The Coyote's Bicycle

by Kimball Taylor

  Also just downhill from the cemetery, incidentally, sat one of the closest bike shops to the border. My guess was that even a spiritual journey needed a new set of inner tubes and some brake cables now and again.

  9

  The Chicago Club lay just off Calle Coahuila, the Zona Norte’s main drag, and within view of the red-light district’s most popular bars. Inside, past a bouncer and a vacant coat-check stand, a huddle of vinyl booths surrounded a low parquet stage where dancers twirled about brass poles at either end. To the left, a bar extended nearly the length of the room; the wall behind it was mirrored and filled with bottles. The rest of the decor was basic, mostly red and black. Only at the very rear of the room was there a reference to the club’s theme. It was a large portrait of the American gangster Al Capone.

  Every pollero operation chose a local cantina as a de facto base. In the field, communication was often interrupted, and crews were easily divided. So a prearranged spot that provided cover was essential. This one was dark, intimate, and close to the border. It didn’t charge a cover. One could see who came and who went. An average patron could easily get to know the bartenders and strippers who worked there. And if a crossing was particularly successful, the ingredients for a celebration were always at hand. That the club El Indio and his amigos chose as the base for their cadre of smugglers took its theme from America’s bootleg heyday was not a point that garnered mention by any of them.

  Early on a Tuesday evening was a slow time at the club. The dancers tended to slouch about like lonely car-wash attendants—women almost unassociated to the elongated and alluring vixens conjured by frequent and healthy tips. Juan was sitting at the bar chatting with a woman in a schoolgirl’s plaid skirt when Indio walked in. Juan spotted his socio—his partner—but continued the casual conversation. Indio pulled out a seat, said hello to the girl, and exchanged mild pleasantries with Juan. A silence settled. Soon enough, the stripper moved on to some promising tourists seated in a corner.

  “You made it,” Juan said, excitedly.

  “Yeah.”

  “With the bike?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I left it.”

  It was the first vehicle El Indio had ever owned—a dream bike to the kid he’d been in the village. But the pollero hadn’t wanted la migra to spot him riding back on the exact bike he’d just crossed with. Not that the jalapeños were bicycle experts, or even aware. He was just nervous, superstitious even.

  “Of course,” said Juan. “Still, it’s too bad . . . that was a cool bike.”

  “We need more. I’m looking to get, say, thirty. For starters.”

  “Let me see what I can do. I’ll meet up with some friends here in la Zona, and I’ll put the order in.”

  “Also, we need someone on the inside who can make the pickup.” This was a bigger challenge, one that required strong connections in the United States.

  “Yeah, I have some friends,” Juan said. “In fact, I called Luis. He should be here soon. He has a green card, never has any problems.”

  The polleros ordered beers. As the night progressed the club began to fill. The PA’s volume seemed to rise with the action. Rather than absently circling the brass poles, now the ladies began to kick and lift, to shimmy and spin. The nightly party was unfolding, fresh again, when a big, husky guy stumbled into the club. This man walked along the bar until he found Juan, who greeted him with affection and introduced him to El Indio. The loud music had a way of creating bubbles of privacy. Small groups could talk openly without appearing conspiratorial. Though his small talk was spare, Indio had a way of sizing people up in minute exchanges. Juan’s banter eased the situation. Luis was not shy when recounting his feats in the field, and he must have met some requisite borderlands standard. Because at some point, in vague terms, Indio began to convey their scheme to Luis. A particular dancer caught Juan’s attention and he turned away to watch. A moment later, he heard Luis erupt in laughter that sheared through the music. When he looked, Luis had his big hand on Indio’s shoulder.

  “What, Juanito?” Luis said. “You asked me down here to tell jokes? Ha, ha. I hope you’re buying drinks, my friend.”

  Indio was silent, proffering the Oaxacan mask that revealed nothing.

