The Guardians (20 page)

Early in the morning, the day laborers crossing over here look like lines of ants moving steadily over the bridge. At the end of the day, same thing, only going in reverse. I can't tell you how many come over every day. Maybe a hundred thousand. Sounds like a lot. Looks like a lot. But crossing has never been easy.

Let me clarify—crossing
over from
México has never been easy.

The unruly Río Grande, where tanta gente used to wade through
when the river was low, back when I was growing up, always caused problems between the two countries because it changed courses. So, you could see how it could get tricky Sometimes it was on the U.S. side, sometimes in México. Then it was decided by the powers that be on both sides to run it through a concrete channel. They built a nice park, the Chamizal, that sits on both countries to commemorate the settling of that dispute. That was back in los sixties, I believe around when Kennedy was still alive—el best presidente the Mexican people ever had.

Los Franklins stand guard over history—man's and nature's. That's what they do. But there ain't nothing inviting about them. You wonder how people went over them back in the pioneer days. On the other hand, looking down from up there—the view of three states and two nations all lit up—is dazzling at night. I remember it from the times I used to take Lola up there, back when we were going out.

Bueno. You can cross by underground, too.

Tunnel smuggling has always been big business, not just around here but everywhere. I saw my share of tunnels when I fought in la guerra. When I was coming up as a boy—un chamaquillo no más, during Prohibition, running around working for the ladies of the night, bootleggers built underground tunnels to get back and forth. Along la frontera, people are still digging tunnels. Over in Nogales, a man was busted for having built one going into Arizona. It was nearly a foolproof plan, too. He had a cement factory on one side and his home on the other. He used the materials from the cement factory to line his tunnel. Bien trucho, hom-bre. He'd bring workers back and forth all the time. Eventually the authorities caught on.

Legend has it that in the Wild West days, Wyatt Earp come by here before he went to Tombstone and found it too wild for him. All kinds of desperadoes passed through El Chuco looking for refuge. The gunslinger John Wesley Hardin is buried over in the Chinese graveyard. Los chinos were here building railroads back in them days.

It's still pretty wild around here. Maybe no more than other places in the world. Just yesterday, a man got shot in broad daylight. He worked for a car dealership. He was shot by a woman. Her brother was driving the getaway car. And they got away, too. You gonna tell me drugs weren't behind that? Either that or the guy sold a lemon to the wrong people.

I seen a lot during all my years of owning a cantina. Las viejas can be just as vicious as any man. N'hombre. You gotta watch las güisas, tam-bién. Once a woman slit her man's throat, just like that, with a kitchen
knife. Right there in front of me. Chingaos, hombre. That took a lot of nerve. And a lot of forearm strength, too, let me tell you, 'cause accomplishing that as neatly as she did wasn't easy. The vato was sitting at the bar with una ruca he picked up, having themselves a good ol’ time, when in comes his jaina. Three strides from the door, count them, to where the man was sitting on a stool, cooin’ with la ruca. The wife spins him around y que zúmbale su madre! Not even a word. Blood spilling out all over the place. The ruca went pale like she expected to be next. She couldn't even move. We all froze. I'd even forgotten about my gun behind the bar. We only stood there, wondering what next from that jaina loca who'd walked in just like that.

Then, without so much as uttering a word, the wife made an about-face and walked right back out. She took the knife with her so there was no evidence. And there weren't no witnesses, so there wasn't no crime, neither. Then a couple of los muchachos carried the vato out to the alley. We didn't want no trouble. The police could close down my establishment. I couldn't have that.

Things like that happened in my line of business.

Running a cantina for so many years, I could recognize a backstabber on sight. Yes, sir. I've known backstabbers and I've known front-stabbers. In my business you had to know how to protect yourself. One particular year during the fifties, back when Eisenhower was president, my establishment was held up so many times I got this close to shutting it down myself.

