I live in El Paso
by Jonathan Penton
[ places - june 03 ]
I live in El Paso. There's about 600,000 people living inside city limits. To the south of city limits is a muddy creek. The creek is about 12 inches wide on a rainy day, and spanned by massive bridges that could easily accommodate the Chattahoochee, if not the Mississippi. The bridges reach up into the sky and allow the motorists and pedestrians to see the creek, far below. On this side of the creek is a newly-erected barbed-wire fence. The people in El Paso resent the fence, but I don't see why. It's not like it's keeping anybody out.
On the other side of the creek is Juarez, Mexico. I'm told that 1.7 million people live inside those city limits, but I'm not sure. If that figure is correct, I would estimate that 500,000 of those people are unemployed, and about a million work in the sex industry. I admit that my perspective on this issue is imperfect, since my primary interest in Juarez is the sex industry.
There are hookers on every street corner in Juarez, and they're incredibly cheap. I'm told that hooking is technically illegal in Juarez, but only because they want to avoid clogging up the courts with angry johns. I think that's too much analysis for an American to get into. It's difficult to determine intent when it comes to the Mexican legal system. In any case, the hookers work without fear of prosecution. I don't buy the ones on the street, though. They make me nervous. When you don't hire them, they scream "fag" at you.
Besides, a strip club is a nice experience, and the Juarez strip clubs are among the best in the world, if by "best" you mean cheap and raunchy, which I do. I go to the ones that don't charge cover, but the ones that do charge cover charge 10 to 20 pesos, which comes to less than $2 US. Everyone takes American money, but every price is haggled, and I find that carrying pesos increases my haggling ability. Unfortunately, I'm over six feet tall, white, and my Spanish is shitty, so my haggling ability needs all the help it can get.
I arrive half-drunk, and I drink beer at less than $2 per (tips are uncommon) and watch the strippers. When I see one I find attractive, I walk up to the stage with a dollar bill in my hand. She'll either squeeze her tits to thank me or put one in my mouth. I give her the dollar and sit back down. After she's done dancing and another stripper takes the stage, she'll come over to my table and ask me to buy her a drink. This is important, because her drink can cost anywhere from $5 to $8, and the bar pockets the money. If I buy her a drink, which I do, she'll sit with her legs propped open, perhaps with one across my lap, and give me a show while she drinks. She might make small talk with me, too, if I understood what she was saying. I've seen other people chat with them. The main thing here is that you shouldn't take her that initial dollar unless you're prepared to drop more money on her. Oh, and don't run a tab. Pay for each drink individually. They screw gringos on the tab. If you catch them and complain, especially if you complain loudly, they'll back down and give you whatever you want, but of course you can't do that all the time in the same bar and I like to go to the same bars.
After I buy her a drink (or before) I offer her some more money for a blowjob or a handjob, depending on how much I want to spend. In either case, I'll spend less than $20 and we'll go to the upstairs or to the back.
There are other nice things about Juarez. There's a pharmacy on almost every street corner dealing in valium and viagra. Other pills too, maybe. The valiums are generic and I put them in the bottom of my legitimate prescription bottles. Also, the duty-free cigarettes. I only buy a few packs at a time, but there are dozens of ways to smuggle cartons across the border. I don't smoke enough to bother. I've never been searched at the border, but I might be, and I want no reason to worry about it. I buy my weed here in the States. I'm sure it's cheaper there, but it's worth it to me to have someone else bring it over, as there are occasionally dogs sniffing around US customs.
I've only been in Juarez after dark once. Everyone I talk to here says that it's a really bad idea to be there at night. As soon as darkness fell, the sidewalks became impassable because of the vagrants. I had to walk in the streets. The vagrants normally grab at me as I walk past, because I stand out so much, but it was worse at night. I crossed back into the States quickly. Sometimes I hear about concerts in Juarez at night. I'm sure it's reasonably safe if you're in a group with men but the vagrants grab at me no matter who else is around, so I stay away at night.
I moved to El Paso in March. I'm a member of the Green Party, so I called the local chapter when I moved here. (Feminism is one of the Ten Key Values of the Green Party. I believe that every feminist should favor the decriminalization of prostitution. Most Green Party members would probably disagree, but in my experience, the average Green Party member isn't aware that he's supposed to be a feminist, so fuck it.) They put me in touch with the El Pasoan peace organization. I'll call this organization the GMT, to protect them from unnecessary association with me, but anyone who lives in El Paso knows who I'm talking about, as they're the only large peace organization here. The Green Party of El Paso isn't sure how to relate to the GMT, since the GMT has much of the same platform as the local Green Party, but stops short of running candidates. I don't see the need for tension, since the local Green Party doesn't run any viable candidates. I vote for them anyway, though. Gotta vote for someone.
