I find it amazing that they actually have this sign on the five in San Diego County. In today's overtly sensitive world, a world in which we give illegal aliens every benefit that Americans receive, I truly can't believe it, the first time I saw it I thought it was a joke.
But it is not.
I had an old buddy who used to fly helicopters out of North Island and when they had nothing else to do they would fly along the border and point drop cherry bombs down into the river and watch as the Mexicans freaked out thinking that they were being attacked by the Border Patrol. I guess karma is a bitch because that good friend is now at the bottom of the cold Pacific still trapped in his harness in water too deep to be reached by any Naval rescue submarine.
As for myself I am not for ridiculing a group of people who want nothing more than to live and work in freedom, to make a better life for themselves and their families. However like the millions who came before them there are appropriate ways to go about becoming an American citizen. Their efforts are noble but the ends do not justify the means. I am sure there are plenty who totally disagree with my logic, there are those like my lost friend who couldn't give a rat's ass and there are those somewhere in the middle of the debate. In debating it in my own consciousness I still haven't come to an answer that suits the humanitarian in me while placating the self preservationist.
Every song on the album "The Ghost of Tom Joad" brings up such questions, ones that probably will never be answered. The album illustrates some of the horrors of the migrant working class in America, from young boys smuggling heroin and prostituting themselves ("Balboa Park") to Tom Joad's famous speech to his mother ("The Ghost of Tom Joad") this album is not the fist pumping visceral Boss celebrating freedom and the lives of the wild and innocent. "The Line" is one of the most chilling songs I have had the pleasure of being miserable listening to, the Boss weaves together some of the most heartfelt human emotions in existence and plots them against each other to craft a story worth of Steinbeck in his purest traditions. In it the narrator:
Retires from the military.
Buries his wife.
Starts over again with a new career he is proud of.
Befriends his partner who by the way is Mexican.
Falls in love with a Mexican woman.
Attempts to smuggle her into the country.
Finds the object of his affection's brother is smuggling drugs.
Confronted by his partner he thinks of killing him.
Loses his love.
Leaves his new job and is a drifter.
Spends his nights searching for his love.
All that in a song that is around five minutes long, God I wish I had the balls to steal his idea and write a true novel about the subject in the depth that it deserves. Time and time again Springsteen shows just why he is the greatest artist of the second half of the 20th century. His ability to condense vast subjects and tell their tales through the lives of average Americans knows no limits. Constantly he amazes us with his narrative skills, his perfect timing and beautiful musicianship. "The Line" never fails to choke me up and I can't count the times I have listened to this American version of a Greek Tragedy in a dark room over and over with a guitar on my lap singing alone in a voice on the verge of falling apart.
I'd like to think that if my friend knew of this song he would have hesitated and thought about the people he was throwing those cherry bombs at, I'd like to think that after listening to this we'd take that awful sign down from the side of the highway. I'd like to think that after this song we could all take time to understand how fortunate we have been in the crap shoot of life to be born in this country, a county that people risk their lives to get into if only to work as a landscaper for pennies a day. I know that Springsteen didn't know my friend but it is for him that he penned this song. He wrote it for those wading through rivers of pollution at this very moment, for the men working the line and have to live with the philosophical battle constantly waging war in their minds. Yea, he wrote it from a desk in a mansion in Rumson with millions in the bank; but he himself represents everything those people are risking their lives over. The opportunity to make something of one's self is more addictive and motivating than any drug in existence. The only other ideal people will risk everything for in this world is to love, to be loved and know it truly.
The fact that in this song both ideals are so expertly interwoven will never stop boggling my mind, outside of the craft the issues themselves will never let me cease listening to this tune in my dark room over and over on the verge of tears. In it he satisfies Joad's ghost and the voice of Steinbeck; he illustrates the ongoing struggle for a better life and he breaks your heart when the hopes and dreams of love and happiness are dashed in an instant on a made up line in one of the most desolate places in the land of bounty and plenty.
I got my discharge from Fort Irwin
took a place on the San Diego county line
felt funny bein' a civilian again
it'd been some time
my wife had died a year ago
I was still tryin' to find my way back whole
went to work for the INS on the line
With the California Border Patrol
Bobby Ramirez was a ten-year veteran
We became friends
his family was from Guanajuato
so the job it was different for him
He said' "They risk death in the deserts and mountains"
pay all they got to the smugglers rings,
we send 'em home and they come right back again
Carl, hunger is a powerful thing."
Well I was good at doin' what I was told
kept my uniform pressed and clean
at night I chased their shadows
through the arroyos and ravines
drug runners, farmers with their families,
young women with little children by their sides
come night we'd wait out in the canyons
and try to keep 'em from crossin' the line
Well the first time that I saw her
she was in the holdin' pen
Our eyes met and she looked away
then she looked back again
her hair was black as coal
her eyes reminded me of what I'd lost
she had a young child cryin' in her arms
and I asked, "Senora, is there anything I can do"
There's a bar in Tijuana
where me and Bobby drink alongside
the same people we'd sent back the day before
we met there she said her name was Louisa
she was from sonora and had just come north
we danced and I held her in my arms
and I knew what I would do
she said she had some family in Madera county
if she, her child and her younger brother could just get through
At night they come across the levy
in the searchlights dusty glow
we'd rush 'em in our Broncos
and force 'em back down into the river below
she climbed into my truck
she leaned towards me and we kissed
as we drove her brothers shirt slipped open
and I saw the tape across his chest
We were just about on the highway
when Bobby's jeep come up in the dust on my right
I pulled over and let my engine run
and stepped out into his lights
I felt myself movin'
felt my gun restin' 'neath my hand
we stood there starin' at each other
as off through the arroyo she ran
Bobby Ramirez he never said nothin'
6 months later I left the line
I drifted to the central valley
and took what work I could find
at night I searched the local bars
and the migrant towns
Lookin' for my Louisa
with the black hair fallin' down
