Oliver's Army

We were driving, passing through endless Mexican towns and desert on our quest to reach the border.  We scuttled through several military and federal checkpoints where Lola threatened to rip the faces off of men with massive guns as they questioned me about my presence in Mexico.  Thankfully, I avoided secondary inspections and most of the heavily-armed men thought Lola was funny.

Overall, there were less checkpoints and convoys of ski-masked men with giant firearms than in previous trips. No tanks, either. 

In the late afternoon, Lola and I arrived in Nuevo Laredo.  Again, I got lost trying to find the road that leads to the bridge that serves as an international port of entry to the United States.  We cruised by the Rio Grande, where Mexicans fished and swam on one side and the U.S. Border Patrol sat in trucks on the other side, staring at them.  Finally, I made it to the line to exit Mexico, located where to turn-in our temporary vehicle import permit and tipped a guy that had waived me to the correct lane where I could turn in the permit, though I could tell by then where I needed to go.  Lola and I cruised forward, toward the small no-man's land area between Mexico and the United States. One last Mexican check point came into view.  I had not remembered that from the year before.  It was charging twenty pesos simply to leave and I had given away the rest of my pesos.  I dug through change, scrounging up pesos and American quarters to pay the fee.  The guy finally let me through and I entered the massive, uncoordinated, thirty lane-wide mess that constitutes "the line" to enter the United States.

After driving over the strange marker on the bridge that serves as the official border between the U.S. and Mexico, we finally made it to the last American checkpoint.  Agents waived mirrors under the car and sneakily assessed the weight I might be carrying by the level of the car's tires.

"How long have you been in Mexico?"  the Border Patrol guy asked.
"About a month."  I saw an eyebrow raise. 
"What do you do for a living....." he asked slowly.
"I'm a teacher." I answered, while Lola barked viciously at him. 
"What do you teach?"
"Spanish." I responded, afraid that I had inadvertently sounded sarcastic.
"You go to Mexico alone?"
"My partner came for half of the trip but had to return to work."
"Whose car is this?"
"His."
"Where were you?"
"Oh you know, hanging with El Chapo's crew in Sinaloa...."  I thought.  
"I spent most of the time on a town on the Pacific coast, kind of by Puerto Vallarta...."  I felt like I was lying, even though I knew I wasn't.
"Are you bringing any cigarettes, alcohol, plants, fruit, blah blah, er blah blah, bluh blah blah?"
"No." I answered, thinking of the pile of prescriptions laying on the passenger side floor of the car and the trunk full of Cuban rum, covered in underwear that I had pulled from the dryer in La Cruz shortly before leaving. 
"Open the trunk."

Another Migra came up to the window and good-copped me, making small talk about teaching and asking questions about Pit Bulls, while the other guy dug through the trunk.  After a few minutes, he closed it.
"Yeah, they're good dogs, don't believe that stuff you read about them." the original Migra said to the Good Cop.
"You can go."
"THANKS!" I blurted and sped off on the large open highway, glancing back over the massive bottleneck that the border created.

The landscape felt different, though we were only a matter of miles over the border.  We crept through the speed trap town, literally without touching the gas in order to NOT exceed the speed limit. I had one thing on my mind:  Whataburger.

And one came into view, its orange sign a beacon in an otherwise unexceptional town.  There was even a gas station next door.  All of my needs would be met in one stop.  We exited the drive-thru with a bag of deliciousness waiting to be eaten and scooted over to the pump to fill up.  I fed Lola her celebration, good girl made it over the border Whataburger through an open window of the car while I filled the tank.

I hopped back in, eager to mow through my food and get back on the road. But....I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened.  My brain filled with dread.  If I was alone it would be merely inconvenient, but it was over a hundred degrees and I couldn't turn on the air-conditioning on for Lola.  Standing next to the car, waiting for help at a gas station with her on her leash wasn't really appealing either.

"Hey Alec?"
"Yeah, what's up?  Where are you?"
"We are across the border..."
"Great!"
"But.... does your car ever glitch out and sound like it has a dead battery when it really doesn't?  I mean, is there some way that I just hit some switch by accident that makes it, uh, do that?"
"WHAT?  The battery is dead?!"
"Yeah, and it's hot as hell."
"I'll call triple A, find out where you are, what's your address."
"No, hold on.  I'll call you back.  Someone here has to have jumper cables."

I opened the hood of the car, eyeballing all the men in cowboy hats with giant trucks, mentally encouraging one of them to glance over and say:
"Hey little lady in your wimpy hybrid, you look like you need a hand! Let me fix her right up for ya!"

I noticed that one of the cables was completely off of the battery.  I shoved it back on and jumped in the car.  It started. Air-conditioning blasting, Lola and I drove off, Whataburger in hand.

Later in the night, we arrived at our Motel 6 in Ganado.  It felt like the Ritz.  Lola walked around the grounds and hotel like it was her second home, showing a strange memory for places that I didn't think dogs had.

I popped the trunk to grab some things and was surprised to see the oldest bottle of Cuban rum prominently displayed on top of all of my things.  I certainly did not put it there and the only other person that had been in that trunk was the Migra.

I closed the trunk, went back to the hotel and crashed with Lola in the loveliness of our ice-cold room.