The Coyote's Bicycle (3 page)

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.

We know that he had no arrangements to cross into the United States, and little knowledge of what the process entailed. He didn't
know Mexico City, or Tijuana, or anything in between. Pablo walked to a village bigger than his own. He hopped aboard a local
colectivo
and rode it to a small town, and there he caught another to a bigger town. He arrived in Mexico City after dark and boarded a three-day bus that rarely stopped. The drivers took turns sleeping in the motor coach under the cabin. The bus had televisions in the headrests and a bathroom with a plastic toilet and running water. Out the window he saw types of cars that had never wheeled into the village. He saw mountains and deserts. And at the terminus of a string of marvels, Pablo landed in Tijuana with a few thousand pesos—the sum of his grandfather's estate—which was enough to feed him for a few weeks as long as he purchased nothing else and slept in the open. For safekeeping, he placed the coins and dirty bills in a little pocket he'd sewn into his underwear.

The main bus station would have looked like a gleaming international transit hub—Paris or Kuala Lumpur—to the country kid. Its floors shined. It held shops and restaurants. Pablo would have seen other
campesinos
who looked like he did, wearing sandals, patched trousers, and weathered hats. And immediately, in the presence of city dwellers dressed in suits or crisp jeans and leather shoes, he would have known the difference. He would have known, before learning the term, that he was a
pollo
, a chicken, something to be preyed upon. And likely, he would have seen the men who approached
pollos
fresh off the buses from Michoacán and Zacatecas to offer their services. He would have seen the local police who competed with these men to snatch up
pollos
and sell them body and soul to the coyotes.

But like the other newcomers without money to pay the smugglers, and looking so poor the police had no interest, Pablo found his way to the border fence—
la línea
—and walked along its rusted arc and curve to a broad river that was paved with cement, filled with trash, and smelled of sewage. This wasn't a river anybody would
wash his family's clothing in. Pablo walked the paved shore until it ended in dirt at the boundary of the United States. He saw the Border Patrol waiting there in white-and-green trucks and observed the gangs of deported men who idled along the river. Some broke the concrete and dug burrows and caves into the banks, where they lived. Others congregated to smoke and snort
chuki
—methamphetamine—and to huff paint or glue or gasoline under the walking bridge from the United States. Men lined up at a public water spout to bathe their blackened bodies in view of tourists passing by.

Pablo would have known that the only difference between himself and these men was time.

It was in January, six months after Pablo walked out of the pueblo, that Solo learned his friend had wired him money, an intimidating sum. The wire arrived with instructions for Solo to meet Pablo in Tijuana. Solo was surprised that his friend hadn't made it to the inside, to San Diego, yet. He worried that something was wrong with Pablo's family, and that this was the reason they hadn't sent for him long ago. The instructions included a personal note: “Thank you for your prayers. There's good work here in Tijuana.”