‘We’re on a conveyer belt,’ Vida said.
‘It’s easier this way,’ I said. ‘It will be all right. Don’t worry.’
‘I know it will be all right,’ she said. ‘But I wish we were there. Those people in front of us are worse than the idea of the abortion.’
The man started to whisper something to the woman, who continued staring straight ahead, and Vida turned and looked out the window at the nothing leading to Tijuana.
The Man from Guadalajara
The border was a mass of cars coming and going in excitement and confusion to pass under an heroic arch into Mexico. There was a sign that said something like: WELCOME TO TIJUANA THE MOST VISITED CITY IN THE WORLD.
I had a little trouble with that one.
We just walked across the border into Mexico. The Americans didn’t even say good-bye and we were suddenly in a different way of doing things.
First there were Mexican guards wearing those.45 calibre automatic pistols that Mexicans love, checking the cars going into Mexico.
Then there were other men who looked like detectives standing along the pedestrian path to Mexico. They didn’t say a word to us, but they stopped two people behind us, a young man and woman, and asked them what nationality they were and they said Italian.
‘We’re Italians.’
I guess Vida and I looked like Americans.
The arch, besides being heroic, was beautiful and modem and had a nice garden with many fine river rocks in the garden, but we were more interested in getting a taxi and went to a place where there were many taxis.
I noticed that famous sweet acrid dust that covers Northern Mexico. It was like meeting a strange old friend again.
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
The drivers were yelling and motioning a new supply of gringos towards them.
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
The taxis were typically Mexican and the drivers were shoving them like pieces of meat. I don’t like people to try and use the hard sell on me. I’m not made for it.
The conservative young couple came along, looking very frightened, and got into a taxi and disappeared towards Tijuana that lay flat before us and then sloped up into some hazy yellow poor-looking hills with a great many houses on them.
The air was beginning electric with the hustle for the Yankee dollar and its biblical message. The taxi drivers seemed to be endless like flies trying to get you into their meat for Tijuana and its joys.
‘Hey, beau-ti-ful girl and BE-atle! Get in!’ a driver yelled at us. ‘Beatle?’ I said to Vida. ‘Is my hair that long?’
’It is a little long,’ Vida said, smiling.
‘Hey, BE-atle and hey, beauty!’ another driver yelled.
There was a constant buzzing of TAXII TAXI! TAXI! Suddenly everything had become speeded up for us in Mexico. We were now in a different country, a country that just wanted to see our money.
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
(Wolf whistle.)
‘BE-atle!’
‘TAXI!’
‘HEY! THERE!’
‘TAXI!’
‘TIJUANA!’
‘SHE’S GOOD-LOOKING!’
‘TAXI!’
(Wolf-whistle.)
‘TAXI!’
‘TAXI!’
‘SENORITA! SENORITA! SENORITA!’
‘HEY, BEATLEI TAXI!’
And then a Mexican man walked quietly up to us. He seemed a little embarrassed. He was wearing a business suit and was about forty years old.
‘I have a car,’ he said. ‘Would you like a ride downtown? It’s right over there.’
It was a ten-year-old Buick, dusty, but well kept up and seemed to want us to get into it.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That would be very nice.’
The man looked all right, just wanting to be helpful, so it seemed. He didn’t look as if he were selling anything.
‘It’s right over here,’ he repeated, to show that the car was something that he took pride in owning.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
We walked over to his car. He opened the door for us and then went around and got in himself.
‘It’s noisy here,’ he said, as we started driving the mile or less to Tijuana. ‘Too much noise.’
‘It is a little noisy,’ I said.
After we left the border he kind of relaxed and turned towards us and said, ‘Did you come across for the afternoon?’
‘Yes, we thought we’d take a look at Tijuana while we’re visiting her sister in San Diego,’ I said.
‘It’s something to look at all right,’ he said. He didn’t look too happy when he said that.
‘Do you live here?’ I said.
‘I was born in Guadalajara,’ he said. ‘That’s a beautiful city. That’s my home. Have you ever been there? It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was there five or six years ago. It is a lovely city.’
I looked out of the window to see a small carnival lying abandoned by the road. The carnival was flat and stagnant like a mud puddle.
‘Have you ever been to Mexico before, Senora?’ he said, fatherly.
‘No,’ Vida said. ‘This is my first visit.’
‘Don’t judge Mexico by this,’ he said. ‘Mexico is different from Tijuana. I’ve been working here for a year and in a few months I’ll go back home to Guadalajara, and I’m going to stay there this time. I was a fool to leave.’
‘What do you do? I said.
‘I work for the governinent,’ he said. ‘I’m taking a survey among the Mexican people who come and go across the border into your country.’
‘Are you finding out anything interesting? Vida said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s all the same. Nothing is different.’
A Telephone Call from Woolworth’s
The government man, whose name we never got, left us on the Main Street of Tijuana and pointed out the Government Tourist Building as a place that could tell us things to do while we were in Tijuana.
The Government Tourist Building was small and glass and very modern and had a statue in front of it. The statue was a grey stone statue and did not look at peace. It was taller than the building. The statue was a pre-Columbian god or fella doing something that did not make him happy.
Though the building was quite attractive, there was nothing the people in that little building could do for us. We needed another service from the Mexican people.
Everybody was shoving us for dollars, trying to sell us things that we didn’t want: kids with gum, people wanting us to buy border junk from them, more taxi-cab drivers shouting that they wanted to take us back to the border, even though we had just got there, or to other places where we would have some fun.
‘TAXI!’
‘BEAUTIFUL GIRL!’
‘TAXI!’
‘BEATLE!’
(Wolf whistle.)
The taxi-cab drivers of Tijuana remained constant in their devotion to us. I had no idea my hair was so long and of course Vida had her thing going.
We went over to the big modern Woolworth’s on the Main Street of Tijuana to find a telephone. It was a pastel building with a big red Woolworth’s sign and a red brick front and big display windows all filled up with Easter stuff: lots and lots and lots of bunnies and yellow chicks bursting happily out of huge eggs.
The Woolworth’s was so antiseptic and clean and orderly compared to the outside which was just a few feet away or not away at all if you looked past the bunnies in the front window.
There were very attractive girls working as sales girls, dark and young and doing lots of nice things with their eyes. They all looked as if they should work in a bank instead of Woolworth’s.