233: Every block has a heartbeat
Part three in an ongoing series about resistance
I’d heard the stories.
The woman at the university who’d made ICE leave empty-handed.
The DC rally that slipped away from the Guard like water down a storm drain.
Some called her “La Fantasma.” Others just said “her.”
I figured it was protest folklore — something we told each other to feel less alone, the way people in storms talk about seeing the eye pass overhead.
Until tonight, here in El Paso.
The heat was still clinging to the stucco when the call came over the radio: three unmarked ICE SUVs spotted on 7th, headed our way, backed by a National Guard Humvee. DPS troopers had checkpoints up on 4th and 9th. Word was they were sweeping two entire blocks. Not a targeted arrest — a fishing expedition.
The shelter was tense. Parents kept their kids close. Volunteers moved in short bursts, like they were saving energy for something worse. I was at the van, debating whether to start loading people or wait for more intel, when she appeared.
No buildup, no introduction — just there beside me, grocery bag in one hand like she’d walked from the corner store.
“You got gas in the van?” she asked.
I nodded without thinking.
“Good,” she said. “Stay parked for now.”
Then she was already moving.
She tapped the shoulder of a street vendor who sold paletas on the corner, whispered something that made him grin. Two teenagers on bikes leaned in to hear her, nodding fast before they pedaled off in opposite directions. A church deacon across the street crossed himself, then slipped through the gate to speak with her.
I noticed a man in a ball cap doing the same a block over. This wasn’t random. There was a pattern — quick conversations, no wasted motion, a web spinning out in every direction.
Two minutes later, it began.
From the block north of us, music erupted — not polished, not polite, but alive. A trumpet slicing the heat, a trombone answering in rough harmony. The sound bounced between buildings, carrying over the rooftops.
People appeared carrying candles in glass jars, hand-painted banners stretched between them. One banner was just a huge painted eye; another said NADIE ES ILEGAL in brush strokes wide enough to see from the Guard checkpoint. The procession swelled, spilling into the street, making it impossible for cars to pass without crawling.
Around the corner, a dozen vehicles “broke down” in unison. Hoods up, hazard lights flashing, drivers swearing loudly in three different languages. A box truck angled just enough to block the intersection completely.
Then the smoke.
From behind the laundromat at the far end of the sweep zone, a plume of thick purple smoke curled into the air. It caught the setting sun and turned gold at the edges, a beacon that pulled every eye in the area.
The effect was instant. ICE slowed to a crawl, scanning faces but losing sight of the addresses they’d been heading toward. The Guard stayed in place, radios crackling with confusion. The DPS troopers at the checkpoint shifted uneasily, their line of sight broken by bodies, banners, and the drifting smoke.
Inside the shelter, we started moving people. Two at a time through the alley. A young mother and her kids into a neighbor’s side door. Three men out the back, vanishing into the church rectory.
I kept my eyes on the van until she appeared again — not coming toward me, but slipping between two parked cars, saying something to the driver of the box truck. The truck’s engine roared back to life.
By the time the last ICE SUV reached the target blocks, they were empty. Doors shut, lights off. The only sound was the fading brass and the rumble of cars pulling away.
And just like that, it was over.
The procession melted back into the neighborhood. Vendors rolled their carts home. The purple smoke thinned to nothing. She was gone.
Two teenagers leaned against a wall, watching the Guard retreat. One nudged the other.
“Told you she was real.”
I didn’t argue.
Later, unloading bottled water from the van, I flipped down the visor and a folded scrap of paper fell into my lap.
I didn’t open it right away. Just sat there, feeling the engine tick as it cooled, hearing the last traces of the trumpet somewhere deep in the neighborhood.
When I did unfold it, the handwriting was quick, almost impatient, like it had been written while walking.
“Every block has a heartbeat — listen and move.”
That was the night I stopped thinking she was a story.
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