Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

Author:Sonia Nazario [Nazario, Sonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781588366023
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

A SMUGGLER

For permission to stay in the relative safety of the river encampment, the leader, El Tiríndaro, who is addicted to heroin, usually wants drugs or beer. But he has not asked Enrique for anything. El Tiríndaro is a subspecies of coyote known as a patero, because he smuggles people into the United States by pushing them across the river on inner tubes while paddling like a pato, or duck. Others in the business keep clients in rented houses or hotel rooms. El Tiríndaro is small-time; he uses the camp. Enrique is a likely client.

In addition to smuggling, El Tiríndaro finances his heroin habit by tattooing people and selling clothing that migrants have left on the riverbank. In a pinch, he reverts to his previous profession, petty theft. One day, Enrique bumps into El Tiríndaro on the street. He has his arms around a live turkey he has stolen out of someone’s yard.

The smuggler has a short fuse when he needs a fix. He shoots up constantly. Enrique stares as El Tiríndaro lies on a mattress, mixes Mexican black tar heroin with water in a spoon, warms it over a cigarette lighter, draws it into a syringe, and stabs the needle straight into a vein.

When the drugs take hold, El Tiríndaro hallucinates. He hears imaginary voices, crowds of people descending on the camp. Sometimes he is so slowed by heroin that he can barely get up or move. He can earn $2,000 to $3,000 in a single large smuggling operation but blow it in a day on heroin, which he likes to mix with cocaine. He shares his drugs with friends in a local mob called Los Osos, named after a billiard cantina where they drink.

Besides migrants, the camp has ten perpetual residents. Seven are addicts. They call heroin la cura, the cure.

A few at the campsite are Mexican criminals who have been deported by the United States. One is called El Lágrima, the Tear. He is tattooed with TJ, a symbol of the Mexican mafia; a teardrop, signifying a dead gang friend; and a spider-web, tucked next to his right eye.

Also among the permanent campers are several migrants who are stuck. One, a fellow Honduran, has lived on the river for seven months. He has tried to enter the United States three times. Every time, he has been caught. He has descended into depression and a life of glue sniffing. Each time he tried to cross, he says, he went alone. Enrique listens. They call Enrique El Hongo, the Mushroom, because he is quiet, soaking everything in.

Enrique clings to the camp, where he is protected. Staying with El Tiríndaro means the Los Osos bandits, who rob people under a nearby bridge and along the river, won’t target him.

Los Osos, once a group of neighborhood children who played along the river, became a band of forty men who move drugs and people across the Rio Grande. They began as pateros. Then they armed themselves with revolvers and knives. Anyone who wanted to cross this stretch of river had to pay Los Osos.

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