Into the Beautiful North

  El Jefe stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.

  “All clear,” he said. “Let them go.”

  The passengers headed for the door.

  “Nayeli,” the Jefe called, “come back to see me soon.”

  His men laughed.

  Twenty miles outside of Mexicali, the hydraulic system broke on the bus, and they rolled backward to the edge of a precipice but did not go over. After trying to get the doors open for an hour, Chuy kicked out one of the windows and dropped to the ground. He began walking toward civilization in the dark. Cold wind came in the open window. Nayeli cradled Tacho’s head in her lap. She could feel his silent tears on her thigh. She could hear coyotes howling outside. All around her, the travelers snored and coughed and cried out in their worried dreams.

  Chapter Ten

  Chuy did not return. But nine hours later, a second bus pulled up beside theirs. It was full, but the driver got out and told them, “If you’re willing to stand, I can take a few of you to Tijuana.”

  The Tres Camarones group got on the bus and hung on to the overhead racks. Three women followed them and bumped up against Nayeli. Their body odor nauseated her. Then she realized she was also smelling herself. This was a serious faux pas in Camarones. Indeed, she had never been outside her house without sweet scents in her hair and the clean smell of American soap rising from her body. Nayeli tried to hold on to the racks and keep her elbows down so her underarms weren’t exposed. She was ashamed and felt filthy. When the bus started, the woman standing in front of her fell back against her and stayed there. Nayeli could feel the woman’s hard buttocks against her belly. She couldn’t move away.

  Tacho seemed to be asleep on his feet. His eyes were swollen and red. Nayeli noticed Yolo watching her over Tacho’s shoulder. Her eyes were dark as the highway itself, and she simply stared at Nayeli. Neither of them could believe the world they had entered.

  Somehow, La Vampi managed to swoon into the lap of a sixty-year-old cowboy with a straw hat and a mesh bag full of onions. He cautiously put his arm around her and sat erect, never looking at her once all the hours of their long drive to Tijuana. She knocked his hat askew, and he stoically let it ride sideways on his head.

  In a vast flat of sagebrush and far dirty hills, their driver turned on his microphone and announced, “To your right, the fabled American border.”

  They craned and stared.

  They looked for fences and helicopters and trucks and dogs. Nothing. There was nothing there at all.

  Tacho noted, “It just looks like more Mexico,” before he closed his eyes again and sank into his misery.

  Nayeli tried to do one of Sensei Grey’s meditations, seeking Buddha in the illusion of the moment. She tried to make the lake in her mind still as a black mirror. Someone stepped on her foot. She meditated on the pain instead.

  They came down out of the mountains. They saw the Rodríguez Dam standing above the city. They could see sedimentary rings on the cliffs where the shore had receded.

  “Empty,” the driver said. “I saw it in 1965, full to the top. But there’s no water left.”

  Down, into the hard dirt of Tijuana. Shacks and huts and scattered little cow farms gave way to small colonias and clutches of houses around gas stations and stores, and the roads got bigger and fuller, and there were newer cars, and more of them. Trucks everywhere. They saw canals, and now the fences appeared as all trees vanished. They saw their first bridges. A prison. They plunged into the maw of the city—shantytowns surrounded the dusty center. Cars everywhere. Everyone stirred and craned, and Tacho nudged Nayeli and pointed, and she looked up at a dead hill across a tall fence where white trucks sat watching and a helicopter circled.

  The USA didn’t look as nice over there as it did on television.

  They lurched and turned a hundred corners and pulled into the battered new bus station on the far side of Tijuana.

  They fell off the bus, dizzy and exhausted and thirsty. But they laughed. They danced. They were in Tijuana! The first leg of the journey was over!

  They watched the driver unloading bags and suitcases.

  “Let’s get a motel,” Tacho said.

  “We have to save our money,” said Nayeli.

  “I want a bath,” Vampi said.

  “You need a bath, girl,” said Yolo.

  “I wouldn’t talk, cabrona.”

