The Bible According to Judy Butler

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

End of the month, end of a sales trip, end of the day, I went to my favorite bar in all of Texas, Jackie’s Cold Day Inn, my last stop before I checked in at the Lazy Bones Motel. Doc Harris and Les were already seated at their usual table in the corner next to the windows facing the street . The Sheriff’s seat was empty. No one else ever sat there. He liked to have a clear view of the street, the front door and the exit in case there was any trouble which there never was.

Wendy saw me come in, waved hi, and held up two fingers, meaning Jack & Coke and a beer chaser. I nodded and took my place at my friends’ table. I heard Jackie at the back door hollering at Rollie to clean up the alley like she’d told him that morning and if he thought he’d get another free beer don’t even ask. She slammed the door and huffed into the store room.

I told Doc Harris I’d never heard Jackie yell at anybody. If she wants your undivided attention all she has to do is set her chin and flash her green laser eyes on full power. Look at her straight on you know your future health depends on doing exactly what she expects you to do. I suspect Rollie is very busy cleaning up right now.

Les said she’s upset because Sheriff Tom had arrested her friend, Judy, and was taking her down to the lockup in Snyder. “I heard she busted up a church or something like that. Tom’s pickin’ her up now. He’ll probly stop in before he heads out to Snyder. Jackie told him she wants a word with him before he goes.”

Jackie came out of the store room, went behind the bar and poured herself a drink. Les waved her over and we made room at the table. A few minutes later Sheriff Tom and Judy came in.

Wendy brought the Sheriff’s drink and a Coke for Judy.

Judy was early to mid 30s; slender, dark hair, dark eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a green plaid shirt, shiny riding boots, a new Stetson set back on her head. Judy was every inch of five feet tall. Everyone said hi and introduced me.

Wendy told me about her once. Judy Butler is a fixture at Billy’s Last Stand. Billy claims that she was already inside the bar the day he opened for business. She loves to dance and isn’t too proud to pull a cowboy out of his chair to dance with her when the Lonesome Foursome get started on San Antonio Rose. According to Billy she can nurse a Lone Star three, four hours. In the meantime, her dance partners keep buying drinks just to sit and listen to her talk. She knows more stories than Sheriff Tom. They say old stories sound new when she tells them. Judy’s never settled on any man for a life partner. The way she looks at it, after a few years a wife and husband stare at each other across the kitchen table to see which one of them is the most boring. So she samples here and there, she’s happy as she is.

Sheriff Tom saw Jackie giving him the stink eye. He raised his hands chest high, palms up and said he’s doing his job like the judge ordered. According to the arrest warrant Judy was charged with inciting a disturbance in a church, stomping on a Sheriff’s hat (after knocking it off his head), and leaving the scene of the crime.

I looked around. Wendy and Jackie smiled admiringly at Judy. Les and Doc Harris looked a little confused. Judy did that?

Jackie aimed her low beam laser eyes at the Sheriff who crossed his arms and said it’s better if Judy tells it.

Judy hesitated then stood up and pointed at Sheriff Tom. 

“I don’t remember all of it but this is more ‘r less what happened.

“First of all, the old coot Sheriff they got down there made it sound like I set fire to the church. I know he’s your friend but he’s still an old coot.

“It’s true I stomped his hat but it was on accident. A dozen folks saw it, they’re on my side. And, yeah, I did run out of the church because people were fighting, tossing chairs, and yelling. But I didn’t start no fight.”

Sheriff Tom cleared his throat. “Tell ‘em how the fight started, Judy. Why were you there?”

“Well, I was visitin’ my sister, Deb, and she says come with her to the church social. I said, Deb, you know I don’t do church stuff and she says, it’s just cookies and punch, come on. So I say ok and we go. There’s 30, 40 people there eatin’ cookies, yakking at each other. I get a cookie and some strawberry punch. I don’t know anybody ‘cept for Deb so I got nothin’ to say to anybody. Everything’s fine. I figure hang around half hour then get outa there.

“Then the preacher, Jason something or ‘nother, gets on the microphone and says welcome everyone and starts on Bible readings. He does that for a couple of minutes and stops to look at the people standing around. He sees me and Deb says, ‘She’s my sister, Judy, from Panhandle.’ Well, if you know Deb, she’s Bible thumper like you’ve never seen. She knows every word King James ever put in his Bible. If she gets to heaven King James is gonna run the other way if he sees her coming. She leads Bible studies every Wednesday, rain or shine.

“I guess Jason thought I was the same way but I gotta tell you I’ve been thrown outa three or four churches in my time; not thrown out zactly, just told never to come back. There’s lots of stuff that ain’t in the Bible that nobody thinks to ask. Some folks don’t like it when I ask questions.

“Anyhow, Jason says why don’t I come up and share the Good Word with us, Judy. My sister’s poking me in the ribs, go on, she says. You were the star in Sunday School when we were kids. Jason’s sayin’ come on up, Judy. Everybody’s looking at me and Deb. I say, Deb, you don’t wanna hear what I gotta say but she pushes me in the back. Now I’m mad at Deb for gettin’ me in this fix. You asked for it. I’m ready. I get on the stage and waited for everybody to sit down.

