The Border Run....(time killer)
So my Mexican friend Miguel called me up last week. "Hey man, I'm thinking about coming over to America. How do I do that?"
Scratching my head, I replied, "Well, you'd probably want to fly in. I can pick you up at the airport."
"No," he said, "I can't fly. I have no money, and I can't find my passport. I'm going to try a border run."
"What?"
You have to understand that Miguel is the Jack Kerouac of Mexico. I met him at university, where he impulsively signed himself up for almost every cause and was somehow elected as the president of both the college's Republican and Democratic committees. It lasted a week before someone in the Democratic camp did some research to find out who the college Republicans elected as their new president.
"A border run," he continued, "It's easy. At least, it seems easy. I've never done it before, but a friend of my cousin said that he's done it loads of times."
"No! They'll fucking shoot you. Haven't you ever seen those shows, like COPS? They have those down there, right? You'll be fucking arrested and thrown into a tank and sent back to Mexico where your own government is going to arrest you again. Just drive it if you can't fly."
"I can't. I don't have a passport. Also, my brother has the car for another week and a half and I want to start the trip tonight."
"Why not wait for your brother to come back with the car and apply for a passport in the meantime? What's so important that you have to come up tonight?"
"I don't know. I just want to visit."
Miguel was the guy who enjoyed the taste of Crest brand toothpaste so much that he once marched into their New York offices and had a spontaneous sit-down meeting with the head of the company. They sent him home with a box filled with at least three years' supply of toothpaste.
"Miguel, you're going to be shot! They kill people for border runs---"
"I'll be fine. See you in a couple days."
The line went dead.
About three days later, my cell phone rang. I picked it up and sure enough, "Hey man, it's Miguel. I'm in your neighborhood but I don't remember your address."
After finding him and bringing him inside, he told me the story of his crazy-ass border run.
"Well, I went under cover of night. Earlier in the day, I spoke to John, my Cousin Jorge's friend. He told me that there were two spots at which I could try to make a border run. One spot was actually a little hole in the wall, about the size of a person to go through. Some guy had spent about two weeks just kind of chipping away at it between patrols. Why they hadn't found it yet, I don't know.
"This other option required us to overtake two guards on our side. That's a bit risky because the guards sometimes shoot at you when you try to do that, but it sounded like the best way because I was afraid that they might've patched in the hole by this point."
I stopped him. "Wait, did you even check the hole? What if you could still squeeze through it? Wouldn't it be worth it to see if you could make it through---"
"Nah, it would've taken too much time. The hole was fifteen miles away from me, and I just wanted to make it across. At night, John and I hid behind a hill that overlooked the Rio Grande and the pink border wall. There were two guards on our side, as usual, pacing around, with their automatic weapons and everything.
"When they turned their backs, we raced down the hill together. The guards heard us and yelled for us to stop. We didn't, so they shot at us. When I looked to my right, John had collapsed and tumbled down the hill, blood squirting out of his body with each bounce."
My eyes widened considerably and I drew my hands to my face as Miguel continued.
"I stopped running and watched as John fell over himself, over the rocks and bushes, until he came to rest at the bottom of the hill, right in front of the wall. It was kind of fun to watch, but then I felt it, myself."
"Felt what?"
"The bullets."
"You were---you were shot? Where?"
"All over. They peppered me like I was a psycho pin the tail on the donkey game. I fell down and rolled down the hill, but I tried to roll differently than John had. I wanted to be a little more dramatic about it."
Staring blankly at Miguel, I couldn't think of anything to say. He went on.
"After they checked our pulses and found that we didn't have any, they signaled for medics and they carried us on gurneys inside their compound. They put sheets over us and pronounced us dead and all that, and then they left us alone while they went to have dinner. I was glad that they didn't check for my ID, because my mother would've been upset if she found out that I was dead."
"But Miguel, you're not---what the hell are you talking about?"
"Well, I waited about ten minutes before I hopped out of the gurney. They had placed John right next to me, but I guess that he didn't think it was safe to move yet because he stayed put under the sheet. It's okay because I didn't need him anymore, now that I was past the Mexican side. I figured that the American border guards would be just as easy to make it past.
"I walked out of the room and quietly slipped out a back door. There was a small white stone wall, which I recognized as the true border, and beyond it the American compound. It looked like a dark green garage and there were probably about six guards standing outside, pacing around.
