Into the Beautiful North (17 page)

“Everybody,” the guard with the big shotgun announced, “we are going in to register you. A quick interview. And you will all be going home. Stay calm.”

Tacho said nothing.

Nayeli couldn’t tell if he was angry or depressed.

Vampi was so scared she could not stop crying.

Yolo was so mad, she wanted to slap Nayeli’s face and go back home.

Tacho was thinking:
The United States is a little disappointing so far
.

ICE agents, customs agents, soldiers in camouflage, Border Patrol agents, agents with DEA on their windbreakers, EMS ambulance techs, dogs, white men in slacks and black ties, a San Diego city cop, men in red T-shirts, frightening men in black outfits. It looked to Nayeli like one of those boring old James Bond movies where 007 dropped inside a big plastic volcano to blow up the communists’ spaceship. But this place was more scary because they were in it. The guns were real. The lights were too bright.

The gates of the holding pens slammed loudly. All the young Mexican guys were yelling. Suddenly, Nayeli was separated from her friends as the tide of bodies split and sent them into two different groups. Vampi looked as if she was drowning, turning once in the tide and going under. Yolo caught Nayeli’s eye and stared at her, sending venomous lightning through the air. Nayeli had known her long enough to read the look:
You did this to us!
she was saying. Someone put his hand on Nayeli’s rear and squeezed; she spun around, but he was gone; she looked back, and Yolo had vanished. A hand brushed her breast.

Signs in Spanish asked them to follow requests, to report any violations to the agent in charge, to report any criminal activity in the pen, to make a free phone call if they had representation or needed to report human rights violations to the Mexican consulate. Many of those in the cage just stared at the floor. Most of the people herded into the pens were like them. Just… people. Small, brown, tired people. Nayeli was stunned to see mothers with children—the kids weeping and snot faced. She heard indigenous tongues in the pen—shamanic-sounding utterances that felt a million years old to her, sounds of jungle and temple and human sacrifice.

Nayeli looked at the migra agents through the iron mesh. Big men. Happy, bright-faced men. Shiny and crisp. Green uniforms. Short hair. Mustaches.

What made them different from her?

She could not tell.

They moved around with real efficiency, she noted. Sensei Grey would have appreciated their economy of motion, their obvious ease with their strength. And—a woman! A woman migra agent! Nayeli was fascinated by her. She had a big fat gun on her hip, and she was as short as Nayeli herself, but she was also stout and moved like a little tractor. A black man! Nayeli had never seen a black man outside of Irma’s porch television or the Pedro Infante on movie night. She was amazed by his hair, gray and white, tight to his skull. His skin shone and, she was astounded to realize, he had the same skin tone as hers, just a shade darker. She knew she was a sweet tanned color, but she had always imagined herself as white.

He saw her looking at him.

He stopped by the gate and peered in at her.

“You eyeballing me?” he said.

“¿Perdón?”

“¿Usted me está mirando?” he said, in Spanish.

“Sí.”

“¿Porqué?”

She looked at her feet.

“It is… your skin,” she said. “It is… beautiful.”

He laughed out loud.

Just then, Smith came along.

“Hey, Arnie,” he called to the black agent. “That’s Nayeli. She rules.”

“Nayeli, huh,” said Arnie. He opened the gate. “Let’s get you processed, Nayeli. You can get back to invading the United States in an expeditious manner. Get to you in a minute.”

“¿Qué?” she said.

Chapter Seventeen

A
gent Arnold Davis had seen it all. After twenty-seven years in government service, he was close enough to retirement that he was bulletproof as far as the bureaucracy went. He had so much retirement built up that if they were to fire him tomorrow, he’d get close to a full salary anyway. It was what he called “f-you money.”

He had sore feet and a bad back. He’d been in counseling twice. He had hemorrhoids. Insomnia. His prostate was probably the size of a Krispy Kreme doughnut—he peed five times a night, and it ruined what little sleep he got. And his left knee was shot. Join the Border Patrol—taste the glamorous life.

