The El Andar Prize for Literary Excellence II
FICTION: honorable mention
El
Otro Lado
by
Emma Oliver
“What if la coyote doesn’t come?” Mom said.
Dad lifted a pebble off the ground, then threw it back down.
“She’ll be here,” Dad said.
“Is this the right place?” Mom said.
“Yes,” Dad said.
“Maybe she is going to turn us over to La Migra,” Mom said.
“She’d be a very stupid coyote, “ Dad said.
Mom closed her lips tight. She put her hand over her red shoes, brought them closer to her. Dad scribbled on the ground with a stick, half his face in the dark, half in the light. I sat on the dry grass, made a braid from the long stems of three orange poppies. I heard the crickets and the wind and the sounds of Tijuana. Cars honked in mentadas de madre and women yelled out tamales and men yelled out elotes and music from the cantinas sang Ay Mi Mazatlán.
Then a noise so loud I dropped the braided poppies. The poppies lifted up like butterflies with one long tail. The earth blew up in whirlwinds and a big round light came down from the sky and we all looked up and our faces lit up yellow. A giant dragonfly flew crooked and turned its wings around in circles. The wings chopped up the sky.
Mom pressed the red shoes against her white blouse.
“Un caballo del Diablo,” Mom said.
Dust blew all around and my hair flew up and my sweater fell off my back. Dad grabbed my hand and pulled. He pressed my head against his chest and bent his head over mine. His stomach was warm. It moved up and down fast just like my heart inside that was trying to get away.
“Don’t be scared,” Dad said. “It’ll go away.”
The Devil’s horse swooped like a night bird and lit up the path where a jackrabbit ran scared. Then the Devil’s horse got smaller and smaller until it was just a black dot in the sky.
“Sántisima Trinidad,” Mom said.
Dad let me go and I blinked fast and just looked up at the sky. Dad’s breath got quiet again.
“It’s a helicopter,” Dad said. “Immigration,”
Mom put a hand over her long neck, covered the pink roses embroidered on her collar.
“You should have never brought us here.” She said.
Dad spit sharp into the dry ground and put his hands on his waist.
“Stay in Mexico and do what?” Dad said. “Be poor all our lives?”
Then silence again.
What I heard first was the pant of a dog. The dog’s coat was gray and short. A burro’s coat, not a dog’s. He smelled Dad’s shoes, then Dad’s legs, wagged his tail, dropped his tongue off to one side.
Tacha la Coyote wore brown pants and a plaid shirt like Dad’s. Her shoes were heavy black boots tied with leather shoelaces.
“His name is Chucho,” she said.
Then she stretched out her fat lips with red lipstick and showed white teeth.
“Buenas, “ Tacha said. “Listos?”
Dad’s eyes were deep black, his eyelashes straight. He closed one eye more than the other.
“How do we know you can get us across?” He said.
Tacha lifted up both shoulders and brought them down again.
“You’ll just have to see,” Tacha said. “You know that from the plate to the mouth the soup sometimes spills.”
Dad scratched the side of his head right above the ear. He undid the first two buttons on his shirt, took out a small black leather bag from inside.
“Fifty pesos, like we we said before,” Dad said.
Mom leaned her head on the silver fence, rubbed her wet cheeks.
“Santísima Trinidad,” Mom said.
A ten and two twenties. Tacha rolled the bills cigarette-tight and stuck them inside her shirt under a black strap. She got down on her knees, leaned over and cleaned off the ground with her hand.
Then she picked up a twig and drew a line.
“The main path goes here, “ she said.
She poked a dot on the ground.
“San Ysidro is here.” She said. “But the main path is patrolled by La Migra,”
She drew another line, curved it, kept drawing, and brought it back to the dot.
“So we’ll have to go this other way,” she said. “It’s about a three hours walk.”
Mom sat on a rock with her head against the fence and her red purse tight in her hands. Her hands were soft with clear fingernails.
“We just saw La Migra,” Mom said. “Up in a helicopter.”
Tacha stopped drawing, put her hands on her folded knees.
“Yeah,” she said. “But don’t worry. The Migra boys take a break right about now. They won’t be back for at least an hour.”
