by Mark Gimenez
"The land deal. With Hoot Pickens."
"You run this by the lawyers?"
Jim Bob nodded. "It's legal. And profitable. Half a million bucks. We put it in your blind trust, gives us deniability."
Bode signed the deed. Jim Bob gathered the papers then checked his watch and stood.
"Come on, we're late."
"For what?"
"Elementary school."
Bode groaned. "Aw, damn, Jim Bob-not reading to kindergartners again? I hate that shit."
Jim Bob offered a lame shrug.
"You made education a major part of your platform-faith, family, and schools."
"Just because Lindsay wanted something to do. Why can't she read to them?"
"She was supposed to, but I had to send her down to the border-Delgado's in from Washington. They're trying to get the Mexicans in the colonias counted for the census."
"Why?"
"So Texas can get more seats in Congress. We've got thirty-two seats now. If we can get all those Mexicans counted, we can pick up three or four more seats. And once I'm through redistricting the state, every one of those seats will be Republican."
"No-why'd you send Lindsay down to the border? Why couldn't I go?"
"Because you don't speak Spanish. She does."
THREE
" No teman el censo. "
"Yes, Mrs. Bonner," Congressman Delgado said. " 'Do not fear the census.' That is our message this day."
Two hundred thirty-five miles south of the Governor's Mansion and two blocks north of the Rio Grande, the governor's wife stared out the tinted window of the black Suburban as their five-car caravan rolled around the San Agustin Plaza in downtown Laredo. She had flown in the night before and stayed at the La Posada Hotel on the plaza. She would fly back to Austin that afternoon. Up front, a state trooper drove, and her Texas Ranger bodyguard rode shotgun. She sat in the back seat with the congressman. His aftershave reminded Lindsay of her father when she was a little girl riding in his lap and pretending to steer the old Buick. Congressman Delgado pointed out the window at a white church with a tall clock tower.
"The San Agustin Cathedral," he said. "I was baptized there. And that is the old convent for the Ursuline Sisters, but the nuns are gone. And the Plaza Theatre, it is shuttered now, but I watched many cowboy movies there as a child. That was, of course, many years ago." He chuckled. "I was born in Laredo, but I am afraid I will die in Washington."
Ernesto Delgado had first been elected to Congress in 1966. He was seventy-eight now and had no thought of retiring.
"The plaza seems…"
"Dead?"
She nodded.
"Yes, it is March and our streets should be crowded with college students on spring break, staying in hotels on this side of the river and partying on the other side. Gin fizzes at the Cadillac Bar and pretty girls in Boys' Town-Nuevo Laredo once boasted the cheapest drinks and the best prostitutes on the border. It is legal in Mexico, prostitution."
A wistful expression crossed the congressman's creased face, as if he had experienced all that Nuevo Laredo had to offer in his younger days.
"Now the Cadillac Bar is closed, and Nuevo Laredo has only the drugs and violence to offer, so the DPS issues travel warnings. 'Avoid traveling to Mexico during spring break, and stay alive,' the one this year said. So the students, they go to Padre Island instead. And the streets of Laredo are empty."
The streets were empty. The few pedestrians on the plaza walked slowly, as if they had no place to go. Palm trees and old Spanish-style structures lined the brick-paved plaza, a few elderly tourists snapped photos, and some of the businesses still seemed alive-Casa de Empeno, Casa Raul, Pepe's Sporting Goods, Fantasia Linda-albeit protected by burglar bars. Other storefronts sat boarded-up, left to decay in the dry air. Faded murals, a fenced-off movie theatre, a forgotten convent-the streets of Laredo were paved but not with gold. The town seemed tired and weary, like an old person who recalled an earlier time, when her life had meaning. When she was useful. Lindsay Bonner was only forty-four, but she often felt like that old person. Or this old town. Old. Useless. Unnecessary. She still had the energy, the drive, and the desire to be useful and necessary, but she had no place. No purpose. Her husband was the governor and her daughter a college student; her jobs as mother and wife were finished now. She was the governor's wife, but that was not the same as being a wife. It was a role she played; it was not her. So she volunteered around Austin, but she was always the governor's wife. She could not escape that identity. That prison. Those cameras. That was her role now, a pretty face that brought out the cameras.
