The first time the coyote is introduced in T.C. Boyle’s novel, The Tortilla Curtain, is when Delaney Mossbacher takes his car into the dealership for repair after hitting the Mexican, Candido Rincon. The salesman at the dealership tries to make conversation with Delaney and asks if he hit a deer or a coyote. Delaney decides to take the second option and agrees that it was a coyote or maybe a dog.
When the reader first reads Boyle’s novel the passing reference seems almost accidental and certainly seem logical since coyotes are one of the most common types of large wildlife in the canyon area of Southern California, where the novel takes place. However, as the novel progresses coyotes show up in various forms and it soon becomes evident that they are a symbol for something larger than a canine piece of local wildlife.
Local Wildlife
The first time a live coyote is mentioned in the book is in chapter 3 when the Mossbacher’s are eating breakfast and their day is disrupted by the death scream of one of Kyra’s two dogs. The Mossbacher’s race to the back door just in time to see a coyote scale the chain link fence, holding his victim in his mouth, and disappear into the wild beyond.
As he searches for them, Delaney becomes angry with the people who feed the coyotes. He blames them for viewing the coyotes as a quaint part of the environment “demi dogs out there howling at the sunset, another amenity like the oaks, the chaparral and the views.” (39)
In his anger, spits out that “You can’t be heedless of your environment. You can’t.” (39) Little does he recognize the larger implications of his statement.
Illegal Immigrants
The second time the word coyote shows up in the book is when America Rincon thinks about the first time she and Candido had tried to cross the border into the United States. The coyote had hustled them through a gap in the fence and abandoned them to vicious Mexicans who attack them – beating Candido and attempting to rape America.
The Romantic Animal
In the first of Delaney’s articles shared in the book, Delaney writes a rhapsody about roughing it in the wild. The climax of his ecstasy comes when he describes the sound of the coyotes singing in the night. However, in the middle of his impassioned description of the beauty of the coyotes song, Delaney strikes one dark note that foreshadows a later article. He writes “The song of the survivor, the Trickster, the four-legged wonder who can find water where there is none and eat hearty among rocks and the waste places.” (29)
Identifying Mexicans with Coyotes
Alone and depressed, America Rincon sees a coyote bitch “She looked at the coyote so long and so hard that she began to hallucinate, to imagine herself inside those eyes looking out, to know that men were her enemies—men in uniform, men with their hats reverse, men with fat bloated hands and fat bloated necks, men with traps and guns and poisoned bait—and she saw the den full of pups and the hills shrunk to nothing under the hot quick quadrupedal gait.” (129)
The Real Problem with Coyotes
Delaney’s second article confronts the issues of the close proximity of coyotes to civilization. At the beginning of the article, Delaney describes how one coyote learned to chew through a PVC irrigation pipes for a drink of water. Delaney’s description of the coyote’s resourcefulness in obtaining water is imitated by Candido near the end of the novel.
As the article progresses, Delaney builds to an argument that we are to blame for the problem with coyotes. He writes “In our blindness, our species-specific arrogance, we create a niche, and animals like the raccoon, the opossum, the starling and a host of other indigenous and introduced species will rush to fill it.” (213) His statement is a succinct way of looking at the illegal immigration of Mexicans and echoes the thoughts of many. Americans, in our arrogance and need for gratification, have created an environment that meets the needs of many people in less wealthy nations. These people will not sit and let the niche remain empty; they will rush to meet our needs in order to fill those gaps.
Later he argues that “Trapping is utterly useless. The population will simply breed up to fill the gap.” (214) Again Delaney’s argument can be seen as an argument in the immigration issue. Deporting illegal aliens does nothing to solve the problem. Americans still needs the jobs filled and Mexicans will continue to move up or North to America to meet American demand.
Delaney ends his paper with a frightening assessment of the coyote’s impact on civilized life “The coyotes keep coming, breeding up to fill in the gaps, moving in where the living is easy. They are cunning, versatile, hungry, and unstoppable.
Keeping the Coyotes Out
The citizens of the Arroyo Blanco development decide to build a wall to keep the Mexicans and the coyotes out of their property. Ironically, it is illegal immigrants who pass out flyers promoting the meeting to discuss the wall and who help build the wall.
However, the wall doesn’t keep Candido from seeking easy resources. He climbs the wall and steals what he needs to support his family. He diverts water from the sprinkler system to his little hut for fresh water. He survives. Much like Delaney’s coyotes, Candido is cunning, versatile, hungry, and unstoppable. Only he knows that living is not easy.
Boyle, T.C. The Tortilla Curtain. Penguin Books. 1995. ISBN 978-0-14-023828-0
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