"Hopping over the white wall, the Americans were all like, 'Stop!' 'Hands in the air!' and 'Freeze!' I kept going, and so they shot me so full of lead that I couldn't even keep walking. I just kind of laid down on the ground and stopped moving.
"What's funny is that the Americans didn't stop shooting me while I was on the ground. They kept going and going and going. Finally, after a minute, one of them cried, 'Halt!' and they stopped. They flipped me over and pulled me into their building.
"Once they had me on their cool polyurethaned floor, one of them barked, 'Check him for ID.' I wasn't about to give up my ID to these guys, so I jumped up, grabbed one of their rifles, and began plastering the group with bullets. Some of them shot back at me, so I had to jump on this one guy's shoulders and then I back-flipped behind him and grabbed the back of his shirt so I could sort of use him as a shield. They shot him up really bad, but I was able to keep shooting in one direction while I ran in the other, towards their back door, which was right on American soil. I pushed it open, threw the gun aside, and ran, ran, ran across the desert while those who were still up and about behind me shot after me, but they were too slow."
"Christ, Miguel. That's unreal."
"Well, wait until I tell you what happened next. I walked across this desert, right? For like hours and hours. Finally, I came upon some road and I found a little town with a 24-hour diner. No one was inside, so I went in and asked the fat guy behind the counter for some water. Then, he asked, 'You one of those border runners?' I told him I was. He took out a shotgun from under the counter and pointed it in my direction. Then, he said, 'I'm the last line of defense against you cocksuckers. Coming to take our jobs away, you greasy piece of shit?'
"I ducked under the counter a second before he pulled the trigger. I heard his footsteps, sounding like they were coming around the side of the counter to take another shot at me. I leaped up, grabbed a nearby coffee cup, and threw it at his head. It knocked him off balance and he shot a hole in his ceiling. Then, I ran out of there as he screamed all kinds of colorful expletives at me.
"After a few more hours of wandering what I hoped was sort of northeast, I found a truck stop. It smelled like old olives and gasoline. I went inside, hoping to find a guy who'd take me at least part of the way to New York."
Miguel paused for a moment. I asked, "So you found someone? What happened?"
"Well, that's about when I met one of the craziest characters I've ever met. A big, gray-haired, lady trucker by the name of Sally Christmas."
So my Mexican friend Miguel called me up last week. "Hey man, I'm thinking about coming over to America. How do I do that?"
Scratching my head, I replied, "Well, you'd probably want to fly in. I can pick you up at the airport."
"No," he said, "I can't fly. I have no money, and I can't find my passport. I'm going to try a border run."
"What?"
You have to understand that Miguel is the Jack Kerouac of Mexico. I met him at university, where he impulsively signed himself up for almost every cause and was somehow elected as the president of both the college's Republican and Democratic committees. It lasted a week before someone in the Democratic camp did some research to find out who the college Republicans elected as their new president.
"A border run," he continued, "It's easy. At least, it seems easy. I've never done it before, but a friend of my cousin said that he's done it loads of times."
"No! They'll fucking shoot you. Haven't you ever seen those shows, like COPS? They have those down there, right? You'll be fucking arrested and thrown into a tank and sent back to Mexico where your own government is going to arrest you again. Just drive it if you can't fly."
"I can't. I don't have a passport. Also, my brother has the car for another week and a half and I want to start the trip tonight."
"Why not wait for your brother to come back with the car and apply for a passport in the meantime? What's so important that you have to come up tonight?"
"I don't know. I just want to visit."
Miguel was the guy who enjoyed the taste of Crest brand toothpaste so much that he once marched into their New York offices and had a spontaneous sit-down meeting with the head of the company. They sent him home with a box filled with at least three years' supply of toothpaste.
"Miguel, you're going to be shot! They kill people for border runs---"
"I'll be fine. See you in a couple days."
The line went dead.
About three days later, my cell phone rang. I picked it up and sure enough, "Hey man, it's Miguel. I'm in your neighborhood but I don't remember your address."
After finding him and bringing him inside, he told me the story of his crazy-ass border run.
"Well, I went under cover of night. Earlier in the day, I spoke to John, my Cousin Jorge's friend. He told me that there were two spots at which I could try to make a border run. One spot was actually a little hole in the wall, about the size of a person to go through. Some guy had spent about two weeks just kind of chipping away at it between patrols. Why they hadn't found it yet, I don't know.
