CHAPTER 4
“You know where to go?” the navy sentry at the gate asked the Mexican driver who’d been given a temporary gate pass.
The Mexican had a lean handsome face and a wide friendly mouth. “We come here many times,” he said to the sentry. “Many times.”
The sentry waved the bobtail onto the base, then saluted a lieutenant commander who drove in behind the van.
Abel Durazo looked over at his companion Shelby Pate, and said, “Time to wake up.”
He never used his partner’s given name. With his accent it sounded like Chel-bee. Shelby Pate budged only to swipe at a string of spit dribbling down his unshaven chin.
The Mexican had spent his first year at Green Earth Hauling and Disposal feeling vaguely uncomfortable around gringo co-workers, although Abel spoke good English from having worked in the L.A. produce market for eleven years before coming back south to San Diego. But even the first time he’d slipped across the international border thirteen years ago as a boy of sixteen, avoiding both Mexican bandits and la migra, the Border Patrol-crawling through a no-man’s-land they called the Canyon of the Dead-even then, he’d never have felt intimidated around gringos like Shelby Pate.
Shelby Pate, whom the Mexican workers called Buey-the ox-was comfortable to be with, and not threatening to the Mexicans even though he was enormous and biker-ugly. Shelby called him Flaco, because the young Mexican was so thin.
“Wake up, Buey!” Abel said.
His companion’s head bobbed and he sat upright. “Huh?”
“Time to work.”
The ox rooted in his nose, then wiped his finger on his filthy black jeans. He was thirty-one, two years older than Abel, and he talked so fast that the Mexican understood him about half the time. The ox had four tattoos on his arms, which were supposed to represent a pack of killer cats: tiger, panther, lion, puma. To Abel they looked like mongrel dogs, maybe coyotes. Abel always wondered where the ox got such bad tattoos, guessing it was in jail.
“When we gettin somethin to eat, dude?” Shelby wanted to know, picking up his Mötley Crüe cap from the seat of the cab and of course putting it on backwards, pulling his dead-straw hair down the back of his neck. He used to have a dental bridge, but lost it during a methamphetamine orgy that turned into a barroom brawl. Abel thought the missing front tooth actually improved the ox’s looks, making him appear more comical.
“Always eat,” Abel said. “Eat drink eat. Joo too fat, Buey.”
Shelby had only been working at Green Earth Hauling and Disposal for six months. He was big as a forklift, blubbery fat, but very strong and willing. And he’d take orders from anybody in the yard, Mexican, black or gringo. Abel didn’t think the ox would ever be promoted to driver, but he didn’t seem to care. Shelby came to work on time, did what he was told, then took his paycheck and spent it on methamphetamine and tequila in the biker bars in Imperial Beach and National City. The other workers underestimated the ox, but Abel did not. The Mexican sensed Shelby’s cunning and street intelligence.
Once, Abel had stopped for a drink with the ox at his favorite biker hangout, Hogs Wild, but a redneck biker in the saloon said he didn’t like drinking with a Mexican, so Abel turned and left. The ox left with him, but first he found out which Harley the redneck owned and slashed the leather seat with his buck knife.
“How long you figure it’s gonna take us today?” Shelby asked, yawning.
“We finish by seex o’clock.” Then Abel added, “Maybe later.”
“How ’bout lendin me twenny bucks?”
“No way,” Abel said. “I broke, Buey.”
“Me, I’m always broke,” Shelby said. “The boss is a cheap prick, ain’t he? I’ll be glad to see the last a that dude.”
By seeing the last of the boss, Shelby Pate was referring to the fact that Green Earth Hauling and Disposal had recently been sold, and was about to close escrow. The new owner was cost-conscious, and had already said he’d have to lay off eight workers including Abel Durazo and Shelby Pate. Their boss, Jules Temple, had suggested that Abel and Shelby start looking for new jobs right away. Jules did not offer his assistance in relocation, or severance pay, or bonuses of any kind.
Abel Durazo was absolutely convinced that Jules Temple wouldn’t know him if they passed on the street, he being just another Mexican who worked for a lot less money than a union driver.
“Boss all the same” was all the Mexican said.
“He pays you chump change. Know what a real driver gets for haulin poison waste?”
Abel knew that a real driver would be a gringo, not a former “Rodino” like himself, who felt lucky to have such a job. He’d been called a Rodino because of Congressman Rodino, who’d sponsored the legislation by which Abel had applied for and got permanent resident status. Under the plan, Mexican nationals had been allowed to avoid deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service if they could prove they’d been in the U.S. prior to January 1, 1981, and through May 1987. The “proof” often consisted of rent receipts, school records, work records, payroll stubs, utility receipts, birth or marriage records. Cynics said that it could also work if the Mexicans showed up with “Made in the U.S.” clothing labels, ticket stubs from a Springsteen concert, whatever.
During the Rodino boom, American farmers and other employers often “sold names” to Mexicans, names of former employees who’d been in the U.S. for years, but who’d gone back south, or died, or disappeared. The future Rodinos could then apply under those names, and Mexican lawyers could supply bogus Social Security cards to match them. Lucky and smart Mexican nationals ended up with their resident “green cards” (which were no longer green, but blue) and were entitled to remain legally in the United States.
When the Green Earth van got to the quay there were other trucks already there, mostly eighteen-wheelers unloading at the mammoth warehouses on what was a very busy day.
Shelby said, “Look at all them lazy deck apes, smokin ’n jokin. Can’t tell me anybody works in the navy. I shoulda been a swab.”
“Een the navy?”
“Yeah, but they don’t want guys that been in jail.”
“Why een jail?” Abel asked.
“For GTA once,” Shelby said. “Drove a hot Porsche for six months ’fore they nailed me. Wouldn’ta got me ’cept I was usin too much meth then. My brain got fried from snortin all that crank. Used to do a teener every night.”
“Teener?”
“Teener means one sixteenth of an ounce. One eighth is called a eightball. You ever do cringe? That’s what we called meth, cringe.”
“No,” Abel said. “Leetle marijuana sometime.”
“Second time I got busted, I was workin for a guy had a big tanker rig. He figured a way to tap in to this oil line that went from California to Utah. When the line started operatin he installed a spigot and hose. The stupid oil company thought the atmospheric conditions caused the oil drop and never did figure it out. I got in on it toward the end. I use to sell the oil to guys at truck stops. A helicopter finally spotted a big spill in the desert and got suspicious and that’s how it got shut down.”
“Joo was caught?” Abel asked.
“Not for that. Only for stealin a goddamn Harley hog. Shoulda stayed in the oil business, but no, I had to steal that bike. Hard for the cops to get serial numbers off crude oil, right, Flaco?”
The ox snorted like a horse at that one, pausing to hawk up a lunger and spit it out the window. The Mexican didn’t understand what he meant.
“Green Earth!” Abel shouted to a manifester in blue coveralls who was sitting on a pile of pallets beside the huge oiler at the quay wall.
“Okay,” the manifester said. “Guess your paperwork’s in the office.”