Retablos by Octavio Solis

Author:Octavio Solis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Publishers

JEEP IN THE WATER

THE RIO GRANDE WE CALL it on the US side. Río Bravo is what they call it in Mexico. The difference is the difference. Somewhere in the murky depths of this beleaguered band of water is a demarcation line invisible to all but the respective governments of both nations.

One morning a long time ago, which in El Paso could mean either fifty years ago or yesterday, two Border Patrol field agents on their rounds spot a dealer-fresh cherry-red Jeep parked in the shallow Rio. It sits unattended right in the center, the brown water coursing halfway up the doors, loaded with kilos of marijuana. Upon inspection, the agents surmise that some audacious drug runners from Juárez somehow got it into their cabezas that if they had the right vehicle, they could simply drive through the river at its shallowest point and safely transport their cargo to its destination. It almost worked. They probably felt like geniuses as their Jeep readily churned through the water in the dead of night. But right at midstream with no horses to jump to, the Jeep had come to a gurgling halt, mired in deep silty sludge. The dried spatters of mud on the shiny red exterior suggest to the agents some recent desperate heaving back and forth of the vehicle. Apparently, the deflated smugglers abandoned their mission and waded back to Juárez, sans Mary Jane.

Pleased with their catch, the Border Patrol field agents notify their superiors and summon a tow truck to drag the Jeep to shore. By now, a small crowd of people has gathered on both sides of the river to gawk, alerted to the spectacle by the traffic choppers of morning radio. The congregations seem harmless enough, more bemused than alarmed at the sight of a stranded Jeep in the middle of the river, so the agents take only standard cursory notice.

The tow truck appears on the scene in due time and the young attendant begins running a long tow line to the Jeep. That’s when things take an ugly turn. Before he can reach the vehicle, he’s being pelted by the Juárez assembly with stones, slabs of concrete, bottles and whatever else is handy, and he is driven back out of the water. The agents shout admonitions to the suddenly bristling mob, but at that moment a tow truck on the Mexican side backs up to the bank and two men charge into the river with their own tow line. This brazen act affords some incentive to the Border Patrol tow man, and he barrels back into the water. An uproar of curses rises from both side of the river in two languages as the men slosh like lunatics to the Jeep with their tow lines. The Mexicans secure theirs to the rear fender of the Jeep while the American ties his to the front. Then the contest begins.

The tow trucks rev their engines, pull the tow lines taut, and proceed to pull on the Jeep in opposite directions.

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