What’s on my mind? The bridge to Nuevo Progreso. My late mother-in-law and I walked across it one very hot day - but then, it’s usually hot where Progreso, TX, meets Nuevo Progreso along the Texas/Mexican border.
I sometimes think of that bridge when I join the Costco Shuffle - that slow dance known to Costco shoppers whose buttocks are spongy from too much eating and too little walking; shoppers whose hands reach deep into frozen tombs of breaded chicken, petrified prawns, and (yes, amazingly!) ready-made burgers; shoppers whose eyes flick-flick down aisles laden with food; shoppers whose minds try to assess the inventory already spilling from their kitchen cupboards, but who “just in case,” buy two more of whatever it might be.
I remember the bridge to Nuevo Progreso. What a place Nuevo Progreso was! Mariachis wandering through the cantinas … Giant sombreros and striped serapes heaped in market stalls … A bone-thin goat tethered to a post, its fate intertwined with that of the dressed, sun-dried cabrilo hanging in the sun. I hear some things have changed: No more terrified goats tethered to posts, an explosion that took out a quarter of the town, a gun fight here or there ... Other than that, Nuevo Progreso is more or less the same.
I remember the bridge to Nuevo Progreso. Have you seen it? Have you walked it? The bridge has changed, too, blocking out what visitors don’t want to see. If you saw the bridge as it was then, more than 20 years ago, you wouldn’t forget what you’d seen. You surely wouldn’t forget.
I remember the bridge to Nuevo Progreso. Adult Mexicans stood on flatbed pickups at the base of the bridge’s concrete footings. Sometimes with adult balanced on their shoulders, together hoisting five- and six-year-olds onto the tops of footings so high the kids would plunge to their deaths if the adults missed the catch. Maybe some kids have already died. Maybe … I don’t know.
In those days, the sides of the bridge were reinforced with heavy mesh. Today, steel shutters block the view of those kids hoisted high on those footings. Back then, you could see the kids as they wailed and begged, hoping someone might drop a coin or a folded American dollar through the mesh and into the plastic pails hooked to the broomsticks they held high.
I remember their big eyes and tiny hands; I remember their bravery and their terror, balanced as they were on the footings of the bridge to Nuevo Progreso, some 20 feet above the pickup trucks.
You can’t see the children through the metal shutters, but I’ve heard some kids pry open the shutters just enough to wiggle their fingers, hoping for compassion. They risk their lives to stand on the footings of the bridge because they are desperate.
I remember the bridge to Nuevo Progreso. No Costco Shufflers, here. These children are hungry. So are their families. Some say giving them anything encourages a dangerous situation. Others say anyone who would hoist a small child onto the footings of the Progreso Nuevo-Progreso International Bridge must be crazed by desperation. Both views are correct.
US president Donald Trump wants to turn back asylum-seekers without due process, in violation of US law. He believes “a great, beautiful wall” along the southern border will keep asylum-seekers out. He says the Mexicans will pay for the wall. Yeah, right.
I remember the bridge to Nuevo Progreso. Perhaps Donald Trump has also seen it. If so, did it give him pause? I suspect not. The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.
© Nicole Parton, 2019
