The Coyote's Bicycle Read online

  It may be due to Abbott’s longevity in such an odd and volatile landscape that people seek him out. In conducting research for the novel Tijuana Straits, noir author Kem Nunn walked the estuary with Abbott, who enumerated the nine species of endangered birds that nested in the sand dunes, as well as the cats and dogs that crawled out of Tijuana to feed on them. Partly because of their acquaintance, many locals assume that Nunn based his character Sam “the Gull” Fahey on Abbott. As proof, they point to a singular line: “He’d accepted as his charge the protection of certain migratory birds, most notably the western snowy plover and light-footed clapper rail.”

  I sought out Abbott for less subtle reasons. As my search through the valley narrowed, I’d surmised that Abbott might be one of a select few who knew where the bicycle plague had come from. And maybe even why. It was Abbott who’d piled the bikes in the Border Field parking area where Maria Teresa Fernandez had found them. When Jesse Gomez mentioned a state parks “ranger” who’d left a load of bikes on his farm, that was Abbott too. Most often, when I questioned people in the valley about bicycles, they pointed in Abbott’s direction.

  In fact, between the time I met Terry Tynan and sought out Greg Abbott, a filmmaker named Greg Rainoff set up his camera to interview Abbott at a location overlooking the valley. The topic of the interview had to do with the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to override environmental protections in constructing the new “triple fence.” As Abbott spoke before the scenic backdrop, a silky peloton came whistling out of Goat Canyon. The cranks whirred, the wheels rolled. The riders hustled down the dirt track as easy as anything. The sight of them might have seemed unremarkable until one contemplated the only place where they could have originated. The cluster of cyclists became so distracting to Rainoff, his camera wheeled off Abbott to follow its trajectory. Footage of illegal crossers scaling a fence or hoofing through the desert is rare, but this—it was as if a cameraman had set up to interview a zoo official but caught dinosaurs in the background. Rainoff’s clip is the only moving image ever captured of the bicycle migrants.

  That scene, however, was not new to Abbott. The first time he’d noticed the bikes, he’d been hunched over digging up endemic species of sage from an area of the park soon to be annexed by Homeland Security. Abbott figured that if he collected the plants sure to be destroyed by the new construction, he stood a chance of repopulating these areas later. Bent at his task, he heard a piercing whistle, a signal of some kind. A fluttering of wings then caught his eye. Flushed birds can telegraph any number of events but when Abbott saw a northern harrier shoot from the bush, he knew this was a human disturbance. Then came a sound like a waterfall. Around a bend, a group of riders flanked by a guide of some sort rolled into view, wheels heavy on the road. Abbott watched the lead rider herd the pack and direct it toward the river. The cyclists seemed determined but they weren’t sprinting. “The river is one mile from the border,” Abbott said. “An all-out foot run would take nine minutes, at least. But on a bike, it’s four.”

  As bicycles accumulated in the valley over the following months, the park’s staff began to separate and pile them in the same manner they used to clear waste tires, cobblestones, and trash that washed out of the canyons. The sight churned something in Abbott. His early travels straddled the age of the ship and that of the jet—he once circumnavigated the entire globe with two flights separated by months on deck. Still, he knew his life as a traveler really began on a bike. Those piles of spokes, rims, wheels, sprockets, and metal tubing, Abbott knew, were rockets to unknown worlds. And, well, he couldn’t stand waste. So on a number of occasions Abbott loaded bikes into his state parks truck and hauled them to donation centers. But in greeting the AMVETS thrift store staff, and pulling the bikes out of the truck bed, he experienced another feeling that tugged at his better judgment. It was the ecologist in him, he told me, who thought: “I wanted to tag those bikes the way we would a jackrabbit. Just to see how fast they slipped into Mexico, and came right back again. I probably donated the same bike several times.”

  The Tijuana corridor was the one stretch that the Department of Homeland Security pointed to as secure; this was the example the other 1,942 miles of border might hone to. Abbott remembered the cyclists as just cruising, not racing. At a glance, some could barely ride. And this gave him pause.