  “Where’s the bags?” Tacho said.

  “I’ll call Chavarín,” Nayeli promised. “I’m sure we can take showers at his house!”

  “Together?” said Tacho.

  “¡Ay, tú!” Yolo cried.

  “I want to see you all naked,” Tacho announced. “I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

  “If you see me naked, boy,” Nayeli promised, “you’re going to change your ways!”

  “Or throw up,” Tacho retorted.

  La Vampi sighed, “I want my bag.”

  But there were no bags.

  The bin was empty. The driver slammed the doors down.

  Nayeli stepped up to him and said, “¿Señor? Disculpe, pero ¿donde están nuestras maletas?”

  He stared at her.

  “¿Qué?” he said.

  “Our bags.”

  “What bags?”

  “Our bags from the last bus.”

  “You don’t have any bags.”

  “He loaded our bags.”

  The driver shook his head.

  “No bags,” he repeated.

  He lit a cigarette and walked away.

  The girls cried out. Tacho cursed. Nayeli yelled, “Wait!” but the driver never looked back. They stood there between the big buses and watched him leave.

  “Now what do we do?” cried Vampi.

  Nayeli looked at Tacho, and they both turned and stared out at the alien city surrounding them. Even Yolo was starting to cry.

  “I’ll think of something,” Nayeli said.

  Nayeli could not find a phone booth. She hunted all around the bus station. There were no pay phones anywhere.

  She stopped a man in an old checkered sport coat and said, “Señor—could you direct me to a pay phone?”

  When he ascertained to his satisfaction that she wasn’t begging for alms, he said, “Use your cell phone,” and rushed away.

  They pulled together and stood in a tight group, looking around. The norteño accents were a bit off-putting, but at least it was still Spanish. They told themselves it wasn’t like they had suddenly landed in Shanghai or Beirut. This was still Mexico.

  “Let’s go downtown,” Tacho said. “Let’s get some food and a Coke and find civilization.”

  “Good idea,” Nayeli said.

  “There must be a phone booth downtown,” Yolo said.

  “Must be,” said Vampi.

  “I’ll pay the taxi,” Tacho said.

  “Our benefactor,” Yolo said.

  They were scared out of their minds.

  Vampi tugged on Nayeli’s shirttail.

  “Nayeli?” she whispered. “Do you have any Kotex?”

  “What?”

  “I started my period.”

  “Now?”

  “On the bus. My Kotex is in my bag. I used toilet paper.”

  Nayeli still had her small purse—it had a tampon in it.

  “I’ve got this.”

  “What’s that?” Vampi said.

  “It’s a tampon,” Nayeli said. “No seas simple.”

  Vampi stared at it.

  “How’s it work?”

  “You don’t use these?”

  “My grandmother would never let me use that.”

  “It’s all I have.”

  “It’s kind of small, isn’t it?” La Vampi asked.

  Nayeli whispered, “It goes inside.”

  The other two were now staring at her.

  “I can’t do that!”

  “I’m not going to do it, girl, so you better figure it out,” Tacho said.

  Vampi made a face.

 
“We’ll help,” Yolo said.

  “You go right ahead, girls,” Tacho said. “I’ll stay right here.”

  Vampi started to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Nayeli said. She put her arm around her. “You’ll get used to it.”

  They hustled to the women’s toilet.

  Tacho wondered if he was the only one who knew they were in serious trouble.

  Apparently, taxicabs in Tijuana carried as many human bodies as possible. The four of them piled into the backseat of a middle-aged Chevy and were astounded when two more people shoved in on top of them while an old woman with a cane and a bag of groceries got in the front.

  “Welcome aboard!” the driver quipped, and they were off on a bone-rattling journey through the unbelievably crowded streets. The driver turned on the radio, and they were amazed to hear a Mexican techno song announce, “Tijuana makes me happy” in English.

  “Does Tijuana make you happy?” Tacho asked the driver.

  The driver looked at him in the mirror.

