Borderline Criminals
March 17, 2023 – Sonoyta, Mexico
“Don’t give them a reason to pull you over. It’s a foreign country, you know,” Carson Redd said to his brother, Tanner.
Tanner laughed and replied, “I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that before. Who are you meeting down there?”
“People from my warehouse job. I told them we could be at the beach in three hours.”
“Phoenix to Rocky Point in three hours? No way.”
“Watch me.”
“Don’t do anything stupid you can’t talk your way out of.”
“I’m pretty good at talking. In English and Spanish.”
Carson had once been almost as reckless as his brother. That was before he got married and had his first child. Carson’s reckless phase included a series of elaborate pranks. He had once invited Tanner on a skydiving trip and then had his pilot friend fake a crash landing in the desert. He convinced his brother they faced a life-threatening hike to safety, which turned out to only be a few miles of walking to a waiting jeep.
As payback, while Carson was out of town for a weekend, Tanner rented out his brother’s house to a family of eight. Carson returned to find the family crammed inside and expecting to stay another three days. Tanner was constantly expecting retaliation, no matter how much Carson claimed to have matured.
           On the afternoon of his trip down to Rocky Point in Mexico, Tanner loaded his Scion xB Wagon with supplies and four of his coworkers from the Amazon Warehouse. Zach rode up front. Trevor, Emily, and Alexa sat in the back. They were scheduled to meet ten other people that evening for an overnight beach adventure.
Tanner made good time through the Sonoran Desert. Traffic was light and the roads clear. After passing the U.S. Border checkpoint, Tanner sped through the border town of Sonoyta.
“Maybe you should slow down now we’re in Mexico,” Zach said, looking over at the speedometer.
“Don’t stress,” Tanner replied. “No one’s going to bother us.”
As the words came out of Tanner’s mouth, lights flashed on top of a tiny black car behind them. Zach noticed the lights in the right-side mirror and told Tanner he should pull over.
Tanner replied with, “I can outrun them.”
“No! Pull over!” everyone in the backseat cried.
Tanner scoffed and said, “Okay, relax.” He slowed to a stop on the side of the highway and said, “Watch me handle this.”
Two men in black uniforms emerged from the flashing black car. Tanner watched from the rearview mirror and narrated their movements as they approached. He called one of the two the “fat guy” and the other one the “skinny guy.”
“Hola!” called Tanner as the fat guy shuffled to his window.
The fat guy explained that Tanner was speeding. Tanner replied in rough Spanish that he was confused and sorry and would drive slower. The fat guy said Tanner and his friends needed to get out of the car so it could be searched.
A smile crept over Tanner’s face. This had to be one of his brother’s pranks. Why would real cops want to search a car for nothing more than speeding? Tanner got out and encouraged the rest of his passengers to do the same.
The fat guy and the skinny guy got to work on their inspection. It only took a few seconds for the fat guy to reach under the driver’s seat and pull out a half-empty box of 9mm ammunition.
Tanner smiled and held up his hands. “I like going to the shooting range. I forgot that I left that under my seat.”
“And your gun?” asked the fat guy.
“It’s at home.”
The fat guy and the skinny guy looked at each other very seriously, shook their heads, and continued their search.
Tanner laughed again and said, “I know my brother put you up to this, but we have to get to Rocky Point. How about I give you some money and we stop this right now?”
The fat guy shook his head and frowned.
“Please. I’ll give you $200.”
“This is much more serious than $200,” the fat guy said. “When we find weapons, we have to take you to the station.”
“You only found bullets. They’re no good without a gun.”
“We must go to the station.”
Tanner grimaced and said in English, “I’m going to kill Carson for this.”
The black police car was too small to carry everyone, so Tanner, Zach, and Trevor squeezed into it with the fat guy while the skinny guy drove the girls in Tanner’s xB to a one-story brick building with the word “Policia” painted on its side. Tanner and the others were escorted into a stuffy room filled with desks and filing cabinets. They were ordered to write down an emergency contact number and empty their pockets. A few new people appeared, some in uniforms and some in plain clothes. They were all very interested in the Americans.
“What is this? You’re supposed to be arresting us?” Tanner asked, still playing along with his brother’s joke. “If that’s part of the game, I need to make a call.”