My Grampa gave me a Bible when I was a little girl and I read it twice, three times or more. There were some good stories but the Jesus stories went kinda fast, didn’t say much about women, or what people did on regular days. One Sunday after services, I asked the minister if the Apostles had wives. He said some did. I got to thinking what about the wives and how they lived. I imagined them in the market, grocery shopping.

“Hi, I’m Mrs. St. Peter.”

“Nice ta meecha, I’m Mrs. St. James.”

“From the infirmary?”

“No, from the Red House up the hill at the end of the street. Lotta folks confuse us.” 

 
Well, that was kinda disrespectful, I guess, but I saw people sit up in their chairs, ‘specially the women. I’m pretty sure Jason never told Bible stories this way. I see him in the back stuffing cookies in his pockets, not listening, and he walks out.

At Sunday school they said Jesus picked a dozen guys to follow him around. A couple of them were fishermen, another was a tax collector, and I suppose the others were just common folk like everybody else.

Next, I’m wondering how he organized them. Maybe he calls the first meeting and tells them what each of them what their job is. First thing they’re gonna need is money so he says they have to sell all their stuff and give the money to the guy he appoints as treasurer. Then he says, we’re gonna need food and tells St. Peter and another guy they have to go fishing every day. St. Peter says great, I love fishing every day. It’s like I retired!

Now none of these guys is rich and Jesus knows they’re gonna need more money than they have altogether so he says they have to depend on other people givin ‘em food and a place to sleep while they’re travelin’.

He teaches them how to beg by preachin’ on the street corners. He says, tell ‘em that even though things are bad now, there will be plenty of everything after they die, but for now you need some of their cash to keep your body and soul together while you preach salvation to the rest of the world.

If you do it right, he said, they’ll empty their pockets for you. I’ll show you how. You see, you don’t say exactly what’s in store after they die. All you say is IT’S GONNA BE GREAT. YOU’RE GONNA LUUUUUV IT. Each one listening will work it out in his own mind whatever it is he thinks will make him happy forever. But first, he needs you to help him out. There was a guy I knew in carpenter school who said he’d be happy forever if he could have virgins at his disposal anytime he wanted. I asked how many would make you happy? He said, 30 or 40. His buddy said 72 would be good. Crazy as that sounds, who knows, it could sell sometime in the future; somebody write that down.

After weeks of training they’re ready to put their show on the road. They’ve got their cross-fit sandals on just in case they gotta run away sudden like. Their backpacks are by the door outside Jesus’ house.

They have a going away party, invite the neighbors, set out some barbecue, loaves and fishes, big jugs of water. Judas’ cousin brings his band, Priest, for entertainment. Next morning, they all gather in front of Jesus’ house. The whole family’s there to say goodbye. The women and kids wave as the men set out to the next village.

Mary, Jesus’ mom, turns to her neighbor, Mrs. St. Peter, and says, “They’ll be back a lot sooner than you expect. If I know those boys they don’t know much about taking care of themselves. They’re used to us women doing everything for them; wash and mend their clothes, fix their food, and… you know.” Mrs. St. Peter nodded.

Mrs. St. Peter says, “Hmmph, what are they gonna do for breakfast tomorrow morning? They got money for a couple days eating at the inns but after that they’d better do some mighty preaching to get enough money for 13 Happy Meals, three times a day.” 

 
Some of the women snickered. The men frowned and shifted around in their chairs.

St. Thomas’s live-in girlfriend was there, too. She said he was useless around the house. She couldn’t even send him to the market to get the basics for meals. It took him three hours wandering around the stalls to do what she could do in twenty minutes. And he always got something wrong; three pounds of lentils instead of barley. And forget about the meat. I told him a thousand times that the prepared meat was too expensive but he got it anyway. He’s starting to bug me, too. He questions everything I do. I used to think it was real nice that he was paying attention but now if I say I’m going to see my mother he looks at me like he doesn’t believe me.

Back in Bible times there were lots of preachers wandering around. Maybe there wasn’t enough other work so preaching was a way to stay busy and get some money without working with your hands.

Grampa thought maybe Jesus was that way since he was a child, always telling the other kids how they oughta behave. His dad never taught him how to fight so he got beat up a lot for being so bossy. It really hit the fan when he was about 12 years old. He would go into town and stop people on the sidewalks and preach at them. People usually ignored him but one time he came up to three Pharisees, got in their faces about being hypocrites or something. Anyway, they brought him home, complained to his folks, told ‘em they’d better do something about the boy. They sent him to carpenter school in another town and he quieted down for a few years.

He was fine, helping out at his dad’s shop, got real good at making right angle cuts. But on his time off he’d be off in the desert preaching to the bushes or talking to the hermits that lived in the hills.

