Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants (27 page)

*

“
No greater disaster has befallen Ahuacatlán since the conquest,”
said Father Tomás Cano, transferring his heavy white vestments from his rounded shoulders to a wardrobe in the sacristy and wiping the sweat from his florid brow. He was a tall man, with close- together eyes that gave the impression of big cheeks. He walked through a door to his office and poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on his desk. A ceiling fan turned slowly, and with questionable effect; it
was
hot in there. I had been waiting since he finished evening mass to get his thoughts on emigration to the States.

“
Please, have a seat,”
he said, pulling out a chair from under a table. There was a white cat on it.
“Ah, Gringo, so that's where you’ve been hiding!”
He shooed the cat away.

“
Gringo?”
I asked.

The father grinned a bit sheepishly. “It was named by some children,” he said. “Because of its color.”

“Did you mean that—about no greater disaster?”

“Yes! Though, of course, it is more complicated than that. It is, mainly, a great disruption, bringing with it much bad but also some good.” He paused to finish the glass of water. “That is to say ... it’s, it’s ... say, do you know how to swim?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, do you swim? It's late enough that the suds should be gone from the river, and the children will have left the swimming hole. It's so hot in here, there’s nothing I’d like more than a swim.”

The priest was a man of such importance in Ahuacatlán that I had not imagined he did things like swim. Out of respect, I had kept my sleeves rolled down and my collar buttoned high. But this sounded like a great idea.

“
Sure—why not?”
I said. He turned off the lights and fan and we exited through a side door. He didn’t lock the door, I noticed—most doors in Ahuacatlán didn’t even have locks. A tiny side street soon turned into a path along the river. The priest was in no hurry.

“Back to your question,” he said. “Externally, yes—having men leave to work in the States benefits us. They send money home, and now we have better houses, clothing, highways, cars. More people can afford farm animals. The parts of life that you can quantify are better.

“But how much of life is that? I will say it again: not since the conquest have we suffered such a disaster. And here is why. Seven out of ten households here lack a husband, a father—they’re all gone, working somewhere else. Sure, maybe—maybe—their families have more money, but the family! The men come home once a year, they make their wives pregnant, and then they leave again. The wives get so frustrated; ‘I married a man, not a letter, not a U.S. Postal Service money order!’ one said to me. The children of these families have a character that is colder than normal.

“And, of course, terrible things happen. The men bring home venereal disease, from the prostitutes they have up there. We never used to have these diseases in Ahuacatlán; now—ask the doctor!—they’re everywhere. Or, what's worse, the men never come home at all. They take a mistress up there, and get comfortable, and that's the last we hear. I think about two hundred never come home at all anymore. That includes the ones that die: my count is twenty-seven dead in the past twenty years. Yes, they die in car wrecks, bar fights, farm accidents ...

“That is why I have always said: This is a parish of widows and orphans. It is true figuratively, but also it is true literally.”

The priest hopped over a log as we continued our way upstream toward the swimming hole. During the day the wide, shallow parts of the Río Moctezuma were dotted with women doing their wash, each crouched over large, smooth stones dragged into the river for that purpose. Their laundry detergent—and that of women all the way up the valley—was the source of the suds the priest had referred to; at midday the river sometimes resembled a moving bubble bath. But now the suds had been rinsed down into the Jalpan reservoir, and the river ran smooth and dark. Father Cano sat down a moment to rest.

“You know, I studied in your country for five years.”

“Yes? Where?”

“Catholic University, in Washington, D.C.”

I tried some English on him, but the priest had gotten a little rusty.

“Anyway, coming from the States, you will understand the desire to get ahead. It is called ambition, and it is a beautiful thing. But it is also the reason so many young people here want to leave. They all want to do the best they can, don’t want anyone to be better than them.

“They hear their friends chatting—brothers, older boys who have been. Of course, even if they suffered fiascos up there, the stories they tell are pure adventure. The younger boys see their new clothes, see how girls are attracted. To them it sounds like the Eternal Paradise! And besides, they think, only sissies stay behind. What can one who stays have to compare with a tale of crossing the border, eluding the FBI, even being in prison in the United States! The men take great pride in these things.

