Tropic of Orange

The most important orange in the novel contains the Tropic of Cancer and was grown on a tree on Gabriel’s property in Mazatlán, Mexico, right on the tropic. The tree the orange grew on is small and in poor condition, but Rafaela took extra care in nurturing it. The tree represents trade and movement between countries in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: “It was a navel orange tree, maybe the descendant of the original trees first brought to California from Brazil in 1837 and planted by L.C. Tibbetts” (13). The tree came from Riverside, California, an area of California known for citrus experimentation and cultivation. Gabriel views the planting of a tree from America in Mexico as “a significant act of some sort,” and he planted it “as a marker—to mark the Tropic of Cancer” (13).

The plot of the novel tracks the movement of the orange from Mazatlán to Los Angeles. Because the line of the Tropic of Cancer runs through the orange, it distorts weather, geography, time, and space as it moves. The orange moves the tropic along with it, forcing the South into the North in a great collision of cultures akin to the end of the world, as prophesized by Arcangel. At the end of the wrestling match between El Gran Mojado and SUPERNAFTA, Rafaela feeds the orange to the dying Arcangel. The crowd whisks him away, to “[b]ury him under an orange tree. Plant him at the very edge of the sun’s shadow. Maybe grow another line right there. Mark the place” (229). This echoes Gabriel’s romantic notion of marking the Tropic of Cancer, and it provides a sense of hope of new relations between the United States and Mexico after the chaos subsides.

The orange from Gabriel’s tree is the last remaining orange in Los Angeles, and thus becomes an object of public curiosity. The rest of the oranges have been confiscated, thrown away, or hidden. A string of deaths in the novel, including Margarita’s, a street vendor Buzzworm is fond of, and a young man he gives an orange to, is linked to a potent, cocaine-like narcotic with which an unknown number of oranges are laced. Therefore, oranges are labeled as contraband. Gabriel can trace the shipment of oranges throughout South America but cannot find out anything more except that the oranges originated in Brazil. The fact that the drugged oranges are linked to the other subplot of human organ trafficking evokes the death and destruction wreaked on Central and South America due to America’s war on drugs and the rise of drug cartel violence.