Then the word got around that I had a gun behind the bar—a very big gun—and that I was prepared to use it. And los buenos pa’ nada that were coming around stopped bothering me. I'd take out my Colt .
45
without hesitation. I'd won it in a card game from un hombre de Galves-ton. Hijo. What a good night that was. I sent that vato walking back home barefoot.

I put the muzzle right between the eyes of the last mensote that tried to rob me while I tended bar. I didn't always tend bar after the first few years. I had found a real good bartender, Ernest Chávez. El Ernie worked for me for years, until he died, in fact. Bueno. The last pachuco who tried to rob me found me behind the bar that night. I put that gun right up between his eyes and said, “I'm gonna let you live for one reason and one reason only, cabrón. That's so's you can go and tell the rest of the ratas out there that I mean to blow out the brains of the next one that comes in trying to rob my till. And if I ever see you on the street, you better run,
güey,” I said. “Now get.” Then el Ernie and a couple of the muchachos escorted him out through the back.

No one bothered me after that. Besides, a lil while later, Lola's nephew el Alonsito became a chota. When he was a lil vato he used to come into my place with his shoeshine box. He made a lot of tips there. El Al—all grown up—made sure people didn't mess with my establishment.

Ernie died way back when Nixon was president. He got a bone caught in his throat eating a bowl of cocido. All my compadres are dead. Lola's gone. My kids are gone—not dead, gracias a Dios, just gone from El Chuco.

So all this is to say, being around as long as I have, I figured que esa Tiny Tears, acting like una mosquita muerta, could be big trouble. She had her eye on el Gabo, too. You could tell that right away at the barbecue. He's a handsome kid. Girls that age, all they got on their minds are boys. La Diputada Sofia ran a check on la ruquita for me. Sure enough. She already had a record. Theft. Sofia said the girl had once been picked up in relation to a homicide, too. A homicide. Imagínate, hombre. But they let her go since no one could prove nothing. Bad-ass little girl.

These days you can just call me un walking fool.

Me and Oso, both. He's just about walked off the pads of his patas and me, the soles of my old botas.

Oso's my new dog. I got him from the pound. Mikey took me there one day. I said, “I need a new pair of eyes.” Something like twenty-six thousand dogs are put down here every year. Sounds ridiculous. We figured we'd save one. That's how we got Oso. When we first brought him home you could count his ribs. You could tell he'd been mistreated. Now he looks like a fat sheep. Oso's a mixed long-hair shepherd and Lab and he sees real good. He leads me everywhere. I don't know how old he is, but he's a real good dog. At night he lays across the front door, every five minutes jumping up barking. He sounds ferocious.
WOOF, WOOF.
He don't let people sleep. I say, “Oso, if there ain't nobody there, shut the hell up, will you?” Then Oso comes over for a pat on the head since he thinks I've just thanked him for being trucho.

Regina gave me a picture of her brother. With the picture in hand, I go over to Paisano to ask if any of the laborers recognize him. Pero nel. No luck. Young and old men alike shake their tired heads. It's six in the morning and they already looked tired out.

What's a viejo supposed to do with the time he's got left, anyway? Besides going down to the bus station near the Santa Fe Puente and sitting around talking to whoever was waiting to go somewhere, I hardly had nothing to fill up my time. Maybe I'd go get a pan dulce in the morning to have with my café. That was about it for my whole day.

So we go walking around downtown, over by the Stanton bridge, up and down Paisano and down and up Oregon. We go by the Tiradero as the merchants are setting up their puestos and all los hombres are out there already. That flea market's open all year long. Across the street you got the Kentucky Fried Chicken–Taco Bell combo in one lil building— men are waiting there. They're waiting in the McDonald's and Church's Chicken parking lots, too. Across from my old parish, El Sagrado Cor-azón, where Lola used to make me go to Mass, you got them waiting. “Maestro,” they call out, “take me. I'll work hard for you. See?” They flex a muscle or try to. They flash a smile at us.

