Luis Alberto Urrea - The Water Museum

“…ah…right.”

It was more like flying than driving, and when he sped past Arivaca, I wasn’t all that concerned. I figured we were going to Nogales, Arizona. But we slid through that little dry town like a shark and crossed into Mex without hardly slowing down. At the border, he just raised a finger off the steering wheel and motored along, saying, “You going to like this.”

And then we were through Nogales, Mexico, too. Black and tan desert. Saguaros and freaky burned-looking cactuses. I’m not an ecologist — I don’t know what that stuff was. It was spiky.

We took a long dirt side road. I was craning around, looking at the bad black mountains around us.

We came out in a big valley. There was an airfield of some sort there. Mexican army stuff — trucks, Humvees. Three of four hangars or warehouses. Some shiny Cadillacs and SUVs scattered around.

“You going to like this,” Arnie said. “It’s a surprise.”

There was Big Poppa Popo, the old man himself. He was standing with his hands on his hips. With a tall American. Those dark gray lenses turned toward us. We parked. We got out.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Shut up,” said Arnie.

“Where’s the rancho?” I asked.

The American burst out laughing.

“Jesus, kid!” he shouted. He turned to the old man. “He really is a dumb shit.”

The American walked away without introducing himself and got in a white SUV. He slammed the door and drove into the desert, back the way we had come. We stood there watching him go. I’m not going to lie — I was getting scared.

“You gonna marry Amapola?” the old man asked me.

“One day. Look, I don’t know what you guys are doing here, but—”

He turned from me and gestured toward a helicopter sitting on the field.

“Look at that,” he said. “Huey. Old stuff, from your Vietnam. Now the Mexican air force use it to fight las drogas.” He turned to me. “You use las drogas?”

“No! Never.”

They laughed.

“Sure, sure,” the old man said.

“Ask Amapola!” I cried. “She’ll tell you!”

“She already tell me everything,” he said.

Arnie put his arm around my shoulders.

“Come,” he said, and started walking toward the helicopter. I resisted for a moment, but the various Mexican soldiers standing around were suddenly really focused and not slouching and were walking along all around us.

“What is this?” I said.

“You know what I do?” the old man asked.

“Business?” I said. My mind was blanking out, I was so scared.

“Business.” He nodded. “Good answer.”

We came under the blades of the big helicopter. I’d never been near one in my life. It scared the crap out of me. The Mexican pilots looked out their side windows at me. The old man patted the side of the machine.

“President Bush!” he said. “DEA!”

I looked at Arnie. He smiled, nodded at me. “Fight the drogas,” he said.

The engines whined and chuffed and the rotor started to turn.

“Is very secret what we do,” said the old man. “But you take a ride and see. Is my special treat. You go with Arnulfo.”

“Come with me,” Arnie said.

“You go up and see, then we talk about love.”

The old man hurried away, and it was just me and Arnie and the soldiers with their black M16s.

“After you,” Arnie said.

* * *

He pulled on a helmet. Then we took off. It was rough as hell. I felt like I was being punched in the ass and lower back when the engines really kicked in. And when we rose, my guts dropped out through my feet. I closed my eyes and gripped the webbing Arnie had fastened around my waist. “Holy God!” I shouted. It was worse when we banked — the side doors were wide open, and I screamed like a girl, sure I was falling out. The Mexicans laughed and shook their heads, but I didn’t care.

Arnie was standing in the door. He unhooked a big gun from where it had been strapped with its barrel pointed up. He dangled it in the door on cords. He leaned toward me and shouted, “Sixty caliber! Hung on double bungees!” He slammed a magazine into the thing and pulled levers and snapped snappers. He leaned down to me again and shouted, “Feel the vibration? You lay on the floor, it makes you come!”

I thought I heard him wrong.

We were beating out of the desert and into low hills. I could see our shadow below us, fluttering like a giant bug on the rises and over the bushes. The seat kicked up and we were rising.

Arnulfo took a pistol from his belt and pointed down.

“Amapola,” he said.

I looked around for her, stupidly. But then I saw what was below us, in a watered valley. Orange flowers. Amapola. Poppies.

“This is what we do,” Arnulfo said.

He raised his pistol and shot three rounds out the door and laughed. I put my hands over my ears.

“You’re DEA?” I cried.

He popped off another round.

“Is competition,” he said. “We do business.”

Oh my God.

He fell against me and was shouting in my ear and there was nowhere I could go. “You want Amapola? You want to marry my sobrina? Just like that? Really? Pendejo.” He grabbed my shirt. “Can you fly, gringo? Can you fly?” I was shaking. I was trying to shrink away from him, but I could not. I was trapped in my seat. His breath stank, and his lips were at my ear like hers might have been and he was screaming, “Can you fly, chingado? Because you got a choice! You fly, or you do what we do.”

I kept shouting, “What? What?” It was like one of those dreams where nothing makes sense. “What?”

“You do what we do, I let you live, cabrón.”

“What?” I was screaming too.

“I let you live. Or you fly. Decide.”

“I don’t want to die!” I yelled. I was close to wetting my pants. The Huey was nose-down and sweeping in a circle. I could see people below us, running. A few small huts. Horses or mules. A pickup started to speed out of the big poppy field. Arnulfo talked into his mike and the helicopter hove after it. He took up the.60 caliber and braced himself. I put my fingers in my ears. And he ripped a long stream of bullets out the door. It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard. Louder than the loudest thing you can imagine. So loud your insides jump, but it all becomes an endless rip of noise, like thunder is inside your bladder and your teeth hurt from gritting against it.

The truck just tattered, if metal can tatter. The roof of the cab blew apart and the smoking ruin of the truck spun away below us and vanished in dust and smoke and steam.

I was crying.

“Be a man!” Arnulfo yelled.

We were hovering. The crew members were all turned toward me, staring.

Arnie unsnapped my seat webbing.

“Choose,” he said.

“I want to live.”

“Choose.”

You know how it goes in the movies. How the hero kicks the bad guy out the door and sprays the Mexican crew with the.60 and survives a crash landing. But that’s not real life. That doesn’t even cross your mind. Not even close. No, you get up on terribly shaky legs, so shaky you might pitch out the open door all by yourself and discover that you cannot, in fact, fly. You say, “What do I do?” And the door gunner grabs you and shoves you up to the hot gun. The ground is wobbling far below you, and you can see the Indian workers down there. Six men and a woman. And they’re running. You’re praying and begging God to get you out of this somehow and you’re thinking of your beautiful lover and you tell yourself you don’t know how you got here and the door gunner comes up behind you now, he slams himself against your ass, and he says, “Hold it, lean into it. It’s gonna kick, okay? Finger on the trigger. I got you.” And you brace the.60 and you try to close your eyes and you pray you miss them and you’re saying Amapola, Amapola over and over in your mind, and the gunner is hard against you, he’s erect and pressing it into your buttocks and he shouts, “For love!” and you squeeze the trigger.