I’m strung out by these long trips to Tijuana and back, especially the protracted border crossings.  The American side has been impossible since 9/11, taking an hour if you’re lucky, hours plural if you’re not.  Having Iowa license plates because I can’t pass California emissions doesn’t help.  Why is an Iowan like me crossing so often?  Respond in the wrong way and boom, the Border Patrol is stripping my truck to the chassis.  Lack of contraband isn’t proof of innocence to them, just proof they need to try harder to find some contraband.  The Mexican side has been impossible since last October, when drug cartel violence turned Tijuana into an abattoir.  140 people were killed in three weeks – shot dead in gun battles that raged across the city, assassinated in front of family members, torched or decapitated or dumped alive into barrels of acid.  Even in Mexico enough was finally enough.  Now the federales stop vehicles to check for smuggled weapons and ammo, America’s leading export after manufacturing jobs.  Nothing like a jumpy 18-year-old soldier with an M16 poking around in the back of my truck.  Camping isn’t big in Mexico.  They get suspicious of my gear real quick.  I’ve even been accused of hauling around a meth lab.

Thank god the border crossing is uneventful tonight.  I catnap in the queue, waking whenever somebody honks a horn behind me.  The downy-cheeked soldier working my line actually recognizes me.  “Viaje por camping, senor?” he grins, waving me through.  I buy a coffee from a roadside vendor on the central expressway, then think better of it and toss the styrofoam cup out.  It could’ve been drugged, those headlights could be somebody following me.  Better stop at a legitimate java joint instead.

I hit the Marriott in Los Venados with the moon coming up.  I’m surprised by construction equipment in a corner of the parking lot and a floodlit banner announcing GRAN INAUGURACION!  What kind of fuckwit builds a new hotel in Tijuana these days?  There’s a war on, for chrissake.  I assume I can get a room cheap, even have my pick of entire deserted floors.  Wrong.  The front desk clerk informs me the hotel is booked solid with a convention of some kind.  Guess I’m sleeping in the back of my truck tonight.

My real destination is the hotel bar, a short walk across the palm-draped lobby and past an armed security guard.  The sports-themed room is overrun with Mexican businessmen, all cloned from the same basic blandness – dark hair and eyes and skin, neatly trimmed mustaches, neutral-colored suits with power ties.  This is Mexico, so they’re all smoking like chimneys.

The bartender is a thick-necked bull of a man engrossed in a futbol match.  He waves me off like a pesky fly when I try to order a Dos Equis…then a Negra Modelo…then just a goddamn Corona.  Finally he rumbles that the bar only has Bud and Bud Lite.  Bottles or tap, my choice.

“What the…?” I start to groan, then stop before I lose even that trivial choice.  “I swear, all I drink when I’m in Mexico is Budweiser.”

“That’s the way we like it, amigo,” says a smooth voice in barely-accented English.  “This is a Budweiser distributor convention.  Whenever we get together, our hosts are kind enough to stock our products – and our products only.”

I glance over and discover a blank-faced Mexican parked at the bar, a man of indeterminate age and sexuality.  His oily hair is slicked back in a Valentino helmet.  A bushy mustache hovers above his upper lip.  His suit matches the night sky outside, only with pinstripes.

“Is that why you’re drinking tequila?” I say.

His gaze drops to the shotglass in his hand, then returns to me.  I can tell he appreciates my quick observation.  “Me llamo Juan Angel Santelana,” he introduces himself, testing my Spanish.  “Dejame adivinar – Nick Roberts?”

“Si.  El unico Nick Roberts.  Mucho gusto.”  Our handshake is firm but comfortable.  I take the barstool next to him and yawn apologetically.  “Sorry I’m late.”

“No worries, amigo.  I’m just glad you made it here safely.”  Juan swallows his shot with a grimace and motions for two more, one for each of us.  The same bull-necked bartender who’d been such a dilatory asshole to me is suddenly all action and solicitousness.

“Mr. Sedesco didn’t mention that you’re a Budweiser distributor.”

“That’s because I didn’t tell him.  I prefer not to advertise it.  All the kidnappings, you know.  To safe passages.”  He clinks his shotglass against mine, then tips it against his mouth.

“To safe passages,” I echo.  The tequila turns into a trail of fire when I gulp it.  “Are you based in Tijuana?”

“No, I’m out in Tecate.”

“Enemy territory.”  The Tecate brewery is located there.

“That’s why my father was able to buy the distributorship.  It seems to change hands regularly.  My family is actually from Chihuahua, you see.  The distributorships there are never for sale.”

“Beer distributorships are a smart business to get into.  Nobody ever went broke selling people liquor.”

Juan looks vaguely uncomfortable.  Maybe that rule doesn’t apply to the Budweiser distributor in Tecate.

“So you’re from Chihuahua, huh?  I used to drive into Mexico through Chihuahua.  It was kind of a detour, but I didn’t mind losing a couple days.  Carretera 24 is one of my favorite highways in Mexico.”

“Like Route 66 in the States.”  He motions for another reload.  “Where did you drive down from?”

“Iowa.  Ever hear of the place?”

“Iowa, amigo?  You drove to Mexico from Iowa?”  A chortle of sympathetic disbelief.  “I’ve flown up to Missouri a few times, to the world headquarters in St. Louis.  I thought it was a long trip by plane!”