  “So why?” I asked. “Why are the bicycles successful?”

  “The sensors,” Abbott said. “The Border Patrol has had seismic sensors placed all over these canyons. Seismic, as in earthquakes. They sense thumping, pounding, jarring, running, walking things—earthshaking things. They don’t detect rolling things. Migrants traditionally run and walk. The Border Patrol rolls. These bikes reverse the trend.”

  7

  Before stepping into the fog, the strangely intuitive pollero viejo whom Pablo encountered on the rim of Slaughterhouse Canyon made an offer. “Find me some pollos,” Roberto said. “I will buy them from you.”

  Pablo produced no response at that time, not a yes or a no. And with a final wave, Roberto disappeared into the clouds.

  But a few days later, Pablo sought out Roberto in the canyons—the only place they’d crossed paths. It was hot and arid again. The many rises and drops in the road could confuse any memory of the landscape. Pablo found it necessary to ask his driver to stop at the summit of the last precipice before the ocean. There was a small and infamous turnout there. Before then, a bus would have been a luxury for Pablo. The decision to hire a private taxi had to do with the people in the car with him, a man and a woman from Chiapas whom he’d recruited at the main bus station east of downtown. And the turnout offered the couple a view of their desired destination, the United States.

  We don’t know what he told these people or why they might trust this joven enough to follow him into a roller coaster of wasteland and slums—surely the most exotic sight they’d ever seen. Stories of false recruiters, kidnappers, and murderers were too common to dismiss. Many said that to choose a recruiter was to make a decision with one’s life. The couple must have understood that their destiny was, to some extent, bound to this one transaction. Yet they chose a young man whose demeanor revealed nothing. And so it would have been a relief to all when, after a few hours of looking, Pablo spotted Roberto and his gang of polleros at work near Playas. The familiar van was there. Pablo was beginning to recognize the guides as well; there was a program and efficiency to their operation.

  Roberto acknowledged his aloof young acquaintance with a curt professional nod. When addressing the migrant man and woman, however, a physical change came over his being. Roberto’s chest lifted with authority even as his head made the slightest tilt in understanding. The ringmaster of a traveling show, he used his expressive hands to suggest both terrible wonders at his command as well as a fellowship with his guests. This performance was merely an affected version of a transaction that Pablo would soon learn. It was called the “checkout.”

  “Señor y Señora de Chiapas, this is how the deal will be done,” Roberto said—ringing in these nonnegotiable terms as a gentle proposal. “You don’t pay here in Mexico. You give me the name and phone number of a contact in the United States who will pay for your passage in American dollars. I call your contact to confirm the agreement and fee. Once you are on the inside, and at the home of my associate, we will place a second call to your contact. You will remain with my associate until your contact comes through. A day, a week, a year—it doesn’t matter. You will be comfortable, and you will remain with my associate until payment is made. Now, on occasion, I have returned good people like yourselves all the way to El Salvador, at my expense, only to make the point that payment is required. But I’m sure that won’t be necessary in this instance.”

  The warmth of his smile was unassailable.

  The migrants looked at each other. They would have known this point—what could only be called detainment—was standard procedure. But the man said, “I don’t want to ride in the trunk of a
car.”

  “So you have a contact? Please, give me the name and the number,” answered el coyote.

  “It is my sister’s husband. He says we don’t have to cross any way we don’t want to.”

  “Do you swim?” Roberto asked.

  “No, I don’t swim. What kind of question is that? Whatever happens, I’m not riding in the trunk of a car and I’m not going into the ocean.”

  Roberto turned to Pablo with a handshake. “Thank you, my friend. I will take good care of these two.” As he withdrew his fist, Pablo discovered a fold of green bills. It was $300.

  El coyote put his arms around the shoulders of the couple and walked them toward others still waiting. It was in that fleeting moment that the youth joined what was called, among his new colleagues, “this work that we do.” He was an enganchador, a recruiter.

