Crossing the Wire

Victor waits in a crowded holding room. A woman takes him into a side room, where she says they are too busy to do anything. If he complains, they will have to keep him there. If he doesn’t complain, they will take him straight to the border and drop him in Nogales, Mexico. Victor chooses to go straight to Nogales, as he doesn’t want to waste time.

Back in Nogales, he returns to his previous routine. He carries bags for people crossing the border and earns enough money to buy a new map, planning to try again using Miguel’s route, though now that it is later in the year he worries about heat in the desert.

After a week, he still hasn’t earned enough money for a bus ticket. He is eating at the church soup kitchen when he spots a boy with yellow hair wearing a yellow baseball cap—it’s Rico. The two old friends reunite, both having been to and returned from the other side of the wire. 

Rico recounts what happened to him after he left Victorin Los Árboles. Soon after leaving, Rico’s jacket, along with $500, was stolen, making Rico short on his coyote money. His group negotiated a new rate of $1,000 per person, and they all prepared to cross in a truck through an area bordering an American Indian reservation.