I don’t remember when it was but he musta been a grown man, he went to the temple one afternoon and got mad about something and attacked the moneychangers, turning their tables upside down, whipping whoever was nearby. Big riot. The Pharisees weren’t having any of his excuses and they took him before the King but the King let him go, probly because the Pharisees were a bunch of blowhards.

When he came home, Mary tried to explain that there had to be moneychangers because the town was a crossroads for trade from all over the east and they all had different kinds of money. They set up shop at the temple because it was smack in the middle of town and had a big open area with shade. Plus, there was a huge food court there. You could have lunch without having to go home. If you needed something from God there was lambs and other livestock you could buy to offer as sacrifice. Funny thing about that is that you gave the lamb, doves, or whatever to the Pharisees to do the ceremony but you never got to see it. You had to trust them to do it right. Jesus said okay, okay, Mom, but I don’t think she got through to him.

Grandpa had other ideas that he said flat out weren’t in the Bible. He said he thought about it a lot that Jesus and the Apostles traveled all over by themselves and he didn’t think that was the way things happened. In his way of thinking, the Apostles traveled with their families because it didn’t make sense to leave the women and kids at home without money coming in. And they needed the women and kids for cooking and cleaning, minding the flocks, milking the goats; all kinds of stuff a normal Jewish household had to do every day.

In those days there were two kinds of women – super holy or super bad. Mary and her mom were good ones, doing a happy dance when Mary said she was pregnant with Jesus. Another good one was a widow who donated her last thin dime to the temple and all the time there’s the Pharisees makin’ fun of her.

Some folks think one of the bad ones was Mary Magdalene who nobody knows for sure what she, being single, was doing traveling with a dozen men. And there was a bad woman accused of sleeping around. It’s true, Jesus saved her from being stoned to death but it made the Pharisees look bad. Eventually that kind of stuff got him killed.

By now everybody’s listening hard. I could tell it was a good story. Leaning forward in their chairs nobody even coughed. They were probly used to Jason spending half the service tellin’ ‘em about goin’ to heaven then the other half sayin’ how bad they were, makin’ the Baby Jesus cry every minute of the damn day.

I was gonna say some more when some old fart stood up and yelled “Out, Jezebel! Get out Jezebel!” But when he stood up, he knocked his chair into the man behind him who pushed him hard so he fell into the row in front. Just like that you got men throwing punches and chairs, women gettin’ away fast. Me, I’m headin’ for the door, Deb can take care of herself. I bump into the Sheriff as he’s rushin’ in, his hat falls off and I kick it with one boot and step on it with the other and I’m gone. And now, here I am.

Honest, I’m kinda scared. The Sheriff’s upset about his hat. Deb says I committed the sin of blasphemy and my soul’s possessed by a demon. And Minister Jason’s mad because some of his folks want him to bring me back for more Bible teaching.

In the Sight of God and the Riot Squad

I wasn’t invited to the wedding, but my friends from Jackie’s Cold Day Inn were so I tagged along just for something to do. A Saturday afternoon wedding wasn’t my idea of a good time but it beat sitting in my room at the Lazy Bones Motel waiting for Jackie’s to re-open after the wedding. I was done with sales calls until Monday.

Johnny Baker was marrying Judy Morgan. I didn’t know either of them, but I knew their families from my sales route. The wedding was at the Catholic church walking distance from my motel. Not much different from most churches in the area, it featured a white clapboard exterior, a tall steeple, and curiously, lightning rods atop the cross. I made a mental note to someday ask the priest why take the precaution of placing lighting rods in the house of God. It seemed like a preemptive measure just in case the congregation or maybe the priest himself wasn’t living up to his Maker’s expectations. 

The lightning rod salesman will arrive by and by

Sheriff Tom and Doc Harris were sitting in the third row of pews. I sat behind them in the fourth row. All told, there were about 50 people in attendance. The priest was in the pulpit, lecturing the young couple about the importance of marriage vows, fidelity, morality, children in the future, and so on. They knelt a few feet away, listening hard, possibly thinking about the life they were entering or hoping to hear about a loophole that would get them out of this commitment before it was too late.

The bride wore a simple off-white dress. Long wedding gowns, expensive as hell, are out of fashion these days. Her dress was meant to be somewhere between a formal outfit and one she could wear to a party -- practical, modern. The groom wore an off the rack suit from Penney’s in Lubbock. It was likely that he wouldn’t wear it again except for an occasional funeral, if then. After the wedding his young wife would carefully store it in a plastic bag to keep years of dust from collecting on it and, if she thought of it, add some mothballs that would stink the suit up forever.

The priest droned on. I could see the groom was getting restless, kneeling as he was on the hardwood floor. I looked around and saw Jackie, Wendy, and Doris sitting across the aisle from me. Up front, one of the women was sniffling into her hankie. She was one of the mothers of the wedding couple. Her husband sat stiffly, his eyes focused on the priest. On my side, the other set of parents studied the statues of saints and other icons on either side of the altar, something they didn’t have in the First Baptist church down the street.

