The Governor's wife

by Mark Gimenez

  "Where's the doctor?"

  "He went to the movies."

  "The movies?"

  " Si. He goes every other Friday. Unless it is raining, then he goes the following Friday. But that does not often happen here on the border. The rain."

  Bode and Lindsay Bonner had stood right there on their last trip to New York, for their twentieth anniversary. She had seemed happy that day. But when they had returned to Austin, he vetoed the funding for the children's health insurance program. And politics came between them.

  "?Caramba! " Carlos said.

  They had brought the kids up to the observation deck at the Empire State Building. The view from a thousand feet up was breathtaking. The kids pointed and spoke Spanish and seemed excited.

  " Bueno," Alejandro said.

  Emilio threw up.

  "Was the movie good?" Lindsay asked.

  Jesse had returned to the clinic late that afternoon. Inez had gone out back.

  "What movie?"

  "The movie you went to see."

  "Oh. I did not go to see a movie. I went to get a movie. Tonight is movie night."

  "Where?"

  "Here. Every other Friday, we show a movie, outside, on the side of the clinic building. The white wall, it is a good screen. Come, I will show you."

  They went outside where Inez was setting up an old reel-to-reel movie projector aimed at the side of the building. A long black extension cord ran from a plug on the outside wall of the clinic to the projector. A few residents were already staking out their places with blankets and lawn chairs, like Austinites gathering in Zilker Park for an outdoor concert.

  "We have the only electricity in the colonia, so we pop corn and show movies twice a month. Instead of a drive-in, we are a walk-in. Tonight's movie is Viva Zapata. It is the story of the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. He is a national hero in Mexico. As I said, Marlon Brando came to the border back in the fifties to film it."

  "How'd you get it?"

  "The theatre in Laredo loans the movies to me. I spoke to the owner's civic club, and afterward he asked how he could help."

  When the sun set and the colonia was plunged into darkness, Inez flipped the switch and the movie played. The Spanish sound track was scratchy, but no one seemed to care. The night air carried the smell of popcorn and tesguino. The residents of Colonia Angeles ate and drank and laughed.

  "Is this a comedy?" Lindsay whispered to Jesse.

  "It is to them, an Anglo playing a Mexican hero."

  Just then a bright light streaked fast and high into the night sky followed by a brief explosion, like fireworks. The children clapped.

  The crowd cheered as if he had just hit a walk-off home run.

  Bode stood on the pitcher's mound in Yankee Stadium surrounded by the Mexican kids. They all wore Yankees warm-up jackets and caps. The boys held hot dogs, and Josefina a fluffy pink cotton candy. She wore her yellow dress. They had met the players and conversed with them in Spanish. You couldn't slap the smiles off their faces. Especially Ranger Hank's.

  "?Beisbol americano! " Miguel shouted.

  Fifty-two thousand fans packed the stands. Yankees versus Red Sox with a national hero throwing out the first pitch on national TV. Bode reared back and threw a strike to the catcher. He smiled and waved his cap. The catcher handed him the ball and asked him to autograph one for him. Bode signed the ball then walked over to Jim Bob and Mandy with the kids. Mandy looked stunning in black tights and a black miniskirt and the baseball jacket; he hoped his wife wasn't watching his mistress on television. Jim Bob gestured to Bode's image on the big video screen in center field. Bode squatted down to the kids and pointed at the screen. They all turned to the screen and waved to the crowd.

  Bode Bonner basked in the cheers.

  "They cheer him. He is a murderer, but the gringos cheer him. Because he murdered Mexicans."

  Two thousand miles south of Yankee Stadium, in the white compound in Nuevo Laredo, Enrique de la Garza stood in his office and stared at the image of the Texas governor on the television. It had been one week since that man had murdered his first-born son. One week knowing that he would never again see his son's face or hear his voice, never again laugh at his antics or teach him the family business, never again watch American baseball with him or play catch in the courtyard.

  His son was dead.

