7/21/20

By Josh Rubin

I have never liked rollercoasters. I haven’t ridden many and even those few times I spent the ride wishing fervently for it to end and wondering, after that first time, what possessed me to try it again.

But the one we are on right now is not one that I could have avoided. And it is lasting a long time. And we are climbing higher and higher, ready for a harrowing plunge into the abyss.

That valley made from the long meanderings of a river, nearly as far south as you can go in this country, scarred by the rusty wall of towering hatred that follows the river’s track—that valley, viewed from the distance of my northern home, hollows my gut with sorrow and fear. The borderlands have a special way of showing those who know how to look all the injustice required for our way of life.

Special rules apply. People without documents, and also without legal claim to social services stay within the zone drawn by the Border Patrol checkpoints, their sniffing dogs and sunglassed officers waving gringos like me on their way after I whitely twang back at them my compliance, yes, I am a U.S. citizen.

But the voices behind that checkpoint, and that other one, the river, the ones that guard my way of life, those voices are the ones I hear, over the roar and shriek of this rollercoaster ride.

And COVID. The failing hospitals. The co-morbidity of injustice and inequality. The shadow of death in the valley behind me. The plunge without a bottom.

And on both sides of the river, we die just the same.