I thought the sermon was over when the priest stopped talking and looked towards the rear of the church. Everyone seemed to waken and turn around. Les, Jorge, and Milo came in as quietly as they could and quickly sat down in the rear pews. They must have seen the note at Jackie’s --- “At a wedding, St. Thomas, back at 5:30.”

At last the priest finished his sermon and married the two kids. “Do you take this man, do you take this woman, etc., etc.” and it was over. The most important part and really the only required part of the wedding was done; two questions, two affirmative answers. I got together with my friends on the church steps and we headed over to Jackie’s.

We took our seats at our usual table and I noticed the Sheriff and Les turning their wedding rings round and round on their fingers. Jorge had taken his off and was spinning it like a coin on the table. Doc Harris didn’t have a wedding ring. Wendy and Jackie were busy behind the bar pouring our drinks.

Presently, Wendy hip walked over with our drinks and clean ashtrays for Tom and Les. “Look at you men,” she said. “Having second thoughts are you now? It’s too late.” Tom gave her a sour look and put his hands on his lap. Jorge slipped his ring back on, picked up his drink and said, “A toast to the newlyweds whoever they are.” We saluted them silently with our drinks.

I saw Jackie coming to our table, a drink in her hand, so I scooted over to make room for her. She settled in and said, “That Baker boy looked pretty grown up, don’t you think? Joined the Army, saw the world, came back a grown man. Had my doubts about him for a long time, growing up he seemed like a lost ball in the tall grass. They way he looked today, he ain’t lost anymore, he’ll be fine.”

Jackie, who rumors had it, had been married three times and outlived all her husbands including the one she shot between the eyes, poked her chin at Doc Harris and said, “So, Doc, when are you going to make Doris an honest woman? Been livin’ in the same house goin’ on twenty years now.”

Doc gave Jackie a patient smile. “Jackie, just so you know, I did ask her 19 years ago. She said she’d think about it. So far’s I can tell she’s still thinking it over. Never said yes, never said no. I think she’s waiting for me to ask again.”

Doris was his nurse/receptionist. The local gossips and the church ladies disapproved of Doc and Doris’ living arrangement and pointedly referred to Doris as ‘Miss Duncan’ alluding obliquely to her life of sin. For his part, Doc explained that he and Doris were just fine as they were, maybe someday they’ll make if official...or not.

Les had married young, just 18. He and Peggy were married by a Justice of the Peace in New Mexico because she was underage in Texas at the time. And no, she wasn’t pregnant. She just wanted to get on with life with a husband and raise kids and pigs. She and Les had a bunch of kids and owned Les’s General Store a few doors down from Jackie’s place.

Jackie’d told me once that Sheriff Tom’s wedding wasn’t much of a mystery or even vaguely interesting. Twenty-one when he married his high school sweetheart, church wedding, groomsmen, bridesmaids, a ritual so conventional and ordinary, no one could even remember being there.

None of these folks were at Sheriff Tom's wedding

Sheriff Tom lit another of his cigarillos, leaned back in his chair and said, “Ya’ll remember Francisco Ramírez, the old bronc buster from Las Cruces? He told me a story about his mother’s wedding in 1939, I think he said. According to Francisco, the day his mom and pop got married they didn’t even know they were gettin’ married. They never thought they might get caught up in a riot or go to jail. Imagine that.

"Now, you hear somebody tell it like that, you don’t wanna sound too interested, know what I mean? So you say ‘so what’. And that’s what I said to Francisco, ‘So what?’

“You know how Francisco is. He’ll say something and leave it hangin’, kinda force you to ask him what else. I don’t remember why but that day I made up my mind not to ask him what else. He’s got a story, then, by god, tell it. I wasn’t gonna beg. So we’re sittin’ there under the mesquite trees next to his house in Las Cruces drinking beer, me talking about Panhandle stuff, Francisco's looking out towards the Rio Grande a hundred yards away. I tell him about the day I arrested Jorge Washington de la Cruz for tryin’ to scalp Harley Carson with his Buck knife. And Francisco laughs, says he wished he coulda been there, wants to know what happened. So I tell him about Jorge and Harley gettin’ crossways at Billy’s Last Stand one night.

“Tryin’ to sound like cranky ol’ Judge Thompson I said, ‘Mr. Horhay Washington day la Croooz, you are charged with assault with a deadly weapon. In my days as a judge and as a man crawling about this earth now near 80 years I never thought I would be charging a man with attempting to scalp his victim, but here we are. According to witnesses you were observed sittin’ on Mr. Harley Carson’s chest, holdin’ his hair in your left hand and a Buck knife with a 6” blade in your right hand. Only the arrival of Deputy Sheriff Dudley prevented you from takin’ Mr. Carson’s hair and scalp. How do you plead? Bear in mind, Mr. day la Croooz, there are other charges pending against you.’

“Long story short, the judge hears the testimony, dismisses the charges against Jorge then fines him and Harley $25 each for being dumbass enough to fight over which was a better truck, a Ford or a Chevy, seeing as in the judge's opinion the Dodge Ram is clearly the superior machine.