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s the happiest city on earth.”

  He dropped them off outside the jai alai frontón.

  As they got out, the old woman in front handed Nayeli an orange.

  “Eat fruit,” she advised.

  They walked with the restless throngs. The tide of American bodies dragged them down Revolución, the central party artery of Tijuana. Techno and Van Halen boomed from shops and bars and eateries. It was only afternoon, but lurid lights were already blinking and sizzling outside the bars. Hawkers stood in the street, calling to passersby: “Hey, amigo! C’mon, c’mon, amigos! Tequila buena! I got good prices on shoes! For you, two-for-one special! C’mon!” Nayeli almost laughed. Tacho began to strut again. Maybe Tijuana was his kind of city. That made him feel better. He almost forced the Jefe and the bathroom out of his mind; he forced himself to forget the missing bags.

  A boy with blue eye makeup called him “guapo.”

  “Oh, my God!” Tacho said.

  “That boy had eye shadow,” Vampi said. “I like that.”

  Donkeys in the street stood stoically before madly painted carts decorated with Aztec and rural scenes in vivid colors. The donkeys were spray-painted white and black to look like zebras. Americanos sat on the carts and giggled with huge sombreros on their heads as bored Mexicans snapped their pictures. Mexican cops kept an eye on the crowd. Tacho noticed soldiers in black body armor on several corners, their evil black machine guns slung low.

  Children shined shoes, walked up and down the sidewalks with boxes of Chiclets, or carried poles hung with bracelets and woven chokers. Vampi bought a black cross made of shiny thread. It had a red bead in the center that looked like a drop of blood.

  “Gothic Catholics unite,” Tacho said.

  They paused in front of an upstairs eatery, and before they knew it, they were swept up into it and seated at a table.

  “What can I get you?” the waiter said.

  “I’m dying for a cold beer,” Tacho announced.

  The waiter nodded.

  “Four?”

  Yolo and Vampi started to giggle. They had not yet drunk beer. Nayeli smiled up at him. He was quite handsome.

  “Sí, por favor,” she said.

  “Bring limes,” Tacho said.

  “Claro.”

  They were fascinated by the passing tourists on the street below. Cholos and surfos cruised by, pickups and low-riders, old work vans and bicycles. They watched cops pull over and shove a drunk American sailor into their car and inch back into traffic. Flocks of schoolgirls in their uniforms hustled along, chattering and laughing. Fat Suburbans with black windows carried cocaine cowboys on their rounds.

  “We can buy new clothes, can’t we, Nayeli?” Vampi asked.

  “Don’t worry, morra. I’ll take care of you.”

  She looked at Tacho. His face was without expression.

  The waiter put the sweating bottles of Corona in front of them.

  “That’s urine,” Tacho noted.

  Nayeli kicked him under the table.

  “I’ll have shrimp, please,” she said.

  “We’ll share an order of spaghetti,” Yolo said, leaning on Vampi’s shoulder.

  “We’re on a diet,” Vampi announced.

  “Do you want garlic bread?” the waiter asked.

  Vampi stared at him for a moment.

  “It’s good,” he promised.

  “Yes, please.”

  She beamed at him.

  Tacho said, “Carne asada, amigo. Lots of salsa.”

  “Corn tortillas or flour?”

  “Corn, of course! Who eats flour tortillas?”

  The waiter studied them.

  “You’re from the south.”

  “So?” said Tacho.

  “So be careful,” the waiter said.

  He walked away.

  “What’s his problem?” Tacho groused.

  The girls took long pulls from their beers. Yolo felt the bubbles burn up into her nose and sneezed. Vampi was dizzy immediately. She looked at all of them, opened her mouth, and belched noisily.

  “Piglet!” Tacho scolded.

  When the waiter came back and started to set their plates down, Nayeli said, “Is there a pay phone here?”

  “By the bathroom.”

  “Gracias.”

  “Don’t be calling your coyotes here.”

  “Coyotes?”