Tacha slapped her hands against each other and dirt flew off. She got up, made boot prints on the ground and shook the silver fence.
“There is a hole under here,” Tacha said. “I cover it up every time I use it.”
Dad got on his knees dug his hands into the dug-up and covered-up again dirt. Mom’s black cotton skirt wrinkled at her folded knees. Mom sank her clean fingernails into the dirt and unearthed the smell of roots and clay. Dad dug fast and huffed a lot and Mom dug slow and didn’t huff.
Tacha over them shook the fence.
“Okay,” Tacha said, “that’s enough.”
Dad wiped his hands on the grass and stood up. Mom put a hand on the ground and with the other grabbed the fence. She pushed herself up and black curls fell on her face. She wiped them off with the back of her hand.
Then the noise again. Whack-whack. The noise was so loud the birds on the fence flapped their wings like they were drowning instead of flying.
“Hijole,” Tacha said. “They’re back early today.”
But Dad was already at the other side of the fence, his arms stretched out, and his hands waving me to him.
“Crawl under, Crisantema,” he said. “Crawl under.”
The helicopter circled the sky and I slid under the fence. The wire fence scratched my head and el caballo del Diablo stirred up the field, the lemon grass, the bushes. It brought in the smell of deep fried pork from Tijuana, carnitas in a big iron kettle. I put my nose close to the ground and the dirt smelled so good I took some in my tongue then into my mouth and swallowed. The borderline smelled of deep fried pork and tasted like clay.
Dirt blew into my eyes and wires scraped my shoulders and my stomach was stuck in the hole and I couldn’t move. Then Dad grabbed my arms, stuck his hands inside my armpits and pulled me out.
And then a baby cried.
Cuñá-cuñá.
Dad stood straight, dropped his arms to his sides and looked up at the sky.
“Did you hear that?” he said.
Tacha still in Tijuana stretched out her neck and tightened her eyes down to a slit.
“A cat,” Tacha said.
“Or La Llorona,” Mom said.
Her hands and knees on the ground Mom laid down on her stomach, landed her black skirt and white blouse on the dirt. Under the fence she pushed herself with her pale hands and red high heels, went under el alambre.
Tacha and Chucho went in and out fast, two earthworms slinking under the fence. And then done, we were all there, el otro lado, California. Both sides the same, same sky, same night, same hills, same land.
The lights from San Ysidro were straight ahead, a strand of tiny stars fallen to the ground. And the path to get there started at my feet. It was a narrow dirt road with tall brown grass and flowers that grew like wild pasture.
Like Tacha said, where we went was the other way. There was no road where we went. We just started to walk off to the hills.
Tacha walked over rocks and grass and dirt and stones. Mom in her red high heel shoes kept saying ay, ay or sucking air in like she had eaten something too hot to swallow.
Then Tacha stopped, raised one hand and stretched out her fingers.
“Listen,” Tacha said. “There’s somebody up ahead.”
Mom held her breath and stretched out her neck. In the moonlight her face was white, stained with dirt.
“La Migra.” Mom said.
Dad stood still, straightened out his back.
“No,” he said, “they’re talking in Spanish.”
Just a few steps ahead a man in loose white pants and a white shirt looked under the bushes. He held a walking stick and with the stick he rattled the branches. His voice was low.
“Here it is,” he said.
The woman next to him held the edge of a long shawl up to her lips.
“What is it?” she said.
The man in white raised his head, he stopped rattling the bushes. Then he put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“Who’s there?” The man said.
Dad stepped over some dry bushes and the branches broke with a crack.
“It’s us,” Dad said. “we’re friends.”
The man’s skin was leather with brown spots and his hands were thin and showed lots of bones. An old man. Un viejito.
The woman next to him was old too. Una viejita. Her spotted rebozo went over her head, around her neck, then down her back where the black and white strands of cotton flew around.
“There’s something here,” El Viejito said. He poked at a pile of burlap under the bushes.
“We think it’s a baby,” La Viejita said.
“A baby?” Dad said.
“Sí,” La Viejita said. “Somebody threw him away.”
The bundle was wrapped in burlap and it looked more like a tamal than a baby. The burlap tamal wiggled.
