The Coyote's Bicycle (22 page)

“Marta could help you with that. She's very resourceful.”

“Roberto,” his mother called from the kitchen. “There is somebody here to see you.”

Roberto stepped out of the backyard. He was gone awhile, and he returned to see his wife and sons at the table, as well. It was normal for the family to want to gather, and he hated for the unpredictable nature of his work to affect it, but this business couldn't wait. “I have some things to take care of,” he announced. “Get the grill going. If I'm not back soon, save me a plate.”

The group said their good-byes. And Indio manned the barbecue.

Roberto was absent for longer than he would have liked. And he returned to a house that was full of music and light. In the kitchen he stumbled upon Indio. Laughter erupted from the patio.

“What are you doing?” Roberto asked.

“
Amigo
, just helping out a little,” Indio said.

“Listen, I've been wanting to talk to you. I have more business than I can handle; it takes me away from the family. You've proven
that you are more than an average
pollero
. I need someone like you in my organization. What do you say?”

“
Gracias
for the compliment.” Indio touched his chest.

“So what's your answer?”

Indio took a breath. “You know better than I that there are no friends in this business. I would rather remain good friends, because, well, who knows?”

Roberto scanned Indio's eyes. They appeared a bit glazed. Maybe he was simple, the Oaxacan, and Roberto had misread him. Roberto could only assume that Indio meant no disregard. It was a matter for another time.

“I respect the way you conduct your business,” he said. “We'll keep our friendship.”

“Thank you, Roberto.”

“Now let's finish that beer.”

Roberto stepped out of the kitchen and Indio followed. The group was still chatting and laughing. The kids ran about. Tiny white Christmas lights filled the ficus like sparks. Paper streamers radiated from the tree to the house.

“There he is,” said Marta, beaming at her brother.

“What's this?” asked Roberto. “So lively.” He could see that he'd missed a special little party. Then Indio rounded the table and sat with Marta, their sides touching and their arms dipping below the table in a way that suggested the holding of hands. Roberto sat slowly—he'd missed something indeed. He looked at Chedas, who smiled, and then to his father, who merely shrugged and raised his brows in bemusement.

Roberto hoisted his beer and reached across to Indio. “Well, bottoms up, brother.”

Later, Roberto admitted, “That moment actually affected me quite a bit. My sister and I had been inseparable partners. But I held my feelings in. I saw a beautiful little twinkle in her eyes, an
expression I had never seen before. In the coming days, as well, Marta became a different woman. She laughed and sang and made jokes with the whole family. The more time that passed, the happier she looked.”

14

The broad streets of Playas were sunbaked, the atmosphere made granular by the mist and salt-laden air. The grainy, flickering light projected onto the dirty cab window gave one the impression of a sixteen-millimeter film—of homes painted in pastels, yards gated and walled, everything passing in a Mediterranean kind of slumber. The more opulent the neighborhood in Tijuana, I noted, the fewer the people outside. Dogs idled in the road; brown pelicans looked like miniature posted sentries. It was the mirage of a California beach town in the 1970s. The cab pulled around a gentle curve in the road and up to a glass-fronted shop. I could see the bikes inside. We stopped. A trace scent of rotting kelp marked us about three blocks from the ocean.

The glass door chimed, too loud for the size of the shop, and the ringing added to a buzzy claustrophobia I felt stepping in—bikes were wedged into every inch of floor space and hovered in racks above. The customer was left a shin-wide runway to a small cul-de-sac in which to stand. Light leaked between bike frames in the window, recalling a view from inside a jungle gym. A hard silence settled. The smell of the sea was replaced by the vapors of rubber and lubricant. Watman and I, only just acquaintances, fidgeted in our
awkward proximity to each other. Muttering, Watman decided that maybe what he wanted was not a replacement part for his beater but a new bike, and he started to look around by moving frames aside, peering at a certain model and then moving more frames.

“
O-la
,” I said, hoping to conjure a shop person. “
Hola
.”

