| Thunder Sandwich #17
|
 dweeb by jeff filipski |
| Messages from La Frontera in memory of César Chávez I. Tijuana Miguel, why is it always cities that separate us? My memories walk the cracked cobblestones fronting the Jai Alai Palace. Our eyes burned in the winter smog of Mescal City. Do you remember the uniforms at every corner of Revolution Boulevard, how the Federale threesomes prodded beggars along with the tips of their guns? We strolled past the Mexico-or-Bust souvenir booth run by a toothless man with a broken mule. Amigo! the shopkeepers called, Welcome, friend! Their pinatas exposed fragile candy bellies to glass cases lined with stilettos and Rambo knives. I can still smell the white corn sizzling over coals on the vendor's portable stove. Here, you said, everything is portable, everything moves for a price. Tourists learned pity in the streets, between the morning striptease in Bambi Club and sunset margaritas at Tijuana Tilly's. I recall the black-and-white picture taken in the Long Bar after the tequila, the lime, and the salted glasses-we used Corona to chase the sting from our lips. Mariachis asked to play. How much for a song? Four dollars, amigo, their leader said, his thumb curved down. Begin! I said, then to the bartender, Uno mas, por favor, just one more round. I still hear those violins, guitars, and trumpets play. The bar took my reflection into its funhouse mirror guarding the exit. I looked like a gringo, a drunk. I told the girl outside I have no dollars, only pesos, maybe two thousand pesos in clumsy change and paper, paper stained with the faces of forgotten leaders. Sorry, no pesos, she said. She marched to the boulevard where her boy washed windshields with his one good arm, washing glass that was already clean. Miguel, remember watching the men? How they gathered in front of liquor stores drinking mescal from caramel-colored bottles, mouths working toward the dead worm waiting on the bottom. Let them drink, you said, let them dream. You imagined our palm trees rising like rows of arrows, pointing to the moon in the purple dust above San Diego. I left you at the border checkpoint with only a picture, a handshake, and a smile. It was the same smile I gave so easily in the bar. I told the dark woman hustling the rows of traffic I had no money. She took my last three dollars and dropped a ceramic Santa in the back of my Jeep. I looked back, Miguel, but you were gone. Ahead, the moon was an eyelash drifting north. II. The Border Miguel, U.S. helicopters patrol the marshes between countries. These are the wetlands, the land of endangered species. The war begins. Helicopter blades cut the night to heartbeats. Searchlights slice the darkness to ribbons. Greyhound buses move out of the southern desert up Interstate-5 with cargoes of souvenirs and tourists. The North Star shines like a planet. A burned-out Dodge is held in the web of fence. A shadow bends through an elliptical hole cut in the wire to allow a body to pass. In Imperial Beach on the American side, condominium owners worry about fair market value as spotlights ignite California's share of Heaven. Never run when the moon is full, you warned. The moon is a sliver. Lines form behind the holes. Most make the sign of the cross under the stars. Tongues measure the wind, voices held by wire. Halogen spotlights work like lasers. A grandmother calls, Migra! La Migra! when the green-and-white INS vans attack. The vans collect the slow ones like cattle, like so many heads of cattle. The war goes on. How many voices are silenced by wire? Who speaks where the holes are cut? Miguel, all that your people carry is held in their mouths. III. North County In the beach towns of northern San Diego County, the phalanx of hands work the leaves of vegetable, fruit, and flower. Fingers reach into the dirt, pulling at things to fill the empty spaces in baskets in boxes. Let them work, you said, let them heal. Miguel, do you work this field of strawberries filled with hills of harvesting crates? Do you search for the small red prize, your back curving down around your heart? There is always another harvest. Always the bending armies. Always more shadows needed. Blood comes cheap from the south, as cheap as the bouquets your ninos sell at intersections. La familia spends days hiding between the rows, bending in delicate places, arrested in fields bordering the freeway. Miguel, who will speak for faces without voices? It is a silence that kills. Last night I saw the Southern Cross suspended over the waves. In the land of malaria and cardboard walls that fringe these cities, the dead are buried in the blue light of the swollen moon. |
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| ISSN: 1534-4037 |
Edited by Jim Chandler & Haze McElhenny
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