Waiting for Jose by Shapira Harel

Waiting for Jose by Shapira Harel

Author:Shapira, Harel [Harel Shapira]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2013-03-15T16:00:00+00:00


ANDREA DYLEWSKI

CHAPTER 4

Scenes from the Border

The Border as a Place to Suffer

Tom, Roger, and I have not moved for nearly three hours. I can’t take it anymore. I’m freezing. I’m restless. I look over to see if I can read similar signs of exasperation on Tom’s or Roger’s face. Roger is asleep. His seventy-year-old body is hunched over the lawn chair. Tom, in his sixties, is two feet away, two feet too far for me to be able to see him. In the desert, nights are truly pitch black. But Tom has a bad cold and I know he’s awake because I can hear him sniffling.

I want to ask if I can get up and walk around a bit. But the sun has set long ago and we are now on “stealth” mode. Not only are you not supposed to move about, but talking is to be kept to a minimum—only to things that mattered, only to things pertaining to the operation. Night-time is when José makes his move, and it’s imperative the enemy doesn’t know we’re waiting.

One of the desert’s secrets is its frigid nights. The overwhelming day-time heat is anticipated, but not the nighttime cold. No more than two hours after the sun goes down, the temperature drops by half. It is a shock to the system. The barren landscape magnifies this. Just as during the daytime there is no cover for the sun’s rays, during the night unchecked winds slam into your body. And when you’re not allowed to move, the cold feels that much colder.

Like most Minutemen, Tom and Roger learned about the cold the hard way. A couple of years back they arrived at their first border patrol poorly equipped. Sure, they had read the informational handouts new recruits were given outlining what to bring and had e-mail exchanges with veteran members about what to expect. Sure, they had followed the advice they were given. They brought their military fatigues, camping gear, handheld radios, and handguns. What they didn’t bring was a blanket. By now, themselves veterans of patrolling the border, they have come prepared for battle. They wear jackets, gloves, and hats. A blanket is draped over each of them.

Tom and Roger were both in the air force. Roger dropped bombs over Korea; Tom, over Vietnam. In their physical appearance, the ten-year age difference comes across as if it were much greater. Apart from a few wrinkles, Tom has well-maintained features. He has a sturdy walk to go along with sturdy hands. Roger, on the other hand, has a droopy face. He walks hunched over and with a limp. Their physical features and ways of carrying themselves reveal not only an age difference, but also a class difference.

Tom is an upper-middle-class professional. He is clean-cut and wears delicate glasses. He walks around camp in trousers and a neatly tucked button-down shirt. Now retired, Roger used to work at a car fleet company. He lets his hair go where it wants. The hair on his head is a bushy mess, and gray hairs grow out of his ears and on his nose.



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