  “Listen, jefe,” Juan intervened on Luis’s behalf. “It’s a normal reaction, eh? Who would imagine this harebrained idea? He’s only surprised.”

  “Actually, I’m impressed,” the big man said before gulping his glass of Bucanas. He laughed again. A flush overcame his face and his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the room.

  Indio gathered himself before addressing the new associate. “Look, let’s say you pick up my people tomorrow night, a trial run only. We’ve set the place and the hour. You wait there. You pick us up. You drive away with good money. But I have to know it’s a sure thing you’ll be there.”

  “As long as the pollos are going to be there, so will I,” Luis said. He raised a finger. “I don’t want to be driving around for nothing.” The driver slapped Juan on the chest. “You owe me.”

  He waved some bills at the bartender, set them on the bar, said his good-byes, and left.

  Two polleros, Javier and Rudy, waited in the canyon with three young men, migrants El Indio had recruited at la línea. Javier was slender with wavy hair, a thin nose, and classic good looks. Rudy was also trim but with a rounder face and a more amiable disposition. They were about the same age as their clients, but the polleros had been attempting to strike a pose of experience. The group had spent a good portion of the day driving through Tijuana’s slums, drumming up bicycles together. They talked music, soccer, girls. Rudy felt it was a companionable situation; he liked these guys. And resting nearby in a pile was the result of their work: the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh bicycles.

  But now, in sight of la migra, the migrants began to look nervous. One of them had a habit of licking his lips. The two others offered weak smiles. Their eyes darted. Against his better judgment, Rudy offered them a conciliatory out. “Still cool with riding across, right?” He nodded at the tangle of rubber and metal. “There are other ways to cross.”

  “Oh yeah,” said the eldest. He was twenty-two and from Sinaloa. “It sounds way better than running, amigo.”

  One of the pollos pointed to the lone ten-speed. “This one is strange, no?”

  “It’s easy,” said Javier. He bent his body and bulged his back in an impersonation of a stage-race competitor. He looked over his shoulder and then pretended to overtake the peloton. He straightened. “In the city, we ride these bikes almost exclusively.”

  “I don’t think I want that one,” said the eldest.

  “No, me neither.”

  Eyeing Javy, as his associates called him, Rudy chuckled. “I’m just the gancho, hombre. It looks like you’ll be the city slicker on the road bike.”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay. El Indio says that as long as the tires roll, it will do the job.”

  Later, Javy admitted that he was plain scared. He’d never been to el otro lado. A couple of days before, he and El Indio had gone to the canyon to observe la migra, but the agents didn’t act in the ways that Indio had said they would. “We checked and double-checked the timing of the shift changes, and the number of minutes it took an agent to reach the bottom of the hill, where we were going to be,” Javy said. “That’s when I began to get afraid.”

  Rudy, Javy, and the migrants all heard a rustle in the brush, a scuffing of sandy soil and the scratching of tumbleweeds. El Indio appeared from the darkness. He was short of breath and looked to be in a hurry.

  “Okay gentlemen, to confirm, everybody knows how to ride? Everybody is cool with the plan?”

  “Yes,” answered the young men. “Of course.” One rubbed his hands. Another lifted alternating heels, as if already en route.

  “Okay. Rudy, you should make your way to the top of the hill. Watch for the fifth bicycle to pass onto the road, and that’s your sign to distract la migra.”

  Rud
y hustled up a thin path.

  As they put the bikes over, light glinted off spokes and the ratchet of gears sounded impossibly loud. Indio guessed la migra’s shift change would happen in twenty-five minutes. But nothing happened.

  “You see him there on that hill?” he said to the group, pointing at the agent. “He will drive down the backside and we will have ten minutes, more or less, to slip through. I’ve made arrangements with the levantón. He will meet us by a farm. You need to know that the street is called Hollister, just in case. It shouldn’t take more than eight or nine minutes to get there.”

