The boys continued on. Eventually, Pablito said, “My brothers sent some good money this time.”
“Verdad?” Solo asked.
Pablito didn’t answer. He’d never lied to Solo.
“It’s a good thing,” Solo said. “Maybe your father will rent Don Ricardo’s tractor and working the fields will be a snap.”
But Solo knew that Pablito’s father would not rent the tractor, that he would harness the oxen as always. Remittances like these were coveted—to build new rooms onto shacks, for example, sometimes even of cinder block. A family could invest in a gas generator or a horse or a cow. Regrettably, overdue maintenance had a way of diminishing hopes for wholesale improvements. Thatch roofs needed to be replaced every eight years. And at seven pesos for each palm frond, even if friends and neighbors contributed their labor, the costs could add up. As often as not, however, the patriarch of a family would simply drink the money away.
Pablito waved off the idea of renting the tractor.
“So what will your family do with the plata?” Solo asked.
“They say, maybe, the school,” Pablito answered.
Their grammar school education was coming to an end. This was the limit for the majority of villagers, as families had to pay out of pocket for anything further. Transportation to the school was another challenge. Pablito might have hesitated to mention the possibility because it was no secret that Solo’s family, despite the boy’s desire to attend, wouldn’t be able to pay. Solo and his siblings sometimes sustained themselves on local fruit for days, and occasionally went to sleep with nothing in their bellies. Still, Solo’s optimism didn’t wilt. “The lucky ones get to go,” he said. “We just need to get lucky.”
The boys footed it down out of the hills. Open land gave way to fenced sections. They came upon the small outlying ranches where scarecrows commanded the fields. Soon, they separated to drop the firewood at their respective houses. A farmer worked a light green plot of sesame in the distance, but not many of the men remained this time of year. A cadre of women would be down at the little river, standing to their knees in the brackish water, scrubbing laundry. The lady standing farthest out handed a clean article off to the next woman, and then a third set the pieces to dry over bushes, warm cobbles, and branches. Solo, whose walk home passed that way, always noted the conversation. Occasionally he re-created it for Pablito upon rejoining the path to the dairy: “They’re talking about washing machines again,” he said. “As if it’s something new. Everybody knows about washing machines.”
Husbands and sons returning for Christmas often rode with workmates in secondhand cars acquired in el Norte. They’d drive night and day to get home, sputtering through the badlands of the interior and over the sierra. Big towns and notoriously dangerous regions were avoided. Both bandits and police were a concern, as the workers often packed the autos with goods too expensive or unavailable in Mexico. The women dreamed of conveniences, but neither the cars nor large appliances ever entered the village. The men, likely as not, would hike in, bearing used clothing but first-rate baseball bats for the village team.
“When we are old men, Pablito,” Solo would say, “the river talk will still be about washing machines.”
The milkman’s bicycle was a very sturdy, very old utility bike with solid rubber tires, two parallel top tubes, and wide, level handlebars. The steel basket was mounted astride the front wheel. A metal dipper with a hooked handle hung from the bike frame. When the boys stopped at a home, one called for the proprietor and the other lifted the dipper and measured the correct amount of milk from the canisters. The bike’s seat was made of petrified leather and wobbled on worn springs. Fenders, front and back, helped protect the dairy and the riders from mud splatter in the rainy season and loose rocks in the dry. The rear axle bolts held little posts threaded on either side, which the boys called diablitos, or little devils. One kid could stand over the rear tire with a foot on each of these diablitos and balance while holding on to the bike rider’s shoulders. If done right, the sensation was like flying.
Braking, however, was a matter of art. The milkman’s bicycle boasted only a front brake, and with the weight of the load over the fore wheel, even a modest squeeze could send the boys over the handlebars. So, whoever was in back had to apply the sole of his huarache to the rear tire. The foot quickly became hot, and the diablito rider would switch to the other foot. Usually, this was Solo’s position. Pablito would yell, “Brakes,” and Solo would lift his skinny leg like a flamingo and place it on the tire.
The dairy farmer was not young, but from his choice of deliverymen, his appreciation for youthful adventure was evident. His cheeks were deeply lined and he wore his graying hair in a short pompadour that shook as he worked and made his proclamations. And he always made proclamations when filling milk canisters and loading them into the basket. In many ways, globalization was coming to rural Mexico. There were trade agreements and monetary reorganizations and food and currency crises like the Tequila Crisis and the Tortilla Crisis, the demand for imports increasing even as corn prices tumbled, all putting pressure on small farms and businesses like the milkman’s, and always with the same result: people left the village.
The boys held the bicycle by the handlebars, and listened.
“There you go, men,” said the milkman finally, as he lifted the canisters into the basket. “That should be enough. Don’t worry about the Garcia house. They left yesterday.”
Pablito made a low whistle, slipped a leg over the frame, and mounted the saddle.
When the canisters were full, the bike was heavy. Pablito stood on the cranks and pushed with all he had. It was a matter of will to keep it righted at the slow revolutions he could muster. Solo jogged behind to give the occasional push. In this way, Pablito eventually gained momentum. Solo followed, and when the bike reached the proper speed, he hopped up onto the diablitos. The milkman waved them off.
