The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  They’re brothers.

  Fellow veteranos in detention.

  They hang tight, she doesn’t break them.

  Not for lack of trying—Canela brings in about every kid in the unit, but by that time even the fresca have learned that they don’t talk. She brings in Rodrigo, Fermín, she even brings in Mudo, who doesn’t say anything.

  Canela can’t make a case so she eventually gives up.

  Nico and Santi parlay the scam into a small fortune of candy bars, bags of chips, sodas and all kinds of shit. They don’t make their own beds anymore—a kid who’s behind in his payments does that—they don’t do their own laundry. They get to cut the line at mealtime, they get to pick what’s on TV.

  And it’s a self-perpetuating deal, because the other kids will make any kind of stupid bet trying to get even.

  “It’s another human delusion,” Santi explains to Nico. “Just like hope. People always want to get even, they think they can get even and they just get further and further behind.”

  Santi is so smart.

  He gets the other kids betting not against him and Nico, but against each other, with Santi and Nico as the bank. The two boys pay off the winners and collect a fee from the losers. More often than not the loser can’t pay, so they end up lending him the stuff at interest.

  “This way,” Santi says, “we make on every bet. Something my grandmother taught me—the house always wins.”

  Santi, as usual, is right.

  They own the place.

  It has to happen.

  Has to happen.

  You lock thirty adolescent boys into a single place, sooner or later they’re going to have a pissing contest.

  It could have been worse.

  The original idea was a jerk-off contest.

  “Won’t work,” Santi explained. “Who wins? The kid who comes first? Who comes last? Who comes best? How do you judge it? With pissing, we have a standard metric: distance. It’s measurable.”

  “Who’s going to be the judge?” Rodrigo asks.

  “Seeing as me and Nico aren’t going to compete,” Santi says, “we will.”

  “But then you can’t bet,” Rodrigo says.

  “Right,” Nico answers.

  Rodrigo is so slow.

  Fermín asks, “Where are we going to do it?”

  “In the showers,” Santi says, “so we can wash away the evidence.”

  They work out the rules—each of the contestants will put down five snacks, to be banked by Santi and Nico. Winner takes all. No side bets are allowed—someone might take a dive by “short pissing.” You’re only allowed to bet on yourself, although the boys with bigger dicks are allowed to give odds.

  “Dick size is not necessarily linked to projection power,” Santi says.

  “How do you know?” Nico asks.

  “You think this is my first pissing contest?”

  The staff is puzzled the next day when there’s a run on juice and soda and kids are hitting the water fountain like camels.

  Chris gets it. “Pissing contest.”

  “I’ll break it up,” Gordo says.

  “No, don’t,” Chris says. “There are a thousand nasty things they could get up to. This is fairly benign.”

  “You know they’re gambling.”

  “Takes their minds off other things,” Chris says.

  “Like what?”

  “You kidding me?” Chris asks. Just little things like not knowing where they’re going to live, or where their families are, if they’re going to get sent back into the shit they risked everything to escape. Little stuff like that. “Just find somewhere else to be while they’re doing it.”

  “We’re just going to let them piss in the shower room.”

  “You never pissed in the shower, Gordo?” Chris asks. “Tell the truth now.”

  That night, thirteen contestants line up in a very crowded shower room. Some are hopping up and down in discomfort from having saved an entire evening of fluids in their bladders. Others are shifting from leg to leg.

  “Ready?!” Nico yells.

  They’re more than ready.

  “Dicks out!” he yells.

  They do it.

  “Piss!”

  Thirteen streams of urine arc across the shower room. Santi, wearing sunglasses (splash concern) squats a few feet away.

  The mass urination stops.

  Santi is on all fours now. He carefully crawls over the tiles, looking down, his concentration intense.

  Then he stands up.

  The room is silent.

  Then Santi says, “We have a tie.”

  It’s a stunning decision.

  “In lane five,” Santi says, “we have Manuel, and in lane eleven, Mudo Juan! It’s dead even!”

