The Coyote's Bicycle (18 page)

Along with trash, some of the more distinctive items that wash into California's Border Field State Park are plastic baby dolls—the kind with the flickering lashes and bright eyes. The toys are so numerous that migrants who pass through the area have taken to placing the dolls' heads in the wispy trees that line the river. The impulse is almost certainly sparked by humor, but the effect is spooky, especially for uninitiated horse riders and dog walkers. People who work in the valley are aware of the dolls, so when Desert Angels volunteer Ricardo Esquivias Villegas and his dog Loba came upon a pile of storm trash, the searcher at first thought Hector's body was yet another toy. The two-year-old was half buried in trash, and his body was so damaged his sex couldn't immediately be determined. In the meantime, a migrant walking through the wetland spotted another body farther into the park. The crosser called relatives in Mexico, who called the Tijuana fire department, who called the San Diego lifeguard service, who alerted the searchers. They scoured the area, described to them fourth-hand, but quit as it grew dark. Tifany's body wasn't recovered for another four days. The county medical examiner's office took three weeks to officially identify the children. In that period, the Méndez family was still hopeful they might find the boy and girl alive because several other Tijuana residents had disappeared in the storm. The two nameless bodies could have belonged to another family.

I'd associated this tragedy with the canyon for a couple of years. Each time I thought of Los Laureles, I pictured the place where the Méndez car washed away. I imagined a precarious dirt embankment, a parking spot on a steep incline, a suspect river crossing. But when Romo and I neared the spot, the humdrum bend in the road,
although fatally misplanned, both surprised me with its banality and spoke to dangers in plain view.

But this was not the place we'd come to see. Another, more like a portal into an alternate reality, lay at the end of Los Laureles, where the canyon's trough and two walls crossed an imaginary line and became Goat Canyon and the United States.

Just south of the Alacrán-Laureles juncture the road was blocked. Someone was pouring more concrete. So Romo pitched his truck up a steep road onto the eastern mesa and into a neighborhood called Mirador. Suddenly the badlands were behind us and we passed through a middle-class neighborhood with sweeping views. Chattering school kids in crisp white shirts and dark blue uniforms occupied streets and corner shops. The houses looked substantial. Green lawns rolled curbside. As we made our way to the edge of the mesa, the neighborhood literally fell away. Romo parked on the last street. We walked out to an empty dirt lot that ended in a sheer promontory and found ourselves on a piece of earth that dropped off on three sides. I tested the ground with a slight stomp. It felt like walking a plank. Across the canyon from this point rose the shadowed western wall of Los Laureles. The sound of water thundered up from below. This was the International Road and its stream of traffic heading to Ensenada and points south. Our vantage highlighted the fact that the main highway traversed an earthen berm—from the eastern wall of Laureles, where we stood, to the western one. The road and its dam-like base artificially separated Laureles from Goat Canyon. Underneath the road and the dam ran several culverts, each tall enough to walk through.

In 2007, Romo had begun to notice something down on the flats in front of the culverts that provoked his imagination. What he saw led him to dream up a tour of sorts. Romo decided he would attempt to guide a group of American citizens south from Goat Canyon into the culverts and then up into Laureles—a reverse migration with the
intent to bring awareness to the disparities between the two countries, and their interconnectedness. Colleagues described his proposed project as political theater. When he approached Mexican customs and US Border Patrol officials, both sides scoffed. Romo is no slouch in the world of diplomacy, but mostly he is persistent. “I worked on the paperwork and permissions to the point that someone high up became amused,” he said. As Romo readied one hundred US passport holders to cross into Mexico, he spotted Border Patrol agents chuckling at the sight of his bookish migrants. The Mexican federal government sent out customs agents to process the Americans' passports as they popped up from the culverts, and “in the only instance of its kind, the culvert became a legal border crossing,” Romo said.

Tijuana police cars with flashing lights were also present. The scene drew onlookers. Passing motorists and pedestrians on the International Road yelled:

“Arrest those bastards!”

“Get the illegal aliens!”

“Deport the fucking gringos!”