A photo op.
Local television and newspaper reporters and cameramen ready to record every moment of her visit to the border followed in vans with their stations' logos stenciled in bright colors on the sides. A Department of Public Safety cruiser manned by two well-armed state troopers led the way; a local police car with two well-armed cops brought up the rear. Security for the governor's wife and a U.S. congressman. Their DPS driver cocked his head their way.
"You know what they call an American in Nuevo Laredo?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Victim."
He laughed. He was Anglo. The congressman responded with a pained expression.
"Border humor. The cartels, they killed over one hundred Americans last year and kidnapped many more who have never been seen again. But the Nuevo Laredo mayor, he says we have only a public relations problem, that with better press, the tourists will return to the border. Of course, Nuevo Laredo is under martial law and the mayor, he sleeps on this side of the river. I think that is what they call, denial."
The caravan coursed through the maze of narrow one-way streets that was downtown Laredo and then past the bridge leading into Mexico. They turned north and accelerated onto Interstate 35. They drove through the city landscape at seventy miles per hour, only the palm trees distinguishing the journey from that through any other city in Texas, and the governor's wife had journeyed through most the last eight years. They exited the interstate and turned west on Mines Road. They soon reached the outskirts of Laredo, and beyond that, the city became the desert. The land lay vast and empty and flat, brown and parched from the drought, only scrub brush and dirt as far as the eye could see.
Lindsay Bonner had been born in Boston but had grown up in the Hill Country of Texas, a land of streams and rivers and lakes, so contrary to this land. She had been to the border the tourists see, but never to the borderlands. Her husband did not campaign here. He said it was simply a matter of getting the most bang for your campaign buck. There was little bang for a Republican on the border: the people who inhabited this harsh land were Democrats, poor Latinos who did not contribute to political campaigns and who did not vote. So to the politicians in Austin, they did not exist. Perhaps that was why she had jumped at the chance to come south.
She often felt as if she did not exist. And she was a Democrat.
She had never told her husband, of course, and she had never officially registered, but she had always voted straight-ticket Democrat-except she had always voted for her husband. The bonds of matrimony. Or the guilt of a Catholic: to love, honor, and obey, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. Father O'Rourke had said nothing about a husband converting to Republican. It was worse. She was smiling at the thought of what her husband would say if he ever learned her secret-there would be profanity-when they abruptly veered off the highway and turned south onto a bumpy dirt road that cut through dense brush "Chaparral," the congressman said.
— and bounced her about. The DPS cruiser in front kicked up a cloud of dust that enveloped their Suburban. But visible in the distance through the dust was a low shadow that seemed to rise from the desert and extended east and west as far as she could see until it disappeared into the haze. The shadow grew taller and taller as they came closer until it loomed large overhead. But it wasn't a shadow.
"What is that?"
"That, Mrs. Bonner, is the border fence."
>
"But it's not a fence. It's a wall."
"Yes. Some portions along the border are fences, but here it is a wall. Eighteen feet high, constructed of steel with six feet of reinforced concrete below ground-apparently the Department of Homeland Security thinks the Mexicans will be arriving in Abrams tanks."
"This is what Bush wanted in America? Our own Berlin Wall?"
"Obama voted for the border wall, too, Mrs. Bonner, when he was in the Senate. He was a politician before he became the president."
They stopped in front of a massive gate guarded by two Border Patrol agents wearing green uniforms and wielding military-style rifles as if guarding the gates to a kingdom. Or a prison. Were they keeping them out or someone else in? Her Texas Ranger bodyguard threw open his door. Dirt blew in with the hot wind; Lindsay averted her face until the Ranger stepped out of the vehicle and slammed the door shut as if he were angry at the Suburban. He pushed his cowboy hat down hard on his head to prevent the wind from taking it north to San Antonio and marched over to the Border Patrol agents. After a brief discussion, the agents opened the gate, reluctantly it seemed. The Ranger returned, removed his hat, and got back in the vehicle, grumbling something about "Feds." They drove through the gates, and Lindsay sat up, anticipating what she would see on the other side, which was Nothing.
