It was a cold dark morning and somewhere out in the Sonoran desert the Tres Estrellas de Oro bus I had boarded hours earlier in Tijuana came to a halt, the motor switched off. It was 2:30 AM.

Russian soldiers made it first. They came to Czechoslovakia in August 1968. I came in August, too. I was born in Czechoslovakia in August, 1970.

Street vendors, food stands, and nightly dances were what they were raised on back in Mexico. Ivette lived in Northeast Los Angeles, and visited her sister occasionally. The two would go shopping in the miniature strip malls and boutiques and dine at the mom and pop restaurants.

The wooden mess hall was filled with the warm smells of coffee, eggs and bacon. Over 300 workers from Mexico filled up on breakfast for the long day of harvest. The bell rang. They grabbed their sack lunches and jumped onto trucks that took them to the almond and plum fields.

It was around 6:30 a.m. when I heard a knock on my window. It was Ernesto. “They took Ulises.” He had a look that woke me instantly. Ulises and I met seven years ago. I was a senior and he was a sophomore at Garfield High School. We shared the same immediate group of friends. Eventually, we forged a brotherhood that made us inseparable. I met Ernesto outside my apartment and went to Ulises’. We found the house door unlocked. There were half-filled plates on the table and the sink overflowed with soapy water. The burners beneath the comal glowed red, like embers from a waning fire. The door led to the kitchen, where we heard a clicking sound. It was a pot. Although the flame was off, the vapor inside struggled to pry the lid open, like a mouth of steel snapping at us. We went back to my house and called the rest of the guys. “They deported Ulises.” A week went by. Then, one day a phone call. “Diego. It’s Ulises.” “Ulises! …

Bombs fell and the shrapnel cut through the soldiers and burned like molten lava as enemy troops advanced on them through the Vietnam jungle.

The summer of 2009 I spent in Houston working with janitors as they fought to renew a union contract. That July 4th, local pastors held a press conference supporting the janitors. Several union janitors were asked to attend. That’s when I met Carmen Sanchez. I picked her up and drove her to the event. Carmen was our shortest member, in her sixties, direct, well groomed. She was from Chihuahua, Mexico. She was always at union events. She’d been a janitor for 12 years. That afternoon, driving her home, my car got a flat tire. I called AAA, but it was clear that due to the holiday help would be a long time coming. So it was that I found myself with Carmen Sanchez in the middle of downtown Houston on July 4th. I thought I’d just get Carmen a cab and have her on her way home. But she refused. “I don’t have anyone waiting for me at home,” she said. That day, Houston dripped with humidity. She took out a jug of ground-oatmeal water. …

As a teenager, I was part of a mariachi group with high school friends. We performed at birthday parties, masses, quinceañeras, and weddings around Southern California, each time becoming part of someone’s special occasion.

I have always been awkward. The doctor who held me as an infant said I was squinting too much so he ordered me some baby glasses; they had a black thick frame. Some people ask me if they are the ones I wear now but I’ll never tell.

Two twenty-foot black barred gates stood corner-to- corner separating him from the catcalls on his right where tattered men clawed at him. To his left was a clean, orderly ward. Miguel stood, distracted by the gates when suddenly he felt a yank on his blue silk tie. “Give me your tie,” said an inmate on his right. He pulled away quickly and the yelling escalated. The guard looked him up and down. Miguel’s tie matched his eyes; he wore a tailored navy blue suit and stood six feet tall. “Would you like a luxury cell or do you want to join them?” he said, pointing to the right. “I’ll take the luxury cell.” The guard smirked. The left gate opened and with that the shouting from the right faded. The guard escorted him down the corridor. Miguel heard the far off strumming of a guitar from the galleys above. He was placed in a single cell on the ground floor. Meals would be served in the dining room. The cost for “luxury”: five hundred pesos …