His wife had left him in 1992, and she’d taken his kids. They didn’t talk to him, but they did accept his monthly checks. He drove a Ford pickup, but the gas bill was getting crazy, and he was actually thinking of trading it in. But… a USBP senior supervisory agent just didn’t belong in a Hyundai. Maybe they’d come up with a hybrid Mustang.

He looked around the station and tried to block his sense of smell so he didn’t have to breathe in all the sweat, panic, despair, piss. He tried to ignore the ugly lighting that, the older he got, felt more and more like a personal insult to his eyes. As he walked around the floor, holding his limp to the barest minimum so nobody could see it, he was secretly looking into the back of his brain, at retirement and escape and Colorado mountains and trout streams. Elk. He wasn’t going to shoot them—just watch them walk on by.

Even now, there were not a lot of black agents in the Border Patrol. Hell, there were barely any agents at all. Oh, there were bodies, all right. There were more people in uniform than ever before. Homeland Security had flooded the Border Patrol with gung-ho new Terminators. But they didn’t know squat about the border, not really. How could they? It took a guy ten years to really get it.

Arnie had served at Wellton Station in Arizona. It had been a tight little unit of almost thirty guys. Then DHS had started pumping in the fresh bods, and the station swelled to three hundred people jammed into the crumbling building. They had to tear it down and build a bigger station, not to hold more wets but to hold the overflow of agents.

Arnie had relocated to Calexico, and now he was on loan to San Diego. He put on his reading glasses to study the papers on his clipboard. He glanced into the cage.

The little smiley Mexican girl was looking at him.

My black skin,
he said to himself,
is beautiful
.

He laughed out loud and moved on.

The government knew a secret that the American public didn’t: the numbers of border crossers were down, across the board. Maybe the fence, maybe the harsh new atmosphere in the US, maybe everybody had already fled Mex, like the old guys occasionally joked. But all these new agents were here, pumped, eager for action. The DHS paranoia and training had them searching for terrorists under every desk. Arnie shook his head. They actually believed an atomic bomb would be discovered in one of these backpacks, tucked under the underpants.

So they had to do something, now that talk radio and cable TV were so fascinated with every bit of border enforcement—until the next election season, anyway. The suits and the big dogs came up with a great assignment for the new Terminators—they were being sent out to arrest wets who were
leaving
the United States for Mexico. Hey, if you can’t catch ’em coming in anymore, bust ’em when they’re doing you a favor and trying to get back out.

Arnie thought a lot about that “f-you money.”

Elk, man, elk.

He came back for Nayeli. Crooked a finger at her. Opened the gate for her.

“Gracias,” she said, shyly grinning.

“We’re not going on a date,” he replied.

Photographs. Fingerprints. They sat at a table surrounded by other tables with worried paisanos and bored immigration agents. Arnie made some notes on a form. He wanted to know why she was carrying American money. Drugs? She shook her head. Hooker? No! When Nayeli started to tell him her story, he stopped writing. His mouth hung halfway open.

“Hey,” he said to the guy at the next table, “you gotta hear this.”

Nayeli told her story again. The agents shook their heads. It was the dumbest thing they’d heard all night. But they handed her all due respect: Nayeli had the most original wet story they’d heard in a week.

“You’re taking them back,” Arnie said.

She nodded. “I am here as a service to both our countries.”

He laughed. He looked around. He dropped his hands on the table.

“Well, well, well,” he said.

He laughed again, wiped his eyes.

“Do you not believe me?” she asked.

“Not really. But it’s a great story, I’ll give you that. Extra points for originality.”

She crossed her arms and frowned.

“I am not a liar,” she said.

“No. Just an illegal immigrant. That makes you so reliable!”

“I am not illegal!” she insisted. “I am on a mission. I am a patriot.”

He put his hand to his brow.

“Okay,” he said. “Whatever.”

He was thinking: the last time he’d seen his daughter, she was wearing a Kangol beret and mouthing hip noises and saying,
Whatevs, dawg
. Dawg? Who really said
dawg
, anyway? He shook his head. Nayeli was her size and close to her age. Almost her color.