Me and Oso make our way down to all the bus stations with Rafa's picture that's falling apart from so much passing around. The one closest to my house is on Santa Fe and Overland. Then over to Los Angeles Limousines. I understand that some women take that one all the way to LA. to get clothes deals at the garment district there. Then they come right back on that bus line and take the clothes to Juárez to sell. I go to the Plaza de los Lagartijos where all the women housekeepers wait to be picked up by patrones. The city used to keep live alligators in the fountain but the animals kept getting killed.

Once I even asked a couple of Migra parked on the street. “Let me see your I.D., sir,” one tonto said instead of answering me about the photograph I was trying to show him. N'hombre. La perrera anda brava. They'll take anybody in.

Another time, me and Oso asked some pachucos standing around waiting—not for work but to make dope deals. I knew who they were— los Mexíka Tres Mil. Pretty bad pachucos, but they still ain't the worse. The Mexíka Tres Mil or the MTM, like they call themselves, come straight out of federal prisons. They operate inside the prisons, too. Maybe they're tied to the big narcos. I ain't claiming to know nothing. Just like my neighbors never hear nothing, I walk around but I don't see nothing.

Well, that's actually the truth.

The MTM ain't no lil ganga, neither. They're spread all the way down to Centroamérica. Matones mostly.

I ain't afraid of them, though.

One day I went right up to a couple of MTMs, me and Oso, and showed them the picture. “No, viejito,” one of the vatos said, “we ain't seen your son. But we'll keep an eye out for him, how's that?” No one said he was my son. But hearing that, even all friendly, almost sounded like a threat. “How about your dog? You wanna sell him?” one MTM called out as me and Oso walked away. I didn't even turn around. Like I'm gonna put Oso to his death in the dogfight racket. Who knows. Maybe he'd win. But not eventually.

All up and down now there are los day laborers who cross over every morning, the skilled and unskilled, good workers and not-so-good ones. The borracho types hiding cuartos in paper bags underneath the muebles they're leaning against. You gotta look behind the tires to check for a hidden half-pint to make sure you don't pick up un tipo who'll be pie-eyed by noon.

It almost looks like something outta the Depression era, so many men needing work. But back then, they could've waited all darn day and no one would've come for them. Then again, back then they weren't allowed to cross over precisely 'cause there was no work. Now, during the chile harvest season, La Migra turns a blind eye at all the men that come to be picked up.

Sometimes, en los evenings, we go out walking again. We got a purpose now. Me and Oso make our rounds to the cantinas and todos los diners with our picture. Whenever I go up to people, at first they think I'm looking for a handout, 'cause of Oso and my cane. Then I say, “¿Qué creen? I'm looking for a friend, un amigo who's disappeared on his familia.” Everybody seems to get that right away. The borderlands have become like the Bermuda Triangle. Sooner or later everyone knows someone who's dropped outta sight.

One time I took the picture to la Diputada Sofia. I won't say we've become old pals, exactly. I'm not about to ask her to tea. I can't say I haven't thought about it. But I think she took a liking to Gabo that one time she processed him. More precisely, I think she saw what I saw. I asked her if she noticed anything unusual about the boy. I was afraid that maybe I was seeing things like that 'cause my time was coming. I came right out and asked her, “Do you see a gold ring over the muchacho's head?” At worse, la Diputada Sofia might think I was developing a case of Alzheimer's.

“Do I believe that Gabriel is special, in other words?” she asked. “Of course. Don't you?” Then she laughed.

She does have a pretty laugh.

Sofia was happy to meet Oso, who is not angelic by any means but is still turning out to be a good dog. Everybody at the holding tank was happy to meet him since Oso's pretty friendly when he wants to be. “If you ever decide you don't want him anymore,” one chota said, “we can always use a dog like this around here.”

Like I was ever gonna let Oso work for la chota.

Sofia scanned the photo. “I'll pass copies out to my deputies to ask around.” She knew the man I was looking for was a mojado. Not like we don't have them all around us. All I wanted was some news.