Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants (13 page)

I could have killed myself for my shortsightedness at not having told them about this one. A hundred feet ahead of me down the concourse, Victor and Ismael probably shared this feeling. They were completely in the dark. But instead of balking, they continued to walk at a measured pace toward the machines.

It was too late to turn back, and possibly suicide to stop and discuss it.

I hurried to get there. I saw the woman working the X-ray machine tell them to put their flight bags on the conveyer belt. They, of course, had absolutely no idea what she was saying. She repeated. They put down their bags, and took out their wallets. They were looking for something ... ID cards! The guys thought it was a police checkpoint, as exist all over Mexico, for which you have to show your papers. Victor handed her some card, and when she saw what it was, she began to get impatient. “No, no!” she said, handing them back and raising her voice, as though that way they’d understand. “Just
put the bags on the belt!”
The other attendants and the cop were all watching now.

Carlos, Timoteo, and I arrived at this moment. I had no choice. “You guys,” I said in Spanish, “they don’t care who you are. All they want is to see if you’re carrying weapons. Put your bags on that belt there.” Flustered and anxious, they did. “Now, walk through that doorway—yeah, the doorframe.”

One by one they did. And one by one each of them—every single one—set off the beeper. I could hardly believe it. The policeman now looked very interested. “Please empty your pockets,” said the attendant, offering a basket. As one, they looked at me for instructions on what to do next.

Filled with a feeling of doom, I came through and took the basket. “Does she want money?” Timoteo asked me, probably reminded of the collection basket at church. “No, no, she just wants to see what’s in your pockets. You all must have metal things in your pockets. Put them in the basket.”

Everyone dug deep, and what emerged were a small penknife, a crucifix on a chain, a copied set of the Toronado keys, a fingernail clipper, three tire valves, a handbill from a Spanish-speaking clairvoyant, and probably two pounds of Mexican peso coins. It was the pesos, each as large as an American silver dollar, yet all together worth less than an American quarter, that had done it.

I held the basket, stony faced, as it grew heavy. They walked through again. This time nobody set off the machine. We picked up the flight bags and, eyes straight ahead, were off.

“
Why the hell were you guys still carrying those pesos?”
I whispered harshly, when we were two boarding gates away and out of sight. Carlos shrugged.
“We had nowhere to spend them,”
said Timoteo. They felt really stupid, I knew. They had been placed in an everyday American situation and had not had the slightest idea how to deal with it. It was a Mexican’s nightmare. And then, as the adrenaline subsided, I recognized my culpability.
“I’m sorry, this was all my fault.”

“
No, no,”
said Carlos,
“it’s our fault. We should have told you about the pesos.”
That was ridiculous, and I felt even worse. We arrived at the gate, and for a while all sat in silence. But then the boarding call came, and there were other things to think about.

Boarding was mercifully painless; the plane was only half full. The five of us took two sets of three seats, across the aisle from each other. I showed them about seat belts, about where to stow the bags, about how the seat backs and the tray tables worked. We had been provided with plastic headsets, and these were a big hit; everyone plugged in and listened until the flight attendant came to give her flight safety demonstration. Now here was something truly fascinating; they all watched in admiration, it seemed to me, without much concern about what she was saying. Finished with the spiel, she stepped gracefully by, checking all our laps for seat belts and tightening Carlos's when he couldn't seem to manage. Carlos, not the least bit nervous, thanked her and summoned up a big smile.
"She's pretty,"
he whispered, as she continued down the aisle.

Excitement grew as the whine of the engines increased and the cabin lights dimmed in preparation for takeoff. Victor peered out his window at the revolving red lights on the wingtips, the rows of deep blue lights that lined runways. Excited, he pointed them out to Ismael. Carlos glanced at me and smiled.
“Are we going to fly now?”
he asked. I nodded. Timoteo suddenly tapped me on the arm.

“
Teodoro, I shouldn’t sit next to the window,” he said. “Can we trade?”

