Thin Places by Jordan Kisner

Author:Jordan Kisner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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The morning after the pageant, I woke up early and drove down to the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge to see the Abrazo ceremony. George Washington, an affable guy named Tim, had assured me that I could park downtown by the historic San Agustin Plaza and then walk the two blocks to the bridge.

Coming into Laredo near the main border crossing, you see first the mostly abandoned colonial structures of the old city: a tiled plaza rimmed with stylish Spanish stucco buildings that now lie mostly empty. The library was abandoned and emptied decades ago, and aside from a boutique hotel fashioned out of one of the renovated colonial buildings and the San Agustin Cathedral, which still holds Mass in Spanish, the historic downtown has a derelict quiet about it.

The streets downtown were empty. I parked near an abandoned office building and walked the few blocks of uneven pavement to the bridge entrance only to find it, too, empty except for three ICE officers hanging around near their booths. Juarez-Lincoln isn’t a pedestrian bridge, it’s a five-lane highway, so I hopped a little gate and walked the quiet pavement toward the officers.

“I’m trying to see the Abrazo,” I said.

The young man squinted at me. “Who are you? Are you with the mayor’s office?”

When I explained, he shook his head. “The Abrazo ceremony isn’t open to the public.”

I’d believed, based on the way that everyone from the Society had talked about the Abrazo, that it was a moment of mutual public celebration. I’d foolishly imagined that Laredoans would walk onto the bridge from the north side and Nuevo Laredoans would walk out onto the south side, and they would meet in the middle. I’d pictured the two cities behaving as one city, the bridge open, cheers and music as the children hugged.

But there was nothing to see from the American side except the implacable faces of the ICE officers, and nothing to hear at all. Of course the bridge is never left wide open in Laredo to whoever wants to cross, not even on this day. The children are escorted out by the mayors and city officials, their parents, ICE officers, and military from both sides. A dais is set up in the middle of the bridge, garlanded in red, white, and blue, and the children are called forth by a dignitary. They approach each other, the four of them alone on the road. The little girl from Laredo is dressed like a mini Martha, the little boy like George. The children from Nuevo Laredo are dressed as was fashionable during the Spanish colonial period, with the girl in a mantilla and the boy in a sombrero, and each girl hugs the boy across from her.

I listened to it on the radio in my rental car. As I drove back north, the city still seemed to be sleeping.

By the time I arrived near the parade grounds, it had woken. It’s hard to explain the mood of a town on the morning of an event like this: Every elevator held a man carrying a ruffled shirt in a garment bag.

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