  His brother cried for him, and his sister cried for herself. She missed her big brother. As her father missed his son. The loss was unbearable. The pain unimaginable. The desperation he now felt seemed far worse than after his wife's death. Because her death was a mistake. But his son's death was murder.

  He demanded justice for Jesus.

  But there would be no justice in America. The governor would not be charged with murder; instead, he was hailed as a hero. Enrique had watched him on the morning shows and the news shows and the cable talk shows as he boasted of murdering his son: "I shoot first and ask questions later," he had said, and the gringos, they laughed. Now he was cheered as a hero at a baseball game. Regarded as a righteous savior instead of a cowardly murderer. A killer of Mexicans. Oh, how the gringos loved that. Remember the Alamo! Manifest Destiny! Once again, Americans murder Mexicans as they did during the Invasion. Once again, they take what is ours. Once again, we have no justice.

  Once again, the Americans steal life from the de la Garza family.

  Two hundred ten years before, the king of Spain himself had granted sixty thousand acres of land straddling the Rio Bravo to Juan de la Garza. Juan built a magnificent rancho with many cattle and vaqueros. Then the American president decided that God wanted the United States to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so he sent the army to take this land from Mexico. And take it they did, from here to California. Half of Mexico they stole from Mexicans. Then the president signed a treaty that set the Rio Bravo as the new border but granted continued title to Mexicans owning land north of the river. But the Americans wanted that land as well. They wanted it all. So the Mexicans were required to prove their title to land they had lived on for generations. "Your titles must be approved by the Texas legislature in Austin," the Americans said. "But we promise to give the titles back to you." The governor sent a commission to the border to collect the original land grants from the Mexicans. The commissioners put the titles in a trunk and the trunk on a boat for the trip up the coast; but the boat sank in Matagorda Bay. The commissioners, they survived, but the Mexicans' titles did not. An unfortunate accident, the commissioners said. Very sorry.

  And then the Texas Rangers rode upon the Mexicans' land.

  They put their guns to Juan de la Garza's head and demanded his signature on a deed-or his blood. Juan refused, and so he died on his land. As did many Mexicans. The river ran red with Mexican blood for many years. And when the killing stopped, the Americans owned all of the land north of the river. They stole our land and with it, our history and our future. The Americans sentenced the once wealthy de la Garza family to a life of poverty-until the great-great-grandson named Enrique de la Garza established the Los Muertos cartel to impoverish the Americans with the filthy drugs.

  No, gringos, it is not about the money-it is about history and honor, venganza and justice, the past and the future. It is about Mexico and Mexicanos.

  The history of the borderlands has now come full circle. That which you so coveted now comes back to haunt your soul. To enslave you to the evils of heroin and cocaine and marijuana. To impoverish you with poor people. The governor stood at the Statue of Liberty where Enrique de la Garza had also stood and read the inscription: "Send us your tired, your poor…" And we do. We will. We have. And more we will send north. Tens of millions more. To America. You once invaded us, now we invade you. You have impoverished us, now we will impoverish you. With our drugs and our poor. We will export our marijuana and cocaine and heroin and our hungry and illiterate and poor. Our poor will become your poor. Our poor will make you poor. Our poor will inundate your schools, your hospitals, your prisons, and
your cities. This we have done to Texas. This we will do to America. Billions you spend on our drugs; trillions more you will spend on our poor. Drugs and poor people we send north that will impoverish you as you have impoverished us.

  But there remains a balance due for what you have stolen from us-our land and our wealth, our history and our honor, our justice and our future. All that you took from us. And for that you owe a debt you will pay until the end of time. Only when there is justice will that debt be paid in full. And as God was his witness, there will be justice. For Mexico and Mexicanos. For Jesus de la Garza.

  " Ya lo hice, jefe."

  Hector Garcia entered with a broad grin.

  "What have you done, Hector? Have you killed the governor, as I asked? No, you have not." Enrique pointed at the governor's image on the screen. "See, there he is."

