Into the Beautiful North

by Luis Alberto Urrea

  Vampi was out of breath. “¡Ay, ay, ay!” she gasped as she ran. The ground was rough. They tripped, twisted their ankles. The pregnant woman suddenly grabbed Vampi and held her up. Vampi was startled at first, then leaned on the stronger, older woman. She might have been an angel. She might have been the wraith of a murdered paisana come from the shadows to save them. Vampi surrendered to her fate and ran.

  Nayeli had to slow down for the coyote—he was a smoker, and he wasn’t really in shape. She could hear him wheezing. If she’d known the way, she would have pushed him aside. Her legs were like steel springs—she could run cross-country all night. She was pretty sure Yolo could keep up. But she was trapped behind this slow, malodorous, coughing male.

  “Hurry up,” she said.

  He rounded a curve, Nayeli right on his back—the moon made the sandy path glow a faint violet gray. They came in sight of the bridge the coyote had told them about. It was low, and the coyote dove under it and clutched his chest and gasped as if he were dying. Nayeli crawled in beside him, then received Vampi and the mystery woman. Yolo dove in next. After about a minute, Tacho was heard announcing, “Oh, God!” outside as he staggered in and fell in the sand.

  “Are we all right?” Nayeli said.

  Yolo made a muscle and gave her a double thumbs-up.

  Vampi sighed and lay back in the sand.

  Tacho said, “Oh yes, m’ija, I am just wonderful.”

  The mystery woman said, “I am fine.”

  “Who are you?” the coyote demanded.

  The pregnant woman said, “Candelaria.”

  “You owe me money,” he said.

  “I have no money.”

  “What, do you think this is a Christian charity, morra? You think I do this for fun?”

  “What are you going to do,” Candelaria asked, “walk me back to the fence?”

  “Shit!” he said.

  Before they could argue more, engines sounded above them. A truck went by, then a big bus. The bridge groaned.

  “They’re transporting prisoners,” the coyote said.

  A third engine came along. They listened as it came over the bridge. The coyote put his finger to his lips. “Shh!” he said. The engine stopped. “¡Chingado!” he said. They heard the radio. They heard the door of the SUV open and slam. The coyote was gone like a tatter of fog. He didn’t even make a sound—just vanished.

  “Hey!” Nayeli whispered.

  A walkie-talkie muttered above them. She heard a gringo voice say, “Arroyo Seco overpass, over.”

  A bright flashlight beam hit the gulleys around them like a ray from a spaceship. Yolo and Vampi and Tacho held hands so hard they thought they’d break their fingers. Vampi was trembling. The light clicked off.

  Silence.

  A stream of water came off the bridge and hit the ground before them.

  The migra was peeing!

  They stifled their giggles. They couldn’t believe it. His stream arced over them and formed a puddle. They moved back so they wouldn’t have to touch it. The stream died out. Then: spritz-spritz-spritz. They laughed into their hands.

  “Clear,” he said into his radio and slammed the door and drove away.

  Tacho fell on the ground and laughed with his feet in the air.

  “Welcome,” he gasped, “to America!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  They stood in the wash beneath the bridge in a loose group. The coyote was gone.

  “Now what?” Tacho asked.

  Nayeli had to take charge; she knew that. But how? Take charge of what?

  “That way is east,” she said. “I think that’s all desert and mountains and stuff.”

  “And stuff,” Candelaria said.

  “So we should go west. Right?”

  “Right, Nayeli,” said Yolo. “We need to go toward the city.”

  “Right.”

  They stood some more, frozen to the spot. Tacho, for one, recognized they were not heading anywhere. They had used up their momentum.

  “We’re going to an American hotel,” he announced.

  “Oh, yes!” cried Vampi.

  “We’re going to get hot showers and nice American beds.”

  “And MTV!” Vampi enthused.

  “I can’t believe this chick,” Nayeli said to nobody in particular.

  “In the United States,” Candelaria said, “you can flush the toilet paper down the toilet.”

  They eyed her skeptically. Everybody in Mexico knew that toilet paper went in a basket by the sink. The plumbing couldn’t deal with paper.