“Francisco laughs again then says, ‘You know, Tom, my mom and dad lived in El Paso in the 1930’s. Back in the day El Paso and Juárez had a reputation of being the Wild West. During Prohibition El Paso was dry but you could still buy booze if you could talk your way into the back rooms of pool parlors. Or you could cross over to Juarez and drink all you want. Money men from both countries set up big distilleries on the Mexican side and some say more than half the bars in Juárez were owned by Americans. Hell, the two biggest ones were O’Brien’s Bar and The Big Kids Palace, not hardly Mexican if you ask me.

“‘Even in 1939 it was like the Prohibition years never left. Alcohol was legal in the States but smugglers were bringing in Mexican liquors for less money and no Federal taxes. Shootouts between Border Patrol agents and smugglers were so common sometimes they didn’t even make the news unless somebody got killed. Man, 1939 was a hell of a time to get married.’

“He’d done it again, set the hook so I would ask what else about his mother’s wedding. I still didn’t take the bait.

“Francisco goes to the cooler, brings me another beer. He winks and says, ‘Tom, you don’t wanna know about my mom and pop? You know, I told my sons about it once and they didn’t believe me but my uncle Gustavo swears it’s true.’

“I gave in and said, ‘Ok, Francisco, tell me all about it.’

“Francisco said his father was a U.S. citizen. Mom wasn’t. Their common law marriage was sort of a family secret because common law marriages didn’t sit too well with her family. You weren’t really married unless it was in a church with a priest, holy water, candles, and all that extra stuff. So fifty years later in 1989 there wasn’t any 50th wedding anniversary party. After all, you can’t have a 53 year old son if you only been married 50 years. So nobody ever talked about their actual wedding. And nobody ever had a wedding where the bride and groom didn’t say anything at all.”

“Right off I figured this was gonna be another of Francisco’s shaggy dog stories. You can’t always tell with him. But this tale was shaping up to be a two six-pack job so I brought the beer cooler over, set it down between us and waited for his story.

“He says, ‘What my uncle told me, I don’t know how much is true because if you know my Uncle Gustavo, sometimes he makes things up. But when I ask my aunts and uncles they pretend not to know anything or just wave it off and walk away.

‘What happened was one Sunday afternoon my parents went to Juárez to celebrate my baptism. In those days, crossing the border from one side to the other wasn’t a big deal. Just say “American” and pay a 2 cent toll. El Paso and Juárez were like one big city. People crossed from one side to the other every day by the thousands. Mexicans came to buy from American shops while Americans crossed over for stuff they couldn’t find in American stores.

‘Everybody knew that hundreds of Mexican women were going to maids jobs in El Paso and the men were headed to the big farms in the upper and lower valleys. The Border Patrol knew that if they stopped this traffic there would be hell to pay from the American housewives and farmers who depended on the Mexicans to be at their jobs every day. The guards at the border crossing didn’t check who was who too closely. The Border Patrol took coffee breaks for a couple of hours after dawn.

‘But on that Sunday after my baptism party, the border agent who probly had some bad tacos for lunch demanded proof of my mother’s citizenship. She didn’t have a passport so the agent didn’t let her cross to El Paso. Oh, yeah, she was six months pregnant with my sister.

‘My father didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave her in Juárez and he couldn’t stay. My mother told him to find Mrs. Martínez. Maybe she would know what to do. So pop took my mother to stay with her cousin in Juárez then went to El Paso to find Mrs. Martínez.

‘Mrs. Martínez was the richest businesswoman in El Paso. My mother and my aunt were maids in her mansion on the hill overlooking downtown. Martínez money financed dozens of businesses and political campaigns in El Paso and Juárez. Anybody who was anybody owed her money or favors. Mrs. Martínez always got what she wanted.

‘My father found her mansion but was afraid to go up the steps and knock on the door. I mean, he was a nobody and she was the most important woman in the city. Would she call the police? He’d heard that she had a bodyguard. Would the bodyguard beat him up if he bothered La Señora? So he walked up and down the sidewalk in front of the house, back and forth, back and forth, starting up the steps, then down again, over and over until a maid looked out a window, saw him and told Mrs. Martínez. 

Mrs. Martínez must be in there somewhere

‘The maid opened the door and ordered my father to come in. Wipe your shoes, she said. Take off your hat and, ¡Ay, Dios mío!, stand still!

‘When my father told Mrs. Martínez what happened she called the immigration office, a judge in Mexico and another one in El Paso and commanded them be at the border bridge in 30 minutes. My father was still standing there shaking so she yelled at him to go back and keep mom away from the immigration office, don’t let anybody talk to her, and if anybody has a problem with that, tell them Mrs. Martínez is coming.

‘My father stole a bicycle and raced back to Juárez, got my mom to the border crossing just in time. Traffic's stopped in both directions, car horns honking, angry pedestrians shouting. There’s American and Mexican cops rushing up from both sides. A shootout with smugglers along the river bank three days before had them on edge. They drew their guns. There could be trouble again any minute.