  "Uh… no. I have not done that."

  "Then what have you done that you think would please me so?"

  "The Predator drone-I have shot it down."

  Enrique only grunted in response.

  " Jefe, does that not make you happy?"

  "My happiness, Hector, is now defined by a singular moment: when you walk into this office and drop the governor's head on my desk."

  EIGHTEEN

  The Roman Catholic Church constructed the San Agustin Cathedral in downtown Laredo in 1872. La catedral features a clock tower that rises five stories above the pavement and a stark white exterior that continues inside to a sanctuary with a tall arched ceiling and a white altar. Lindsay Bonner knelt in the back where the pews were vacant. Jesse had driven her to church but refused to enter the church. He believed in God and he was Catholic, but he understood neither God nor the Catholic church. Why had God abandoned this border and the church these people? She too had questioned her God and her church, but she needed to be in church and to pray to God that Sunday morning. Because she was contemplating sin.

  The sin of adultery.

  One hundred sixty miles north of the cathedral in which the governor's wife now prayed, San Antonio Mayor Jorge Gutierrez took a bite of his migas which he chased with the strong coffee. He was watching Fox News on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall above the counter in the small cafe. Normally, the television would never be tuned to Fox News in this cafe in the Prospect Hill neighborhood, but given that the governor of Texas was on the national show that morning, an exception had been granted. When his face appeared on the screen, the patrons booed and made derisive comments in Spanish. San Antonio's Hispanics-which is to say, all of San Antonio-did not vote Republican.

  On the TV, the host said, "Welcome, Governor. It's an honor to have you on the show. You're a genuine American hero."

  "Aw, heck, I only did what any American male with a three-seventy-five-caliber safari rifle fitted with a scope would've done in the same situation."

  "I'm not so sure about that, Governor. I think a lot of Americans would have cut and run."

  The governor nodded. "Democrats."

  The diners booed again, but Jorge chuckled. That was a good line, he had to give the governor that. Jorge sipped his coffee just as his phone rang. He checked the caller ID then answered.

  "Clint, my friend."

  Clint Marshall, the state Democratic Party chairman.

  "You watching this?"

  "Yes, I am."

  On the television, the host took the governor through the hot-button issues of the day, like ticking items off a shopping list-spending and taxes, the debt and deficit, abortion and gay marriage, welfare and ObamaCare-and Jorge's attention alternated between the governor on the television and Clint on the phone.

  The host, on the TV: "Governor, you've railed against the stimulus, but you took the money to balance your state budget last year. Why?"

  "Because the Feds took that money from us. Texas is a donor state-we pay more in taxes to Washington than we get back from Washington. Texans are funding New York and California, and we don't appreciate that."

  Clint, on the phone: "Well, if Texas had voted for Obama, maybe he'd give us more federal money."

  "I think that is his point, my friend."

  The governor, on the TV: "We're fifteen trillion dollars in debt. We're spending ten billion a day and charging four billion to our Bank of China credit card. Borrowing money and printing money isn't the same as having money."

  Clint, on the phone: silence. Jorge chuckled.

  "Come on, Clint. That was a good line."

  "Jorge! You're just encouraging him."

  "He cannot hear me. He is in Washington."

  "Oh. Yeah. Still, it's the principle."

  "Ah, yes. The principles of politics."

  The governor, on the TV: "It used to be a crime to charge more than ten percent interest, so only the mob engaged in loan sharking. But the big banks bribed Congress with campaign contributions to legalize loan sharking. Now credit cards charge thirty percent. How many trillions of dollars have been transferred from Main Street to Wall Street because of that one federal law?"

  Jorge noticed a murmur of grudging approval from the crowded cafe. They were middle-class Hispanics who used credit cards.

  Clint, on the phone: "Okay, he's right about that."

  The governor, on the TV: "Twenty million Americans are unemployed on Main Street, but Wall Street is making record profits. Where's Main Street's bailout?"

