The Fallen Wall by Sarah Black

"We need to bring some Texas ingenuity to this Border problem." Jack slid into the booth, and the molded Formica seat squeaked in alarm. "Here's the thing. The wall is going up, no question about it. It won't mean dick for the Border, but there will be a wall of some kind stretching right across the southern Arizona desert. So we got to figure out how to make a profit off the deal. Profit makes everybody happy."

The dark-haired man opposite him nodded and pushed a red clay bowl across the table. "Profit is good. Try this ceviche, Jack. It's fresh. This is my cousin's place."

Jack dipped a tortilla chip into the bowl, then popped the load into his mouth. "God damn, Ignacio, that's good! So here's what I had in mind." He leaned forward and fixed the Mexican with a strong gaze the color of bluebonnets. "You make clay roof tiles in your factory, right?"

Ignacio nodded.

"So you got the clay already. It would be easy enough to make some adobe bricks."

"Jack, you want to build a wall across the Border out of adobe?" Ignacio grabbed his bottle of beer and tipped it up to give himself time to think.

"You got two benefits to an adobe wall," Jack said. "No, three. Number one, it's environmentally-whatever the current dumb-shit phrase is, so the tree-huggers won't have to leave their endangered owls to climb all over our asses. Two, it's Southwestern looking, so all those chi-chi broads on this side of the Border in their cowboy boots and Stetsons and Navajo turquoise jewelry won't start whining to their husbands about the way the wall looks. Three, the thing is going to weather, meaning constant work for you and me to keep it repaired. Four. This is even better than I fucking thought! Okay, four. We sell Name Bricks. That's where we make our bucks. The rest is chump change."

"Jack, what's Name Bricks?"

Jack grinned, his teeth as white and shiny as marble. "We write names in the clay, like a memorial. Memorial Bricks. The fallen heroes, Nacio. The fallen walkers. The illegals who got lost and died in the desert."

Ignacio fell back in his chair. He felt like he had been punched in the chest by a pile driver. Jack stuck two fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. When the waiter appeared, he held up his beer bottle and gave it a wiggle.

"See, here's the thing. It makes America nervous to go to bed and think our back door ain't locked. But nobody wants to feel like a heartless bloodsucker, sleeping peaceful in a nice air-conditioned American house while people are falling in the desert. So we make 'em happy, let them buy a brick with the name of some dumb kid who died of thirst trying to walk across Arizona. Ten percent of the profits go to Humane Borders. So everybody's happy. The bleeding hearts think what they're doing is just like pouring cool, sweet water between the cracked lips of a pretty Mexican baby, but they don't have to fucking leave Brentwood to do it! And we float out to sea on a river of money."

Ignacio worked on his beer. Once you got over the initial shock, there was something kind of appealing about the idea. He could already see what the Mexican side of the wall would look like. Mothers and wives and babies would camp out, waiting and praying. The votive candles would never burn out. Pink and yellow silk flowers and prayer cards would get stuck between the bricks, and the Blessed Virgin would watch over the walkers. The names would get fuzzy and soft, worn down as many brown fingers touched them for luck before starting the hike north. It would be a wall of prayer, a holy wall. Where was that wall he had heard about, people writing their prayers and putting the paper between the rocks? That must be a good place. The Border would be like that. "Is it that Berlin wall where people put their prayers in the rocks?"

"Uh, no." Jack shook his head. "That Berlin wall, that was a whole other sort of deal. God damn, I wish I had got me a piece of that puppy when it started coming down. Anyway, water under the bridge. So you start making the bricks, Nacio, get some schoolgirl with pretty handwriting to put the names on. I got me a marketing girl just out of college. She cries over people dying in the desert and goes out with Humane Borders to fill up their water jugs. My honey's gonna make us up a marketing plan, gratis. Cause she believes in the work with her whole heart, hombre. As do you and I, my friend." He scooped up the last of the ceviche. "See, Nacio, Texas ingenuity, I'm telling you. The world turns on a profit. We'll think up a good name, The Wall of the Fallen, some shit like that."

The mothers camped out at The Wall, they would need food, bathrooms, Western Union. Ignacio nodded slowly, then raised his bottle of beer.

About the author:
Sarah Black writes fiction in Northern Arizona, out among red sandstone cliffs and canyons so remote and beautiful she has to put new shocks on the truck twice a year. She's been published in Flashquake, Slow Trains Literary Journal, Ruthie's Club, Clean Sheets, and Word Riot.