‘Mrs. Martínez, the two judges, two immigration officers, and mom and pop stood in the middle of the road surrounded by pedestrians and cars. She was barking orders like a drill sergeant, moving the judges and immigration guys around the border stripe. Every time they tried to say something she shut them up with a hard look. At the same time the crowd's getting bigger, the line of cars longer and the cops are getting closer.

‘Mrs. Martínez tells the judges and the agents to move aside. She whips off her hat and stands in the middle of the road with her hands on her hips like she’s daring anybody to make trouble. She stands there, the Grand Mamacita of all mamacitas, looking 10 feet tall, making the kids settle down -- NOW, or else.

‘The Grand Mamacita was hardly ever seen in public, so only a few people in the crowd knew what she looked like, but as word spread about who she was people started shushing the others around them until the crowd went still; everyone wondering why she was on the bridge, what was she doing, who were those people with her; the judges? Immigration officers? Smugglers? The cops stopped, confused about what was Mrs. Martínez was doing there.

‘My mom and pop are desperate, looking here, looking there, all around. There’s American police coming from one side; Mexican cops from the other side to arrest them? Can they escape? If they run, which way to go? Do they go together or opposite ways? And what about their son and the baby on the way? They’re confused along with everybody else except for Mrs. Martinez. She gives my mother a sharp look and tells her to stand on the Mexican side of the border stripe, my dad on the American side. She snaps her fingers to get their attention then orders the judges sign a piece of paper and tells the immigration agents to sign it, too. She wrote her name at the bottom, handed the marriage certificate to my father and said go home. The judges, the immigration guys, and Mrs. Martínez hustled away.'"

And with that, Sheriff Tom held his hands palms up as though saying, “That’s all, folks. End of story.”

Wendy, who’d been standing behind Doc Harris with a tray of drinks, said, “What about the ‘I do’s and ‘kiss the bride?’” Tom shook his head, nope.

And Jackie asked if the Grand Mamacita or the judges said anything to the couple. “Come on, Tom. There were two judges there. Somebody musta said something.”

Tom said, “I wondered the same thing so I asked Francisco. He said, ‘Nobody but the Grand Mamacita said anything at all -- ‘Stand there! Sign this!’ The border crossing was closed to traffic and everything had to happen fast so there wouldn't be a riot reported in the papers.’

“I was doubtful and I must’ve shown it somehow because then he said,

‘Look at it this way, Tom. Mom was a housemaid. Dad was a laborer at the copper refinery. Not exactly high society people. Their plan for the day was to have my little baptism party and go home. They had no idea they were going to be married or be in the middle of a riot. They were surrounded by hundreds of angry people and the most powerful political people on both sides of the border -- the Grand Mamacita, two important judges, and two Immigration Officers who could arrest them or worse. It wasn’t their place to ask any questions (as sad as that sounds). All they could do was what the Grand Mamacita ordered which was to go home. I’m not sure the marriage was legal but that afternoon it was. The Grand Mamacita said so. My mother learned enough English to pass her citizenship test and become a U.S. citizen a few years later. Mom and pop raised four kids who are good neighbors everywhere they go. Even me.’”

Dunc

Now that the Class of ’65 reunion was over I decided to spend another day to look around the city I’d left 20 years before. I headed south to the farming area where the narrow county roads were always good for small adventures. One time my wife and I wandered onto a dirt road that abutted a farm that raised miniature horses. At first we thought the herd we saw was at least 200 feet away but they were actually just 50 ft away. The little horses were just two feet high at the shoulder. Months later we tried to find them again but didn’t succeed. Another time we followed the flight of an egret, not a native bird in the Southwest, and found a hidden wild bird sanctuary in an artificial lake.

This time, when I saw the amateurish sign “Caesar’s Palettes” written large on the side of an old barn in the Lower Valley, I just had to stop, look, and ask. The tall brush and huge cottonwood trees obscured the front of the barn so I couldn’t see the enormous piles of wooden palettes, the kind used in warehouses all over the world to carry stacked goods.

The barn was about 300 feet from FM78, the farm-to-market road that ended just five miles south where it joined State 20. I drove over the rutted driveway to the open barn doors, got out of the car to the sound of rock music blasting from a pair of tower speakers located on each side of the doors. Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane were just finishing “White Rabbit”. “…..feed your head, feed your head…”, she wailed. No sooner was she done than Janis Joplin implored me to “take another little piece of my heart….”

Thinking I must have made a mistake and wandered into Psychedelphia, circa 1968, I turned back to my car.

“Mex!”

I hadn’t been called “Mex” since Vietnam. I whipped around to see who’d called me. It was a tall old man, sunburned to a crisp, who looked a little like somebody I used to know.

“Mex! It’s me, Dunc. Dunc McGregor.”

The Dunc I remembered from ‘Nam was a lean, broad shouldered guy, about 6ft a hundred, messy red hair, a droopy Fu Manchu mustache, every bit as tough as he looked. This guy was tall and wide like Dunc; graying red hair tied up in a pony tail, no mustache. I couldn’t place him.

