Part 2: The Checkpoint
Lobo was hungry. He went back onto Guerrero Avenue and ordered a three-piece meal at the KFC across from the park. The chicken was crispier and tasted better than the KFC's back on the U.S. side. Lobo wondered why that was and carefully wiped his fingers with a napkin. Then he wadded the greasy napkin around Mr. Leonard Wilkins' credit card and stuffed it and the empty styrofoam mashed-potato container into the paper bag with the chicken bones. He slipped it all into the fast-food trash container with the sticky swinging door.
Lobo went outside, crossed the street to the side with the park, and walked past the shoeshine stands and popsickle carts. He always loved the dark sweet smell of the shoeshine stands. He could see the long white moorish arcade of the Mirador building across the little park and all the various Bluebird buses for in-town routes lined up in front of it. Lobo picked one with "Central" lettered in white on its windshield, gave the driver coins for four and a half pesos, and sank down in a plastic bucket seat halfway back.
He wished a guitarist would climb on at one of the stops and play a song. He wanted to hear music. He had a coin ready. Instead, a man in a purple shirt got on and passed around flyers with pictures of Buddha on them, gave a little talk as the bus careened around the streets, then took up all the flyers again except for one lady's who smiled and gave him a coin.
Lobo put his money back in his pocket. He wanted to hear music.
He didn't see the neighborhoods the bus was now puttering through. He was in the past. He was holding Marisol again while she cried and said, "You're not like the other guys, Lobo, they would all be yelling and calling me a liar, saying no way, the baby wasn't theirs."
"It's all right, Marisol, it's all right, you're my girl, you're my girl, we'll be a family now."
Marisol had quieted down and stopped whimpering, just looking into the distance. He had held her shoulders and tucked his chin over her back, breathing as they sat there.
He rode the city bus out to the "Central de Buses" at the south edge of town, the large bus station from which all the long-distance routes took off. The place was like a miniature airport, with gift-shops and small restaurants. Across the street among the stalls and small scrappy shops, Lobo wandered, thinking. He bought a blue bath towel at one place, and they put it in a plastic tote-bag for him.
Lobo walked back over to the "Central de Buses", his plastic bag swinging from his hand. Innocent men go shopping for mundane items. The bag in his hand made him almost invisible.
There was one problem with getting down to Monterrey: Any bus going there would stop at the 20 kilometer border-zone check-point. Lobo didn't have his passport or his 180-day pass, and even if he did, they could be on the look-out for him by now.
But the check-point cops didn't stop every bus. They didn't have time. They would only be stopping some, preferably the ones most likely to have foreigners on them. The big luxury "Ejecutivo" buses with refreshments and stewardesses. The "Primera Clase" ones too. And since they couldn't even stop all of those, they probably wouldn't bother with an economy-class backroad-bandit, some old Bluebird filled with people poor enough that saving three dollars for taking twice as long to get there was a good deal.
"Economico, to Monterrey," said Lobo in Spanish to the Estrella Blanca clerk sitting under the giant green-and-white star logo.
It was leaving in 5 minutes, no time to try to call Marisol again. Lobo went through the gate and suddenly remembered the customs check inside the bus station: Ahead of him there was a chipped yellow traffic signal set chest-high, with a button to push underneath it. Three cops sat on the table next to it, watching him.
Lobo walked up to the traffic signal and pushed the cold metal button.
Green.
Don't run, walk, walk.
Lobo followed a family out to the loading bay at the end where the Economico bus was supposed to be waiting. The grandmother was tiny and sun-burnt black, the mother was medium in all ways, and the teenage daughter was long-legged and pale from lounging about indoors.
Lobo laughed when he saw the bus: It was a huge new Mercedes, palest green, with seats like the first-class section on an airliner. An Ejecutivo-class aristocrat of a bus, pressed into last-minute service on the dirt-cheap start-and-stop enonomy routes.
They sat on the bus for a few minutes feeling the faint hum as the engine idled, then the driver climbed in and backed it out without a word. Videos advertising the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico played on the little TV screens over the seats as the bus glided past dusty junkyards and raw new elementary schools to the edge of the scrubby desert. Then there was a sort of a rolling stop at the 20 kilometer checkpoint before Lobo even noticed they were there, and without even a word from the cops, the bus was off the main highway and sailing down a two-lane backroad.