  Meanwhile, Rudy would be on the hill ready to distract the second migra if they needed it. “If something else happens and the plan goes wrong,” Indio told them, “if la migra spots you—don’t run back to this place. Jump the fence somewhere else. Don’t come back here. Does everybody understand?”

  A while later the men saw the Border Patrol truck’s headlights flick on. The vehicle reversed from its parking place to the crown of the hill, where it made a three-point turn and then disappeared down the backside.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Indio led the men under the fence. The migrants emerged from the hole on the other side, the whites of their eyes flittering in the darkness. The pollero told them to grab their assigned bicycles. Once the rear guide, Javy, straddled his road bike, the small pod of cyclists negotiated a mild ravine to a graded dirt road. Indio stood on the pedals, a habit from his milk-run days, and each rider in turn rose into a sprint. The men would have been able to hear crashing waves at Border Field State Beach, to smell the rich wetland sages, and to feel the cool, moist night air pooled there in the valley’s lowest depression.

  The chalky dirt road became old asphalt near some outbuildings. And here the riders experienced the sensation of being observed; every dark construction posed a threat. It was easy to imagine that, inside, faceless people reached for telephones and dialed the police. Around a curve, El Indio made his hand into a fist and pulled into some bushes. The migrants followed, bunching together.

  “The guía,” one of them said. Javy was still on the road, far behind.

  Seconds passed.

  The sound of an approaching vehicle came from the east. Bold headlights then flashed on the hillside brush, disappearing into a bend. If Javy remained anywhere on the two-lane road, the lights would soon find him. There was nothing the migrants or their pollero could do. It was as if Javy traveled along a tightrope: any move by the others would shake the line, and he would certainly fall. If Javy were caught, the others would have to leave him behind.

  The vehicle seemed to slow. The lights lit upon the asphalt just ahead of their position. The men squeezed tighter into the bush. A truck—white and green—all but stopped alongside them. An unseen track branched off from the far side of the road. The truck veered onto it. The engine roared as it climbed a hill. Soon enough, the darkened pavement of Monument became the province of raccoon, jackrabbit, and possum again. Like them, the crossers cautiously moved back on to the road.

  A voice behind them said, “Wait, wait.”

  It was Javy on the road bike.

  He rejoined the migrants without comment, and from Monument Road, the squad arced onto Hollister. The smell of manure and hay replaced the sages. A long blue road presented itself. The shoulders were clear of foliage and there was little cover. Compared to Tijuana, it was quiet to the point of being surreal. They passed a boarded-up farmhouse that looked like it was slumped in a sinkhole. A street sign read: YIELD TO HORSES. They crossed a low bridge over the river and pedaled a short way before turning off on a dirt side lane. This led to what looked like a shantytown. In plan and shape, it was very much like those in the canyons. But this one was lightless, silent, and foreboding. Only when they stopped could they see that it was constructed of lattices, shacks, and vine racks—a community garden. “Okay,” El Indio said, “the pickup isn’t here yet. If we crouch, we can’t be seen from the road. Lay the bikes down and we’ll wait.”

  A half hour passed, and then an hour. The night cooled and the smells of the river overcame them. The migrants began to ask how long it might take el levantón. They asked about el levantón’s point of departure, estimations of drive times, and the condition of his vehicle.

  Indio finally stood. “The pickup isn’t coming,” he said. “He didn’t think we could do it.” As he mounted his bicycle, he told them, “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Can we have our cell phones back?” one of the men asked.

  “They won’t work here,” the pollero said.

  “It would be good to have them anyway,” another answered. “In case.”

  El Indio withdrew the devices from his bag and handed them over. He stood on the pedals and moved down Hollister. The pollos watched his figure until it passed under the first streetlight and into the night.

  A battered Toyota four-door pulled into the dirt lane and slowed to a stop. El Indio stood and walked toward the car. The driver’s door opened and a man stepped out. He stared at Indio the way one might at a rare animal: the creature was exotic, too much so to be believed. Indio walked around the door with an open palm. The man merely looked at it. Indio embraced him. They remained that way for what seemed to be a long time. Neither said anything until the man stepped away to have a look, this time with the eyes of a brother. “You look good,” he said.

