Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

It was just the kind of clue that Rose and María Paz needed. Rose still had not confessed to Wendy Mellons the purpose of their visit, wanting to go slowly, not rush. Since they were throwing away that much money, the least they could do was make sure it arrived in the hands of Sleepy Joe. For the moment, they observed the woman and asked questions, letting her tell them about the life and work, address, real name and surname, and any other pertinent data about her surrogate son. They needed some time to discuss things among themselves, so they excused themselves and promised they’d return the next day.

“You couldn’t invent a more absurd situation,” Rose tells me. “I never would have imagined I’d end up there. Amazing woman, María Paz. I think that’s when I really started to admire her. Her clarity of purpose, delusional in my opinion, but maniacally persecuted. She was convinced that this would ensure the safety of her sister, and nothing was going to stop her. And we’re not talking about some millionaire. Imagine the situation: a fugitive from justice, about to cross one of the most guarded borders in the world, launching into the unknown without a penny in her pocket. Admirable in some ways.”

On the way to town to get something to eat, María Paz stopped to read a poster on a wall. “Concert: Molotov, tonight in Monte Vista,” she read. “Great. Not that far away,” she said.

They drove into the desert toward Monte Vista, Colorado, and parked in front of a large tent that had been assembled for the event. “From the moment that we got out of the car,” Rose tells me, “we didn’t see another white person or hear anyone speak English.”

It was as if clusters of brown people had crawled out from under the stones, what is known as the bronze race in spades, mostly men, almost all of them taking up a lot of space, robust, tattooed, with their hair nice and stiff and shiny black with hair gel, workers, gamblers, some in denim jackets and others in shirtsleeves in spite of the motherfucking cold, Aztecs, Nahuatl, Tepehuans, Mayans, from Mexico City, from the mountains, that is, what is better known as la raza , Benito Juárez’s raza, Cuauhtémoc raza, the whole damned raza, as if meeting up for a general conference, the big showing of the little bronze race, a hundred percent chicanos, truckers, Macheteros, mestiza chicas, chicos with straight hair, wetbacks, hombres, dudes, indigenous, maquila workers, mariachis, youth bands, Comanches, from one mother, from all mothers, druggies, fathers, pissed-off, shit-upon, dudes, suckers, field hands, evangelists, and beautiful nobodies. The raza, then, all of it, there in that tent. Long live the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe and long live Mexico, you fuckers!

María Paz and Rose buy their tickets and push their way into the expectant crowd, as restless and charged with energy as caged tigers, and watch your back because now begins the tug of war of everyone against everyone else, an all-out tugfest, shoulder to shoulder, and everyone cracking up, till the catcalls build up in an unstoppable wave aimed at the stage, summoning the band of the hour, the kings of albura dance and scourging humor, the bad guys of the border, with their expansive explosive alterlatino rock, cumbia, rap, funk fusion, and everything in between, and now, Molotov! The group appears under a barrage of applause and lasers, and to start things off, the leader lets loose with a merry greeting: “What’s up, you horde of illegals!” And the raza roars. The response to the greeting is a symphony of pure howls: the horde rises. And the tent reverberates with the heat and tension, and a thundering noise that could burst eardrums and unleash libidos till they become wounded, full-throated cries, and up there on stage there is El Gringo Loco at the drums and Miky Huidobro at bass guitar and Paco Ayala at the other bass, with lead singer Tito Fuentes, and now it begins, here comes the national anthem: “Yo ya estoy hasta la madre de que me pongan sombrero. No me digas frijolero pinche gringo puñetero.” And then, “Don’t call me gringo, you fucking beaner, stay on your side of that goddamned river.” María Paz fuses with that mass that is now all raw nerves, marinated in adrenaline, stewed in want, the shit happens and then more shit happens, and she rocks the Mexican power. Feel it! Feel it! All one as brothers! And Rose does not get it, and he can hardly believe his eyes. María Paz, who could tell he is a little freaked, elbows him and yells in his ear, “Easy, my mister, no need to panic, you’re not the only white one here. Look at the drummer!” And he’s up on stage, blond and rosy-skinned, born in Houston, Texas, and nicknamed El Gringo Loco, author of the famous anthem “Guacala que rica,” and the Latino fans love him. Now things begin to warm up and this mishmash comes together into a grand ritual of lowlifes, a baptism of wetbacks, those who had to put up with everything out there and hang their heads, in here are possessed by the will to rave and riot, “Dame dame dame todo el power para que te demos en la madre, gimi gimi gimi todo el poder.” On the stage, Tito Fuentes grabs the mic and screams in jest, “Fuck, hit the ground, someone called Immigration!” And the crowd hits the floor, laughing riotously, hiding under the chairs like children at play, because here la raza is an insurgent, mocking, and powerful race. This is free territory, blue skies! For no one can stop this devilish mass, and there is no better mantra than those frightening words, and here many who had never amounted to anything would climb mountains, here they reach for things higher than the Alien Registration Number. Immigration Control, the Border Patrol, the Minutemen, and all the other racist mobs could go straight to hell, and bring with them the treacle of political correctness. Bring down the walls: as Pink Floyd said. The Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, the wall in Palestine, and the wall of Tijuana. “And down with the walls of Manninpox!” María Paz screams, though no one can hear her amid all that commotion, and as she rattles and shakes, she lets out a tear for Mandra X and all her other fellow captives. “Yes, yes, this is life, girls, and tonight you are all with me!”

Outside, the desert glowed under a full moon.

“Imagine the Three Stooges planning a coup d’état,” Rose tells me, “and that should give you a good sense of how María Paz, Wendy Mellons, and I spent the two days fumbling with ideas about how to get the money to Sleepy Joe. If yes this, then not that, not here but then where is here, and who can we and how.”

Not that it was a complicated operation, more like a lottery: they were calling a guy to give him one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and asking nothing in return. But as Rose asserted, there was only one deck of cards and everyone was playing a different game, and betting accordingly. After the night of the concert, Wendy Mellons was finally able to get in touch with Sleepy Joe, and she made arrangements for María Paz to call him from a pay phone and make plans to give him the money, with the tacit understanding — very well understood by everyone — that he would not harm her sister, Violeta. Sleepy Joe, who had never had the desire to understand things that are well understood by everyone, immediately suspected it was a trap and thus insisted on his own conditions, principally, he wanted to see María Paz alone: he wanted the money and the girl. Twice, María Paz was forced to finish the call without having reached an agreement. The conversation that followed this one was short and sharp, and she gave him an ultimatum in regard to how the money would be transferred to him: “It’s like the lentils in the soup,” she told him, “you take it as it is or you leave it.” He’d take it, he said, he was no fool. He had succumbed to the jingle of coins: down the hatch with the lentils. If he had to drop his demand to see María Paz, then so be it; Wendy Mellons would hand over the money. “No problem,” he said. “I would trust her with my life, Wendy Mellons is my soulmate.” Hearing that, María Paz felt a pang of despair. But she kept her composure, she wasn’t there to be lovey-dovey, too much was at stake. There was one final condition: Sleepy Joe had to scan and e-mail to María Paz a receipt with his signature, stating and confirming that Wendy Mellons had completed the delivery of the full amount.