Both Sides of the River

“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

Lee carefully folds the sweater into a neat rectangle and puts it on the shelf at the back of the wardrobe. He won't need it. The evening is mild and balmy, filled with starlight and cicadas' concertos, a stark contrast to the muggy summers of his youth in Arkansas.

Downstairs, he can hear the cutlery being thrust into the dishwater basket—forcefully, with annoyance, like everything Wanda does. In the background, KLW3 and Dolly Parton’s nasal drawl tell the story of “The Coat of Many Colors," which her mama made for her. He can hardly picture Miss Big Boobs Parton in any coat, let alone in one of many colors, but Wanda likes the sentimental stuff. “Achy Breaky Heart” and “Stand by Your Man” remind her of her childhood, when people respected boundaries and things were called by their names—not the woke crap everyone is fond of nowadays.

He checks his wallet, removes an array of plastic Visas and MasterCards, and leaves three twenties tucked away beneath the folds of black leather.

He’s done well for himself since his Hope, Arkansas, youth, no doubt about it. A lovely house, a new Buick on the front porch, a steady job, a wife... It's a far cry from the trash-choked streets of the town whose name belies its residents' bleak outlook on life.

In the bathroom, he brushes his teeth, gargles Oral Essentials, then slicks back his sandy hair. Not a bad-looking guy, even if he says so himself. He wouldn’t mind a Tom Selleck mustache, but Wanda dislikes facial hair. Allergic to keratin, she says she is. Not just hair, mind you, but keratin. He looked up the word. Keratin - a protein that forms the basis of horns, claws, and hair. Horns, for God’s sake!

He finds Wanda in the kitchen with a plateful of Oreos, her favorite, and an open puzzle book in front of her. Wanda is a puzzle freak—anagrams, honeycombs, spirals, conundrums—a dozen a day. She sleeps with a dictionary and a pencil under her pillow in case a word she needs for a crossword nags at her at night.

They had dinner half an hour before—a carbohydrate-loaded but salt-free carbonara, broccoli, carrot salad, and a slice of Black Forest yet the place has an unused look. No smells other than the mild aroma of lavender disinfectant Wanda uses by the gallon to mop up the floors and everything else in the kitchen. And it is quiet, too. Dolly Parton—coat, boobs, and colors—is gone, too.

Wanda scratches her head with a forefinger and wrinkles her nose in concentration. Her face is white, like an egg illuminated from within, but it lacks the egg’s smoothness. She is a large woman with generous hips and several rolls of fat spilling from the apron. She sits at the table, relaxed, kind of sloshed as if she were made of dense Vaseline.

“Going soon?” She asks, crossing out another number in the book.

“Soon,” he agrees.

“There is some cocoa for you,” she says, pointing to a cup on the counter.

“You took a long time in the bathroom, so it’s gone cold.”

There is a note of accusation in her voice.

He sips the lukewarm drink and, with his tongue, pushes away the greasy coating of coagulated milk that has gathered on the surface.

She sees him. “Don’t! It’s good for you. Full of vitamins.”

He swallows obediently without wincing, trying to hide his disgust. The texture of the coating reminds him of her sloshed curves.

“Don’t forget to take the keys. I’ll go up in a minute.”

“Aren’t you going to watch 'The Nanny'?”

“I want to finish the puzzle." Her pencil scribbles something in the slots. "Hebrew Festival of Lights, starting with an H and a K in the middle?" she asks.

“No clue.”

He walks towards the sink, rinses the cup, and puts it on the draining board, bottom up.

He is on his way to the door when she calls out, "Lee!"

He glances over his shoulder.

“Haven’t you forgotten something?” The red wound of her mouth smiles at him with expectation. She leans over the table, spilling the rolls of fat even more.

“Sorry, dear.” He approaches and plants a light kiss on her forehead.

The smile disappears.

“That’s not what I meant.”

His lips part in readiness to speak, but she cuts him off with a flick of a hand.

“The cup. You haven’t dried the cup.”

He strides back to the sink and dries the cup with a blue tea towel.

“I’ve told you a million times…”

Her pencil taps impatiently on the table. Yes, she has. She's told him a million and ONE times not to leave wet dishes around. Hasn’t he heard of condensation? Moisture trapped on the walls is septic and a perfect breeding ground for fungi. And she buys tea towels by the dozen. What for, for heaven’s sake? Doesn’t he see at all how hard she works for him? She cooks, dusts, mops, and all for what? Does he think it is fun? Does he really think that being a housewife is fun? No, it isn’t. It's good training for growing old, bored, and tired prematurely. And extremely fat, he wants to add but doesn’t.

Outside, darkness has crept in and switched off the light. The sky is a black canvas dotted with stars. A car murmurs in the distance, and the scatters of laughter from a group of passing youngsters are the only other sounds in the brittle silence.

He wants to leave it all behind—all of Laredo. The clapboard houses with glassed-in porches, the shopping malls with screaming advertising, the repressed tranquility of a border town struggling to find its identity, even the timid demeanor of the teenagers roaming without aim like an army of refugees

He floors the accelerator and climbs the rise that will take him to the Rio Grande and the bridge. Dark buildings, vines slithering up white wooden gates, dwarf conifers squatting along trimmed lawns with spinning sprinklers, and shiny Chevrolets parked in twos and threes on driveways flash by.

