forgotten hill above downtown Tijuana.
A few years ago, the house burned and the city’s services were cut off from the hilltop. The steep alley that led there was left to wash out and be broken up by weeds and grasses and small trees. You could pass the alley’s mouth a hundred times and never know there was anything up there. All you’d see from the street was a carpet of shattered glass and clumps of trash. Besides, this was not near the main tourist routes of Tijuana. This was west of the main city, an area of tawdry used car-part shops and sidewalk clothing vendors.
If you paused at the alley’s mouth at night, and if you looked up, you would see the far end of the slope backlit by streetlights beyond the summit. And in that glare, you would see indistinct movements: legs, and bodies nervously shifting. And if you were white, and they saw you, they would come swarming down on you in a pack—feral and hungry. And they would feed.
They were the
cementeros
, the glue addicts and paint-thinner sniffers who lived on that hill with Andrés.
Cementero
derives from the word for “glue,” which is the same as the word for “cement”:
cemento
. Literally,
cementero
could be said to mean something like “cementer,” though it has a stronger connotation that is almost religious.
Cementeros
are “followers ofthe glue.” (Aptly, and somewhat eerily,
cementero
is almost the same as the word for “cemetery”—
cementerio.)
Their numbers were (and are) fluid. These homeless boys were thrown out or had run away. They had wandered into downtown Tijuana from violent homes or the shattered homes of downtown’s hookers. They were the sons of the women who copulated with animals in the downstairs bars in the lower depths off Reforma and Revolución. Some of them were orphans, some of them had parents in jail.
They found each other. They formed small groups like street kids everywhere, and they thought they would engage in the Utopian dream of cast-off children: they would look out for each other, form their own street version of the families they lost. But this was Tijuana. And the hustle of these streets left no time for utopìas.
Daily life revolved around prostitution and drugs. Soon the boys realized that the thousands of
gringos
who came down to party on the weekends made easy targets—especially once they’d had enough to drink. The boys lured the tourists away from the disco lights. All it took was a promise: girls—
muchachas bonitas
. They were sly enough to know that we still believed the racist myth of
fock my seester
, and they said it. And the gringos followed.
Or they offered dope, cheap. Or themselves. Or watches. The point was to get the victim alone. Then the one boy magically became three, four. Eight arms, eight legs lashed out of the dark and pummeled, with fists, shoes, rocks, pipes.
This on a good night, when the boys were feeling kind. Every one of them carried a knife, or a sharpened screwdriver, or a jagged strip of metal. Andrés kept his tucked in the back of his pants. Sometimes one of the boys was just cranky, justfeeling grouchy. So he sliced the drunk
gringo
for good measure.
Sooner or later, some of these boys found their way up the hill. Of course, it seemed a haven. It was like a fortress. They felt safe from other, meaner street toughs, the
cholos
and
surfos
(ersatz surfers, whose gang colors featured the bare footprints of Hang-Ten logos that were sometimes drawn on their baggy shorts with pens). And, as always, the police.
However, the hill had its own harsh rules. Every boy looked out for himself, and alliances were often more dangerous than loneliness. Everybody was distrusted.
On the night I first met Andrés, I was led up the alley by an ever fearless Von. All the other boys had heard us coming and vanished down the other side of the hill like rodents. They were soundless and invisible and gone before we were halfway up the hill.
Andrés stayed behind. I could see him,
A few years ago, the house burned and the city’s services were cut off from the hilltop. The steep alley that led there was left to wash out and be broken up by weeds and grasses and small trees. You could pass the alley’s mouth a hundred times and never know there was anything up there. All you’d see from the street was a carpet of shattered glass and clumps of trash. Besides, this was not near the main tourist routes of Tijuana. This was west of the main city, an area of tawdry used car-part shops and sidewalk clothing vendors.
If you paused at the alley’s mouth at night, and if you looked up, you would see the far end of the slope backlit by streetlights beyond the summit. And in that glare, you would see indistinct movements: legs, and bodies nervously shifting. And if you were white, and they saw you, they would come swarming down on you in a pack—feral and hungry. And they would feed.
They were the
cementeros
, the glue addicts and paint-thinner sniffers who lived on that hill with Andrés.
Cementero
derives from the word for “glue,” which is the same as the word for “cement”:
cemento
. Literally,
cementero
could be said to mean something like “cementer,” though it has a stronger connotation that is almost religious.
Cementeros
are “followers ofthe glue.” (Aptly, and somewhat eerily,
cementero
is almost the same as the word for “cemetery”—
cementerio.)
Their numbers were (and are) fluid. These homeless boys were thrown out or had run away. They had wandered into downtown Tijuana from violent homes or the shattered homes of downtown’s hookers. They were the sons of the women who copulated with animals in the downstairs bars in the lower depths off Reforma and Revolución. Some of them were orphans, some of them had parents in jail.
They found each other. They formed small groups like street kids everywhere, and they thought they would engage in the Utopian dream of cast-off children: they would look out for each other, form their own street version of the families they lost. But this was Tijuana. And the hustle of these streets left no time for utopìas.
Daily life revolved around prostitution and drugs. Soon the boys realized that the thousands of
gringos
who came down to party on the weekends made easy targets—especially once they’d had enough to drink. The boys lured the tourists away from the disco lights. All it took was a promise: girls—
muchachas bonitas
. They were sly enough to know that we still believed the racist myth of
fock my seester
, and they said it. And the gringos followed.
Or they offered dope, cheap. Or themselves. Or watches. The point was to get the victim alone. Then the one boy magically became three, four. Eight arms, eight legs lashed out of the dark and pummeled, with fists, shoes, rocks, pipes.
This on a good night, when the boys were feeling kind. Every one of them carried a knife, or a sharpened screwdriver, or a jagged strip of metal. Andrés kept his tucked in the back of his pants. Sometimes one of the boys was just cranky, justfeeling grouchy. So he sliced the drunk
gringo
for good measure.
Sooner or later, some of these boys found their way up the hill. Of course, it seemed a haven. It was like a fortress. They felt safe from other, meaner street toughs, the
cholos
and
surfos
(ersatz surfers, whose gang colors featured the bare footprints of Hang-Ten logos that were sometimes drawn on their baggy shorts with pens). And, as always, the police.
However, the hill had its own harsh rules. Every boy looked out for himself, and alliances were often more dangerous than loneliness. Everybody was distrusted.
On the night I first met Andrés, I was led up the alley by an ever fearless Von. All the other boys had heard us coming and vanished down the other side of the hill like rodents. They were soundless and invisible and gone before we were halfway up the hill.
Andrés stayed behind. I could see him,
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