  The murmur grew louder. Everyone in the cafe had a spouse, sibling, child, or friend who was unemployed.

  "And what about that, my friend?" Jorge said.

  Clint, on the phone: "Yeah, yeah."

  The governor, on the TV: "The government steals money from one citizen and gives it to another, but both citizens lose their freedom. One becomes dependent upon the government, the other a slave to the government."

  The murmur broke into Spanish… words of approval.

  "He is very good," Jorge said.

  Clint, on the phone: "Tell me."

  The governor, on the TV: "I really don't care what two consenting adults do, as long as they do it inside. But, if it's okay for two men or two women to marry, then why not one woman and two men or one man and two women?… Well, actually, that should be illegal."

  The host: "One man marrying two women? Why?"

  The governor: "No man should be forced to bear the shopping expenses of two women."

  The diners laughed heartily. And they applauded. The governor of Texas.

  Clint, on the phone: "Are they clapping? Hispanics?"

  "Yes, my friend."

  The host, on the TV: "Governor, the latest Fox News poll shows that you now hold a commanding lead among Republicans with forty-two percent. And while Obama beats every other Republican by double-digits in head-to-head matchups, he doesn't beat Bode Bonner. It's all square. Which means the Republican Party needs you. Question: Don't you want to be president?"

  "I'm not running."

  "No way, no how?"

  "Nope."

  "You're absolutely sure?"

  The governor gave the camera a broad smile.

  "Pretty sure."

  The Fox News show ended, and the cafe became noisy with animated political discourse. The proprietor changed the channel to a local Spanish station favored by his Hispanic clientele. Jorge waved to the waitress for the check.

  "We've got to beat him," Clint said.

  "Next year? For the White House?"

  "This year. For the Governor's Mansion."

  Jorge laughed.

  "That will not happen, Clint. He is the governor-for-life."

  Clint launched into a profane narrative, so Jorge focused on the local Sunday morning show on the television. A pretty Latina reporter named Gaby Gomez introduced the lead story. That past Monday, she had journeyed to a colonia outside Laredo to tape a "day in the life of" profile of a young Latino doctor named Jesse Rincon. Harvard-educated and born in Texas to a Mexican mother-one of those so-called "anchor babies"-Dr. Rincon had returned to the border to care for his people
. Jorge grunted. These human interest stories often proved not so interesting, but this story held promise. So when the waitress brought his check, Jorge held up his coffee cup for a refill. He would wait for the show to return from a commercial break.

  "Jorge," Clint said, "I just got off the phone with the national party chairman. He wasn't happy. Shit, he got a standing ovation at Yankee Stadium."

  "The chairman?"

  "No! The governor-by Yankees!"

  "The baseball team?"

  "The people! They fucking love him. You see how many followers he's got on Twitter?"

  "Twitter? Uh, no, I did not see that."

  "Four million-that's more than Snoop Dog."

  "Whose dog?"

  "Another week like this, and he'll have more followers than 5 °Cent."

  "Snoop Dog, 5 °Cent… these are people?"

  "Jorge, this is no longer just about the Governor's Mansion. This is about the White House."

  "Oh, Clint, you worry too much. After George W., no Texan will again be elected president, not in our lifetimes."

  "Don't bet on it. He's a hero now, and heroes are hard to beat. Especially a hero who kills Mexicans… no offense. You see the latest tracking polls? He's in a dead heat with Obama. A couple of our internal polls put him ahead."

  "He will fade. They all do."

  "Maybe. Maybe not. No other Republican has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Obama-but Bode Bonner's got a chance. A damn good chance."

  Jorge heard heavy breathing on the line. He often worried about Clint's heart.

  "We've got to stop him, Jorge."

  "How?"

  "We've got to beat him here in Texas."

  "A Democrat beating Bode Bonner in Texas? That is not possible. Not now."

  "Not a Democrat… a Latino. Me and the national chairman, we think a Latino could beat him."