For a soulless city, Phoenix certainly has an interesting airport. The last time I was here, supposedly on business, I had my boarding pass issued by a vampire and found myself being herded through security by an official dressed as a giant chicken. Then it was Halloween, but here we are on an ordinary June afternoon and circumstances seem no less strange. I am stuck in a lift between arrivals and car rental with a Mexican cradling a large, foul-smelling ice chest in his arms.
What’s in the box? I ask.
‘A feesh,’ he whispers, ‘for my wife and children. I catch him in Veracruz.’
A sea bass, you understand, will not be the only thing smuggled out of Mexico today. Illegal immigration has shot to the top of the US political agenda and with a view to researching a documentary on the subject, I am, along with two colleagues, heading down to the Mexican border to talk to the disparate factions who stand on opposing sides of this increasingly bitter front line.
Phoenix is in the grip of a dust storm. Palm trees bent double by the wind deposit dried fronds across the windscreen of our pick-up truck. The burnished copper façade of the Fiesta Inn glints under a yellowing sky. A more discriminating critic might question the wisdom of building a metallic hotel in such a blisteringly hot place, but I have a soft spot for these kinds of mid-western hotels. In fact I have a soft spot for anywhere that promises me a queen bed and a coffee machine for $65 a night. The Fiesta Inn, as it happens, has even loftier ambitions, billing itself as a ‘resort’ and, sure enough, as we lug boom and tripod through a pair of clanking industrial gates, we pass a mildly depressed couple sitting at a table sipping beer from Styrofoam cups while husks of desiccated vegetation float in the pool beside them.
The following morning the storm has died down and the temperature risen to 105°. We spend the day on a ride-along with the Tucson Border Patrol, then walk through the port of entry into Nogales, Mexico, a jittery, energy-fuelled border town where we eat shrimp cerviche in the gloom of La Rocca Restaurant while three old men sing to us of glory days gone by.
We’re up again at 5 a.m to meet with the Samaritan Patrol, a Christian-based group who dispense medical aid and water to migrants who have run into trouble during their crossing. The desert between Nogales and Tucson is a treacherous stretch of land. At my approach, a snake with a pale pink underbelly shimmies up a mesquite tree and loops itself across the branches. Everywhere are signs of human traffic. Garbage, empty bottles, a discarded jacket. We come across a young Mexican who has been walking in circles for five days and can walk no further. When the Border Patrol and ambulance arrives, he cries quietly into his sleeve.
The Samaritan Patrol’s alter ego must surely be the ‘Minutemen’, a rapidly expanding group of civilians who have taken it upon themselves to safeguard America and ‘hold the line’. They are disgusted by their government’s lack of action and take us to a fence they are themselves constructing before letting rip on their pet conspiracy theory — ‘Mexico’s grand plan for a secret invasion’. We nod shamelessly and keep the cameras rolling. Our Comfort Inn and Suites offer us a 10 per cent discount for being friends of the Minutemen. The following night, the Hispanic receptionist at the Holiday Inn Express does the same when we tell her the purpose of our trip. On the border, everyone is your friend — as long as you agree with their point of view.
Soon the days begin to merge into one. The heat, the dust, the relentless polemics. Eventually we leave Arizona and head for Tijuana. We are looking for a retired ‘coyote’ I spent time with while researching my book Midnight Cactus. It’s highly unlikely we’ll ever find him.
In the last black moments before dawn, we get lost in the twilight zone of San Diego’s suburbs. We’ve slept in seven different beds in the past seven nights are now running on reserve. Suddenly a giant neon sign flashes across the freeway: ‘Child abduction. Grey Honda!’ All of a sudden we feel a long way from family and home.
Bella Pollen’s novel Midnight Cactus is published by Pan Macmillan (£14.99).
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