  “You won’t make it across without a coyote, chica. But the management doesn’t like them coming around here. They give the gringos the creeps.”

  “How do you know we want to go across?” Tacho asked.

  “Everyone in Tijuana will know what you want as soon as they see you,” the waiter said. He was more than bored with pilgrims. “They have seen you a thousand times a week, brother.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can I bring you anything else?”

  Nayeli shook her head and got up to find the phone.

  “Your food will get cold,” the waiter said.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Tacho said, “Do you have any advice for us?”

  “Get a passport,” the waiter said.

  Nayeli asked the cashier to give her some coins for the phone.

  “Mexican or American?” he asked.

  “What’s the difference?”

  He shrugged.

  “American money is boring. All the same color, and the coins are dull. But it’s actually worth something. Keep your pesos—give me dólares any day.”

  Nayeli suddenly remembered Aunt Irma telling her that’s where gringo came from—from the English word for green.

  “It’s for the phone,” she said, handing over a few limp Mexican bills.

  He dug out fat Mexican coins for her.

  “Over there.”

  She stepped into the hall between the bathrooms. American women were laughing and chatting in the doorway. They looked so tall. So glamorous. They smelled good, unlike her, smelled of vanilla and fruit and white musk and shampoo.

  She turned her back on these giantesses and dug out her card. Chavarín’s number was a little streaked but still legible. She had the coins on the metal shelf in front of her. She fed a few into the phone, until she heard a dial tone. She studied the number and punched the LIB digits in. The phone made a weird noise, an ascending scale of derision, and a robot voice told her there had been an error. The phone clicked, and she heard her coins drop into the coin box. She dug through the coins and found enough to get the dial tone again. Again, she was kicked off and lost her coins. The third time, she dialed O and told the operator the number. The woman sounded offended. “There is no such number, miss,” she said. Nayeli repeated it. “I’m sorry. There is an error on your part, miss.” Nayeli tried to argue with her, but the operator informed her there hadn’t been a phone number like that in Tijuana since 1964. And there was no listing for a Chavarín. Not in Tijuana, Tecate, Ensenada,
or Mexicali.

  Her stomach was tight. It started to hurt. She pressed her hands to her face and breathed. She had to keep her wits about her.

  She went back to her seat and stared at her food.

  Tacho was eating a carne taco and swallowing his second beer. Yolo and Vampi were laughing helplessly. They each had two bottles in front of them.

  “We are so drunk,” Vampi noted, and they both snorted and fell on each other.

  “They’re weak,” Tacho said.

  Nayeli picked at her shrimp.

  She looked at Tacho.

  He raised his eyebrows at her.

  She shook her head.

  He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  He turned away from her and watched the bodies moving down the street.

  Chapter Eleven

  They stood on the street in the dark. The sound was relentless yet somehow flat. There were no echoes in Tijuana. Car horns were sour brays. Cops blew whistles, and they fell dull and bitter on the ear.

  Nayeli went into a botica and bought Vampi some pads. She had a hairbrush, four toothbrushes, and a tube of toothpaste in her shoulder bag. Tacho apologized for his vanity and bought hair gel. He worked on his spikes as they stood there, pressed to a wall. His little radio hung from his belt loop by its strap.

  “Call Aunt Irma,” Yolo said.

  “And tell her what?” said Nayeli.

  “I want to go home!” Vampi cried.

  “We will go home,” Nayeli said. “When we have completed our mission.”

  “This was all a big mistake,” Vampi said.

  “I think we have failed,” Yolo added.

  “No,” Nayeli replied. “We haven’t even started.”

  I am going to Kankakee, she thought. There was no way this mess was going to work, she decided. Not without Don Pepe.

  The other girls gasped and slumped and threw their hands around.

  Tacho said, “Ladies, ladies. We have to get off the street. That’s first. There is no Chavarín. All right. Then we have to use our own initiative. Am I right, m’ija?”

  Nayeli nodded.

  “We’ll get eaten alive if we spend the night out here.”