It wasn’t a small thing that the bicycle offered the sensation of balance without a foot or the hoof of an animal, without a single living part having to touch the earth in any way. The stability was in the movement, and the movement was like a trick. Nothing else in their experience offered such a sensation. When Pablito and Solo experienced flying, in some very real ways, it was. The falling was real too. The roads of their village weren’t much more than ox trails cut by rivulets and irrigation ditches. When they’d started this job, the milkman offered the usual tips of bicycle instruction: maintain your speed, steady your hands, keep your eye on the road. The bike will follow your gaze. Then the milkman simply walked off to tend to his cows. In truth, Pablito and Solo had taught each other to ride, one running alongside the other and spreading his hands as if to catch a fall. This hadn’t been easy on the rutted roads and trails. The bike’s bent kickstand and brake lever were proof of the challenges. And yet, they were the only two kids in the village who knew how to ride at all.
We know the delivery vehicle also provided something special that, maybe, another bike couldn’t—unquestioned entry into the lives of their neighbors. The boys rolled into the yards, barns, up to the homes of any villager. When Pablito or Solo gave a kick to a tire-chasing dog, no one scolded them. Permission was never required to open a gate or to cross a field. They absorbed the news, attitudes, and gripes of the families in wisps and snatches of conversation. They could appraise their neighbors’ crops and yields, and thus their futures.
By the time the boys made their stop at Pablito’s house, if there was any news to share, his grandfather would be there to listen. The gate was always open and with Solo on the handlebars, Pablito bumped one wheel and then the other into and out of the dirt sluice that lined the property, steered between the gateposts, and rolled into the yard. A rooster and some hens peeled away. The bike came to a crisp stop and Solo popped off the bars, landing on his feet. Pablito attempted to use the kickstand out of habit, even though it was bent beyond repair, but finally laid the bike on its side.
“Dime,�
�� the old man said—tell me. He rested in a threadbare hammock tied between posts under the thatch porch. He was wide-shouldered, round, and powerful. His bright eyes peered from under a straw hat set askew and his hands were clasped over a bright T-shirt celebrating an American sporting event. This was tucked into dirty trousers.
“They’re talking about the May rain and about corn and washing machines and the United States,” Pablito answered.
“The Garcia family left for el Norte,” added Solo. “They are going to Kentucky to twist the necks of chickens in a factory building as big as the village. The hens live in tiny boxes stacked up to a metal ceiling—higher than the trees. The cousin, Yonny, he works there now and he told Garcia there’s lots of work. So they left.”
“Is that so? And how will they get to Kentucky?”
“They took the bus,” said Solo.
“But how will they cross?”
“I don’t know.”
“In my day, we were invited.”
Pablito’s abuelo tended to brag in the manner of old men, mentioning just a few succinct facts that suggested a not-too-obvious elevation above most others—an attitude he would naturally deny if confronted. In this case, he referenced his involvement in the Bracero Program, a guest worker agreement struck between the United States and Mexico during World War II. That history was lost to the boys, however. They merely looked at the man.
“These days, to cross, the people associate themselves with malandros,” he said, “and who knows what they’ll get for their efforts.”
“They say, maybe, ten dollars an hour,” said Solo.
The abuelo invited them to sit and be educated. In the shade of the porch, they shared a dish of cold beans and salsa. Afterward, they said good-bye to the old man, mounted the bicycle, and pedaled off to the dairy. They parked the bike in the barn and draped a dirty piece of canvas over it. Then the boys walked to the schoolhouse, a pale yellow cinder-block building with square windows, a tin roof, and a mural depicting turtles along the side. Pablito and Solo sat in the schoolhouse, where, along with the dozen or so village primary students, they studied reading and math from two in the afternoon until seven in the evening—school hours for the children of campesinos.
We know from Solo’s narrative—details he relayed well over a decade later while living thousands of miles from his childhood pueblo—that one day surely stood out from all of the other days on which the boys hiked into the hills to gather firewood and delivered milk on the milkman’s bicycle and went to primary school—a moment that cleaved their childhoods into two distinct pieces.
Pablito returned home in the early evening to find his parents in the house, having themselves recently arrived from collecting the money his brothers had wired to a bank office located in the municipal seat. On special occasions like these, Pablito’s mother prepared a meal of mole and hot peppers and beef—a rare treat.
Pablito’s father would have worn a baseball cap that was a gift from his eldest son, a collared shirt, loose trousers, and huaraches. He looked like a version of Pablito’s grandfather, one that could sit neatly inside the original, differing only in the slight mustache, dark hair, and obliging sensibility. His mother always wore a traditional dress with an apron on top that she’d embroidered with jacaranda flowers. A lantern lit the room. After the plates were wiped clean, Pablito’s mother and father likely exchanged glances, and his father cleared his throat. When discussing family matters, they tended to become more formal, even with the children. Pablito would have been alert to the change.