Arms folded, Romo beamed in the retelling of the event. His grin spread as if the whole thing centered on a private punch line. His political theater had garnered an Associated Press story that was picked up by newspapers around the world. If former Tijuana mayor Jorge Hank Rhon hadn't been arrested on charges of illegal arms possession hours later, Romo's crossing would have grabbed even more attention.

And the thing he'd seen there, on the flat ground before the culverts, time and again—that mysterious activity which had inspired his plans and might have been a measure more bizarre?

“Yes, that was the staging area for the bikes,” he said. “You would see two dozen, three dozen people waiting on bicycles, waiting for the signal.” Romo looked at the sky in thought. “Whoever did it the
first time knew that it was a good strategy. On foot, you're in bad shape. The bicycle is a very inventive and creative way because you can do in minutes what would take hours.”

We turned our backs on the canyon and began walking toward Romo's truck. I pictured the migrants he'd described, waiting for a signal. I imagined a wave or a whistle. The cyclists' feet leaving the ground and finding the pedals; sprockets and chains engaged; balance in momentum; the dark maw of the culverts admitting a pinprick of distant light; the tunnel vision; the awful, damp smell of the pipes. And then they were gone; they'd left my imagination and rolled into the very same portals that carried silt, sewage, appliances, refuse, lost and mislaid items downstream.

“Some of the bikes are still around, you know?” Romo said, as we drove away. “You can find them in Goat Canyon. I've been tempted to take a bicycle myself. I've seen some nice ones.”

11

“So, do you think he's really coming back?” asked Juan.

The
enganchador
sat with the
guía
, Javy, at the bar of the Chicago Club. It was hot outside. The bar was dark, cool, and empty. They sipped golden-brown Cuba libres—a cola-and-rum drink invented on the heels of Cuba's liberation from Spain. American GIs brought the Coke, Cubans the rum. The magic concoction seeped up into Dixieland and spread north and west with the rumrunners of Prohibition. Untold gallons of rum passed through Tijuana.

“Shit, I don't know, man. He picked up twelve thousand dollars crossing those
pollos
. What would you do?”

“His whole family is already set up on the inside,” Juan said.

“That too,” Javy said. “He'd be back by now. Los Angeles is only two, three hours away.”

“So, how did you guys leave it? Indio just said, what? ‘Thank you for your services and good-bye'?”

“No,” Javy sighed. “It was pretty emotional at his mom's house. She didn't want him to go. But he had to get the
pollos
to Los Angeles to get paid.”

Heading north wasn't as easy as simply hopping on the freeway. There were permanent Border Patrol checkpoints at San Onofre on
the I-5 and before the city of Temecula on the 805. Vehicles were stopped by agents who peered into their interiors. For reasons unknown to the
polleros
, these checkpoints were periodically closed. The smugglers could scout the situation in a number of ways, yet regardless, six Mexicans in a small Toyota wasn't going to look good. This was the reason, Javy said, that he'd been left behind.

“Indio gave me some money and said, ‘See you in Tijuana.' He also told me to get to work and, whatever . . . ‘see how many you can get.' So I took the chance. I picked up two couples and they're waiting in the room right now, probably wondering what the fuck is going on.”

“Indio asked me to get bicycles,” Juan said, “a lot of them. I bought twenty for a hundred bucks. But he asked me to get them before he crossed and, you know, saw his family again. If Indio doesn't come back, what the fuck am I going to do with all of those bikes? I can only ride one at a time. Right,
cabrón
?”

The
polleros
ordered another round and watched an apathetic dancer. A flashy-looking couple entered the bar, followed by another man. The boys observed the trio but when the couple sat at a booth, the other man continued toward the bar. This man wore sunglasses indoors, which caught Juan's eye, and he seemed to be walking toward them.

“
Que onda, compas?
” he addressed them, then slouched backward.

“Indio? What happened to you? Have you gone
loco
?”

This took Indio aback. He straightened. “What do you mean, Juanito?” he asked, spreading his hands.