Dad put one knee on the ground, the other folded up to his chin. He took the top edge of the burlap in one finger, slipped it down.
A little face with the roundest eyes. A few soft hairs grew on top of his head and a dimple made a hole in his chin. The baby strained its forehead and puckered its lips maybe to tell us why it was he was there but only made baby noises. Then he opened his mouth.
Two rows of teeth shined white inside his mouth.
The baby cried.
Cuñá-cuñá.
Dad let go of the burlap and fell back on the ground. His hands behind him slid on loose pebbles.
“Did you see?” Dad said. “He has teeth!”
“Teeth?” Tacha said.
“Yes, the baby.” Dad said.
Tacha and Los Viejitos, we all got close together, stood around the burlap tamal. With a finger Mom separated the baby’s lips.
Mom took her hand away fast then pressed it against her chest.
“Santísima Vígen de Guadalupe,” Mom said.
Tacha shook her shoulders and arms like she was cold.
“This gives me ñáñaras,” Tacha said.
Mom undid the top button of her white blouse and took out a gold medallion. The Virgin of Guadalupe in clouds and roses swung from the chain on Mom’s fingers.
“It’s a demon-child.” Mom said. “Don’t touch him.”
Dad made creases on his forehead.
“It’s just a baby,”
“It’s a curse.” Mom said. “We have to leave him here.”
“He’ll die,” Dad said.
Mom did the sign on the cross on her forehead, her lips, her chest. She kissed the medallion and put it back inside her blouse.
“It’s a demon,” Mom said.
El Viejito wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief.
“He’s just ugly,” El Viejito said. “That’s all.”
La Viejita lowered her head and a thin white braid fell on her face. She unfolded the burlap down to the baby’s neck. The baby yawned wide, big teeth and all.
“He’s ugly alright,” La Viejita said.
“Like most of your relatives.” El Viejito said.
The woman took the baby in her arms. Her back hunched over with the weight. Her shawl was now a cotton hammock hanging from her neck.
“He’s coming with us,” she said.
Tacha looked up at the moon then turned her wristwatch around so it faced the moonlight.
“Orale gente,” Tacha said. “It’s getting late.”
Dad put his hand on El Viejito’s back, patted it a few times.
“You coming with us?” Dad said.
El Viejito raised his hand and the white cotton sleeve draped heavy under his arm. El Viejito waved California aside.
“No hombre,” he said. “We’re on our way back to Mexico.”
Dad ran his hand through his hair.
“Aren’t you going North?” Dad said.
El Viejito’s big yellow teeth showed from behind wrinkled lips.
“No.” he said. “We can’t work hard anymore. So if we’re going to be poor, might as well be poor at home.”
Dad took out a red handkerchief, wiped the top of his head, then his neck.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Mom twisted her lips.
The baby with big teeth was tucked-in tight inside La Viejita’s rebozo.
Los Viejito’s feet were split open with cracks at the toes and the leather huarache straps were thin and broken at the sides. They walked back to the fence, back to the hole they had crawled under, back to the train station in Tijuana that would take them back through the Sonora Desert and then maybe Guadalajara.
Tacha put her thumbs through her belt hoops.
“Let’s move,” Tacha said. “If La Migra eats rooster tonight they’re going to feel like shooting their guns.”
Tacha picked me up and I put my legs around her waist, her hands under my seat in a swing.
“Vámonos,” Tachas said. “Como almas que lleva el Diablo.”
We walked fast like souls taken to hell by the Devil. Branches poked at our ankles and legs and the soft desert sank our feet and all anybody did was huff and walk.
Then San Ysidro was right there in front of us. Tacha in her brown pants. Chucho with his tongue hanging at his side. Dad with sweat stains on his back, Mom in her high heel shoes. The red was covered in dust, the leather was split open around the heels.
We all stood there, a few feet away from a row of palm trees and a line of gray square buildings. And at the end of the street a big white sign was lit up like a moon. The big printed blue letters on it read Bus Depot.
Dad let out a deep breath.
“We’re here,” he said.
Copyright © 2002 Emma Oliver All Rights Reserved
© 2002 El Andar Media Corporation