John Washington - The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed

A Story of Asylum at
the US-Mexican Border
and Beyond

John Washington

First published by Verso 2020
John Washington 2020

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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Verso

UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
versobooks.com

Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-472-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-475-2 (US EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-474-5 (UK EBK)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932718

Typeset in Sabon by MJ & N Gavan, Truro, Cornwall
Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

There are walls behind the walls.

Ursula K. Le Guin

But tis a single Hair

A filament a law

A Cobweb wove in Adamant

A Battlement of Straw

A limit like the Veil

Unto the Ladys face

But every Mesh a Citadel

And Dragons in the Crease

Emily Dickinson

Contents

Sometimes it adds wings to the heels sometimes it nails them to the ground.

Montaigne, On Fear

Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico

Fourteen men were slumped on mattresses and chairs, smoking inside the warehouse, watching over the migrants. One of the men had a pistol tucked into his waistband; another had a pistol resting on his lap. The men were fussing with their phones, ribbing each other, killing the morning. A slight waft of marijuana smoke lingered in the air. Someone hocked noisily, spat.

Arnovis, a thin, strong, hard-gazing twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran man, nonchalantly grabbed his black knockoff Puma backpackthe one his mother had bought for him back in Jiquiliscowove through a maze of the sitting and slumped bodies, and walked out onto the patio.

Hey, vato, where you going? one of the men called.

Just to shower, Arnovis said. That okay?

And your backpack?

My clothes.

The shower was a five-gallon paint bucket filled with water, a plastic bowl floating on the surface. It was set next to the tall concrete wall. A few wires crisscrossed the sky above the patio. A couple of the fourteen coyotesArnovis had counted themcould see him through a large window. He grabbed the bucket and hauled it over to the door, where he plugged a coiled heating rod into an outlet, ran it back outside, and dropped it into the bucket. He stepped out again and, as the water began to warm, scanned the yard. The walls were about twelve feet high: definitely higher than he could jump. A branch of a mango tree growing on the other side of the wall dipped down far enough he thought he might be able to reach it. But he wasnt sure if it would hold his weight.

That branch, he thought, my only hope.

Arnoviss brother, living in a suburb of Kansas City, had wired money to the wrong coyote, a man named Gustavo. Well, his brother didnt wire the money; his brothers friend did. His brother doesnt have papers, and couldnt send money on his own, which may have been why there was the mix-up. Gustavothe wrong coyotegot seven hundred for doing nothing, and he didnt see any good reason to give it back. The problemand for Arnovis it was a life-and-death problemwas that the family didnt have any more money. After a deportation to El Salvador from Mexico a few weeks earlier, and a down payment on the six-thousand-dollar smuggling feethe family sold a prized goat for three hundred bucks to help pay for the first tripthere was nothing left.

El Surithe coyote who did not get the moneywas the guy actually planning to take Arnovis across the border. The two of them had hit it off, joking around on the migrant trails; earlier, El Suri had even suggested Arnovis stay in Mexico and work with him. Arnovis got along with everyone. He liked to tell jokes to quell tension, and rarely complainedthat is, he was just being himself, and wasnt angling for a job in human smuggling. Maybe if it was just between El Suri and Arnovis they could have worked something out. But El Suri had a boss. The boss wanted his money.

~

As El Suri made a couple calls, Arnovis was hovering nervously. He remembers one call on speakerphone. Someone was trying to convince El Suri to head back south to take the next load. Im waiting, El Suri said, for this one last kid to pay up. Were trying to get his brother to wire us. The man on the other end of the line suggested El Suri chop off one of Arnoviss fingers and send it to his brother.

Yeah, maybe.

El Suri hung up. Arnovis leaned up against the warehouse wall. He felt his future rushing at him like an oncoming train. A loud crescendo, and thennot boom but silence, death.

After another call, El Suri explained the situation: I got no problem with you, man. Youre only two hundred bucks to me. But the jefe, El Suri said, he doesnt fuck around. He wants your money by ten tomorrow morning, and if you dont have it by then, hes going to come by, and what hes going to do to youhes going to cut you into pieces.

Arnovis nodded, trying to take it in, trying to think. Trying to get out of the way of the train.

No money, and he was dead. That simple.

After a while El Suri called Arnoviss brother again, trying to convince him to drum up the money.

If you dont send three hundred dollars, were going to have to take care of your brother.

There were about seventy-five people crashed, sprawled and breathing on the open warehouse floor. Arnovis found an open spot and slumped down to try to think. After a while he tried calling his brother again, but couldnt get through. Then he tried Gustavo, the coyote who pocketed the money for doing nothing. Surprisingly, he answered.

Gustavo! Arnovis explained the situation. It was all a mistake. He was going to be hacked into pieces if he didnt pay his coyote tomorrow, and they had meant to wire El Suri, but had accidentally sent the money to him, so if he could just return the money

I dont have it, Gustavo said.

What do you mean you dont have it?

I dont have it.

The seven hundred dollars my brother wired you?

Yeah, dont have it anymore. And, just a word of advice, Gustavo added, if they told you they were going to hack you into pieces, you better pay, or find a way to get out of there. And then he said something Arnovis already knew. These people dont fuck around.

Arnovis went back to El Suri. He told him hed work for him, do whatever he wanted. El Suri told him that was great. Terrific. Hed be glad to have him.

But, he still needed to pay.

He had twelve hours to figure a way out. That night was long, the floor hard and cold. Arnovis sat in a daze, hugging his knees, listening to the snores and moans of his fellow migrants crowding the open floor. It was like they were in a mass grave, but still alive. In his anguish, he still felt hope; he still rejected the fact that his final truth would come to him the next morning: that train, then silence.

In the morning, walking out to take a shower on the cold patio, where fourteen coyotes were smoking and checking their phones, he found his salvation: a branch.