  Not much is known about the second bicycle. It was most likely an Asian import that had cycled a portion of its life in the western United States before moving across the line aboard a scavenger’s pickup truck—in the same manner that old mattresses, reclaimed construction materials, and used car tires made their way to Tijuana. We can be almost certain it was a mountain bike, or a hybrid of some sort based on that popular design. An overwhelming rack of similar bicycles with names like the Power X, Titan, and Ground Assault were found abandoned in the river valley. These sported imitative relishes, like shocks that didn’t really absorb. The bicycle would have gone for about forty bucks on the streets of Tijuana. And though it wasn’t in Pablo’s character to steal, it’s likely that this bicycle had been stolen once, or many times, and that its parts were so mismatched it fell into a category called “Franken-bike.”

  Pablo purchased his new wheels shortly after his career began. A natural save-all known to forgo meals, he’d nevertheless been industriously acquiring items critical to a life other than a middling position in the hierarchy of the riverbed slums. There was a hole in the dirt there with his name on it, and the thought of its open maw kept him busy.

  Colleagues in Pablo’s position have said that he was lucky—in ways that could be named and ways that couldn’t. For example, he came into the work while America was experiencing an incredible economic surge. And despite the fact that he offered little of his interior life in return, his clear expression and earnest demeanor drew strangers to him. He understood the archaic, impoverished lands from which they’d emerged. He knew the border. And, importantly, Pablo now knew Roberto. Not all recruiters had connections like this.

  Pablo took a room in a claustrophobic alley off of La Zona Norte. He’d never lain down in a dwelling with a floor other than packed earth. He’d never slept under a roof alone. But Pablo didn’t think of the rental arrangement as a home. Barbers needed mirrors, a chair, some combs and scissors. Bricklayers needed a trowel and a wheelbarrow. Enganchadores required a space in which to house their people while preparations were made. The quality of the room depended on the class of the migrants. Pablo’s weren’t expecting much.

  This room belonged to a row of such spaces—a dorm-like situation for drug users and people down on their luck. All shared a community shower and toilet. Pablo’s room was sealed off by a plywood door with a flimsy latch. Inside were dirty yellow walls. Pirated electricity lit a single bulb that hung from the ceiling. There was no running water. The quarters rented for fifty dollars a month.

  In September of 2005, standing before the bus station’s prominent, gold-gilded shrine to a colorful and radiant Virgin of Guadalupe, Pablo was introduced to a handful of his new colleagues. There was Juan, Javier, Rudy, Poncho, and Luis. Word seemed to have gotten around about who was buying Pablo’s pollos. And being that it was sometimes difficult for freelancing recruiters to find a consistent coyote, privateers like Pablo’s new friends often curried favor with those who held a steady connection. Strategies in crossing changed daily, so a part of the game was networking. Competitors quickly became associates.

  Juan was Pablo’s age and had also come from the south. He’d heard others call the new guy “untrusting,” but Juan understood that people from their part of the country were simply inclined toward a solitary bearing. Juan approached Pablo in the same casual manner he might a possible client from that region.

  “Hola,” he said, leaning against the white wall, next to Pablo. Across from them were the ticket counters where employees—young urban women with tight, shiny ponytails, crimson lips, starched collars, and tight jackets—offered efficient and comfortable transport to anywhere in Latin America. Their broad, competitive smiles contrasted with the expressions of the men on the other side of the polished floor, those who promised illicit transport north.

  “Buenas,” Pablo said.

  “Nice day, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve noticed that nice days are good for the work. You?”

  “Hopefully.”

  “You’re a strong recruiter, amigo,” Juan said. “I can tell. The people really seem to trust you.”

  “Maybe,” said Pablo; compliments weren’t often handed around in the village. “I’m no different than they are. I got off the same bus with the same idea, and even less money in my pocket.”

  “You said it, amigo. I’m from Michoacán. And you?”

  “De Oaxaca.”

