The Mexican Bible

This was written by my father in 2006. It's a true story and it reflects some of the issues Arizona's latest and greatest fascist stupid law, SB 1070.

Someone left a Bible in the back seat of my taxi recently.
I know he was an illegal alien because of the nature of how the book got left there. It was Halloween night, and I received a telephone call from a colleague of mine. There were three Hispanic men standing outside a convenience store. They spoke only Spanish. He spoke only English, and was not going to take the trip. Maybe the trip would be worth something. Would I like to talk to them?
I hate to turn down an opportunity without at least looking at it. And besides, I have learned enough Spanish to get by. I drove up to the convenience store to see what I could do.
Three young Hispanic men stood in the shadows by the pay phone. As I eased my taxi to a stop, one detached himself from the shadows, and approached my car. We greeted each other in Spanish, and he proceeded to tell me that he had to get to Los Angeles to see his fiancé.
I know enough about the law to know when to ask questions and when not to. Plausible deniability is not just the prerogative of presidents. I could surmise why they were not taking a bus or airplane. I named a price; they agreed. The trip was uneventful until we got to the Arizona California border. The three men were nervous about the border check point. I told them to relax, the authorities were only checking for fruit coming across the border. I don’t know if it was true or not, but it sounded good. They relaxed.
We swung into a gas station outside of Twenty-nine Palms to fuel up. There was a police cruiser in the parking lot, and once again, the three men in my cab hunkered down, and tried to stay out of sight. I filled the gas tank, and shook my head. My suspicions of their immigration status had been confirmed by their behavior. I didn’t tell the cop. I’m not that kind of person. Besides, I didn’t want any trouble for myself. It might not be legal to cross state lines in a taxi with a cargo full of undocumented migrants. I was not really in a mood to find out.
A few miles away from the gas station, we witnessed a bad car crash. I dialed emergency services on my cell phone, but did not stick around to see the police show up. Again, the less trouble the better.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. I left them at a house in Los Angeles. It wasn’t a real upscale neighborhood, but it wasn’t a slum either. Sort of a middle class home that everyone in America dreams of owning some day.
I was home before I noticed the Bible.
The bible is a Spanish version, small, with a battered black leather cover. Inside it had a few notes on small pieces of paper. The New Testament was heavily thumbed through, and the pages of Mark and Luke were rather dog-earred. Many verses had been underlined. The Bible has sat on a shelf in my bedroom since the day I found it. I had not even thought about it until I was tidying up today, while a talk radio station played in the back ground from my clock radio. The host was on some rant about W’s new immigration policy.
I wonder if the talk show host realizes that these illegal aliens have lovers? That they have expectant, future father in laws, who are glad to see their new son in laws, yet somehow apprehensive for the future of their daughters? Does the radio talk show host know the fear these men felt waiting in a gas station for a cop to leave? Does he know the joy on the faces of these men as they stepped out of the taxi in Los Angeles? Does this same radio talk show host that almost every day claims to be a good moral conservative Christian know that an illegal alien left his Bible in my cab? A Bible that had been studied, and marked by some one just as devoted to the same faith as he? Or would such thoughts put too human a face on the issue? Would thinking these things mean that we have to deal with real problems involving real people, not just abstractions of law breakers?
And am I the only one who finds it ironic that the very Bible that both the radio show host and the young Mexican man read says to be kind to the strangers in your land?

Snapshots

I bought a Polaroid camera for two bucks. It came with 9 pictures in it already, but each one I took came out distorted and mangled and barely developed. Awesome.
Seeing as most film companies are ceasing production, such as Kodak and Polaroid, I figured film would be cheap. I stupidly forgot my economics. Film is so expensive now it's ridiculous. $20 for ten Polaroid shots and not worth it.
An average roll of film is $5 plus the cost to get it developed and onto a CD which is $4.50, almost ten dollars total.
I'm anxious, I guess. I like taking pictures with film, but one day, Target will remove their developing machines. Wal-Mart, CVS and others will soon follow. I'll have to buy film online and develop it in my dorm. Augh.
All artists are willing to suffer for their work, I guess.

---

I started taking pictures of homeless people as a photojournalistic thing. This always makes me nervous, that they will attack me or get insulted, which is worse. I don't want them to judge me for judging them.
I got two shots of unsuspecting homeless people, but then I went into a ditch and saw two old men drinking 40's and talking about how kids have no respect. I took snaps of all the graffiti in the area and then raised my camera to them.
"Don't take my picture. Get that fucking camera out of here! No respect!"
I asked the guy why not.
"You'll steal my spirit, like a native."
I reluctantly put my camera down and left. I still wish I had just taken the shot and I felt angry at homeless people for the rest of the day.
"Why are you upset about this?" My father asked. "They were psychotic. Who cares?"
J.R. was right when he said the camera is this generation's handgun.

---

I went with my father to Safeway to buy dishsoap. At the checkout, the cashier gave me a strange feeling of Deja Vu.
"Did I go to school with you?" He asked me.
"Ethan?" It clicked. He had tattoo sleeves and gages, but it was him.
"You in college?" I asked.
"PVCC."
The school we attended was a mile down the street. He probably never moved anywhere else.
Outside, my dad said, "Small world, huh."
"No, that just means nothing has changed."

---

My father told me about some guy from Boston he got in his cab who came all the way down to Phoenix for the Red Socks game. Someone who has that much money to blow.
My father recognized him as a kid from school, since my father grew up in Massachusetts. He used to beat my dad up for his lunch money.
Too bad this guy didn't realize who my dad was. And so my dad took the long way around and cost this guy an extra $20.
"I got my lunch money back plus interest." He told me.
"How is that interest?"
"Well, shit, lunch money back then was only a quarter."
This guy told my father all his problems, ironically, and my dad still listened. Poor guy tried to solve all his problems with alcohol, his wife was in the process of leaving him, etc, etc.
"When he got out," my father says. "I told him, payback's a bitch."