A Wetback Odyssey- A Salvadoran's Dream Of Meeting Joe Biden

It had been an easy trip north - camaraderie, collaboration, and collegiality - despite the distance from Chiltepe, his hometown in El Salvador.  He was travelling with his two brothers, an aunt, and a whore from the capital who exchanged her favors for safe passage to the border,

Jose did not have to leave Chiltepe. He had a decent enough living repairing mufflers and catalytic converters that couldn't make it over the sierras.  He, his blowtorch, and his soldering iron patched the flatbeds, F-150s, and pickups headed back and forth, empty of one contraband and overloaded to the struts for another - coke, Uzis, dollars, emeralds, and Nayarit terracotta.

His work was quick and easy - he never bothered to drain the gas tank, forewent the expense of a hoist and got underneath on an old warehouse dolly, and was out from under in a half and hour. Yanquis always thought of Escobar, yachts, cigarette boats, and armed flotillas when they thought of the drug trade, but it happened this way, in huaraches and huipils and beat-up Toyotas. 

Jose was a modest man, never greedy for the big payoff, content with parts and labor and a thousand for his silence, not that he would have ever gone afoul of the Obregon brothers; and then after years of pitted exhausts and loose bearings the idea came to him - El Norte. 

In the past the trip would have been risky.  Not every American president had been as generous and welcoming as Joe Biden, and ICE border guards regularly sicked their Dobermans and took pot shots at wetbacks crossing the river.  Now, under the new president, they were no longer sitting ducks but welcome guests. 

'Why bother?' asked Jose's cousin, Adalberto, thinking of Rosalita and the tropical beaches of Las Lajas - ceviche de concha, palm water baths, and maracuja. 

'Because it's there' said Jose, and like every man south of the border he had dreamed of white, blonde women since the first 'Dallas' reruns, pirated and replayed on YSLA after midnight util the tape wore out; and there they would be, available and lovelier in the flesh than in his dreams, waiting for him - that and the air-conditioning and the money. 

 

So he and his crew set out one November day, all five of them in one of the trucks that one of Obregon's runners had left at his garage, that he had patched up with wax and baling-wire but knew would make the trip through Guadalupe and Sonora to the border.  

Now, the road north was nowhere near as bad as the bottlenecks at the summit of Everest but was still a long, inching caravan, busloads of Cholos and deported braceros he could do without.  The only happy one was the whore who made her rounds of the Bluebirds, got paid in dollars, and treated Jose and his brothers to tequila and mezcal.  

Jose never touched her.  He would wait for the beauties of Venice Beach, so sick and tired was he of black-eyed Indian cooch; but he was glad for the schnapps and the company, and they all slept well.  The caravan moved slowly, but Jose was in no hurry.  El Norte would wait. 

They stopped in Chiapas to say hello to the Obregon brothers, and Hermione prepared them a meal of chicharron, mole, quail eggs, and black beans.  

'Stay awhile longer' said Andres Obregon when he returned from Chihuahua with a truckload of cash and a diamond necklace for his wife.  Business is good, he said, and now with the border wide open, it would be even better.  "Leave the caravan", he said, and so it was that Jose, grease monkey from Chiltepe became part of the Obregon cartel - not in a big way, just a carter, chauffer, and mechanic for the jefes; but in a way big enough for him. 

There were always shoot-outs in the border towns, but there was always a rhyme or reason for the killing and gunmen would never target him, a minor player, never more than a private in the Obregon's army, a Caesarean legion in the Sonoran desert.  

So after three weeks of tight quarters, rest stops, and close quarter work by the whore, Jose and his crew arrived at the last stop before the river, a dump to abandon old cars, trash, and everything of no use in El Norte.  Jose was sorry to lose the old pickup and the whore who had decided that she had made too much money to give it up; but cross the Rio Grande he did, was taken into custody by La Migra, housed in a very pleasant Best Western in El Paso, given meal tickets, spending money, and passage to the sanctuary city of his choice.

'I want to meet El Jefe', Jose said to the officer stationed in the lobby of the hotel, but the man said that La Casa Blanca was far from El Paso, maybe three days ride; but what else did he have to do except contact Mara Salvatrucha and start his new life? And so, after paying his respects, he made his way to Washington, stood outside the gates of the White House for days on end, but came up empty handed, disappointed in his new country, and made his way back West. 

Life with the gang in LA was good. Drugs were not necessarily Jose's thing, but the trade and the women were just fine. Before long after dutifully driving, fixing, and cleaning, he was given an Uzi. Every night along with saying his rosary he thanked President Biden, and he had only incidental thoughts about Rosalita and Chiltepe.