  Candelaria shrugged. “What can I say?” she said. “They are advanced here.”

  “Well, then,” Tacho announced, “I will flush the toilets, too!”

  “Vámonos,” Nayeli ordered.

  She climbed the slope and started to walk along the dark road. “Watch for lights,” Candelaria said.

  They trudged along, and their fantasies started to come out into the air. The mixed gabble of voices forming a tapestry of sound:

  “Ice cream. Hamburgers. Bubble baths. American beer. The Sixty-nine Eyes. Disneylandia!”

  An ersatz owl began to hoot in the distance.

  Nayeli shook her head and laughed in spite of herself: that crazy Atómiko, signaling from the bushes.

  Cantinflas is the greatest movie star in the world.”

  “Yolo, you’re crazy! Everybody knows Johnny Depp is the greatest movie star.”

  “Ay, Nayeli. There you go with your damned Johnny Depp.”

  “What about Banderas?”

  “Vampi, when did you decide you liked Antonio Banderas?”

  “Oye, Vampi—Banderas could be your father.”

  “No way. Did you see Banderas in Interview with the Vampire?”

  “Oh no, morra. Not that vampire stuff now!”

  “Oh, really, Mister Smarty-Pants? So who, in your fine opinion, is the best, Tacho?”

  “M’ija. Don’t embarrass yourself. Es la Streep.”

  “And you, Candelaria?”

  “This is stupid. You should be quiet. You’re not strolling in the park, you know.”

  They dashed to the bushes and hid when a helicopter flew over.

  It made a terrible racket, its rotors thwacking the air as it slid sideways across the sky above them and turned slowly in midair. A hard beam shot out of it and raked the distant hills. The dark that hit when the beam snapped off was almost as strong as silence. They blinked. The helicopter angled away and churned farther down the line.

  “Like a giant dragonfly,” Vampi intoned, as if they all hadn’t thought that very thing.

  They walked a quarter mile and rounded a bend and were illuminated by the brutal glare of two headlights and a spotlight that switched on and blinded them. The truck was parked right in the middle of the road. If the lights hadn’t come on, they would have walked into it.

  “Hello, amigos!” a voice called from behind the lights. “This is the US Border Patrol! You are in the United States of America illegally! You are under arrest! Everybody come on over and keep your hands on your heads. Slowly, now. Stay calm. If you have papeles, now’s the time to break ’em out!”

  He got on his radio, spoke some numerical coordinates.

  Said: “I’ve acquired five clients, over.”

  The helicopter came back and hovered above them. Its prop wash knocked Nayeli into Yolo. She squinted up into the light it shot down at them. They were caught in light. They couldn’t move. The copter moved off and scanned the scrub around them. Its deafening noise receded until she could hear voices again.

  Agent Anderson was shining his light in Tacho’s face, and he had one hand on Vampi’s arm. Another SUV was bouncing at them from the north. Good old Agent Smith was over there. He and Anderson went to the same Bible study when they weren’t out in the bush, collecting bodies.

  “Yanqui bastards!” came a wail from the south.

  They all looked.

  “¡Cabrones!”

  “What t
he heck?” said Anderson.

  The helicopter was lighting up Atómiko.

  He stood at the edge of an arroyo near the fence. Nayeli could not believe they’d walked so much and were still right by the fence. How was that possible? In the dark, she’d imagined they were already halfway to Los Angeles.

  Atómiko swung his pole at the copter.

  “Come down here and get me, puto!” he was yelling.

  The Camarones crew started to giggle.

  The migra agent stared over there and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong with that guy?” he asked Tacho in Spanish.

  “He’s an idiot,” Tacho said.

  “You know that knucklehead?” asked Smith.

  “He’s our guardian angel,” Vampi said. “I’m a vampire. We’re on a mission from God.”

  “Great,” Anderson said.

  Smith looked the friends over, looked back at Atómiko, shook his head, and said to his cohort, “This ain’t a full moon, is it? ’Cause the crazies are out tonight.”

  He put his handcuffs back on his belt.

  “Behave,” he told Tacho, wagging his finger.

  “I will. It’s that one out there you have to watch out for.”