His parents then informed Pablito that they’d be using a portion of their windfall to send him to secondary school. “It is a blessing we are very thankful for,” his mother said, “a gift we weren’t able to provide for your brothers or sisters.” But also—it was his father who spoke this time—they told the twelve-year-old that the two of them would be using some of the money to travel into el Norte. Pablito’s brothers and sisters had arranged their way, and had prepared a home there in a city called San Diego that was so close to la frontera that it seemed not so far away from the village, despite the miles. Pablito would be staying behind to attend school and to take care of his grandfather. If his parents were prosperous, after Pablito finished his studies, they would send for him. If not, they would return to the village.
We don’t know Pablito’s expression on hearing the news or his response if he made one. We don’t know what his grandfather might have said, if he offered advice drawn from his extensive experience or anything at all, and we don’t know what the body language of Pablito’s parents expressed once they’d unburdened themselves of the decision because Solo, who was at home with his own family, wasn’t present to witness the event, and Pablito never conveyed more than the essential facts. That was his way.
Only once, soon after the parents departed, when the boys were working in the side field with Pablito’s grandfather, was the topic addressed. Solo heard the old man say, seemingly in response to no one: “It’s okay. The country is good. Everything over there is very clean. That’s what people say, right? It’s so clean. The roads are straight and machines come by to sweep them. Can you imagine? But some things are more important: family and the pueblo and peace and nature. These are treasures; better than clean noisy cities where things cost so much you have to work daily just to remain poor.”
Later, Solo explained that it wasn’t exactly as if Pablito had been deserted; simply left in a shack with a solitary old man. In the village and nearby, Pablito had two aunts and one uncle and several cousins. And a few nights a week one of the families in the village who owned a television and a gas generator would set white plastic chairs out in their yard. They’d place the TV on their windowsill with the screen facing out. All of the village kids and a few of their parents would come together and watch. Some brought nuts and dried mangos with salt and chili powder or fruit juices tied off in clear plastic sandwich bags. These would be passed around. Most of the villagers were related in one way or another, and gatherings were always very family oriented.
Pablito attended secondary school most of the day and his studies required additional time. But throughout the years, he and Solo continued to meet each morning to walk into the hills to gather firewood, and after Pablito came home from school, they delivered milk. Solo noticed that when Pablo did speak, which is how Solo began to refer to him, he didn’t sound the same anymore. The words he used had changed. And we know through Solo that one day not long after Pablo had finished secondary school, the teenagers met as usual to hike into the forest, and on returning they split to go to their respective houses. When Pablo reached his yard, he felt something amiss. The place was too quiet. The hens were still locked in the hutch. Inside the house, Pablo found his grandfather. “He still looked strong, lying there,” Pablo told Solo, “but he had no breath.”
The boy’s grandfather had simply failed to wake in the little one-room wood house, but we don’t know why. It’s likely that the family doesn’t either. He was old, they said, that’s all. Pablo received some inheritance, but he sold livestock to pay for the service. His aunts and uncle helped out too. Pablo’s parents had yet to send for him and he didn’t know if they would. He didn’t know much about them anymore. In the old days, workers had returned for Christmas, but those days were gone. Communication from el Norte was patchy.
Around that time Pablo and Solo took work as laborers to help build a tiendita, or little corner store. The job started on a Monday. The town bricklayer played shortstop for the village team, and the Sunday before work was to begin, the team played a game in another pueblo. Pablo and Solo didn’t attend, as the hosting village was far away, but they saw the players whooping and strutting into town on the heels of their victory. The boys heard the men celebrating that afternoon and well into the night. The entire village could hear them. And everyone woke to a traveling crescendo of barking dogs and laughter as the players made their ways home in the blackness that preceded the roosters’ first
cries.
“I guess that shortstop isn’t going to show up for work today,” Solo told Pablo as the sun rose in the sky. “I heard someone brought turtle eggs to the party—steamed—which are supposed to make you strong, right? Not strong enough, I guess. If the boss comes yelling one more time, I’m going to quit.”
“You can’t quit something you never started,” Pablo said.
“Start where? How? We’ve never set any bricks before.”
Pablo stood and picked up the mason’s trowel. He grabbed the wooden wheelbarrow and the bucket of water. He lifted a bag of cement, ripped it open, and began to make a mixture for the footing.
“Just wait for the shortstop,” Solo advised. “You’re going to mess it up.”
“Nothing is going to be messed up,” Pablo said. “We’re going to pull this work off today, before the dueño fires us.”
The first side wasn’t pretty, or even level, but at a quick glance, Pablo passed as a mason. Nothing in the village, made by man anyway, was ever level.
“I bet you’re a good shortstop, too,” Solo said. “No point in sticking around here with talent, hombre.”
Building the walls of the tiendita was not the most memorable work. And frankly, if Solo reflected on it, it was only to question whether the bricks remained in place beyond a wet season or two. Solo remembered his exact words to Pablo only because they came true faster than he’d thought.
Two days after finishing the tiendita, Pablo asked his friend for a favor. “Solo, I want you to do the thing you promised, and pray to God for my travels. I’m going to el Norte.”
“You’re finally joining your parents?” Solo asked. Eight years had come and gone since they’d left, so much time, Solo thought, that it seemed as if the parents might never send for him.
“I don’t know,” Pablo said. “I’m just going.” And he walked out of the village on the thin dirt roads.
The Coyote's Bicycle Page 2