  “Ha. Should have known. Everybody’s from there—that’s why people call us all ‘Oaxacas.’” Juan laughed. “Where in Oaxaca, if I might ask?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No, I guess not. I wouldn’t know it even if you told me. What’s your name?”

  “Pablo.”

  “Pablo,” Juan repeated the common name. It was Paul in English, a biblical name. “I’ve heard the others call you something else: El Indio. That your nickname?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  The tag, meaning “the Indian,” was often hung on people with indigenous looks or dark skin. There was a Mexican phrase: no seas Indio. Most took it to mean “don’t be gullible,” or “don’t be stupid.” As with a handful of epithets like it, a hint of mirth in the utterance of “Indio” could be taken as an insult. Mexico’s class divisions were sometimes mixed interchangeably with race.

  Not long before, in a chance encounter in the canyons, Roberto had overheard another bus station recruiter calling Pablo “El Indio.” Roberto instantly reprimanded this rookie—in a manner he reserved for the lowliest of river-dwelling fools. But Pablo stepped in; he told his patron that he didn’t mind. Roberto couldn’t understand Pablo’s dismissal of the slight. He thought it poor form to let the recruiter’s overreach go unpunished.

  The nickname, of course, could also be taken in other ways: a reference to the noble native who employed cunning and skill in defense of his people, for example, or the lone wanderer of the plains. Or maybe Pablo didn’t take offense simply because it wasn’t a name from the village. Maybe he didn’t mind because the nickname built up his borderlands identity.

  “I’m Juan, like the song,” Pablo’s new friend said, making a little shimmy. Pablo offered no response, letting the gesture fall to the tile underfoot. Recruiters didn’t take silence for an answer, and it wasn’t Juan’s nature anyway. “You always get your pollos right away, I notice,” he said. “But you don’t work as much as some of us. Or maybe just not here, eh? What are you doing with your time?”

  “I don’t know. We can’t be enganchadores forever.”

  “A bus station recruiter who studies? Wow, I’ve seen it all now.”

  “Me and Indio got to be good friends,” Juan said much later, “and we started talking about different ideas and ways of making more money. We both would ask, ‘Why not cross pollos ourselves?’”

  The initial question was how. The trade was highly specialized. Each position required experience, and each technique expertise. The world of those who passed migrants over with rope ladders was separate from that of the panga boat operators, or the tunnel diggers. Increased enforcement at border cities pushed the poorest cross
ers into the wilderness, where guides attempted to elude trackers while also keeping their clients alive. The unseen coyotes who passed their customers through the terminals in la línea seemed to exist on an untouchable plateau.

  “Then a whole month went by where we barely saw each other,” said Juan. “Word on the street was that he was seen around the borderline checking out different spots. There were even some who thought he was on drugs because all he did was hang out, walking back and forth along the edge of the border. And he would spend a lot of time just sitting in certain spots. To me, this wasn’t that weird since he usually didn’t do anything with others. He was an isolated person.”

  In early December, Juan and El Indio happened upon each other at the bus station again. It would be for the last time that year. The business was about to shutter for the holidays. Migrants, hoping to spend Christmas with friends and family, didn’t want to take the risk of a long detainment should they be snared by Border Patrol. So they migrated early, or waited until after the first of January. Coyotes, levantones, guías, and ganchos took a month-long break as well.

  “Neither of us had family in Tijuana,” Juan remembered, “so we said we’d hang out for Christmas.”

  The young men spent the day of the Nativity at a famous strip club and hostess bar called Adelita. And during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Juan and Indio lounged at local bars, treated themselves to meals, and talked shop. When conversation turned to business, Juan sensed that El Indio always kept something back. But maybe not, maybe there just wasn’t that much to him. Either way, it was great to indulge. There hadn’t been a week in either of their childhoods that offered the possibility of meat every day, not to mention the variety. And that was not all. On New Year’s Eve the boys found themselves in a bar called La Estrella, The Star, and a few of the girls they’d met at Adelita arrived in a glittering storm of laughter.