The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders

Author:George Saunders
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101217474
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2007-12-30T10:00:00+00:00

HUSTLING FOR SCHOOLBOOKS

I cross the bridge into Nuevo Laredo (“the most dangerous city in North America,” according to Dan) with an African American long-haul truck driver from Kentucky who’s wearing a cowboy hat and a shirt with a flag sewn on the back. For thirteen years now, whenever he drives this route, he’s parked on the U.S. side and saved a few bucks by getting a cheap hotel on the Mexican side. He’s divorced, but his wife’s a good lady: She’s kept him on her insurance, she’s a nurse, a good nurse, not a slut like most nurses, who like to fuck the young doctors in the rooms where they keep the towels. Do I know about this? Am I aware of this phenomenon?

In the most dangerous city in North America, a guy’s getting his shoes shined with an air of 1950s satisfaction, a row of old people are fingering their pants legs on a bench, a toddler’s doing a happy skipping dance along the lip of a fountain.

Not so bad, I think, a town like any other—

Do I want a girl? A boy? A boy from Boy’s Town?

A young guy’s fallen in beside me: Hector.

“No, man, I’m married,” I say. “Happily married.”

“Isn’t it the case!” he says. “When a man goes with another woman, the wife will give him such a…how is it called?”

He mimes slapping himself.

“Slap,” I say.

“Your woman will gave you such a slop,” he says, shaking his head at the memory of the last time his wife gave him a slop.

Hector advises me: Stay in the shopping area. Do not err to the left or right of the bridge. Avoid the police. Two gangs are fighting for the town, each with its own cops. The cops see you have money, they’ll plant drugs on you, take your money, possibly kill you.

Times are hard, he tells me, fewer tourists are coming all the time. His daughter just started first grade, but they haven’t been able to afford the books yet. He didn’t see his family last night, not having the five bucks necessary for the bus ticket to León.

I give him ten bucks.

He accepts with surprise, gratitude, some disappointment maybe: It’s too little money, too early in the night.

He tells me nostalgically about the first time he sneaked into the United States, with his uncle, in 1989, in a little boat. His dream is to go over again soon and join his brother in New Orleans, making fifteen dollars an hour doing post-Katrina work. He knows about the location of the new checkpoint, on Highway 83, which I visited with Dan earlier today, and how to circumvent it: Get dropped off before the checkpoint, walk a couple of miles around it, get picked up on the other side.

“Not easy,” I say.

“Yes, easy,” he says.

And even easier if he had an American to help him. Do I have a car? Is my car parked in Laredo? If I drive him through the checkpoint, they won’t even stop us.

Ha, ha, ha! I think.

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