"This other option required us to overtake two guards on our side. That's a bit risky because the guards sometimes shoot at you when you try to do that, but it sounded like the best way because I was afraid that they might've patched in the hole by this point."
I stopped him. "Wait, did you even check the hole? What if you could still squeeze through it? Wouldn't it be worth it to see if you could make it through---"
"Nah, it would've taken too much time. The hole was fifteen miles away from me, and I just wanted to make it across. At night, John and I hid behind a hill that overlooked the Rio Grande and the pink border wall. There were two guards on our side, as usual, pacing around, with their automatic weapons and everything.
"When they turned their backs, we raced down the hill together. The guards heard us and yelled for us to stop. We didn't, so they shot at us. When I looked to my right, John had collapsed and tumbled down the hill, blood squirting out of his body with each bounce."
My eyes widened considerably and I drew my hands to my face as Miguel continued.
"I stopped running and watched as John fell over himself, over the rocks and bushes, until he came to rest at the bottom of the hill, right in front of the wall. It was kind of fun to watch, but then I felt it, myself."
"Felt what?"
"The bullets."
"You were---you were shot? Where?"
"All over. They peppered me like I was a psycho pin the tail on the donkey game. I fell down and rolled down the hill, but I tried to roll differently than John had. I wanted to be a little more dramatic about it."
Staring blankly at Miguel, I couldn't think of anything to say. He went on.
"After they checked our pulses and found that we didn't have any, they signaled for medics and they carried us on gurneys inside their compound. They put sheets over us and pronounced us dead and all that, and then they left us alone while they went to have dinner. I was glad that they didn't check for my ID, because my mother would've been upset if she found out that I was dead."
"But Miguel, you're not---what the hell are you talking about?"
"Well, I waited about ten minutes before I hopped out of the gurney. They had placed John right next to me, but I guess that he didn't think it was safe to move yet because he stayed put under the sheet. It's okay because I didn't need him anymore, now that I was past the Mexican side. I figured that the American border guards would be just as easy to make it past.
"I walked out of the room and quietly slipped out a back door. There was a small white stone wall, which I recognized as the true border, and beyond it the American compound. It looked like a dark green garage and there were probably about six guards standing outside, pacing around.
"Hopping over the white wall, the Americans were all like, 'Stop!' 'Hands in the air!' and 'Freeze!' I kept going, and so they shot me so full of lead that I couldn't even keep walking. I just kind of laid down on the ground and stopped moving.
"What's funny is that the Americans didn't stop shooting me while I was on the ground. They kept going and going and going. Finally, after a minute, one of them cried, 'Halt!' and they stopped. They flipped me over and pulled me into their building.
"Once they had me on their cool polyurethaned floor, one of them barked, 'Check him for ID.' I wasn't about to give up my ID to these guys, so I jumped up, grabbed one of their rifles, and began plastering the group with bullets. Some of them shot back at me, so I had to jump on this one guy's shoulders and then I back-flipped behind him and grabbed the back of his shirt so I could sort of use him as a shield. They shot him up really bad, but I was able to keep shooting in one direction while I ran in the other, towards their back door, which was right on American soil. I pushed it open, threw the gun aside, and ran, ran, ran across the desert while those who were still up and about behind me shot after me, but they were too slow."
"Christ, Miguel. That's unreal."
"Well, wait until I tell you what happened next. I walked across this desert, right? For like hours and hours. Finally, I came upon some road and I found a little town with a 24-hour diner. No one was inside, so I went in and asked the fat guy behind the counter for some water. Then, he asked, 'You one of those border runners?' I told him I was. He took out a shotgun from under the counter and pointed it in my direction. Then, he said, 'I'm the last line of defense against you cocksuckers. Coming to take our jobs away, you greasy piece of shit?'
"I ducked under the counter a second before he pulled the trigger. I heard his footsteps, sounding like they were coming around the side of the counter to take another shot at me. I leaped up, grabbed a nearby coffee cup, and threw it at his head. It knocked him off balance and he shot a hole in his ceiling. Then, I ran out of there as he screamed all kinds of colorful expletives at me.
"After a few more hours of wandering what I hoped was sort of northeast, I found a truck stop. It smelled like old olives and gasoline. I went inside, hoping to find a guy who'd take me at least part of the way to New York."
Miguel paused for a moment. I asked, "So you found someone? What happened?"
"Well, that's about when I met one of the craziest characters I've ever met. A big, gray-haired, lady trucker by the name of Sally Christmas."