She saw nothing but more chaparral and dirt. She had expected something, perhaps a panoramic view of the majestic Rio Grande. But the river was nowhere in sight. The wall just cut through the land like a random mountain range.
"So the border wall isn't actually on the border?"
"Oh, no," the congressman said. "The border runs right down the middle of the Rio Grande, so the wall, it is off the border. Here, about a mile. Elsewhere, maybe two miles." He chuckled. "Over in Eagle Pass, the public golf course runs right along the river. The golfers, they would be hitting their balls and suddenly Mexicans would dart out of the carrizos, the thick reeds by the river, and race across the fairways and into town where they could mix in with the locals. So Homeland Security built the fence on the town side of the golf course, to block the Mexicans' path. But they also blocked the golfers' escape. So now the Mexicans jump out of the carrizos with guns and rob the golfers."
He now gave out a hearty laugh.
"You cannot make that up," he said.
"A border wall that's not on the border. That doesn't make any sense."
"There is little on the border that makes sense, Mrs. Bonner. As you will see, this side of the wall is another world entirely-a world that is not Mexico, but that is also not America."
"Then what world is it?"
"This, Mrs. Bonner, is the colonias." He turned to the window and pointed. "Oh, look-a jackrabbit." He turned back. "Ah, we are here."
The Suburban braked to a stop and stirred up dust that soon dissipated in the wind. The Ranger opened the back door for the governor's wife. Lindsay stepped out and immediately surrendered her hair to the wind. The ninety-degree heat felt like an oven after the air conditioning inside the vehicle. The press crew bailed out of their vans and began unloading their equipment. The troopers and police got out of their cruisers with their large guns strapped to their waists and stretched their large bodies; they must have recruited the biggest men on the force to guard the governor's wife. Congressman Delgado came around and stood next to her. They were both decidedly overdressed, she in a cream-colored linen suit and low heels, he in a tan suit and tie. He inhaled the dry air.
"Ah, spring on the border. It is the same as summer." He extended a hand as if gesturing at a grand monument. "Welcome to Colonia Angeles, Mrs. Bonner. The border's version of a gated community."
They stood at the entrance to this community of angels. But it was not heaven on earth. The dirt road continued on and seemed to disappear into the dust, just a rutted path winding through a vast shantytown of dilapidated structures that in the distance seemed to merge together to form a massive inhabited dump. Half-naked brown children played in the dirt road and down in the river, dull in the hazy sun. Women carried water from the river in buckets and cooked over open fires; smoke rose into the sky in thin spires. An enormous pile of smoldering refuse stood tall near the river; with each gust of wind, paper and plastic items broke free and danced across the dirt as if attempting an escape. Rats rummaged through the refuse. The congressman was right: this was another world. A third world.
"How many people live here?"
"Six thousand. Or perhaps seven."
The women had stopped their work and the children their play, and they now stared at their visitors, as if frozen by the sight of the black Suburban and the police cars and the cameras. Or frightened. One barefooted little girl in a dirty white dress broke away and ran over to Lindsay. Her hair was stringy and gray with dirt. Her face was gaunt. She had pierced ears and dangling earrings. She carried a naked doll.
"?Que lindo el cabello! "
"She says your hair is pretty," the congressman said. "She has probably never before seen red hair."
Lindsay leaned down to the girl and said, " Gracias, mi amor. El tuyo tambien es bonito."
"Ah, you speak Spanish."
"Enough to converse."
"Juanita!"
A woman down the road called to the child then clapped her hands.
"?Venga!?Andale! "
The child twirled around and ran to the woman.
"She is afraid," the congressman said.
"The girl?"
"The woman."
"Why?"
"Anglos. Police. Cameras."
The woman and child disappeared. All the residents seemed to fade into the shadows. The dirt road suddenly lay vacant except for a few stray dogs and chickens. Two pigs. A goat. The colonia was now a ghost town. The congressman leaned in close and lowered his voice.