One of the new people in uniform replied that it was not a game.
“Come on, this doesn’t even look like a real police station,” Tanner said with a laugh.
As Tanner argued back and forth in Spanish, his friends grew worried. Emily finally freaked out and cried, “What’s happening? We can’t be arrested!”
           “This is only a prank by my brother,” Tanner said reassuringly. “It’ll be over in a second.” At that moment his phone rang. It was Carson. “See, that’s him right now.”
           “What’s going on?” Carson asked in a panicked voice. “I just got a call from a Mexican lawyer. He said you’re in big trouble.”
“Very funny. I know you set all this up. This doesn’t even look like a police station. Are you outside right now?”
“I have no idea what’s happened.”
“Sure,” Tanner replied sarcastically. “Tell them to stop now. We’re already late for Rocky Point.”
Before Tanner could say anything else, a police officer grabbed his phone. Someone repeated that he was in serious trouble for smuggling weapons in the country.
“They were only bullets. And I’ll bet my brother put them under the seat,” Tanner replied. “Where is he?”
The police personnel said they did not know who Tanner was talking about. They confiscated all possessions and then pushed Tanner, Zach, and Trevor down a dim hallway. It led to a single jail cell with a concrete floor, a toilet, and a metal bedframe covered in a thin piece of foam.
“I’m not going in there!” Tanner protested.
He and his two friends were shoved forward. The metal bars shut and locked.
“Hey! This has gone too far! Tell Carson this isn’t funny anymore!”
At the hallway’s entrance, there was a discussion about what to do with Emily and Alexa. The police officers decided they could not be put in the cell with the three guys, so they were simply handcuffed to chairs in the processing room.
“What if this is real?” Trevor asked. “What if they really think we tried to smuggle something? Shouldn’t we call a lawyer or the embassy.”
Tanner chuckled. “This looks too amateurish. I’m sure someone down here started a fake kidnapping service and my brother found out about it. Real arrests don’t happen like this.”
           “Not in the U.S. But this is Mexico.”
           “It’s not that different.”
“What do we do now?” Zach wondered.
“Wait until it’s over. Carson probably paid them to keep us for a certain amount of time. Can’t be more than an hour.” Tanner shouted down the hallway to Emily and Alexa. “It’s gonna be fine! We just have to wait until it’s over! Not much longer!”
Tanner dropped to a sitting position on the cement floor and said, “We’ll have a great story when we finally get to Rocky Point. Let’s not say anything about how my brother set it up.”
Tanner did his best to keep morale high. He laughed about Carson’s other practical jokes. He sang every song that popped into his head. He kept up the energy for the first hour. He lagged during the second.
Emily and Alexa shouted that they could see through a window that it was growing dark outside. They both began to sob.
“I can’t spend the night lying on cement,” Zach added.
Tanner had no words of comfort, but he promised them he would make his brother suffer when it was all over.
Exhaustion finally overtook the prisoners and they slept in their uncomfortable positions. The girls were the first to wake up the next morning and they yelled down the hallway about new people in the office. Tanner shouted in Spanish, demanding to know what was happening. No one responded. The day’s highlights consisted of a delivery of bland beans and tortillas and the girls being uncuffed to use the bathroom.
Tanner’s good humor turned to rage. He kicked and pounded the cell’s bars and screamed about his brother. It was not fair for Carson to make other people suffer. Tanner slumped to the floor and apologized to the others that he had not told Carson on the phone that he was traveling with a group.
Conversations grew quiet. The upbeat songs from the previous day were replaced by bleak hums and moans. Another night passed. Tanner awoke with the back of his head on the hard concrete. He deliriously whispered about what they would do when they got out.
That afternoon, a new face appeared in the building. He was clean-shaven and wore a wrinkle-free shirt and tie. He walked to the cramped cell and asked for Tanner in English. “I’m Sergio, a new friend of your brother.”
Tanner jumped to his feet with excitement. He laughed before growing angry. “This has gone way too far!”
“I’ve arranged for your release. You must only sign some legal documents.” Sergio opened a handbag and passed papers through the bars of the cell.
“What are these?” Tanner demanded, as he flipped pages. “It’s all in Spanish.”
