Adventure: Go And See

I said I liked the Rio Grande. I never said I wanted to drink it. You could call this a power spot, one of those places where the brain sinks into maximum mode and things become all too clear, regardless of the mental or physical silt. I am most at home in places like this. A bit of sweat, a bit of grit, and a whole lot of knowing the world is still a mystery to me. I am famished for more. More knowledge, more experience and more appreciation for what is already within my grasp. And I want a Tom Cruise action figure with a hook kick button.

I made my first trip to the Rio Grande in the late 1980s.

Nuevo Laredo to be exact, with my brother. Our goal; drink. The booze was the only fluid I remember. We were good boys. Kinda. Boy’s Town was right there but we never made it. That’s the truth. And I don’t remember the river, at all. Mexico, however, was glorious. A hundred yards across the bridge and a new world opened up. A world of vibrant culture, incredible people, food, and tradition. Sure, there were illicit materials in abundance, much of which on its way north to Gringolandia. The largest market in the world, by far. (Sorry Euros, keep trying.)

That first trip seared place into mind. Mexico haunted me. Eventually, so would much of Latin America. Brazil, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Argentina. Not a day goes by I don’t think of one or more of these places. Frustration at my Spanish ability, come and gone via apathy and laziness. The Andes, the Amazon, cities and canals, and coastal expanses, like photographic flashcards, clicking through with projector sounds. I think of the future and believe my future might be there more than here. If they will have me, and that is a big if.

I returned to Nuevo Laredo alone. My old, sky blue Landcruiser, south on I35. The negatives are long gone but the images remain. A man holds a newspaper over his face. The lead story about a sicario doing what sicarios do. A man in a bus window. Someone eating in a restaurant. Random, poorly constructed street scenes. Me becoming me. Slowly and awkwardly. Knowing the singles scene, meaning photographs, was not my thing. I wanted story. I needed story. I needed time.

I returned to the border in earnest the following year. El Paso and Juarez this time, pre war, pre “The Beast.” Nikons dangling. Less than a minute after parking my truck, a red, SR5 V6 this time, I was in the action spilling across. Runners, spotters, choppers, and the heat and dust that are so integral to this part of the world. Borders are nasty, all of them. Artificial at best, inhumane at worst. Arbitrary lines on the map. And this one in particular seems almost entirely misunderstood. Flawed, tragic, messy, uncooperative, and absolutely magical to experience. Both sides.

I kept returning to the border.

Fuji 6×9’s, Hasselblad, Leica, Nikon, Canon, Contax, Holga, and more. Anything and everything, blazing away in an attempt to make sense of small moments along the way. I also began to make forays further south. And it just kept getting better and better. Moonshine from hidden closets, sand in my mouth, sleeping on floors. People living in abandoned rail lines. Fancy restaurants with new friends. Film on my person at all times. The pen was there too, jotting this and that.

The California era was all about Tijuana. TJ. The battle for the plaza just beginning. No acid vats and random heads yet. The good, easy days of access and laughter. Conejos working Zona Norte. Grupo Alpha causing grief and damage. Fist fights and six inch silver heels on broken sidewalks. “You want coke, heroin, a buck naked virgin?” This was Leica time. Kodachrome, pilfered Fujichrome and TRI-X in Rodinal in Eric’s cave darkroom. Numero Siete our vessel to and from the border. (Eric’s Mazda with a hand painted #7 on the side.) Ernesto in the driveway changing axles or some other crazy thing. A real man. We were kids. Dumb kids doing dumb things.

There were creative successes. A sizable exhibition in Tijuana. My work in the collections in Mexico City. What exactly, I don’t even remember. It doesn’t matter. Ancient history. Probably shit anyway. There has been so little when it comes to keepers, to the memorable, the lasting. Most frames like sand waiting for a wind to take them away into the abyss. That’s the way it always has been, which is why I still do these things. Why I still leave portions of my mind for just this very thing. Waiting, watching and thinking. Putting myself in positions of potential and hoping I don’t fu%# it up. Little victories. Creative skirmishes, knowing the war is lost. It always has been.

My fingers in the river. Silt kicked up from my footsteps. Clarity slowly returning after the rain. Echos of Spanish from the shoreline. Horses edging near for a drink. A few hundred miles south and this would not be possible. There would be barking commands and repercussions. I still want it. Want to go. Want to see it and feel it and wait for just the right moment when I might sum things up. All of it, perfectly. Backlit and sharp and fleeting and impactful and only there for a fraction of a second. Looking first upriver then down, I see a rippled connection of people and fate and luck and the power struggle of being alive. I see hope, and brilliant sun, and frame lines of knowing the job is not yet done.

Years ago, on a moonless night in the far reaches of Texas, I slipped into the river and let the current take me. Near the river center the pull was hard and strong. I made no attempt to fight or express my existence. Above me the stars blazed like dots of phosphorous. As the river took a bend my trajectory took me to the far shore. The “other” side. Mexico. El Tri. So close and yet so far. The water and rock and Earth the exact same, but the moment my toes hit the rocky bank I was in violation. An illegal. The river ebbing and flowing around me as it had for centuries, flooding and gasping as it breathed life into the arid land. I slipped back into the river and pushed hard into the darkness..