Mexico Next Right from "Caramelo" by Sandra Cisneros
Not like on the Triple A atlas from orange to pink, but at a stoplight in a rippled heat and a dizzy gasoline stink, the United States ends all at once, a tangled shove of red lights from cars and trucks waiting their turn to get past the bridge. Miles and miles.
Oh, my Got, Father says in his gothic English. - Holy cripes! says
Mother, fanning herself with a Texaco road map.
I forgot the light, white and stinging like an onion. I remembered the bugs, a windshield spotted with yellow. I remembered the heat, a sun that melts into the bones like Bengay. I remembered how big Texas is. –Are we in Mexico yet? -No, not yet. [Sleep, wake up.] - Are we in Mexico yet? - Still
Texas. [Sleep, wake up.] - Are we ... -Christ Almighty!!!
But the light. That I don't remember forgetting until I remember it.
We've crossed Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas singing all the songs we know. "The Moon Men Mambo" from our favorite Rocky and
Bullwinkle album. Ah, ah, aaaah! Scrooch, doobie-doobie, doobie-do.
Swing your partner from planet to planet when you dooooo the moon man mamboooo! The Yogi Bear song. He will sleep till noon, but before it's dark he'll have ev'ry picnic basket that's in Jellystone Park...We sing TV commercials. Get the blanket with the A, you can trust the big red A. Get the blanket made with ACRYLAN today...Knock on any Norge, knock on any Norge, hear the secret sound of quality, knock on any Norge! Years foam now you'll be glad you chose Norge. CoCo Wheats, CoCo Wheats can't be beat. It's the creamy hot cereal with the cocoa treat ...Until Mother yells, -Will you shut your hocicos or do I have to shut them for you?!!!
But crossing the border, nobody feels like singing. Everyone hot and sticky and in a bad mood, hair stiff from riding with the windows open, the backs of the knees sweaty, a little circle of spit next to where my head fell asleep; "good lucky" Father thought to sew beach towel slipcovers for our new car.
No more billboards announcing the next Stuckey's candy store, no

more truck-stop donuts or roadside picnics with bologna-and-cheese sandwiches and cold bottles of 7-Up. Now we'll drink fruit-flavored sodas, tamarind, apple, pineapple; Pato Pascual with Donald Duck on the bottle, or Lulu, Betty Boop soda, or the one we hear on the radio, the happy song for Jarritos soda.
As soon as we cross the bridge everything switches to another language. Toc, says the light switch in this country, at home it says click.
Honk, say the cars at home, here they say tan-tan-tan. The scrip-scrapescrip of high heels across saltillo floor tiles. The angry lion growl of the corrugated curtains when the shopkeepers roll them open each morning and the lazy lion roar at night when they pull them shut. The pic, pic, pic of somebody's faraway hammer. Church bells over and over, all day, even when it's not o'clock. Roosters. The hollow echo of a dog barking. Bells from skinny horses pulling tourists in a carriage, clip-clop on cobblestones and big chunks of horse caquita tumbling out of them like shredded wheat.
Sweets sweeter, colors brighter, the bitter more bitter. A cage of parrots all the rainbow colors of Lulú sodas. Pushing a window out to open it instead of pulling it up. A cold slash of door latch in your hand instead of the dull round doorknob. Tin sugar spoon and how surprised the hand feels because it's so light. Children walking to school in the morning with their hair still wet from the morning bath.
Mopping with a stick and a purple rag called la jerga instead of a mop. The fat lip of a soda pop bottle when you tilt your head back and drink. Birthday cakes walking out of a bakery without a box, just like that, on a wooden plate. And the metal tongs and tray when you buy Mexican sweet bread, help yourself. Cornflakes served with hot milk! A balloon painted with wavy pink stripes wearing a paper hat. A milk gelatin with a fly like a little black raisin rubbing its hands. Light and heavy, loud and soft, thud and ting and ping.
Churches the color of flan. Vendors selling slices of jicama with chile, lime juice, and salt. Balloon vendors. The vendor of flags. The corn-on-the- cob vendor. The pork rind vendor. The fried-banana vendor. The pancake vendor. The vendor of strawberries in cream. The vendor of rainbow pirulis, of apple bars, of tejocotes bathed in caramel. The meringue man. The ice cream vendor, - A very good ice cream at two pesos. The coffee man with the coffeemaker on his back and a paper cup dispenser, the cream-and-

sugar boy scuttling alongside him.
Little girls in Sunday dresses like lace bells, like umbrellas, like parachutes, the more lace and froufrou the better. Houses painted purple, electric blue, tiger orange, aquamarine, a yellow like a taxicab, hibiscus red with a yellow-and-green fence. Above doorways, faded wreaths from an anniversary or a death till the wind and rain erase them. A woman in an apron scrubbing the sidewalk in front of her house with a pink plastic broom and a bright green bucket filled with suds. A workman carrying along metal pipe on his shoulder, whistling fffttt-fffttt to warn people-Watch out!-the pipe longer than he is tall, almost putting out someone's eye, ya mero - but he doesn't, does he? Ya mero, pero no. Almost, but not quite. Sí, pero no.
Yes, but no.
Fireworks displays, piñata makers, palm weavers. Pens, -Five different styles, they cost us a lot! A restaurant called - His Majesty, the
Taco. The napkins, little triangles of hard paper with the name printed on one side. Breakfast: a basket of pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread; hotcakes with honey; or steak; frijoles with fresh cilantro; molletes; or scrambled eggs with chorizo; eggs a la mexicana with tomato, onion, and chile; or huevos rancheros. Lunch: lentil soup; fresh-baked crusty bolillos; carrots with lime juice; carne asada; abalone; tortillas. Because we are sitting outdoors, Mexican dogs under the Mexican tables. -1 can't stand dogs under the table when I'm eating, Mother complains, but as soon as we shoo two away, four others trot over.
The smell of diesel exhaust, the smell of somebody roasting coffee, the smell of hot corn tortillas along with the pat-pat of the women's hands making them, the sting of roasting chiles in your throat and in your eyes.
Sometimes a smell in the morning, very cool and clean that makes you sad. And a night smell when the stars open white and soft like fresh bolillo bread.
Every year I cross the border, it's the same-my mind forgets. But my body always remembers.