Nooshin
America in the rearview mirror
Monday
December 25, 2006

Scrunched down low in Nick’s truck, I watch a pleasant cloud-dotted afternoon settle over San Diego. This is our third stop of the day, after Nasrin’s townhome and UCSD’s Central Library. My paranoia is finally ebbing. No Saman anywhere in sight, no sister or parents either. Farid answered the door at the townhome, a solitary ally carrying out my things from the guest bedroom. Nick was right about my brother-in-law — he’s on my side. His swarthy face was set with concern, and he hugged me goodbye like he never does. Then he shook hands with Nick. I barely noticed the gesture at the time, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

We’re the only vehicle at this roadside park, well-manicured and dotted with sago palms that stir lazily in the breeze. The jungle gym and basketball courts are deserted except for birds flitting about. Beyond the park is a shaggy hedge of Chinese elm, so high I can only glimpse red tile roofs behind it. In the distance is the sweeping powder blue span of the Coronado Bridge, gliding across the shimmery waters of San Diego Bay. Nick is the fastest-moving thing in sight, jogging back from the park’s restrooms.

“How’s the nose?” he asks, settling himself behind the wheel.

“The nose is still fine,” I say crossly. I can pretend there’s no honking bandage on my nose, but other people can’t. That’s why I’m hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and Nick’s KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ meshback with the brim pulled down low.

“You look like a supermodel who just got a nosejob. All slumped down and incognito, like you’re trying to avoid the paparazzi.” His grin is teasing but infectious.

I do a little smiling and a lot of squirming. I hate to be the center of attention. Especially his center of attention. Looking right at me with those icy blue eyes, he’s so handsome it’s unbearable. Desperately trying to change the subject, I stammer, “Wh–what does Christmas mean to you?”

“Say what?”

I point at the Lutheran church across the street, draped in an enormous banner headlined by the question WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO YOU? Below are two answers — kids opening presents with $$$ pricetags still on, and Jesus Christ with folded hands praying to heaven.

He becomes stony beneath his Kangol hat. “Like my dad says, Christmas is just a day when it’s harder than usual to get shit done.” Then he pauses with the keys in the ignition. “Any other stops?”

I find myself glancing inland, toward a chapter of my photo album that’s already come and gone. Regrets flood through me. Why did Nasrin and I have to become enemies instead of sisters? Will my niece and nephew understand why I didn’t say goodbye? How can my parents cobble together the money to repay the mahr? I can’t believe how quickly my life has fallen apart, and with it the family relationships that filled my heart.

“No more stops? Then let’s get moving,” Nick is saying with typical impatience. “We need to make it across the border before dark.”

Weird things start happening beneath my navel. I’ve been trying to convince myself that Tijuana will be like all the other places I’ve lived. A big deal, except not really. But…across the border? Hearing that phrase makes my tensions buzz and swarm. And Nick seems anxious about Tijuana too. Or worse, anxious about having me along.

Barely onto the broad lanes of I-5 I glimpse the first of several signs like this:

“Mojados sometimes bolt across the highway,” Nick explains, using the Spanish term for wetback. “You know, I was just reading an article in some Chicano Studies journal about the ‘Running Family’ image. That’s what people call it, the ‘Running Family’. Caltrans put up the signs back in the 1970s, and since then it’s become iconic in Chicano culture.”

“Iconic? Like how?” I love his impromptu lectures.

“Well, some Chicanos feel that it reduces an entire class of people to the status of animals — same as a deer crossing sign, right?”

“Right!”

“Other Chicanos feel nostalgic about the image. It’s a historical legacy to them, a reminder of family roots that literally run down I-5 to Mexico. For other Chicanos — ”

“I bet it’s also a memorial image,” I interject. “A reminder of all the people who died following their dreams to America. People we don’t even see in everyday life. We just look through them. They’re, like, transparent. The janitors and cooks and stuff.”

“Absolutely,” he nods, praising my point. “Anyway, now there’s this initiative underway to remove the signs. A new generation of Chicanos is flexing their political muscle and saying that the ‘Running Family’ is racist stereotyping. Not PC, basically.”

I watch Nick nudge the steering wheel back and forth. “What would Caltrans replace the signs with? Something more politically correct?”

“Nothing, probably. The signs aren’t really needed anymore. Since 9/11 we’ve made this part of the border tighter than a buttfuck. Now most illegal immigrants cross further east, out in the Imperial Valley, or even Arizona.”