“
Sure. Are you okay?”

“
Yes, yes, it’s just, well, you know, the view. Maybe you could sit over here and I could sit on the aisle. ”
We traded places.

The big plane taxied down the runway. In the few moments before poor Timoteo asked me to close the window shade, I looked out the window and saw the terminal, the many lights, the tall fence that encircled the field. It reminded me of gazing through a window in the Mexico City airport a few months earlier. But something had caught my eye at the edge of that Mexican airport: a spot in the perimeter fence that had been modified, turned into a little visitor's cage, a grandstand for spectators. Since there were no cars nearby, and no easy access from the terminal itself, I had figured the fifteen or twenty people on the bleachers to be simply pedestrians from the working-class neighborhood adjacent—people interested in airplanes, in the miracle of flight. In the United States, where air travel is routine, observation decks went out years ago. In Mexico, where it is the privilege of mainly the wealthy, where many, many people will never see the ground from the sky, flight remains a fascination. The sight of those spectators, braving wind, noise, and exhaust at the edge of a sea of concrete, just to see airplanes leave the earth and return to it, said more than a thousand studies about the differences between our countries.

The whine of the engines suddenly grew to a roar, and the Boeing began to accelerate. I looked across the row: only Timoteo looked nervous. Expectancy and excitement tinged the faces of the others. The cabin pressure increased—I forgot to buy chewing gum!—and Victor placed his hands over his ears. The plane slowly left the ground. “Are we there?” Ismael mouthed to Carlos, and then to me. We both nodded, and I grinned. How had I forgotten the excitement of flight?

As the plane climbed above the clouds, we noticed that Victor still had his hands over his ears, and a concerned look on his face. I suggested he yawn, or swallow, to relieve the pressure, and that seemed to help a little. But then he asked Carlos, the only one among them who had finished high school, the recognized brains of the group,
“What’s going on? What’s ‘pressure’?”

"It's in the air,”
Carlos began,
“but it’s not like sound, or light. Putting your hands over your ears like that won’t keep it out. It’s like there’s ... more air.”

“
Because of the wind outside? Because we’re moving so fast?”

“
Well, not exactly. Look, it's like ... inside a tire. Imagine yourself inside a tire. There’s more air in one place.”
Victor didn’t appear entirely satisfied, and Carlos looked over at me for help. But explaining atmospheric pressure was beyond my ability in Spanish.
“Just yawn,”
I offered.
“Eat something.”

The flight was the pay-on-board variety, and after a while the same flight attendant came by to collect our fares. I offered her our stack of $195 in small bills, with apologies. She laughed though, and asked where my friends were from. Mexico, I said, and they smiled and nodded. “Jes, we are from Messico,” added Carlos, in his best conversational English. He did have a thing for her.

“On vacation?” she asked, smiling.

“Oh, they’re soccer players,” I said. “Up for an exhibition game.”

“How exciting! Well, enjoy your flight.”

“Jes, very much, sank you!” said Carlos, who received an elbow from Ismael as soon as she moved on to the next row, and lifted his eyebrows at the rest of us.

We listened more to the headsets and browsed through the in-flight magazines until she passed by again with the drink tray. “What would you like to drink?” she asked. Carlos and Ismael reached for their wallets but, assuming they were just going to order Coke or a Sprite, I told them the drinks were free, that there was no charge. Somehow, though, this point of information translated to mean to them that she was
buying us
a round of drinks ... a bad goof. Before I knew what was happening, broad grins crossed their faces, and Carlos scooted over to make the aisle seat free for her.

“Lady, please, you would ...” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He looked at me.

“
Ask her he’d like to join us!”

I’m sure I looked very uncomfortable. This wasn’t how it was done on airliners; we would stand out. I was trying to come up with a way to explain this quickly, when it occurred to me that I didn’t need to be Carlos’s guardian every second of the trip. Besides, she had probably figured it out herself. So I simply translated his request, as he had asked. She responded perfectly.