“So they leave school early and away they go. And six months, a year, or two years later, when they come back, they are disgusted at what they see. Ahuacatlán suddenly looks to them like a pigsty: livestock in the streets, no plumbing, dirt roads. They are ashamed. And this is the beginning of their inferiority complex—they think everything there is better. They see Americans as very high, themselves as very low. Of course, though, they can never be Americans, or even pass for them at their age—it’s too late to learn English well enough. But many feel stupid because of it. And they are ashamed to be Mexican.”

The father shook his head. “Ay, Teodoro. What is there to do, sometimes, but go for a swim?”

“Yes.”

The swimming hole was around the next bend. I was pleased as we got close: here was the Huck Finn swimming hole missing from my youth. The main pool went down about fifteen feet. One side was a wall of stone, with numerous diving-off spots; the other was flat and grassy, with two huge sycamores sprouting from the river bank and arcing up over the deepest pool. As the priest would soon demonstrate, you could also dive off these.

It was dusk. Far above the rocky side of the river, the highway passed. Apart from the occasional whine of a truck, all was the rushing of the river. Without a word, Father Cano disappeared behind some shrubs; the next thing I heard was a great splash as his body hit the deep pool, and an
“Ah!”
as he came up for air. I hung my clothes on a tree and waded cautiously into a more shallow pool downstream, getting the feel of the pebbled bottom.

*

Just down the hill from Hilario’s property, enclosed by his same stone fences, was another, newer small house owned by Lupe’s brother, Rigoberto. Rigo, his wife, Conchita, and their six-month-old son, Omar, used two rooms of the house; the third, reserved for members of the co-op when they visited, was also mine. Though I ate with Hilario’s family, and they were my hosts, I enjoyed Rigo’s company. He was younger than I, which I always found hard to accept, given his family and responsibilities and seriousness. Rigo was home by dark, up before dawn to work on the government road crew, and preferred to spend extra time with his family. But one Friday night, when both of us arrived home later than the usual supper time, I suggested we go out for tacos and beer, and Rigo accepted.

Going out for tacos is a great custom, as popular in Mexico City—the world’s largest metropolis—as in tiny Ahuacatlán. In a small storefront or at a sidewalk cart, the vendor will toss four to six corn tortillas (twice as many as tacos you order) into shallow oil or onto a convex grill, to warm and soften them up. Then the customer chooses the meat filling—usually different cuts of chopped beef—loin, sausage, tongue, intestines—posted on a piece of paper or chalkboard, done up in different sauces (barbecue, and so on). The vendor spoons a line of filling into each tortilla, sprinkles it with cilantro
,
folds the tortilla in half, ladles in a little homemade hot sauce if you like, and nestles it side by side with the other soft-shell tacos on a small plate. A beer or soft drink from a bottle is almost a mandatory accompaniment. Around the counter the customers, usually men, may not know each other, but they talk. Going out for tacos is a great way to avoid eating dinner alone.

Rigo and I sat down in a small
taquería
just down a side street from the plaza. We called our orders over to the
señora
behind the counter, and helped ourselves to Modelo beers from the refrigerator case. Screw-off tops were just arriving in Mexico; we used an opener hanging from the refrigerator door by a string. The beers weren’t too cold—they never were in Ahuacatlán—but they were beers just the same. Rigo, a man of few words, began as his distant and polite self, but started to loosen up as the beer took effect. Little Omar’s cold was taking a long time to go away, wasn’t it? Had I noticed the feathers returning to the necks of the hens since that rooster got the ax? That shallow trench he was digging was for plastic tubing, to bring river water from Hilario’s house down to Conchita’s kitchen, to help her with cooking. For nine hours a day on the road crew, he was paid 900 pesos, or just under three U.S. dollars at the time. I did some thinking about this. How much were a pair of jeans? I asked. Twenty-three hundred pesos new, he said—or about half a weekly salary. Decent meat was very nearly as expensive—a big piece for dinner, if you could find it, cost almost a day’s salary. That’s why he didn’t go out much, said Rigo. Did he ever think of going to the States? I asked. No, said Rigo, he wasn’t the sort.