“It says you acknowledge your wrongdoing. You are not a threat to the country. You will not do it again. Sign on the last page and you can go.”
“My Spanish isn’t good enough to understand all this.”
“You can trust me.”
“And then we can go?”
“Yes, and then you can go.
“I’m signing it in Spanish,” said Tanner as he signed “Tanner Rojo” on the signature line. He handed copies to Zach and Trevor and they signed too. Then he shouted for Emily and Alexa to sign.
Sergio put all the papers back in his bag and called for the police to unlock his friends. An old man with a pocket full of keys arrived at the cell and slid open the bars. Tanner walked into the hallway and stretched his aching back and legs. He and the others followed Sergio to where the girls were being freed from their chairs.
“Let’s get out of here. And where’s my brother?” Tanner demanded.
“Slow down. You must first meet with the Federal Prosecutor. Then you can go.”
“I don’t want to play this game anymore. I’m walking out now.”
Sergio nervously looked toward Zach and Trevor in hopes of calming Tanner down. Zach said, “Let’s just do what he says. Keep our mouths shut until it’s truly over.”
Sergio smiled gratefully and led the group down a previously unseen hallway and into a brightly lit, air-conditioned room. He gestured for his clients to sit in comfortable chairs lined up along a table. Then he passed out chilled water bottles. A minute later, a middle-aged man appeared. He wore a gold watch and a condescending smirk.
Sergio introduced the man as the Federal Prosecutor. As the prosecutor spoke rapidly in Spanish, Sergio translated into English. Tanner wore a smirk like the prosecutor’s as he listened to a lecture about the seriousness of their crimes and how their backgrounds and families have been investigated. Then the prosecutor abruptly disappeared.
“Okay, you are free to go,” Sergio said with a smile. He led the group back through the police station where their possessions, except for their phones, were returned. They walked outside into the night.
“Now what? Where’s my car?” Tanner asked Sergio.
“I suggest you not worry about that now. Find a hotel and take a taxi to the border in the morning. Your family will be waiting for you.”
Tanner continued to argue about his car, but the others were content to follow Sergio to a hotel. They rented a single room and said goodbye to Sergio without a thank you. When they got into the hotel room, they took long showers before crashing on the carpeted floor or on one of the beds. Their heads were relieved to leave the sound and smell of the police station.
The group took a minivan taxi to the border the next morning without bothering with breakfast. They walked through the checkpoint and dropped to their knees when they realized they were back on U.S. soil. Tanner expected to see his brother’s laughing face and his xB Wagon parked somewhere. He balled up his fist, anticipating punching Carson, maybe in the nose but at the very least in the stomach.
Relatives of Zach, Tevor, Emily, and Alexa were waiting beyond the checkpoint and rushed forward to embrace their loved ones. Tanner quickly spotted his brother. He was not laughing, and his eyes were tired and bloodshot. Tanner asked, “How did everyone’s families get here? What’s going on?”
“The past 2 ½ days have been crazy. When I got the call from the lawyer, he said we only had 48 hours to get you out before you were sent to federal prison. If that happened, you’d be in for 3 months, minimum.”
“What are you talking about? You set all this up. Had the fake cops stop us.”
Carson shook his head. “Not even close. I’ve been raising the $60,000 it took to pay the legal fees and bribe the prosecutor. I found all your friends’ families from the last picture you put on Instagram.”
Tanner looked around at his weeping friends, still hugging their families. “You’re telling me that was real? Real police? Real guns?”
“Real prison time.”
“I kept telling them it was a prank. I told them not to freak out.” Tanner’s legs grew weak as he realized the truth. His chest heaved in pseudo-shock. His voice turned to a whisper. “I don’t know how I would have handled it if I thought it was real.”
Carson glanced at the other reunions taking place. “It was kind of amazing how everyone came together to help.”
“I owe you big time.”
“You owe exactly $60,000. You need to pay back everyone who put up money. Please tell me you learned something from all this.”
           Tanner nodded his head solemnly. Then he grew thoughtful before his usual carefree grin spread across his face.  “But you know, the whole getting arresting thing would be an awesome prank. We could set it all up. Think of someone who really deserves to suffer.”
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