We fall into smalltalk, a conversation that meanders a little more with every round of tequila shots.  I learn that he’s from Chihuahua City, the state capital of Chihuahua, a glorified cowtown on the east side, a played-out silver mining town on the west side.  He learns that I stopped in his hometown to visit the Pancho Villa museum and gape at the legendary bandito’s bullet-riddled Dodge, because I’d been taking a class about the Mexican Revolution at Iowa State.  I learn that he attended college at UNAM – Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the best public university in Mexico – and gained his MBA and English at the University of Texas-El Paso, where he scandalized his family by dating an African-American woman.  He learns that I had a Jewish girlfriend during my sophomore year of college, although my family was more scandalized by the fact that she was a Democrat.  And so on.

Only when we’re half-plastered does Juan finally get down to business.  “Explain to me what you’re doing in Mexico, amigo.”

I recite my elevator pitch – Ph.D. student, flaming hoops of bullshit, me gusta Mexico – while I dig out a UCLA business card.  I pause to scribble my address in Colonia Libertad on the back.  “I’m moving down to Tijuana over the holidays.  Plan is, I’ll spend a year in Mexico doing my dissertation research.”

His plucked eyebrows rise.  “Why didn’t Mr. Sedesco put you in a better neighborhood?”

“He tried.  But I couldn’t afford it.  I’m a starving grad student.”

“And you plan to research…small maquiladoras?”

“Assuming I can find a small maquiladora archive.”  I give him my patented megawatt smile, which is probably even brighter with alcohol.  We’ve finally talked around to the whole basis for our meeting.  “Mr. Sedesco says you own a defunct maquiladora with all its paperwork intact.”

“I do have something like that in my possession.  The papers came with the maquiladora, which came with the property – which is all my family cares about.  Korea Textile S.A.  It’s located in Maquiladora Alley.”

There are two maquiladora zones in Tijuana – “Maquiladora Alley” which runs east along the border fence, and “Maquiladora Valley” which runs southeast through a narrowing slot in the Tecate Mountains.  Maquiladora Valley is served by the Tijuana-Tecate railroad line, so it resembles a twisting snake of heavy industries and petrochemical plants.  Maquiladora Alley is only served by road, so the factories are smaller and focus on products that can be shipped by semi, like clothes.

“The maquiladora lost its operating permit a couple years ago,” Juan continues, “but it wasn’t closed and sold to my family until this summer.  Everything of value was removed by the former owners, including the file cabinets.  All the papers are in cardboard boxes now.”

“And it’s all intact?  I’m surprised squatters didn’t get into the property and burn the papers for light and heat.”  A tidbit I’ve gleaned from Sedesco.  Homeless Mexicans often squat in abandoned maquiladoras, exploiting the shelter and leftover combustibles.  That’s why his search for an archive quickly narrowed to this Budweiser distributor.

Juan shrugs indifferently.  “The whole building is mostly intact.  It’s kind of a shame, because we’re razing the property to build a tank farm.”

“I really need to see those papers.  Do I have your permission to enter the property?”

“No, amigo.  I don’t grant you permission.  It might be dangerous to me if a gringo was seen sniffing around on his own.  But I’m willing to escort you as my visitor.  After I buy you breakfast tomorrow morning.”  He lets the invitation dangle like bait, then adds, “Another round?”

“What the hell,” I sigh.

We return to smalltalk while the bull-necked bartender reloads us, again and again.  The futbol match ends, a nightly newscast begins.  Our conversation is fragmented by interruptions from his fellow distributors, slurring goodnights on their way upstairs.  I’m feeling no pain, not even my legs when I lurch to my hiking boots.  I fan comically at my ass, trying and mostly failing to grab my wallet.

Juan beats me to it, tossing a wad of multicolored Mexican money on the bar.  He rises unsteadily to his cowboy boots.  “Where are you staying?”

Maybe that’s a pickup line, maybe it isn’t.  At this point I don’t give a flying fuck.  I’m too preoccupied with the alarming tilt of the room.  “Uh, I’m just going to crash in the back of my truck…”

“You stay with me.  In my room.  No no no, I insist!”  A fastidious man, he notices his pantscuff is askew.  He bends down to fix it – and loses his balance, head-butting the bar.  “Mierda!” – shit! – he groans, straightening back up again.

Somehow we manage to stumble to the elevator, a glassy ride up the open interior of the hotel.  Both of us turn away from the rising view before we get sick.  The hallway carpeting is so plush it feels like we’re wading.  Past a decorative table topped with a spray of fabric flowers is his room.  He fumbles with the cardkey for a million years – upside down? backwards? is the lock turning green yet? – before ushering me into a surprisingly small suite.

Surprisingly small, because there’s only a single queen-sized bed.

I stand there a little dumbfounded, about as sharp as a baguette, reeling from god knows how many shots of tequila.  My gaze swims around the room, searching for a pull-out sleeper loveseat, or some kind of fold-up cot, or just spare blankets I can spread on the floor.  Meanwhile Juan is stripping down to his tighty whities and sliding into bed, taking one side, his hairy back turned toward the middle.  “Buenas noches,” he mumbles, and starts snoring like an earthquake happening over and over.

I gingerly settle myself on the absolute edge of the other side, mirroring his sleeping position.  The future is collapsing into a bleak coin toss – either I’ll wake up with a dick in my ass, or I’ll choke on alcoholic vomit and never wake up at all.  I’m trying to decide which is worse when I pass out.