T. Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain

Delaney shook his head. He felt his stomach sink, heard the thump of phantom speakers. Suddenly the horned lizard sprang back into the forefront of his consciousness: what good was squirting blood from your eyes? Wouldn't that just be gravy for whatever was about to clamp down on you?

“Look, Delaney,” Jack went on, cool, reasonable, his voice in full song now, “it's a simple equation, so much in, so much out. The illegals in San Diego County contributed seventy million in tax revenues and at the same time they used up two hundred and forty million in services-welfare, emergency care, schooling and the like. You want to pay for that? And for the crime that comes with it? You want another crazy Mexican throwing himself under your wheels hoping for an insurance payoff? Or worse, you want one of them behind the wheel bearing down on you, no insurance, no brakes, no nothing?”

Delaney was trying to organize his thoughts. He wanted to tell Jack that he was wrong, that everyone deserved a chance in life and that the Mexicans would assimilate just like the Poles, Italians, Germans, Irish and Chinese and that besides which we'd stolen California from them in the first place, but he didn't get the chance. At that moment Jack Jr. appeared from behind the cranberry juice display, the great fluttering sail of his T-shirt in motion, his pants wide enough to bankrupt the factory. Two liters of Pepsi sprouted from his knuckles and he cradled a bag of nachos the size of a pillow under his arm. The bag had been torn raggedly open. Delaney could see flecks of MSG, food coloring and salt crystals caked in the corners of the boy's mouth. “Hey, Dad,” Jack Jr. murmured, ducking his head to avoid a display banner and greeting Delaney with a dip of his eyes and an awkward croak of salutation. “Got to go, Dad,” he prodded, his voice aflame with hormonal urgency. “Steffie's waiting.”

And then they were moving in the direction of the cash registers-all three of them, as a group-and Jack, the conciliatory Jack, Jack the politician, Jack the soother of gripes, grievances and hurts real or imaginary, put an arm over Delaney's shoulder and warbled his sweetest notes: “Listen, Delaney, I know how you feel, and I agree with you. It's not easy for me either-it's nothing less than rethinking your whole life, who you are and what you believe in. And trust me: when we get control of the border again-_if__ we get control of it-I'll be the first to advocate taking that gate down. But don't kid yourself: it's not going to happen anytime soon.”

Though there were three checkers, people were lined up six deep at the registers. Delaney gave Jack a weak smile and got in line beside him. He gazed out over the mob of his fellow shoppers, past the checkout girl and the banners and baubles and slogans to the parking lot, where his Acura stood gleaming in the sun, and remembered that he was in a hurry-or had been. He could see the crown of Jordan's head bobbing and weaving just above the dashboard and pictured the electronic Armageddon raging in that confined space, the boy's nimble fingers sending intergalactic invaders to their doom even as the next ship landed.

Delaney opted for the paper bag-recycle, save the environment-and waited for the girl to ring up Jack and Jack Jr.'s purchases, the rack behind her bright with batteries, Slim Jims, toenail clippers and gum. He was thinking he could work that horned toad into his next column-it was symbolic somehow, deeply symbolic, though he wasn't sure of exactly what.

“Sorry for the lecture,” Jack crooned in his ear. “You see my point though?”

Delaney turned to him as the checkout girl swept Jack Jr.'s Pepsi bottles over the scanner with a practiced flick of her wrist. “All right, Jack,” he said finally, conceding the field, “I don't like the gate-I'll never like it-but! I accept it. None of us want urban crime up here-that'd be crazy. And if I got a little carried away at the meeting it was because this feeding of the predator species has got to stop, I mean people have to realize-”

“You're right,” Jack said, giving his elbow an affirmative squeeze. “Absolutely.”

“And I tell you, Kyra was really heartbroken over that dog-and I was too. You live with a pet all that time…”

“I know exactly how you feel.”

They moved toward the door, bags cradled in their arms, Jack Jr. looming over them like a distorted shadow. The door slid back and they were out in the lot, all three of them, the sun glancing off the windshields of the cars, the hills awash in light. Jack said he was sorry to hear about the dog and wondered if Delaney had ever thought about putting out a little newsletter for the community, the sort of thing that would alert them to the dangers of living on the edge of the wild and maybe even reprint one or two of his columns? People would love it. They would.

But Delaney wasn't listening. Across the short span of the lot, over by the gift shop, there was some sort of altercation going on-a fat-faced truck-driver type with an elaborate hairdo going ballistic over something… was it a fight? The three of them froze just behind Delaney's car as the trouble came toward them_-You wetback motherfucker, watch where the fuck you're going or I swear I'll kick your__ sorry _ass from here to Algodones and back__-and Delaney got a look at the other man involved. He saw the sideways movement, the scuttling feet in their dirty tire-tread sandals, the skittish red-flecked eyes and graying mustache, and experienced a shock of recognition: here it was all over again.

He felt anger and shame at the same time-the man was a bum, that was all, hassling somebody else now, and yet the look of him, the wordless plea in his eyes and the arm in a sling and the side of his face layered with scab like old paint brought all Delaney's guilt back to the surface, a wound that refused to heal. His impulse was to intercede, to put an end to it, and yet in some perverse way he wanted to see this dark alien little man crushed and obliterated, out of his life forever. It was then, in the moment of Delaney's vacillation, that the big man lurched forward and gave the Mexican a shove that sent him staggering into the rear of Delaney's car. There was the dull reverberation of sheet metal, a soft cry from the Mexican, and the big man, his face inflamed, spat out a final curse and swung round on his heels.

Jack Jr. stood rooted to the spot by the black leather blocks of his hi-tops, clenching his fists. Unruffled, Jack Sr. had stepped neatly aside, the pleats of his pants like two plumb lines, his mouth pursed in distaste. Delaney was reaching for his keys when the altercation swept toward them, and now he stood poised over the trunk of his car, groceries pressed like a shield to his chest, keys dangling limply from his fingers, looking on numbly as the dark man got shakily to his feet, muttering apologies in his own dark language. The Mexican seemed dazed-or maybe deranged. He lifted his heavy eyes to focus blearily on Jack, then Jack Jr. and finally Delaney. Faintly, from inside the car, came the thin tinny sound effects of Jordan's electronic war. The man stood there a long moment, squinting into Delaney's eyes, the rag of a sling hanging from his arm, his face sunk in its helmet of bruises, and then he turned away and limped across the lot, hunched under a rain of imaginary blows.

“See what I mean?” Jack said.

“What would you do with all this space?” Kyra heard herself asking, and even before the question passed her lips she knew it was wrong. She should have exclaimed, _And look at all this space!__ with the rising inflection of a cheerleader, but somehow she'd put a negative spin on it, the very question implying that the expanse of brilliantly buffed floors and high beamed ceilings was excessive, de trop, somehow too much, that the living room was the size of a basketball court and the master bedroom bigger than most people's houses-and who needed all that? Who but a monster of ego, a parvenu, a robber baron? It wasn't the sort of question a closer should ask.