  Controversy breaks out. Kids rush up to check the stains for themselves. They argue, the Mexicans taking up for their boy Manuel, the Central Americans for Mudo Juan. Santi lets them blow off steam for a minute, then talks over the roar to say, “The judge’s decision is final! The question now is what do we do from here?”

  Some of the kids say they should split the winnings evenly between Manuel and Mudo. Santi has a better idea. “This was winner-take-all, so there has to be a single winner and he has to take it all. There’s only one thing to do—this means a piss-off, Manuel v. Mudo.”

  “That’s right!” Nico says.

  “How come you guys get to decide?” Rodrigo asks.

  “Because we’re the Southern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center Gambling Commission,” Santi answers.

  “Why you?” one of the new kids asks.

  “Do you know what a gambling commission is?” Santi asks.

  “No.”

  “That’s why.”

  Santi outlines the new rules. In two days (giving their bladders a chance to rest) Manuel and Mudo will go head-to-head (as it were), the winner getting the existing kitty. Everyone can wager on the outcome—straight up, no odds—all bets to go through the SVJDC Gambling Commission.

  “What if it’s a tie again?” one of the kids asks.

  Santi hadn’t thought about this. He contemplates for a few seconds and gives his ruling. “Then we go to jerk-off. First to shoot wins.”

  “I feel like Dana White,” Santi says when the group breaks up.

  “Was it really a tie?” Nico asks.

  “Grow up.” Mudo won by a half inch, Santi explains. But now they’ll get a percentage from a new round of betting, which is going to be heavy, and . . . “We need to put our whole stash down on Mudo.”

  “We can’t bet. We’re the judges.”

  “We go through Fermín.”

  “The whole thing?” Nico asks. “Are we that sure Mudo is going to win?”

  “He’s hung like a horse.”

  “But you said there was no—”

  “I know what I said. That was subterfuge.”

  The excitement over the next two days is intense as the Mexican kids line up behind Manuel, the CA kids back up Mudo, the teachers notice a sudden outbreak of interest in hydro-physics among their students, and the staff monitoring internet use notice a lot of googling queries like “What liquid makes you piss the most?”

  “It’s all about trajectory,” Santi quietly coaches Mudo. “You have to find exactly the right trajectory. Shoot too high or too low, you lose distance.”

  Mudo nods.

  “What is the best trajectory?” Nico asks. “Do you know?”

  “Yahoo puts it at forty-five degrees.”

  “You got that, Mudo?” Nico asks. “Forty-five degrees.”

  Nico is worried, his entire hard-won fortune is on Mudo getting the trajectory just right. And on the right choice of fluid.

  “Water,” Santi says. “No sodas—the bubbles get in your dick and slow your piss down.”

  “They do?” Nico asks.

  “Try it. I did.” Santi looks back at Mudo. “And no jerking off. Save it up in case it comes to a tiebreaker. You have someone to think about?” />
  “He’s not going to answer you, Santi.”

  “That’s okay. It’s better if he keeps it all inside,” Santi says. “Just as long as you have someone, Mudo. Think about her, rub, but don’t come. That way, when the time is right—bam, hair trigger.”

  “I heard Manuel is going with Katie Barbieri,” Nico says.

  “That skank?” Santi says. “We’ve won already. But it’s not going to come to that, you’re going to win on piss.”

  “And remember,” Nico says, “you have the honor of all Central America riding on you. A whole continent.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Santi says.

  “Sure it is,” Nico says. “North America, South America, Central America.”

  Canela is ready to shut the whole thing down. There’s no way thirty excited adolescents are going to keep this kind of thing a secret, and it gets to her. She tells Chris to put a stop to it, pronto. “They’re abusing Juan.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Is there another way?”

  “Sure,” Chris says. “That we have a kid who’s been basically catatonic, we haven’t been able to reach him, and Nico and Santi—”

  “Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.”

  “Those were gangsters?”

  “Yes.”