“You don’t look 18 anymore either, Mex. If it wasn’t for your big nose I wouldn’t recognize you any more than I could find Waldo. It’s me, Dunc. ‘Nam, ’68, best friend you ever had.”

“Dunc? Where the hell’ve you been for the last 40 years? I’ve been looking for you all over the country all this time and you’ve been holed up in my own home town? I’m here to collect the $8 gas money you borrowed in LA.”

“No. You got it wrong, Slick. It’s you that owes me. Forty years, compound interest adds up, boy. Cash only, please. No checks.”

Like old times we did the dozens, matching wits, each trying hard to top the other until we ran dry.

“Dunc, ‘Caesar’s Palettes’?”

“Long story, Mex. Come on inside. I’ve got some cold beer and some candy ass soda pop just in case you’re still a wimp.”

He pulled two beers out of the cooler, turned the volume control down on the stereo and led me out a big cottonwood next to the barn. We sat down and looked at each other wondering if we looked as old as the guy we were looking at.

When our enlistment was up it was Dunc who saw me off at the Greyhound Bus Station in LA in ’69. I was going home to Texas. Both of us had mustered out of the service at the same time a couple of months before. He was getting up the money to buy a Harley then head home to Mississippi. We tried to stay in contact at first but it didn’t last long. I hadn’t thought about him in years.

His family was what’s called white trash, meaning poor, uneducated, and in some ways proud of being ignorant. He grew up in Mississippi among similarly poor blacks and Mexican migrant workers working alongside them in the watermelon fields and pecan orchards. When that work thinned they went to work in the poultry farms slaughtering and cleaning chickens from sunrise to sunset. Every man was a human being to Dunc.

His relentless energy as a linebacker in high school earned him a scholarship to Mississippi State where the team elected him defensive captain in his sophomore year. He was always the first to ‘hit the hole’ where the ball carriers were most apt to run but at 6ft. 3, 190lbs, was judged too small and light to play in the NFL. Unfortunately, the war in Vietnam was in full cry when he graduated and he was drafted immediately and sent to boot camp where it took three DI’s nine weeks of mighty effort to break him.

It wasn’t but two days after he reported to his base commander in 'Nam that Dunc was brought before his CO for fighting. Pecking orders are fact of life everywhere in life. Factions form, each with its leader and followers. Dunc, being Dunc, refused to kowtow to one of the self-described ‘leaders’ and was beaten badly but he wouldn’t back down. Eventually, he got the upper hand, so to speak, and broke the leader’s wrists -- both of them. To save the paperwork and hassle of a court martial Dunc was sentenced to three weeks latrine duty and was never challenged again. The guy he’d injured was sent stateside.

“Damn it, Mex, last time I saw you was at the bus station in LA and you borrowed $8.00. Saw Russ and Sergio in San Francisco in ’72. They told me Spence was living in Trucknutz, Arizona or something like that.”

I said, “We had some good times while we were waiting to muster out, remember?”

“Yeah, those girls who came to the parties over at Russ’s place? That redhead with the short dress, hair up high; that little girl had legs that went all the way up her………..”

“Dunc, you’re talking about my wife.”

“Oh, shit, man. I didn’t know. She married you? I gave her more credit for brains. Man, you got the better part of that deal.”

Still not believing, “The redhead and you?”

I nodded, yes.

Now really curious, “How’d you do it? I was gonna make a run at her but Marc had dibs already from being her pen pal or some shit.”

Catching himself now, he put his hand on my knee, “Hey, Mex, I didn’t mean nothing by that. I’m sorry, man.”

I told him no problem. It was a long time ago. Anyway, I told him, we had bunch of kids, owned a small business until we retired to Florida. Got another beer?

As he walked to the barn for the beer I laughed quietly at the idea that Dunc would make passes at my girlfriend, now wife. Back then Dunc looked like and acted like the bad boy that women are powerfully attracted to when they’re bored with their boyfriends or just looking for something out of the ordinary. Good looking, friendly, approachable, a sort of wild, unpredictable attitude about him. He was a dynamo in a crowd but tongue tied and hugely bashful whenever he was alone with a woman. One of the girls told me that she tried everything but strip down to get him to make a move on her. When she got real close he fumbled his drink, spilled it on her dress and on his pants then spent the next two hours apologizing.

Fresh beer in hand I said, "I was just thinking about you and the Harley you bought in LA to drive home.”

“That was a sweet ride, a 19 and 69 Harley Sportster. Took me 23 hours non-stop, ‘cept for gas and food to get to Clarksdale. My dad saw me drive up. Didn’t say anything right off. He just put me in his truck and took me to the ER. The nurses thought I was in a fire, my skin peeling off me, bleeding. It was windburn on my face, arms, hands, feet; even parts of my body that were covered. Doctor said he’d never seen windburn that bad. I was laid up in the hospital for two weeks, mostly knocked out with pain pills. Took a long time to heal up and I had to stay out of the sun for almost a year. Wasn’t allowed to drink either. I was a scary sight, too. My skin was blotchy all over, looked like I had some disease. If I was a horse or a cow no problem with being multi-color but hard for a man to get dates looking that way. It wasn’t exactly the homecoming I had in mind. Crazy times. Crazy man.”