Laredo is a town divided. Sprawled on the two banks of one river, it is as different on each side as the sticky Arkansas summers of his boyhood and the exhilarating warmth of a Texan night. Despite carrying the same black water, it has different names on both sides. On the Laredo side, it is known as the Rio Grande, while Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo or the Brave River. Wanda calls it a major misnomer. Lee looked it up, too, and it means the wrong name,  but Lee prefers the Chicano name of this unnavigable waterway. It reflects the Mexicans’ respect for it. After all, it has claimed the lives of many wetbacks who dared to brave the Brave River.

There are three bridges over the Rio Grande— like the three gates separating Heaven, Purgatory, and Paradise in Alighieri’s Divine Comedy —purring invitingly to let in wealthy American businessmen and shutting tight in front of undocumented Mexicans.

“Watch your pockets." A sleepy guard on the US side offers a piece of friendly advice before disappearing into a steel-and-glass booth to finish a game of beggar-my-neighbor.

Lee drives on to Nuevo Laredo, his town's scarred, neglected Mexican twin. In La Zona, the red-light district, a colorful mosaic of dark-skinned teenagers with headphones plugged into their ears and rancheras leaking out from under the ill-fitting edges passes by. Men shrouded in clouds of cigar smoke perambulate slowly. An old wino kicks an empty bottle along the dirty street. Rachitic mongrels with wise faces peer around the overflowing trash cans. Music pours out of bars, cafes, and restaurants.

He parks the Buick in the usual place behind Paco’s Jumpin Bean Diner.

“Madonnas for a buck! Coudna get ‘em cheepa in Laredo! Madonnas for a buck!”

A little boy of eight or nine shouts in a singsong voice.

“Madonnas for a buck!”

“Original craft, chico? Mexicano?” Lee asks the boy.

A grubby hand stretches towards him with an oval slate with the painting of the Virgin with a child in her arms. Her face is dark, and the hair, parted in the middle, coils from under a white veil, accentuating her Latin features. Delicate brush strokes around her eyes give her an air of pure sadness.

Yes, it's the original Mexican craft, Lee tells himself. Not some crappy Chinese imitation.

“A buck, you say?”

“A buck, Meesta, cudna get'em…”

Lee passes him two dollars. The boy’s eyes light up with greed and pleasure.

“Thanks, Meesta…”

Lee turns around and walks to the diner.

“Madonnas for a buck!” The boy is back in business.

Trying to ignore the spittoon by the counter, shiny with fresh spit and overflowing with cigar butts, Lee orders a bottle of Tecate ale and enchiladas with a double portion of extra hot salsa to wash off the bland taste of Wanda’s salt-free carbonara.

“All right, Tex?” Paco, the owner, exposes a pink chink in a nearly toothless grin.

“Never better,” Lee replies.

The jukebox has just disposed of La Bamba. With a dry click, another record drops down, and the stylus, old and full of fluff, grinds harshly.

“Cucurucucuuuuuuuu!! Palomaaaaaa! Cucurucucucuuuuuuu! No lloooores!”

The prehistoric disc wheezes, trumpets blare, guitars moan, and mariachis scream. Lee loosens the collar of his starched shirt, which has now gone completely damp and clings to his body like a second clammy skin. The song races to a crescendo, but he doesn’t mind. Better than Dolly Parton extolling the coat of many colors her mama made for her.

Around him, voices rise higher than the screams on the record; peals of laughter vibrate and shake the smoke-filled atmosphere. There’s a ceiling fan with lazy blades that stir and mix the air, and the stink of grilled meat, chopped onions, and ancient oil sails like a trawler on a choppy sea.

"Hello, fren’,” a hand lands on Lee’s shoulder. He spins around without getting up from the stool to face a small Mexican with a shoe-polish mustache.

“Looking for a bit of action, if you know whata’ mean?”

Lee knows what he means and says so.

The petite man laughs hard and long, throwing his head back, the cartilaginous ball in his neck flicking up and down like a bobbin.

“Latino girls, yes? Chiquita Bananas: sweet and fresh?”

Lee gulps down his Tecate. It has gone warm by now.

“Sweet? Yes. Fresh? Questionable.”

“I like yo’ sense of humor. Tex humor. Good humor.”

Lee chews on the enchiladas, the salsa dripping down from the corners of his mouth like vampire fangs.

“You in, Tex? Vamos?”

Lee slides off the stool and wipes off the sauce with the back of his hand.

“Yes. Vamos.”

The man leads the way to a back alley behind the diner. Lee follows, feeling a delicious stirring in his loins now.

There is no door to the room, only a fluttering, dirty curtain. They go in. The room is large, with a bed by the window. A naked bulb on a long wire hanging over the bed illuminates the figure of a woman. No, not a woman. A girl. Maybe 15—maybe a year older. Her hair, parted in the middle, highlights her Latin features. Her face looks tear-stained, giving her an air of utter sadness.

“Twenny bucks, Tex, and she all yours.”

Lee takes out the wallet and peels a twenty from between the folds of black leather. The Mexican examines it against the light, rubs it between his fingers, puts it into the back trouser pocket, and then, tipping him a conspiratorial wink, leaves the room.

Lee gazes at the girl, contemplating crossing the final frontier. She does not stir or make a sound.

Outside, the street vendor’s shrill voice shatters the silence.

“Madonnas for a buck! Culdna get ‘em cheepa in Laredo!”