  “They have him participating in something,” Chris says.

  “Something disgusting.”

  “They’re teenage boys,” Chris says. “They’re disgusting by definition. And this is making Juan the center of attention.”

  “They’re using him as a figure of fun.”

  “That’s our projection,” Chris says. “And we know Juan isn’t going to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Let them do this, Norma. Let them get away with something, think they’re getting over on us. These kids don’t get a lot of wins.”

  “This isn’t what they’re here for.”

  “No,” Chris says. “They’re here so the county can bill ORR. They support the rest of this facility.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Chris says. “C’mon, Norma.”

  After a few seconds she asks, “Who are you betting on?”

  “Juan,” says Chris. “A beer with Gordo.”

  “Cheapskates.”

  Chris shrugs. “Pay us more.”

  “I can’t.”

  The big day arrives. The nerves are palpable. The kids pay even less attention in class, they play the afternoon fútbol game perfunctorily, as a preliminary to the main event. All day, all eyes are on Manuel and Mudo Juan, assessing their condition, their readiness, their horniness if it comes to that.

  Nico’s a mess.

  The Mexican kids are too confident, as if they know something. But all Jupiter will say is “Mexicans can piss! And if it comes to the tiebreaker? Manuel is the premature ejaculation champion of the world. He practices all the time. You guys fucked up.”

  Nico hopes not.

  He’s come to enjoy wealth.

  The kids are so overexcited by dinner they can barely eat.

  Except Mudo.

  He eats like a pregnant hippo.

  Nico wonders if this is a good thing.

  “It is,” Santi assures him. “A full belly puts extra pressure on the bladder.”

  Nico isn’t so confident about Santi’s knowledge of anatomy.

  The evening until lights out is endless. The boys try to watch TV or play cards, but no one’s heart is in it.

  Mudo sits draining bottle after bottle of water.

  “You’re sure about this soda thing?” Nico asks Santi.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Because Manuel’s drinking Cokes.”

  “Good, it’ll fuck him up.”

  Finally, finally, it’s lights out and the boys dutifully troop to their rooms. Gordo makes himself missing, and the kids come out and assemble in the shower room.

  Nico thinks Mudo looks nervous.

  It makes him nervous.

  Santi holds his hand up to his mouth like a microphone. “Laaadies and gentlemen . . .”

  “What the fuck is he doing?” Jupiter asks.

  “I have no idea,” Nico says.

  “For the thousands in attendance and the millions watching around the world,” Santi yells, “this will be a one-round pissing contest for the heavyweight championship of the wooooorld! In the red corner, pissing out of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico . . .”

  The Mexican kids cheer.

  “Manuel ‘El Micción’ Coronado!”

  More cheers.

  Boos from the CA kids.

  “And in the blue corner,” Santi says, “pissing out of . . . well, we have no fucking idea where he’s from . . . Juan ‘El Mudo’ Something or Other!”

  Cheers and jeers.

  “Gentlemen, touch hands if you want . . .”

  They don’t.

  “I want a clean urination,” Santi says. “No dribbling, no pissing behind the back of the head . . .”

  “What?” Jupiter asks.

  “Just go with it,” Nico says.

  “In charge of the ring tonight, Nico ‘He’s Firm but He’s Fair’ Ramírez!”

  “All right,” Nico says, then he repeats what Santi told him to say. “Let’s get it on!”

  Manuel and Mudo walk up to the line.

  “Ready!” Nico yells. “Dicks out!”

  The dicks come out.

  The tension is unbearable.

  “Piss!”

  Nico watches Mudo’s stream of urine arc up and out in a perfect forty-five-degree trajectory. It’s beautiful, like water from a fire hose, and it carries Nico’s hopes and dreams with it.

  He almost wants to cry.

  Then it lands.

  Right next to Manuel’s splatter.

  The silence is heavy as Santi walks over, bends down, examines the stains. Then he looks at the crowd and says, quietly and solemnly, “We’re going to overtime.”