“Why, thank you! Please tell him that I would, but I’ve got a lot of passengers still to serve.” Which I did. Carlos beamed.

Below, the Sonoran Desert was pitch black except for very occasional speckles of light. I calculated that we were just north of the border towns of Yuma, Arizona, and Mexicali, Baja California Norte. It was still Sunday night, a good time for crossing. The emptiness was illusory: there were people down there, walking.

*

The plane landed without incident, and we decided to get out of the airport as soon as possible; if there were Immigration agents out tonight, an international airport like LAX was where they were likely to be. Carlos’s cousin, we hoped, could arrange for us to be picked up, but it wouldn’t be wise to stick around until he arrived. We went downstairs to the cabstand.

I knew almost nothing about Los Angeles, apart from the names of a few of its suburbs—Pasadena, Hollywood, Santa Ana. And my companions knew
absolutely
nothing. As we stood there by the curbside, their apprehension seemed to grow, probably because I myself was hesitating. Where should we go? There were police around, directing traffic. The cabbies were aggressive, demanding to know our destination, telling us we couldn’t all fit into one cab. They looked too hungry for a big fare, and it didn’t seem a good idea just to hop in, completely naive, and ask them to take us to a Denny’s somewhere. Then I noticed a sign: SANTA MONICA, $19.00. HOLLYWOOD, $26.00. BEVERLY HILLS, $22.00.

DOWNTOWN, $24.00. A set fare seemed the way to go. Because I had no idea where any of these places were, I chose the cheapest: we would hit Santa Monica.

A Greek-American with a station wagon agreed to take all five of us, though of course we could have fit into any sedan. The station wagon, he informed me, normally cost double fare, but he’d give us a break—five dollars off. I said maybe we could ask a supervisor about that. Okay, okay, he said—ten dollars off. That, too, seemed a lot, but since the guys were already climbing in, I agreed.

The city glittered with lights and traffic and glass. Though it was almost midnight, everything seemed to be moving: elevators through the sides of glass buildings, planes overhead, cars on all sides, flashing signs. Reflections from glass and the glowing yellow aura of the sky made it seem the middle of a long twilight. The cabbie's acceleration when we hit the freeway reminded me of the jet's. My friends were quiet.

The driver was very curious about what a guy like me was doing with guys like them. I used the soccer story again, explaining that it didn’t seem polite to ask our hosts in Santa Monica to pick us up at the airport at this late hour. We would find a place to hang out in Santa Monica, and call them to pick us up. The cabbie wanted to take us direct to their house. I said I only had a phone number. He wanted to look them up in the phone book—that way he could find their address and take us there. I said, just take us to some restaurant. He said, they’re all closed by now. In that case, I said, let us off right here, and we’ll find a cabbie who does know where one is. Well, come to think of it, he said, I think I know where there might be one—no guarantees, but I think I know.

We got off at McDonald’s in Santa Monica. While Carlos found a telephone from which to try his cousin, the rest of us drank coffee. Victor asked me about the cab driver.
“Where was he from?”

“Greece, originally"

“
Do Greeks speak English too?”

“
After they’ve been here long enough, they do,”
I said.
“Just like you will.
” Victor looked at his coffee.

Carlos returned, unhappy; there had been no answer at his cousin's number. Half an hour later the manager told us we had to leave, the restaurant was closing. We stood in the empty parking lot and looked up and down Colorado Avenue: everything was closed except the Holiday Inn across the street. As the streets were empty and every conceivable outdoor waiting place was conspicuous, I walked over to the hotel to ask if we could wait in the lobby until our ride came. No one was at the desk, so I waved them in.

This time Carlos did succeed in reaching his cousin’s house on the phone. His cousin was out, but someone else, apparently another, more distant relative, would try to round up a car and get us. We would have to stay near the phone, though, so that yet another someone who knew the city better could call back and see exactly where we were.