“Look at you,” said Javy. “Those clothes you're wearing, and the Nikes. You're all baggy.” Javy and Juan burst out laughing. “Where are the huaraches?”

The sides of Indio's head were nearly shorn and the hair on top was slicked back with gel. The style somehow made his features sharper, cheekbones higher, more indigenous-looking. His T-shirt
was big and loose, making his forearms appear short but broad. The sharp creases and cuffs of his chino pants revealed that they were a brand-new pair.

“You are an overnight
cholo
,” Juan said.

“Enough,” Indio said. “I bought clothes for you guys too.” Javy and Juan looked at each other. “No shit, a cab is waiting outside. Check the back seat.”

They changed on the street while the
paraditas
(“standing ladies”) in miniskirts and heels, the Chicago Club bouncer on his stool, and the guys at the taco cart watched. Then the boys sauntered back in. Javy looked at his reflection and said, “This
pollero
is really handing shit out.”

In place of the bus station recruiters sitting before their Cuba libres in the bar-back mirror of a second-rate strip club, the boys now saw three hip-looking borderlands
cholos
, the factory creases of their large T-shirts hardly visible under the colored lights.

“Looking at ourselves in the mirror, with the cool new threads,” Juan later admitted, “I swear we were on cloud nine.”

Indio met Solo at the Tijuana bus terminal in early 2006, just two months after the first bicycle crossing. He immediately whisked his childhood
amigo
into the heart of the city. They shared the little room in the Zona Norte; they ate meat tacos on the street. And the new
pollero
initiated a tutorial in
la vida de la frontera
. Indio purchased their first cell phones. These had a walkie-talkie option, which they used to abuse each other:
Cabrón
, they'd say.
Pinche cabrón
. And for his
campesino
friend, Indio picked out a pair of black tennis shoes with white stripes.

“If you wear huaraches in the city,” he explained, “when people look at you, that is all they will see.”

Solo had assumed that Indio borrowed the money he'd wired, and he felt a daunting obligation to make good on the loan and bring
Indio back into standing with whoever could part with such a substantial sum—but Solo quickly learned the truth.

His lessons began with recruiting at
la línea
. Indio coached Solo on how to approach possible clients and offer their services. Their language, Indio explained—their words and the slow, resonating intonation of the farmlands—was their advantage. These were their people.

“They have a desire and you can help to fulfill it,” he said, before warning, “But still,
amigo
, the
pollos
won't trust you completely. Be mindful. When your pet dog catches rabies, you share a history with the creature, you love this animal—but at that point your interests split,” Indio said.

He then introduced Solo to the business at the bus station.

But here, a couple of city cops looking to snatch up some
pollos
themselves spotted the dopey peasant farmer in the strangely new tennis shoes. There was nothing a corrupt cop liked less than competition. The police arrested Solo under suspicion of recruiting migrants. He was taken to jail. After thirty-six hours in a dark cell that smelled of urine, he was placed before a judge who questioned the young man from an elevated bench. Noting his dress, his simple speech, his recent arrival in Tijuana, and the fact that Solo carried not a peso in his pockets, the sun-spotted magistrate concluded that Solo lacked the wherewithal to work as a human smuggler. Charges were dismissed.

El Indio, however, lectured his friend. “Pay close attention, Solo,” he said. “The border is chaos. Our business is about intuition and precision—about reaching in and pulling something out. You need to know what's coming before it arrives.”

One day Indio recruited two migrants, and he and Solo took them to the canyons. His gang had cultivated more entry points—some of them hidden in plain sight—and Indio wanted to familiarize Solo with the layout. This was also an opportunity to instruct the
pollos
. Being on the ground was the key to his operation. El Indio didn't arrive to work a shift: he inhabited the landscape. On this occasion he took the group to the western turnout at Summit Canyon. To the south, the tin-roofed hovels of Los Laureles climbed a canyon wall in increasingly untenable perches. The architecture of necessity always created a frayed aspect along the passage of the International Road. Below, on the other side, at the base of the dam-like ridge that held the road, was only desert and an anemic dirt track, which, at that distance, looked as pale as a dry streambed.