  “Thank you, so do you,” Indio responded.

  Then the driver eyed the men squatting by the garden shacks and said, “We don’t have room for the bikes.”

  “It’s okay.” Indio turned to Javy and the pollos. “Leave them.”

  The driver opened the rear doors, withdrew white plastic buckets full of masonry tools, and put them in the trunk. Indio waved at the group and told them to get in. He took the front passenger seat himself. The interior was worn and smelled of sweat.

  “Gracias, Martín. Muchas gracias,” he said.

  The driver turned the ignition, flipped the lights, and they drove out of the community gardens. The location was surprisingly close to a freeway on-ramp. The overly lit gas stations, the signs and street lamps, and the red-and-white lights of cars passing on the freeway was for the migrants like a grand kaleidoscope.

  In time, Martín said, “Kid, you’re lucky I was at home when you called.” He whistled, his gaze focused on the road ahead. “What were you going to do? Hop on a city bus? I didn’t tell your mother where I was going. She would have freaked out. She hasn’t seen her baby in, what, ten years.”

  “I didn’t call sooner because I knew that the family was doing good, and I didn’t want to make my problems your problems. Tonight there was no other choice; the pickup never came.”

  “All the way over here I was thinking, What do I do with Pablito? I can’t bring him into the house like this. Now I realize you forced my hand. If I deny Mother the opportunity to see you before you end up in jail or deported, she will never forgive me.”

  “Thank you, Martín, for helping me.”

  “What about the rest?”

  El Indio directed his brother to pull into a hotel not far from the family’s home. The woman at the front desk spoke Spanish and when Indio paid for the room from a fold of cash, she asked for an extra deposit for the TV’s remote control. Handing over the room keys, she started to ask if they needed help with luggage, but observed that they had none and stopped. Indio walked the three young migrants to the room. There was a painting of a ship, a small TV, and two beds. Before leaving, Indio instructed them not to open the door for anyone or step out for any reason. “I will come back soon,” he said, “and we’ll reach your destination tomorrow.”

  The family apartment was modest, as Javy remembered it. “The place had two bedrooms and one bathroom. The kitchen was open to the living room. El Indio’s parents slept in one room, and the two sisters in the other. The brothers slept in the living room.”

  While still on the stairwell, Indio heard voices and the sounds of a televisi
on. Through a bay window, he could see an entire family milling about a living room and kitchen. Martín entered, and Indio and Javy followed. The youngest son scanned faces lit by fluorescent lights. He hadn’t seen any of these people together in the same space since they’d all lived in the one-room shack in the village. This space had windows, countertops, and couches. There were doors and a carpet. Each face looked older, tired—and the men bigger, with bellies. In the village, they were always just skin and bones. Indio’s mother wore an apron similar to the one she’d worn at home. There was a little gray in her hair. She stood with a ladle over a pot in the kitchen and peered up only when the room went quiet in their presence.

  “Aye, Martín, you have friends,” she scolded. “You should have called.”

  “Mother, I would like to present your son Pablito and his friend Javier. They crossed over from Tijuana just hours ago.”

  “Pablito?”

  El Indio walked into the kitchen and embraced his mother. His father rose from the couch and joined them. One sister stood back, as if hesitant, and the other clasped her hands. The middle brother stood from the couch. Martín and Javy didn’t move.

  When Indio and his mother broke from their embrace, tears had already reached her round jawline and rolled onto her neck. She wiped at her face with her apron.

  “My boy,” she said, “it is so good that you were able to come and be with us now. I am so happy. Everything is complete.”

  Indio surveyed the others. His head lowered a touch. “It is wonderful to see you again, Mother—all of you. But I haven’t come to stay. I’m here for just a short time.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I have to go on to Los Angeles, for work,” he said.