Crossing the Wire

Rico recounts what happened to him after he left Victorin Los Árboles. Soon after leaving, Rico’s jacket, along with $500, was stolen, making Rico short on his coyote money. His group negotiated a new rate of $1,000 per person, and they all prepared to cross in a truck through an area bordering an American Indian reservation.

As they were crossing, a big Dodge Ram pickup started chasing them and firing automatic weapons abovetheir heads. The Mexican police, who had not been bribed because of the shortage of coyote money, had followed them across the border. They caught the heavy and slow-moving coyote truck and forced them to drive back across the border.

On the drive, Rico managed to jump out of the truck and escape. Still in possession of some money, he decided to try again with another group of people making the crossing. On this trip, they ran out of water and had to leave a lot of people behind. The group made it to a safe house in Phoenix, where they were raided by the Border Patrol. Currently, Rico only has about $100 left.  

Rico buys chocolate-covered frozen bananas on a stick to celebrate their reunion. Victor realizes that Rico doesn’t have a backpack. As they talk, two Cholos approach and say that they can get them across the border through the tunnels, but Rico says no. He reveals to Victor that he lost his backpack and $100 yesterday to a Cholo who promised to take him through the tunnels.

Back at the park, Victor pulls out the map and the boys plan their route. Victor tries to convince Rico to try Miguel’s route, but Rico says it would be too risky now—much of the water will have dried up. Rico says that most people are crossing at the Tohono O’odham reservation, so they should go there and try.

Victor doesn’t like the uncertainty of their plan, but Rico is buying the bus tickets, so he doesn’t protest. They get new clothes and sneakers and tickets for Altar, a town to the southwest. They want to go to Sasabe, but there’s no bus there, so they wait around and finally get a ride in the back of a Suburban.

In Sasabe, the boys can see the border. Victor wants to walk across the Baboquivari Mountains, but Rico thinks they should get a ride around the Mexican side of the mountains. When they can’t find anyone to give them a ride, Rico gets angry and decides to play video games at an arcade.

At the arcade, the boys meet Jarra, who is known as the Mosquito, a wealthy “bare-chested punk” who wears diamond studs and gold chains (145). Jarra brags to the boys about having been a Cholo in Nogales and graduating to being a pollero, or chicken wrangler. He is paid $100 for every person he gets to the pick-up point and makes $1,000 a week. Jarra has also been a drug mule, making $800 a trip.

Rico is agitated as they leave the arcade. Victor says they should rest under a mesquite tree, but Rico snaps at him and says he’s going back to town. When Rico returns, he says he has taken care of their problems by calling his brother and getting him to vouch for them with Jarra’s coyote, The Venom. They will leave for the border in half an hour.  

Victor and Rico climb into the coyote van with Jarra, who reveals he has a gun in the seat next to him. Victor is confused as to why the car is not packed with other pollos trying to cross the border, and why there is so much food and water supplied for them. Jarra drives them on a rough road where they meet a small, white, single-engine plane.

Victor at first thinks it is an emergency landing, but then he realizes that the plan is for the boys to be drug transporters for Jarra. Rico tells Jarra to remember their agreement, that he and Victor would only carry food or water, and Victor realizes that Rico has lied to him. He never called his brother in Arizona, instead negotiating with Jarra to get them across the border if they carried the food and water for his drug mules.

After the boys and the transporters load up with their heavy packs, they all cross the border into Arizona.