No one else sees it that way. In our recent mayoral election, 17 per cent of registered voters actually made it to the polls. Whenever I get involved in any local project, be it politics or poetry, my friends tell me, "I've been in this city a long time, and I've seen lots of people try to make a difference and change the way the city works. But no one ever cares. El Paso is apathetic, and always will be." I don't mind. I try to change El Paso to keep myself busy, not to succeed. I don't want to think any more than anyone else, but I don't like television, so I do poetry and politics to keep myself from thinking. We all have to do something.
So one of the things I do to keep busy is the GMT. The GMT is about half white, and half Chicano. Here, Chicano is the politically correct term for people of mixed Indian and Spanish descent. I don't know where the word came from. "Mexican" is also a perfectly valid term, since almost all Chicanos here came from Mexico. There are a few Puerto Ricans in the town, but almost no one from other parts of Latin America. People don't take offence at the word Hispanic, but no one ever uses it any more, except for well-established organizations like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. No one uses the term "Latino." Back in Atlanta, I referred to a fuckbuddy as "Latino," and she made it quite clear that she was a "Latina." Live and learn.
El Paso is roughly 75 per cent Chicano. That's just my estimate, but the point is that the GMT, while disproportionately white, is not extremely disproportionately white. The only black people in El Paso are either homeless or work for the post office. The student arm of the GMT is almost entirely Chicano and female.
The GMT has no formal leadership. It has more than 200 members. About ten people make it to the weekly planning meetings, and these people are considered the "leadership" of the GMT. None of the leaders have any more voting power than any other leader. Furthermore, if any member of the GMT decides to make it to a planning meeting, they have the same voting power as the "leaders." I became a "leader" by showing up to three planning meetings. After that, they added me to the leader's e-mail list. I think anyone who asks to be added would be. If there is unusually low turnout at a leadership meeting, someone is likely to ask, "Do we have enough members for a quorum?" Someone usually says "yes," and then we make decisions for the group, no matter how few people showed up.
The purpose of the GMT is not to stop Bush from waging war. We aren't that naive. The purpose of the GMT is to convince a majority of El Pasoans that Bush's policies are self-destructive. If El Paso issued a formal statement against Bush's international policies, it wouldn't reign Bush in, but it might be enough to change the way the popular media portrayed the peace movement.
Every week, I go to the meetings and help plan the activities of the GMT. Right now, we're having a water drive. We're raising money to build water purifiers in Iraq, and we're collecting bottled water to distribute locally to those who need it. El Pasoans understand the need for water. The tap water here isn't the greatest, but most of them have relatives who live in a place where the water causes amoebic dysentery. So we're trying to convince them to give money to thirsty Iraqis. They are apathetic, but we figure that water is nonetheless their wavelength. We're also trying to build a connection between the poor in Iraq and the poor here. The idea is that Bush's regime is taking money, in the form of social services, away from the poor here, in order to persecute the poor in Iraq. Actually, this is more literally true of Bush Sr and Clinton than GWB. They sanctioned Iraq, which starved the poor while having no effect on our alleged enemy, Saddam. Of course, unlike GWB, they didn't have to destroy the American budget to do it. It's hard to say which is preferable. At the next GMT meeting, I need to ask if we should start endorsing candidates. It could be considered a risky political move, but, as I've mentioned, no one in El Paso votes, so it could be seen as neither here nor there.
Recently, the GMT decided that their goal was "peace and social justice" rather than just peace, hence the competition with the Green Party. Someone pointed out that it was impossible to discuss social justice in El Paso without discussing the women in Juarez. The reports vary wildly, but the centrist 'El Paso Times' reported, on 26 May, that over 200 women had been raped, tortured, and killed in Juarez in the past three years. (As you might recall, I suggested that you have men in your party should you go to Juarez at night.) I've heard that figure climb much higher in rumors and speculation. On 26 May, the 'El Paso Times' reported that the Juarez Police Chief (a gringo) scoffed at ideas that this was organized crime (I've heard everything from gang initiation to snuff clubs to organ harvesting suggested), and instead maintained that it was a serial killer. If so, I admire his ambition. The Son of Sam wasn't so prolific, and all he did was shoot women. Did you know he's born again now? His web page calls him the Son of Hope.
On the second night of Passover, I went to Seder at the public temple. I was new in town, and wanted to meet people. I met a very prudish art therapist from Los Angeles. I asked her if she ever goes to Juarez. She returned a very pinched "no." I asked her why not. She said because it was dangerous. I asked her, "Do you mean for tourists?" She said no, of course not. Instead of pretending to misunderstand her political statement, I pretended not to know what she was referring to, which made her mad.
I love living in El Paso. Whenever I'm bored or want valium, I go into Juarez. Then, before dark, I walk home to my warm, safe apartment. I live just north of downtown, in a so-called historic district, in an incredibly cheap apartment. Not as cheap as the apartments in Juarez, of course, but very cheap. It's also very close to the University, so a lot of students live here, but not so many that there's a waiting list. Anything and everything I want is within easy walking distance. Furthermore, living between the first and third worlds is an incredible education. Everyone should try it.