A man stood up from behind the glass counter four feet away. I realized he'd been bent down there working on a repair. Light-skinned, with a kind of sickly pallor, he wore his brown hair slicked back. His green eyes seemed surprised—leery, maybe, of obvious outsiders. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“My friend is looking for a mountain bike,” I said. I had meant to say “used” but they were all used. The clerk looked over at Watman and indicated options, each difficult to get to. Metal clanked.

“I see you're doing repairs. Do you sell spare parts?” My Spanish had the quality of being both formal and limited—like a parrot's.

“Yes.” He shrugged and pointed out another mountain bike in a corner.

“To groups, or individuals?” I asked.

“Just to the people who come in,” he said.

Standing there among the bikes felt like standing and talking to strangers from a waist-deep pool without the cocktail to lend a purpose. Watman paused in his search. He emitted this “Eah-mm” sound that Tijuana intellectuals use to begin a sentence and said, “We're looking for stories of migrants who cross the border on bicycles.”

Watman could be blunt. At times, his manner suggested that a decision had been made: conversational niceties were inefficient, and so they were out. But this bike mechanic was a source we were trying to develop, one who may have abetted criminals. And sensing the motive of our visit prematurely exposed, I saw no choice but to hazard the next obvious question.

“We thought maybe you sold parts to migrants on bicycles,” I said.

Something illuminated the man's green eyes. It was as if he recognized a person, or something, behind us. I followed the gaze but caught only the door.

“I don't know anything about it,” he said. His lip raised to reveal stubby front teeth—a smile.

“There were many people crossing on bikes,” I said. “Right there at the border. And this is the closest bicycle shop. Some of the migrants needed help with their bikes because they were not new bikes.”

“And you look like a good mechanic,” Watman said, pointing to his repair job.

“I don't know anything about people crossing. But if I did . . .” He paused, and looked up. “I just don't know anything.”

He shook his head. There was a silence. He gave the smile again.

And I took this as an outright admission. “You know something,” I said in English.

“Sorry,” he replied. He spoke English, and he knew something. “There are a lot of stories around here,” he added.

We stepped out of the shop and into the airy, sunny, empty street and I experienced a dopamine spike as if I'd latched onto a prize sailfish with my naked arms. But then the fish gave me the slip. I could see it out there, jumping and bucking in the great blue. They say addicted gamblers get a bigger jolt from the “almost win,” the four-out-of-five cherries dropping on the slots and the fifth just tipping, but no dice, which is a loss, but as highs go, way better than winning, which is run-of-the-mill. You win, so what? There's nothing left to hope for. But a near loss, now that has possibilities.

The shop mechanic's weak smile and disingenuous denial came as the only admission I'd found to date that the bikes emerged from Mexico at all—that they hadn't just dropped out of the sky onto the Kimzey Ranch. Even as he denied knowledge of or involvement with the bicycle migrants, I knew he knew.

“He knew,” I said to Watman. “He knew something.”

“Yeah, it sure looked like he did.”

It wasn't until we'd walked a couple of blocks into the streets of Playas that I realized all I had now was a feeling—and when that waned, I had nothing.

Watman wanted to visit a man he called El Negro—the Black—whom he knew from his work at the border. The Playas bicycle shop was only about a quarter of a mile south of the border fence, the border monument, and Friendship Park. As part of his efforts to save the park and revitalize interest in the monument, Watman was in the process of establishing a native species garden on either side of the fence. It was meant to be “binational.” To accomplish this, he traveled between the two countries and worked either side of the iron pylons on alternating Sundays. This was a delicate feat, because even to pass a seed across to the other side would have antagonized the Border Patrol agents who sat nearby in jeeps—and these officials had the ability to terminate Watman's access to the park without explanation.

As potent a symbol as it was, the garden was a humble little plot. Perimeters of cobblestone framed juvenile Shaw's agave, wild sage, and bright orange California poppies. The agave was the same dark green species that border commissioner Bartlett illustrated when he visited the marble obelisk in 1852. If the transplants took, it might be the first instance in fifty years that the native bloomed on the mesa. But this coastal desert is deceptively brutal; the young plants needed help. When Watman wasn't available to water them, he relied on a friend who worked at the municipal bathrooms. This was El Negro, a deportee who, I gathered, held a lot of cachet for a guy who traded folds of toilet paper for five pesos each.