  They all watched Atómiko do some daring staff moves on his little hill. He danced backward, holding his staff across his chest. The two Border Patrol guys seemed to really be enjoying the show.

  “Sweet moves,” Smith commented to his friend.

  “I am Atómiko!” the Warrior shouted to them.

  He struck his chest. He raised his staff. He cried, “!Nayeli rifa!” They were all impressed. Nayeli rules. She blushed a little.

  The agents looked at her and raised their eyebrows in appreciation.

  “You Nayeli?” Smith asked.

  She nodded.

  “A love story,” said Anderson.

  “We are just friends.”

  Atómiko turned, and he ran, and he greatly pleased all the gathered watchers when he stuck the end of his staff in the dirt and pole-vaulted over the fence and vanished back into Mexico.

  “I’ll be darned,” both Border Patrol agents said.

  They were herded into the back of the migra Expedition. Smith helped Candelaria up. “Watch your head,” he said. “Hey. Didn’t I see you last week?” Nayeli didn’t know the agents spoke Spanish. Candelaria nodded. “I bet you were happy to see me again,” he quipped.

  “Don’t you ever take a day off?” she asked.

  “I always take Sunday off. Try coming back on Sunday.”

  He closed the back door and climbed in. Candelaria had her face against the metal grille.

  “I will try on Sunday,” she called.

  “Oh, good!” he replied.

  He muttered into his microphone. Nayeli heard “five bodies” and “clear” and “over.”

  The truck pulled out.

  “I will send you a postcard!” Candelaria shouted over the engine noise.

  The agent laughed.

  They pulled a brush-clearing U-turn and got back on the road and chased their headlight beams down the dark valley.

  They stopped and watched two migra agents beat the holy hell out of a boy in a checkered shirt. “Well,” Smith said. “He must have done something bad.” He seemed embarrassed. Yolo and Vampi started to cry. They were terrified and mortified—it was not in their life plans to be arrested and dragged around in the back of a wagon like criminals. Kenny jumped out and helped the two in the road subdue their client. He put his knee in the small of the kid’s back and pinned him to the dirt while they yanked his arms behind him and cuffed him. They got him back up. Blood was running from his nose. He tried to kick the nearest agent: the agent theatrically shook his finger in the boy’s face and hauled him into the gloom.

  Smith returned to the truck and said, “It’s not an easy job, you know. Why don’t you folks stay home and make my life easier?”

  Tacho laughed.

  Smith liked Tacho.

  “I wish I had stayed home,” Tacho said. “I can’t keep my hair combed up here.”

  They watched the vehicle with the bloodied boy drive off.

  “That right there,” Smith announced, “was your typical bad boy.”

  “We are not bad, señor,” Nayeli said.

  “Oh, I know!” he said. “You are Nayeli, right? The one the Olympic pole-vaulter was hollering about.” He turned and winked at Tacho. “Nayeli,” he said. “You rifa!”

  He off-loaded them at a big school bus lit by spotlights. Tacho jumped down by himself. He helped Yolo and Vampi, who seemed to be collapsing in fear. Nayeli jumped down, pushing Tacho’s helping hand away. The Border Patrol agents helped Candelaria down.

  Anderson was there.

  “Mother,” he said to the pregnant woman.

  “Señor,” she replied.

  He supervised the handover, and armed men herded them onto the bus, where they took seats among tired men who smelled of smoke and dirt and sweat. Candelaria ended up several seats behind them, and they lost sight of her and did not find her again. There was a sick man slumped in the front seat, wheezing and groaning. A migra agent gave him water and shone a light in his face. There was a commotion near the front door, and suddenly agents pulled their sidearms and backed a Libertad bad boy down to his knees. He was hauled away. Coughing in the bus. Nayeli was amazed to hear snoring. Some of the men were dead asleep! Young guys joked and called insults to one another, cursed the migra. They made kissing sounds at Yolo and Vampi. Nayeli got up and walked to their seat and stood there, facing the boys, looking like an Aztec warrior priestess. Before the bus could roll, though, the migra matron who was driving with an armed cohort told her she had to sit down. But someone had taken her seat, so she sat on Tacho’s lap.

  “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.