His casual mention of anal sex makes me blush and glance away. The view out the truck’s windows is becoming increasingly gritty. I watched ever-smaller homes on ever-smaller lots flash past, the landscaping replaced with bare dirt and dead cars. Even the jutting palms seem straggly and desperate.

Then a sign that makes my heart flutter and spark. My whole stupid life compressed into a point of no return from the Nooshin I’ve always been:

I glance around as Nick pulls into a special parking lot at the border crossing. The mood here is deadly serious. Mexican soldiers in olive drab uniforms patrol the fringing sidewalk, scowling our direction, M-16s at the ready. They look grown-up and professional, nothing like the laughing kid-soldiers I saw on Avenida Revolucion. I almost pee the track pants I’ve borrowed from Nick when I notice one of them staring at our license plate and muttering into a walkie talkie.

Nick reaches over and taps the antique Polaroid camera in my lap. “Take all the pictures you want. I’ll be a while.”

I don’t want to take pictures. I want to flee or something. “Why can’t we go over there?” I ask plaintively, pointing at the regular border checkpoint, where lines of vehicles snake through the crossing posts. Those cars and trucks aren’t moving very fast, but at least they’re not parked in front of half the Mexican army.

“We can’t cross over there because those are Mexican nationals or American tourists. We’re something in between.”

The Explorer shifts in the sudden absence of Nick’s weight. I watch him stride into the throng of soldiers, towering over them, lips moving. Conversations break out. Smiles, even. Then he disappears behind a pair of glass doors rendered opaque with reflections.

Eventually boredom compels me out of the truck. I keep both hands on my camera, then realize I should probably keep both hands on my purse instead, and finally settle for a hand on each. At first I drift around the parking lot in widening circles, watching the Mexican soldiers as they watch me. Ogle, really. I can feel their heavy gazes like groping hands. But that’s all they do to me.

Braver now, I head toward a chainlink fence with a shallow view of the border crossing. I’m drawn by a trolleyful of Americans spilling through customs, just like me the day I visited Tijuana and met Nick. They’re mostly fresh-faced teens dressed like Abercrombie & Fitch models, voices ringing with enthusiasm for Mexico’s drinking age — a mere 18. They make a show of posing by the border marker, one set of friends after another crowding against the inlaid stone. I wait for them to fade behind the thick iron bars, then snap my own picture of the spraypainted murals they overlooked:

The slogans seem even more foreign than the language they were written in. You never forget your homeland. Long live the Mexican Revolution. Between individuals as between nations, peace is respect for other people’s rights. And other things I can’t translate with my bad Spanish.

“Nooshin!” The summons is full of excitement. It carries above the soldiers and smog and noise.

I trot back to the parking lot, where Nick is leaning against the Explorer with arms folded, waiting impatiently. But not the bad kind of impatient. A smirk is curling up one cheek. He can’t wait to brag about something.

Like the blue-and-white trifold he thrusts at me. My “tourist card”, even though it’s actually a sheet of paper. Typed on an honest-to-god typewriter, with carbon marks and everything. He explains that he fast-talked some official into granting me one without the usual requirements — a birth certificate or current passport.

I tilt my head quizzically to the right. So what?

“Your paperwork is good for 180 days,” he says brightly. “Without it you couldn’t have stayed with me. Not legally, anyway.”

“180 days?” I tuck the paper into my purse, confused.

“Yeah. That’s the maximum. If for some reason you need to stay with me longer, we’ll just renew it for another 180 days.”

Nick’s breezy explanation leaves me stunned. He’s not thinking of me as a temporary houseguest, someone to resentfully urge out the door, like my mother-in-law on her interminable visits from Iran. Nick is open to me staying with him for the next 180 days — and even the next 180 days after that! I can be part of his Mexican year.

He’s rocking forward and back on his hiking boots, heel to toe and repeat, the eagerness devouring him from the inside. The fading sunlight reaches beneath his hatbrim and chisels his face. He smiles brilliantly in the direction of the smells drifting over the border fence — sweet bakery scents, rotting garbage, diesel smoke. “This is it, Nooshin.”

That last word makes it spectacular. He says my name as if I’m a partner in some grand adventure. Not just a wife dragged along like luggage, the way I felt with Saman.

“You ready?” Nick is squinting at me.

“Yeah,” I say, wanting to be ready for Mexico, trying to convince myself of it, but deep down knowing I’m not really. Not even close.