"May I suggest, Mrs. Bonner, that the troopers and the police stay here with the vehicles. The Ranger also."
"Why my Ranger?"
"Well, the Texas Rangers are not… how shall I say… well regarded here on the border."
"Why not?"
"History, Mrs. Bonner. History."
She turned to the police. "Please stay here."
They didn't argue.
She turned to her Ranger. "You, too."
He did argue.
"But, ma'am-"
"Ranger Roy-"
She felt utterly stupid calling her Texas Ranger bodyguard "Ranger Roy," but his surname was Rogers. Roy Rogers. Ranger Rogers was even worse than Ranger Roy.
— "if these people fear us, we won't accomplish what we came here for today."
"Mrs. Bonner, your safety requires that I accompany you. The governor, he wouldn't be happy."
Lindsay embedded her fists in her hips and craned her head up at Ranger Roy. He was a strapping young man of twenty-eight; he had played football at UT. He had been her bodyguard for her husband's entire second term; he had become something of a son to her. A very large son. She had no doubt he'd die before seeing her harmed.
"Who would you rather have unhappy with you-the governor or me?"
Ranger Roy had faced that same choice many times. He knew the wise answer.
"Uh, yes, ma'am, I'll wait here."
"Thank you." She gestured to the press crew. "Let's talk to these people."
They stood as if embedded in the dirt. A burly TV cameraman smoking a cigarette shook his head.
"No way. My producer didn't say nothing about going into the colonias. And we sure as heck ain't going in there without the cops."
"Why not?"
"Because this colonia is controlled by the Los Muertos cartel."
" Controlled? This is America."
He snorted like a bull, and smoke shot out of his nostrils.
"No, Mrs. Bonner, everything on this side of the wall, it's just a suburb of Mexico." He jabbed a fat finger at the vast colonia that confronted them. "Ma'am, you go in there, you might never come out-you can't even call nine-one-one 'cause there ain't no p
hone service out here, landline or cell."
Congressman Delgado must have noticed her face flushing with her spiking blood pressure; he took Lindsay's arm.
"Come, let me show you the river."
They walked away, but she heard the cameraman grumbling behind her back.
"Don't see why I gotta risk my life just 'cause some diva from Austin-"
"Shut up," Ranger Roy said.
Lindsay smiled. Roy was a good son. They continued a short distance to a low bluff overlooking a narrow strip of brown water. She had never before seen the Rio Grande. She had expected majestic. It was not.
"The Rio Grande disappoints you?" The congressman gave her a knowing nod. "Yes, I understand. It is not what you had envisioned, this dirty little river. But you see only the tired old man, not the strong young hombre that was born in Colorado. I have stood where the river begins, twelve thousand feet up in the San Juan Mountains, where the headwaters are cool and clean and rapid, fed by the melting snow. The water you now see, it has traveled seventeen hundred miles through New Mexico and West Texas and it must journey two hundred miles more before it will empty into the Gulf of Mexico at Boca Chica. To the Mexicanos, it is not the Rio Grande, the big river. It is the Rio Bravo del Norte. The brave river of the north."
But the river did not seem brave or big. It seemed ordinary, too ordinary to separate two nations. The congressman sniffed the air.
"Something has died." His eyes searched the sky. "Ah, yes. See the vultures?"
He watched the birds circling, then his gaze returned to the river.
"The dams and the drought take the water. Upriver, before the Rio Conchos joins the flow, you can walk across without getting your feet wet… or your back."
He smiled at his own joke then gestured at the children playing in the shallow water on the other side below their own slums. They waved; she waved back. Less than two hundred feet separated them, America and Mexico.
"If not for the river, you would not know which side is Mexico and which side is America," the congressman said. "But it is a very different world, if you are standing here and looking south or standing there and looking north. It is hard to believe this sad river holds so much power over human life. The river decides if you are American or Mexican, if you deserve ten dollars an hour or ten dollars a day, if you live free or in fear. If your life will have a future. My parents had not a peso in their pockets when they crossed the river, but I am a member of Congress." His eyes lingered on the Mexican children. "If you were born on that side, would you not come to this side?"