It was then that two couples came through the saloon doors of the littie
taquería,
catching everyone’s attention. The women, apparently in their late teens, wore high heels, nylons, nice dresses, and makeup, and they had their hair down, brushed till it was light and bouncy. The men, also young and handsome, wore boots, designer jeans, and carefully ironed long-sleeved shirts. One of the shirts was the army surplus variety popular with Emilio Hernández and others I had known up north, though starch and ironing gave it a very different look. The taller man, in the army shirt, also wore a gold chain around his neck; he was brown haired, clean shaven, and had an engaging smile. His friend had dark, curly hair and a mustache. They nodded at me as they seated the girls and walked to the counter, and I nodded back.

I looked at Rigo; these folks obviously weren’t his type at all. Next to them, he looked a perfect country mouse. Next to him, they looked like big-city playboys. But appearances could be misleading.

“Hello. How are you?” asked the taller, clean-shaven one, leaning against the counter. His accent wasn’t too bad.

I smiled at the good effort. “I’m fine. And you?”

“Oh. I am—” he looked at his companion “—we are fine.”

“Yes,” said the shorter man, “fine!” Both of them were grinning widely now.

“Just-come-here?” asked the taller one, haltingly.

“Not long ago,” I answered, to looks of puzzlement. Damn, I thought, what was an easier way to say it ...

“Yes,” I said.

Rigo, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, interrupted quietly.
“Ehmm, I’ll be going, Teodoro.”
He pointed to an old clock on the wall, somehow still working. Eight o’clock.
“It’s getting late.”
He held out three crumpled one-hundred-peso notes, a third of his daily salary. I could earn that in a few minutes back home, I thought to myself; I waved him off.
“It's on me. You’re my host.”
We shook hands and Rigo made an unobtrusive exit. A certain tension left the air when he did. I walked to the counter to pay and then, when the men beckoned, joined the young foursome at their table.

“My name’s Teo,” I said.

“
Yes, we know.”
Of course—by now the whole town, as well as a dozen
ranchos,
knew about the
gringo
from Arizona staying with Rigo and Hilario.
“I’m Jesús, and this is Victor.”

“
Ah, Cornelio’s son?”
He nodded, and we shook hands again. I glanced toward the women, expecting them, too, to be introduced, but it was not to be. There was a momentary silence—when men had the floor, women were silent, and introducing women, as well, apparently was not done.

He had learned his English in Idaho, explained Jesús, the tall one. Victor, a distant cousin, had gone too, but wasn’t quite as quick with language as Jesús. They had been going every year, to the same ranch, for five years, leaving in April and returning in October, just in time for the soccer season. The Ahuacatlán team,
Los Tecolotes
—the owls—were state champions, Jesús said proudly. The two looked to be in their early twenties.

It was great, finally, to meet more guys my own age.
“This is a parish of widows and orphans,”
Father Cano had said. The Arizona and Florida citrus harvests emptied the town of nearly all its able-bodied men from fall to early summer. What was left in the spring—it could as well have been a time of war—were mainly boys, the elderly, and women, all of whom watched them go and awaited their return. The exception were these guys, who went to Idaho on a different harvest calendar. There were twenty or so left in town, from what I had heard. Jesús and Victor stood up to take their dates to whatever came next—but suggested we meet the next evening on the plaza. I agreed, and we shook hands yet again.

*

The rhythmic thump of basketballs sounded from several streets away; basketball, the sport of choice in the sierra, was going in full force when I arrived at the plaza. The rugged terrain of the Sierra Madre Oriental made soccer or baseball very difficult; carving out a flat spot big enough for a field was a major undertaking. Half a basketball court, however, was a reasonable alterative even in a
rancho
—there was, in fact, a
rancho
league—and a full-length court was well within the reach of a village like Ahuacatlán. The cement court constituted half the plaza; down two steps, along one sideline, the tile began and you could safely stroll with your newborn or grandfather. Two strings of bare bulbs, left up by popular demand after the last fiesta, crisscrossed the entire plaza and made basketball possible well into the night.