of color, the air still and raw. Outside, a voice tells me I must visit a wolf in a nearby cave. When I arrive there, little light is left in the sky. I walk through a stone passageway until I must squint to see through the darkness. At the back of the cave I can make out the rough shape of an animal circling in the shadows. Soon I discern the outline of a wolf walking slowly toward me, one paw placed silently before the next. As the animal approaches, my body swells with terror. I look over my shoulder and see the figure of my mother, gesturing for me to hold out my hand, to offer it to the wolf. I look forward and hold out my arm, breathing deeply as I open my palm. The wolf slowly comes near, stretching its neck to sniff my hand with its massive muzzle. The animal seems truly fearsome, but also wise. As it steps back to regard me, I sense that something is being communicated. The wolf approaches me again, this time standing slowly on its back legs and reaching for me, placing its paws on my chest. I am startled by the size of the paws, how heavy they feel against my chest. The wolf leans into me and brings its face close to mine, as if to tell me a secret. I close my eyes and feel its hot breath against my cheeks, its wet tongue on my face, licking the insides of my mouth. Then, suddenly, I awake.

  We were on our way into town, speeding across the cold and brittle grasslands of New Mexico, when I heard about Santiago. Morales must have told me, or maybe it was Hart. I called Santiago as soon as I found out. You don’t have to quit, I told him, you can still finish, you should stay. I can’t, he said, it’s not the work for me. I should go back to Puerto Rico, I should be with my family. I wished him luck and told him I was sorry to see him go. He thanked me and said to finish for the both of us, and I promised I would.

  Of all my classmates, it was Santiago I most wanted to see graduate. He marched out of step, his gear was a mess, he couldn’t handle his weapon, and it took him well over fifteen minutes to run the mile and a half. But he tried harder than any of us. He sweated the most, yelled the loudest. He was thirty-eight years old, an accountant from Puerto Rico, a husband and a recent father. The day before he quit, he left the firing range with a pocket full of live rounds and the instructors ordered him to sing “I’m a Little Teapot” in front of the class. He didn’t know the song, so they suggested “God Bless America.” He belted out the chorus at the top of his lungs, his chest
heaving after each line as he gasped for air, thick with the smell of shit blowing in from the nearby dairy farms. We laughed, all of us, at his thick accent, at the misremembered verses, at his voice, off-key and quaking.

  In town, over drinks, Hart went on about the winters in Detroit. I can’t go back there, he said, not like Santiago. Fuck that. He glared down at his beer and then looked up at us. You know what I did before this? he asked. Morales and I shook our heads. I was a clerk at a rent-a-car desk in the goddamned airport. You know how many times I handed car keys to people who wouldn’t even look me in the face? Guys who would glance at the tattoos on my arms like I was some thug, like I was some pathetic black kid part-timing outside the ghetto. Hart gripped his glass of beer. But more than any of that, I’m sick and tired of the winter.

  Hart looked up from the table and mustered a smile. How about winter in Arizona? he asked. Morales laughed. You don’t have to worry about snow where we’re going, vato, that’s for sure. Hart thought it sounded nice. Sure, I said, but wait until the summer. Have you ever felt 115-degree heat? Hell no, Hart answered. Well, I told him, we’ll be out in it, fetching dead bodies from the desert. Hart looked puzzled. Who the fuck walks through the desert when it’s 115? he asked. I drank through the final gulp of another beer. Migrants used to cross in the city, I told him, in places like San Diego and El Paso, until the Border Patrol shut it all down in the nineties with fences and new recruits like us. Politicians thought if they sealed the cities, people wouldn’t risk crossing in the mountains and the deserts. But they were wrong, and now we’re the ones who get to deal with it. Hart lost interest in my rambling and attempted to flag down the server to order another beer. Morales stared at the table and then glanced up at me, his eyes dark and buried beneath his brow. Sorry for the lecture, I told them. I studied this shit in school.