Inching Through: Part I of II

By: D. Dahlia



The blue sky dipped and curved over the end of the black asphalt and morning heat hovered like a cloud. You wouldn’t know it was nearing fall, not even the clouds cast enough shadow to make the colors change, the air crisp, and birds would not leave until she returned.
The Juarez Greyhound station had a certain romance about it. Though the smells of the street vendors selling various foods and random items was busy and like any other market place in the morning except for the crowd which seemed generally calm, aloof and moved at a slower pace than those just across the bridge in El Paso. Sitting in the plastic blue chairs, Alex took it all in.
At 8:00 a.m. on the dot her bus sighed to a stop. It looked and sounded heavy though it contained not a single passenger. Alex slid her arms into her 60 lbs. backpack and steadied herself with a hand on the wall, and with the other she rummaged though her purse for her boarding pass and I.D. Goosebumps climbed up her arms and down her legs, and eventually back up her arms to her head. Her heart pumped and vibrated as made her way to the boarding line. The cargo was an interesting collection of suitcases, bed-in-a-bags, and large cardboard boxes that had been duct taped shut. In front of her was an older woman in her 80’s. She was a widower, wearing a black net veil, a black dress and a long gold chain with an unusual locket a little larger than a communion wafer. Her stockings were too large for her infant sized ankles, and sagged over the tops of what appeared to be men’s dress shoes, oxfords to be exact. She carried with her a small paten leather black purse and a mason jar of tea.
Alex walked to the middle of the narrow aisle and settled into 13A, a window seat. From there she had a direct view of the TV monitor and was far away enough from the engine and the bathroom. The widower sat down beside her. After thirty minutes of boarding and loading cargo, the bus pulled away for its’ 19 hour journey to Zacatecas.
The oversized ship navigated through the busy streets of Juarez, they were the standard street size but the people roaming between idling cars washing windows, selling rosaries, broken umbrellas and bottled waters made the streets seem smaller. Cars and motorcycles competed for space and bumpers served their purpose. The pace was an utter contrast to the foot traffic at the bus station. The widower looked over Alex’ shoulder whenever Alex turned to watch the crowd. Her breath smelled sweet like fennel, and her hands lay clasped in her lap. On her wedding finger, an antique gold and ruby ring, matte from wear, loosely cradled her arthritic finger; it was a man’s ring.
After an hour of Juarez traffic, the bus glided into a border check station. Her fellow passengers stirred and started speaking quickly yet softly. The bus was asked to park out of the way of traffic and upon doing so a tall, thin federally with dark sunglasses and a perfectly ironed and polished uniform stormed onboard. Alex’ heart began pounding as she heard him ask for everyone to have their passports ready. Alex didn’t have a passport; the study abroad office said they weren’t necessary so Alex didn’t bother getting one. What she did have was a birth certificate and her student traveler I.D. card as well as a driver license. But everyone else had passports.
The federally asked Alex to step off the bus as they processed her paperwork; at this point, the blood in her flustered face had handicapped her ability to comprehend the little Spanish she could normally understand and she wasn’t sure if the bus would wait for her, and she didn’t know the words to convey this fear to Officer Diaz. Aware of her nervousness Officer Diaz used a rather soft, slow and cordial tone in his interrogation, even though he had spoken in English and Spanish on the bus. Perhaps the study abroad office had coordinated prior to her departure, wanting to ensure the entire experience were authentic and fully served her language credit needs.
The walk from the small glass office in the middle of four lanes of traffic to the heavy bus was longer than it should have been, but the bus was still there. When she climbed onboard her fellow passengers cheered and applauded her entrance. The widower who was looking sideways out the window and was ringing her hands with what appeared to be empathy was startled when she heard the cheers. Her hands unclenched and her palms rose palm-up to the sky as she said a prayer beneath her sweet breath.
Hours passed and the city slowly melted away in the afternoon heat to the Chiahuahuan Desert. Hills and patches of grass and cattle rolled as far as Alex’ eye could take her and the sky was as blue as the sky she had left behind. Every 100 miles the bus would roll into a small town, the architecture was similar in each, a Cathedral in the North, a well-kept fountain and plaza in the center, a fire station or jail or police station in the south and shops in between. Houses would surround the square but were connected by a series of internal walls and short doorways. The walkways were a clay red dirt that dusted everyone’s shoes and pants, but the children were always perfectly clean and poised as they walked home from school in their navy blue pants and shorts and white dress shirts, the girls in skirts and white socks. The bus had to pass through eight of these tiny towns since the highway ran right through them, and often the bus would travel no more than 20 mph as the streets were narrower than Juarez’ city streets.
That evening the bus pulled into a larger town called Jimenez. Eager to stretch and to eat, the passengers filed out one by one, some to go to their homes in Jimenez, and others to catch a transfer bus to Laredo. Like any other desert, summer night, the air was cool and the sky was a heavy black on the small restaurant all were like moths to.
Alex sat next to a group of older women at a green picnic table under a Coca-Cola umbrella, even though it was night all the umbrellas were out and full. The photograph she would take would capture the honesty of its simple beauty. The bright red against the black night, the large stadium lights towering over the customers and passengers, and the 15 women working an assembly line of their famous quesadillas. Alex purchased two quesadillas and a bottle of coke, as well as half a dozen fresh homemade tortillas and some queso fresco for the road.
Back on the stuffy bus, now a little quieter with a few less people, the widower moved to the newly empty seats directly across the aisle. She had stayed on the bus as everyone else ate, drank beer and stretched, sipping her the tea that made her breath so sweet. Alex was stuffed and exhausted and pleased to have the seat to herself. As the bus found the highway again, passengers nodded off as the view from their windows had been stolen by night’s dark drapes. The TV screens switched on and suddenly Will Smith was fighting aliens and telling jokes in Spanish. Alex leaned against the cool window and drifted into a solid, dreamless sleep, eager to meet her destination town.