Nick is always striking up conversations with people, going out of his way to introduce himself to friendly and sometimes not-so-friendly faces, like shop clerks and curious prying neighbors and soldier-cops with M-16s slung over their shoulders.  Also muchachitas, which drives me crazy – especially when they flirt with him, grrr!  Although I know pretty girls constitute a certain percentage of the population.  How could he avoid them, really?

Anyway, I’m not thinking about that right now.  I’m thinking about the mud-streaked pickup truck that rolled up and down this gravel street several times before coming to a stop in front of our house, where Nick went out to meet it.  He’s still there now, folded at the waist so he can lean into the passenger window.  The pose does dangerous things to the butt of his worn jeans and my heart rate.

Then he straightens up and sticks a thumb and forefinger into his mouth and whistles piercingly, like he’s calling a dog.  Except he isn’t calling all the wet mangy feral dogs in the neighborhood.  He’s looking back at the house, at the barred front window where I linger.  Calling me.

At first I just hang in the window.  He can’t really be calling me, can he?  Then he repeats the whistle, even louder this time.  I quickly put on a hijab and stumble out the front door, confused, a little bit angry.

“Hey Nooshin!” Nick shouts.  “Get three beers, would you?”  His face is perfectly composed beneath his Kangol hat, but tension leaks into his voice.

I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I hurry inside and retrieve three fire-engine red cans of Tecate from the fridge, then hurry back outside again.

Trotting across the pavers I see the pickup’s windshield is opaque with mud except for the clean arcs scraped by the wipers.  Inside the cab are three silhouettes that seem to be tracking me.  When I reach Nick’s hip and peer through the glass, I realize –

“Thanks chica!” he says breezily, taking the cans and passing them over an elbow – a spiderweb tattooed elbow – into the open window.

The guy wedged against the passenger door is chatting with Nick in Spanish.  He’s gaunt and goateed and wearing a checker-pattern bandana tied around his shaved head.  His frequent laughs are punctuated with a flash of uneven tobacco-stained teeth.  He looks Nick’s age, maybe a little older.  He says something like “Tecate, que bueno” and hands the remaining cans to his left, deeper into the cab.

Taking up the rest of the interior are two other guys, both younger.  Way younger, in the case of the boy in the middle.  He’s a teenager – 15 or 16, tops – and trying to grow a beard but mostly failing.  Acne dots his upper cheeks and forehead, giving the impression of freckles.  He wears a ratty old Los Angeles Raiders t-shirt.  He isn’t old enough to drink even in Mexico, but he takes one can of beer and passes the other to the driver.

The guy behind the steering wheel makes my skin crawl.  And not just because his wifebeater can barely contain his obesity, which pours out in flabby brown rolls.  Something is wrong with his eyes.  They’re like paving stones set in his skull, dark and flat and lifeless.  Luckily he doesn’t bother making much eye contact with me, or I’d probably freak out.  Instead his fat head looks past me, scanning the neighborhood.

Nick gives me a general introduction – mostly in English, to my surprise.  “Hey vatos,” he says, slang for ‘dudes’.  “I want you to meet Nooshin, the lady of the house.”

“Heya Nooshin.”  The older guy is grinning at me over his spiderweb elbow.  “I dig your eye, hyna.  Your evil eye.”  He twists around to glance at his companions.  “El ojo malo, no?”  Behind him they swill from their cans and look bored.

“Mucho gusto” – pleased to meet you – I say in the direction of his elbow, the running board, my Nikes.

“You speak Spanish?”

“She’s learning,” Nick jumps in.  “Ay te watcho, vato” – watch yourself, dude – he says, backing away from the pickup truck and taking me with him.

Together we retreat to the house.  Behind us their engine revs to life, accompanied by the boot-stomping polka beat of norteno music.  Shocks groan as the pickup lurches into motion, splashing through potholes scattered like little lakes across the road.

“What was that all about?” I ask, when the taillights turn the corner onto Colonia Libertad’s main drag and disappear out of sight.

Nick pauses too long.  “Nothing.”

“Come on.  What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs.  He swoops the Kangol hat off his head and rubs the bald spot underneath, a nervous gesture.

I move closer to him, hovering uncertainly.  “Is something wrong?”

“They’re cholos.  Gang bangers.  Just checking us out, but still…”

“I guessed that much,” I say in my bravest voice.  “Is this, like, gang territory or something?”

“Hell if I know.”  Nick makes a visible effort to relax and clamp the hat back on his head.  “A couple Americans living way the fuck out here?  They were probably sent to find out if we’re DEA or worth robbing or something.”  He forces a laugh.  A very hollow laugh.

I can’t even manage a smile.  I struggle through Frontera every day, hoping Tijuana’s newspaper will help me improve my Spanish.  I don’t comprehend much from the articles yet, but I’m painfully aware of all the headlines and photos devoted to the ongoing drug wars.  Bodies turning up in the desert.  Outraged statements from the American attaché, threatening shock and awe if any more undercover DEA agents are killed.  That world seems impossibly far away from the touristy glitz of Avenida Revolucion, and not quite as far away but still safely distant from this little neighborhood crammed against the border fence – but maybe it’s a lot closer than we think.