"You seem to think we have it in for foreigners. You can be Mexican, American, or Martian for what I care. When you board this trolley you have to have a ticket."
"Do you really give citations regardless of circumstances? Why can't you just take me out and force me to buy a ticket? Why does it have to be written down as a fine and a court appearance if I want to contest the fine? I was seeking a job. I could work for my family but I want a respectable job and I don't care if it is flipping burgers or sweeping sidewalks. Okay, I did something I shouldn't have. Have a little bit of compassion toward those in desperate situations from a land that was once the land of your ancestors in a land, as so much of America, that was an illegal acquisition stolen from the Mexicans."
"Quit the BS, la caca, and get out with me at the next stop. Then you buy your ticket at the machine in front of my eyes."
"Muchas gracias," said Guillermo.
"De nada," said the trolley troll.
Guillermo put a dollar and seventy-five cents into the machine and got a sheet of paper as long and double the width of his little finger. Both waited for another trolley on its way from El Cajon to come down the tracks; and when it came they entered. The trolley troll bounced his pad against his left palm. Guillermo saw a hungry and lustful madness for giving out citations once again seep into the eyes of the troll from within. He imagined the trolley troll rabidly looking at all people both rich and poor and searching for individuals who looked afraid. The trolley troll knew that being dressed in fine clothing precluded no one. Ticketless people were often camouflaged in rich clothes.
Through a gray wall like the back of a building was this portal leading from San Ysidro to Tijuana. Inside it was like a corridor and in this mire spray painted in Spanish graffiti he ascended and descended on pavement wreaking of the effluvium of evaporating urine. Then at a rotating gate Guillermo returned to Mexico. "Downtown for three dollars. Hey amigo, wanna go downtown?" he heard Mexican taxi drivers accost Caucasian Americans. He saw city buses in the distance. The taxis were often crowded station wagons where people sat in what was the trunk. He saw men balancing suitcases on their heads without the aid of hands as they went toward the USA border. He saw a gray headed lady with a pony tail sitting behind a table of novelties and an Anglo-Saxon Navy officer knocking over some of the statuettes and plaques in his vehement, drunk theatrics to get the price reduced to two dollars. "Two dollars," he said. "Three dollar," she retorted without the "s." It was just more of the same in this overgrown US military tavern that had sprawled into the city known as Tijuana and it made him want to return to his hometown of Ensenada.
Sang Huin avoided the three-dollar taxi rides and walked through various shopping plazas with their myriad pharmacies. He passed a bridge that went over a dried up river polluted with tires and less visible debris. Then he followed signs leading to Avenida Revolucion.
Sang Huin passed a Bankoro bank; an idle man who yelled out to him as to other foreigners, "Taxi cab! Border line, Mister!"; mariachi singers; zebra wagons for tourist photos; Burger King; stores with rectangular mirrors on parts of their facades; hot dog grills part of mobile kiosks; taco restaurants; tamale carts; corn on the cob carts—some which baked corn on charcoal and others that steamed it; police cars and policemen; and pi-ata shops and pharmacies in abundance. Tijuana, a sprawling 2 million with its myriad colonias, was like a ghetto of San Diego. According to the guidebook the sooty playas (beaches) were somewhat agreeable because of their adjacent bullfight arena and Spanish architecture. The unbearable dust colonias (poor suburbs) with the maquiladoras were to the south, and the central city, where Sang Huin was at, had some museums and art galleries displaying Mexican culture and of course the American red light district that had given birth to it all. He walked to Juarez Street. He saw an empty lot of grass where some fruit drink vendors had been throwing out orange peels for a long period of time. He saw mounds of dirt and trash that were in this street.
Guillermo turned to a pay phone that was on a side street. Not finding any
coins in his pockets he pushed "O" for the operator" and made a collect call.
He placed a call to what had recently been his estranged uncle. "Uncle this is
Guillermo."