“What am I gonna do with you kids?” he asked no one in particular.

He patted his own arm.

“Thanks for the compliment, by the way,” he said.

He got up, gestured for her to rise. The place was loud and awful. He wanted to be in the high country. Snow and ravens standing on the crowns of lightning-struck lodgepoles. He had a hold of her arm, but he didn’t go to the holding pen. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was going on instinct. Who could fire him? Who could write him up? He’d go fishing.

Arnie bought Nayeli a cold Coke from a battered machine. He bought some Zagnut bars and M&M’s from the agents’ machine for her friends. Then he locked her in the holding pen.

He stared in at her.

She smiled back.

“Don’t let me catch your ass again,” he warned.

A dog began barking savagely at a small group of young men.

More terrorists,
Arnie thought as he walked away, ignoring the whole thing.

Nayeli burned with shame.

She had thought the Americanos would be happy to see her.

We’re going back to Tijuana?” Yolo snapped.

They had found one another in the big pen. They never spotted Candelaria. Tacho was feeling his money belt, amazed that nobody had discovered it.

“We’re starting all over?” Yolo yelled.

“Would you rather be in jail?” Nayeli snapped back.

“I would rather be in Tres Camarones!” Yolo said. “I would rather be home!”

She shoved Nayeli.

One of the migra agents waded into the crowd.

“Hey!” he said. “¡Calma!”

“Sorry,” said Yolo.

“Do I have to separate you?”

“No.”

“I’m watching.”

“Sorry.”

He signaled another agent, and they stayed close enough to the friends to intervene, should trouble erupt.

“Great,” Nayeli said. “Thanks.”

“Don’t get smart with me, girl,” Yolo replied. “Thanks for what? I didn’t get us arrested! I didn’t get us deported!”

“Come on, now,” Tacho said. He was stroking poor Vampi’s tangled vampire hair. “Let’s not fight.”

Tacho thought sadly about La Mano Caída. He was missing the counter and the drink cooler, the cement floor and the stinking evil iguana in the window that snuck in every day to steal his mango and pineapple slices. He was suddenly worried that Aunt Irma wasn’t taking proper care of the lizard.

“I can’t believe this!” Yolo said.

“I know,” Tacho said. His voice could be soothing when he wanted it to be. “I know.”

Yolo crossed her arms around her stomach and huffed. She had tears in her eyes. The people jammed in with her bumped into her and pushed against her. She had never hated people as much as she did right then. One tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek.

Nayeli reached out for her, to give her a hug. She resisted, then gave in.

“I’m sorry,” Nayeli whispered.

Tacho said, “Just think of home. That’s what I do when I feel bad. I think of home.”

It was so noisy. Fences were clanking. People shuffled, muttered. The buses pulled up and the agents were yelling and the pneumatic doors were pulling open and the chain link was rattling. Migra agents moved through, telling them it was time to go home. The friends had to yell to be heard.

“What?” Yolo shouted.

“Home!” Tacho yelled. It was so absurd, he started to grin. He yelled as loud as he could: “Think about home!”

“What about home?” Vampi clled.

“I think about La Mano Caída!” Tacho yelled.

“¿Qué?”

“¡LA MANO CAIDA!”

Instantly, the Border Patrol agents froze.

“Al Qaeda?” the nearest one said.

“What?” said Tacho.

“Did you say Al Qaeda?”

“¡No! ¡Dije ‘La Mano Caída’!” Tacho shouted a little too loud.

The agents jumped on him, wrestling him to the ground.

“This guy’s Al Qaeda!”

People shouted and surged away. The gate stood open and the bus loading began. The three girls were forced from Tacho, who was under a pile of ICE agents. People shoved. The girls shrieked. A man’s voice yelled, “Get them out of here!” They were borne onto the bus.

Agents were wading into the crowd from all sides, heading for Tacho.

The bus doors slammed.

The bus lurched away, and the girls were trapped inside, watching them manhandle Tacho.

They sobbed and banged on the glass.

But the bus did not stop.