Lobo was free, and headed towards Marisol.
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Lobo went outside, crossed the street to the side with the park, and walked past the shoeshine stands and popsickle carts. He always loved the dark sweet smell of the shoeshine stands. He could see the long white moorish arcade of the Mirador building across the little park and all the various Bluebird buses for in-town routes lined up in front of it. Lobo picked one with "Central" lettered in white on its windshield, gave the driver coins for four and a half pesos, and sank down in a plastic bucket seat halfway back.
He wished a guitarist would climb on at one of the stops and play a song. He wanted to hear music. He had a coin ready. Instead, a man in a purple shirt got on and passed around flyers with pictures of Buddha on them, gave a little talk as the bus careened around the streets, then took up all the flyers again except for one lady's who smiled and gave him a coin.
Lobo put his money back in his pocket. He wanted to hear music.
He didn't see the neighborhoods the bus was now puttering through. He was in the past. He was holding Marisol again while she cried and said, "You're not like the other guys, Lobo, they would all be yelling and calling me a liar, saying no way, the baby wasn't theirs."
"It's all right, Marisol, it's all right, you're my girl, you're my girl, we'll be a family now."
Marisol had quieted down and stopped whimpering, just looking into the distance. He had held her shoulders and tucked his chin over her back, breathing as they sat there.
He rode the city bus out to the "Central de Buses" at the south edge of town, the large bus station from which all the long-distance routes took off. The place was like a miniature airport, with gift-shops and small restaurants. Across the street among the stalls and small scrappy shops, Lobo wandered, thinking. He bought a blue bath towel at one place, and they put it in a plastic tote-bag for him.
Lobo walked back over to the "Central de Buses", his plastic bag swinging from his hand. Innocent men go shopping for mundane items. The bag in his hand made him almost invisible.
There was one problem with getting down to Monterrey: Any bus going there would stop at the 20 kilometer border-zone check-point. Lobo didn't have his passport or his 180-day pass, and even if he did, they could be on the look-out for him by now.
But the check-point cops didn't stop every bus. They didn't have time. They would only be stopping some, preferably the ones most likely to have foreigners on them. The big luxury "Ejecutivo" buses with refreshments and stewardesses. The "Primera Clase" ones too. And since they couldn't even stop all of those, they probably wouldn't bother with an economy-class backroad-bandit, some old Bluebird filled with people poor enough that saving three dollars for taking twice as long to get there was a good deal.
"Economico, to Monterrey," said Lobo in Spanish to the Estrella Blanca clerk sitting under the giant green-and-white star logo.
It was leaving in 5 minutes, no time to try to call Marisol again. Lobo went through the gate and suddenly remembered the customs check inside the bus station: Ahead of him there was a chipped yellow traffic signal set chest-high, with a button to push underneath it. Three cops sat on the table next to it, watching him.
Lobo walked up to the traffic signal and pushed the cold metal button.
Green.
Don't run, walk, walk.
Lobo followed a family out to the loading bay at the end where the Economico bus was supposed to be waiting. The grandmother was tiny and sun-burnt black, the mother was medium in all ways, and the teenage daughter was long-legged and pale from lounging about indoors.
Lobo laughed when he saw the bus: It was a huge new Mercedes, palest green, with seats like the first-class section on an airliner. An Ejecutivo-class aristocrat of a bus, pressed into last-minute service on the dirt-cheap start-and-stop enonomy routes.
They sat on the bus for a few minutes feeling the faint hum as the engine idled, then the driver climbed in and backed it out without a word. Videos advertising the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico played on the little TV screens over the seats as the bus glided past dusty junkyards and raw new elementary schools to the edge of the scrubby desert. Then there was a sort of a rolling stop at the 20 kilometer checkpoint before Lobo even noticed they were there, and without even a word from the cops, the bus was off the main highway and sailing down a two-lane backroad.
Lobo was free, and headed towards Marisol.
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posted by Walter Moore at 10:37 AM
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