10. The Races

Airport Boulevard in Ciudad Chihuahua is easily accessed from the Highway 45, also known as Mexico City Highway by the locals because of where it ultimately leads. The boulevard runs eight kilometers from the outskirts of the city to where it ends at the entrance to the airport. It fronts mostly pastureland and small hobby farms owned by people in the city who use them to get away on the weekends. Its long extension, relative isolation, and spacious shoulders make for an inviting setting for local amateur racers and their gawkers who fancy imitating the scenes they see in the movies.


The races occur on weekend nights. Actual racing does not start until well after midnight, when the airline and rental car company employees have all gone home. Tailgate parties start to form on both sides of the route soon after nightfall. The races themselves are a fairly disorganized activity. The fans never know who is racing or precisely when a races is about to start. They simply rely on an informal cell phone network and the sound of hard-driving engines to know that somebody is barreling down the boulevard. Some competitors prepare before they come, others simply get up the nerve once they are there and have had a chance to size up the competition and steeled their resolve with a few beers. Sometimes the race is between sports cars. Other times it is between pick-up trucks. There is even the occasional truck versus sport car match.
When Ervey and Chonito reached Airport Boulevard that night, local traffic had not yet died down and the tailgate parties were just beginning to form.
"There you go, güey, the fast and furious," said Ervey, "everybody waiting for Vin Diesel...and a few of them trying to look like him."
"Yeah, it's still early," said Chonito.
"Look, there's even a Hummer and a squad of soldiers waiting for idiots come zooming down the boulevard so they can chase after them," said Ervey.


"You don't know what you're talking about," complained Chonito, some of those soldiers are off duty and are here to watch the races themselves."
"Now I've heard everything," said Ervey, "now what?"
"Let's just go all the way to the end and back to see if there's anybody here I know so I can come back to them later," said Chonito.
The Kodiak cruised the boulevard until it reached the turnaround at the airport then made its way back in the direction of town. Many of the tailgaters it passed whistled and yelled alternatively for the big truck to get off the road and enter the big wheel truck race event later that night.


Chonito pointed out a couple of crowds he thought looked promising.


"OK. I think I saw some people I can come join later," said Chonito, "we can go to your house now."
"Thanks a whole lot!" said Ervey, sighing deeply, "I was starting to worry that we were going to run headlong into a race coming the other way."


"No, they only use the lanes going from the airport to the city," said Chonito, "you know, so nobody get's surprised."
"Oh, they think about safety, do they?" Ervey asked sarcastically.
"Well, if you think about it, it's no less safe than hanging out at the bars," said Chonito, "especially these days with all the narcos crawling all over them. At least here the party is only among friends and there's a lot of distance between you and trouble."


Ervey did not respond. He shifted up and moved the Kodiak into the passing lane.