  The crowd erupts.

  The Mexican kids are jubilant—they know they have it now.

  “There will be a ten-minute break,” Santi says, “and then the jerk-off.”

  Nico and Santi huddle with Mudo during the break.

  “How you feeling?” Santi asks. “Horny?”

  Mudo doesn’t answer.

  He looks grim.

  “You’ve got this, güerito,” Santi says, squatting in front of him. “Look, you were literally born to do this . . . because, let’s get real, you’re never going to actually get laid.”

  No answer.

  Mudo just looks scared.

  This is not good, Nico thinks. He sees poverty staring him in the face in the form of Mudo’s blank eyes.

  He grabs Mudo’s shoulders. “There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to step up to the plate and be a man. This is that time. This is your time, Juan. Tune out all the noise, focus, and jerk off like the champ we know you are. Okay, let’s go.”

  They reassemble.

  “No preliminaries!” Santi announces. “At Nico’s signal, each man will start giving himself una puñeta. The first one to shoot is the winner. Nico?”

  “Dicks out,” Nico says. Then, “Commence!”

  Mudo is game, you have to give him that.

  His eyes are closed in a tight clench, his neck is arched back, his right hand flies as fast as a big man’s hand can fly.

  Manuel looks like he’s taking a more nonchalant, dreamier, fantasy-based approach.

  “I didn’t realize Manuel was left-handed,” Nico says.

  “Ambidextrous,” says Jup.

  “Will it make a difference?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jup says. “I’ve seen him rub one out with his feet. No, seriously, I have.”

  We’re fucked, Nico thinks. Being rich was nice while it lasted.

  “The judge!” Nico yells. “Mudo, think of the judge!”

  Mudo picks up the pace, jerking furiously.

  Manuel glances over,
like an elite sprinter who hears footsteps coming up behind him. His nonchalance disappears and he takes it up a notch.

  He’s not going to let himself get caught.

  It’s as good as over.

  Nico has an inspiration.

  “The judge, Mudo,” he yells, “and Canela!”

  Mudo’s eyes open.

  His mouth opens.

  His balls open.

  A moment of stunned silence, then—

  “The winner,” Santi yells, “and new champion of the world—El Mudooooooooo!”

  The CA kids surround Mudo, slap him on the back, hug him, kiss his cheek. Shit, they’d lift him on their shoulders and carry him around the room, but that isn’t going to happen. He accepts the praise and congratulations wordlessly and tucks his penis back into his pants.

  The Mexican kids are cursing.

  Nico is beyond ecstatic.

  Snack wealthy beyond measure.

  “Canela?” Santi asks him. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Nico says. “It just came to me.”

  “Brilliant,” Santi says. “Sick, but brilliant.”

  Nico goes to bed that night a rich and happy man.

  The next morning, Norma listens to Chris’s report and says, “Am I to understand that a young man traumatized to the point of elective muteness brought himself to climax by the image of me in a lesbian relationship with a reality television star?”

  Chris smiles. “Pretty much.”

  “Given the options, I’m going to choose to be flattered.” She holds up a document. “The gang is being broken up anyway. Ramírez’s FRA was approved. His uncle is coming to get him tomorrow.”

  “Does Nico know?”

  “Not yet. I thought you’d like to tell him.”

  Chris finds Nico on his way to class after breakfast. “Hey, güerito, pack your shit, you’re getting out of here.”

  Nico is stunned. And scared. Are they sending him back to Guatemala?

  “It’s good news,” Chris says. “Your sponsorship went through. Your aunt and uncle are coming to get you.”

  It’s dizzying.

  The first person Nico tells, of course, is Santi. “I’m going to live in New York. I’m going to be an American.”

  Santi shakes his head. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “This doesn’t mean you get to stay permanently,” Santi says. “It only means you get to stay until they hold a ‘deportation hearing.’ Most of the time, they deport you. That’s why it’s not called a ‘Welcome to America’ hearing.”