When we arrived, there were actually two people outside the bathrooms, the man and a round-faced woman. Both looked to be in
their fifties. They sat in white plastic chairs on either end of a small table set with candies, single cigarettes, and other knickknacks for sale. In their laps they held small handmade looms. The man was busy knitting a long white scarf while the woman put the finishing touches on a black, red, green, and gold beanie—Rasta colors. She looked up from the hat as we approached and kicked the man under the table. He lifted his head.

“Daniel, where have you been?” the man said. “I watered the garden on Tuesday but I didn't hear from you.”

“Ah, I know,
amigo
,” Watman said. “I got caught up with moving again.
Como estas? Bien?
” Watman turned and gestured toward me. “This is a friend of mine.”

“Negro,” the man said, leaning over the loom, a board with nails on it, and offering a weak handshake.

“
Mucho gusto
,” I replied. The woman buried her head in her work, noticeably uninterested. I didn't say anything more. But Watman picked up with their plans for the garden, and Negro listened while knitting the scarf. It was easy to assume he'd been nicknamed for his mole-colored complexion. His skin was both dark and bright and contrasted with his angular, Caucasian-looking features. His beard of a few days grew thick with ample white. His dress pants and shoes I took to be overly formal until I noticed their wear.

Though it was sunny, the wind turned cold. On the plank boardwalk, a vendor pushed a display of pink, purple, and blue cotton candy in a wheelbarrow. I didn't see any customers on the beach. In the past I'd known Playas de Tijuana as the setting of summery beach days—sizzling taco carts, cold beer, frozen mangos, and flip-flop tans. The winter months muted that color and emptied the sand-blown streets. In the vacancy I caught the impression of a shuttered amusement park.

Watman asked El Negro, “Hey, do you know anything about migrants crossing the border on bicycles?”

“Oh yeah man, that is some funny shit,” he said. “The bikes right there by the Comercial. It's really something because the
polleros
wait and watch for
la migra
to pass by and then, boom, they would just go, man. Vroom, straight there.”

“How much do the bikes cost?” Watman asked, as if he were thinking of going over and picking one up for himself.

“It doesn't matter how much is the bike. The bike is not for sale. The coyote give it to you for crossing.”

A thin, older man with a bowl cut ambled up. “
Que onda
,” the man greeted El Negro.

“
Que onda
,” Negro responded absently.

The bowl cut sat down against the wall beside the bathroom worker, but didn't greet anyone else, simply looked around as if this were his break-time sitting spot.

“I remember this time,” Negro said, “I was down there at the fence where those guys did that work. The Border Patrol, he drives up to the fence and he says—because you know, sometimes we're just talking shit with the Border Patrol, there's no one else around to talk to—and he says, ‘Hey man, don't you guys have recycling places over there in Mexico?' I says, ‘Yeah, why do you ask this question?' The
migra
guy points at all of the bikes they had there. He says, ‘Well, why do you Mexicans just dump this good scrap metal here next to the fence?' Man, I'm telling you, that Border Patrol didn't even know what the coyotes was doing, man.”

He addressed the bowl cut. “
Oye
, Juan. You remember that bicycle-crossing shit, right?”

“Yeah,” said Juan. “El Indio.”

“El Indio,” Negro said. “That guy is famous around here. It's a good business, that shit.”

“So the bicycle crossing was organized by one person?” I asked.

“Organized? That shit is professional.”

“Well, my friend here,” Watman said, indicating me with a thumb, “is writing about the bicycles.”

On hearing this, the bowl cut pushed himself up and slipped away. The woman looked like she wanted to roll up into a ball and hide under the beanie she was knitting. El Negro sat back in his seat, turning cold. He shot a look at Watman.