Excerpt from new fiction writer tells tale of Mexicans working in America

I didn’t want to be nosy, and I figured he’d be guarded about telling me much more, but I was wrong.


“I try not to move in this truck, is so tight like… how you say… the little fishes in the can?”


“Sardines?” I say, tying a strip of tape to the limb.


“Si, is like the sardines. And the coyote – he is the man I pay the moneys to bring me in these truck – he close the hole in the truck with the… how you say… the fire, you know?”


“Blow torch?”


“Si. Is very dark in this place. Is very long time in this place.”


“How long did it take you to cross?”


“Oh, is many hours!”


“Pretty scary, I bet.” I said, as we made our way down the row, eyeing trees to select.


“I think I will die on this trip. I could no tell is day or the night, is Mexico or el norte outside this space.”


“Did you and the others talk?”


“No, not so much because we is scared of the coyote in the outside, if he hear us or if the border patrol hear us. We not talking in there. But then one man he get very crazy in the head,” Angel says, his perpetual smile lost now. “Is very bad.”


“Crazy in the head?” I said.


Full story:
http://laborspains.blogspot.com/2012/03/angel-story-of-workers-from-south-of.html