Dunc may have been crazy but he was an educated crazy man. He had a civil engineering degree and was 23 when Uncle Sam drafted him. They offered him a commission as a 1^st Lieutenant owing to his degree but he turned it down saying he’d be nuts to be frag bait. He’d just as soon be a grunt, do his time, and go home. Two years later when we mustering out we were required to listen to a non-com try to talk us into reenlisting; get bonus money, go up at least one pay grade for two more years.

Dunc only spoke to the non-com for two minutes. Everybody else spent at least 20 minutes listening to the pitch.

“Dunc, what happened?”

“Nothing. The guy said my name and serial number. I said it was me. Then he said, have you thought about reenlisting?

“I said, no, reached across his desk, took the form, signed it, and left.”

We laughed at the memory of the lifer just sitting there with all his medals and stripes, expecting respect and admiration and getting neither from a grunt with a thousand yard stare.

“Mex, of the all the guys you were my best friend, kept me out of a lot of trouble like that time in Bangkok with the Marines.”

I thought about the time he told everybody in a bar in Singapore that he was going to kill me. Before that he’d protected me from the rednecks in our unit where being brown, black, or different was an invitation to abuse and insults. When they wouldn’t stop harassing me, he spoke up. “Listen up”, he said. “Nobody but ME calls this spic a spic. You think otherwise, let me know now; save me some time looking for you later.”

“I was your best friend? You forget you what happened in Singapore?”

“Jesus, Mex, what’d you expect? You called me a queer.”

“I didn’t call you a queer. You just thought I did.”

We were on R&R in Singapore. The bunch of us had rented rooms in a cheap hotel near the bars and whores but Dunc had other ideas. He rented a motorbike to go up to the mountains about 50 miles away. All excited about driving up there, staying at a good hotel for a change, he invited me to go with him.

“It’ll be nice. Real cool up in those mountains, rain forest, sleep on clean sheets on a bed that’s only used once a night. We’ll have fun.”

I was thinking about how I wanted to spend my R&R and I said, “Nah, I’m not that kind of guy.” It was a joke but Dunc heard something else.

According to Russ, on the last night of our R&R Dunc and the other guys were in a bar drinking as much as they could hold before going back. They were laughing, joking, and insulting each other as usual except for Dunc. He slugged down one beer after another, looking pissed.

Around midnight he slammed his bottle on the table looked around at the guys and said, “Nobody calls me a queer. I’m gonna break that wetback in two, then I’m gonna stomp his scurvy body flat as a goddamn tortilla, then I’m gonna cut him up in pieces and feed ‘em to the sharks. Anybody know where that sumbitch is? I’m gonna do it right now.”

Russ, who was bigger and meaner, pulled him outside and calmed him down. The next day all was forgotten in the dense fog of massive hangovers.

“Well, hell, Mex, you know I didn’t mean it. That was more'n 40 years ago. Damn, this is the second time I’m apologizing to you today. You the Ghost of Christmas Past or something? What’s next? You’re gonna tell me my future? Remember the MP’s in PI? I saved your skinny ass that time.”

What actually happened in PI was different from his recollection. My memory is better. I wasn’t drunk but I was high.

On that R&R, Dunc announced that he was going to get laid by all the Filipino bargirls in one bar. Two things argued against the success of his mission. We were going to bars that had at least 20 hostesses. That would mean five women each day for four days. Dunc was extraordinary in lots of ways but that fantasy would never happen. The other factor was bar etiquette among the working girls. If a girl succeeding in getting a guy to buy her drinks and maybe her favors later on he belonged to her as long as she wanted. If he came back the next day she would still own him unless she cut him loose for being cheap or whatever reason and he became fair game for the other girls to try. A guy who tried to have his fun with more than one girl in the same bar was risking plenty. He could instigate a fight among the girls or could become a victim of violence himself.

We were all in it together for good or ill so we came up with a plan to keep him and us safe. One of the guys was on his third tour and knew all the hot spots during R&R excursions. He told Dunc that he knew a pimp who could arrange a barfull of girls for him but that he moved around a lot. For the next six hours the gang went from bar to bar drinking at all of them and never finding the imaginary pimp. It was half past eleven. Time to go.

The regs were that we had to be off the streets by 12:00 AM or the MP’s would pick us up. Dunc was blind drunk and mad as hell as we staggered towards our hotel. A block away from the hotel Dunc stumbled and fell on his back, stared at the sky admiring the stars and started singing a nursery rhyme. A pair of MP’s drove up and demanded ID’s; asked where our hotel was. It looked they were going to let us go but then Dunc began swearing at the MP’s, jarheads, if you want to know. He was still on his back struggling to get up. He rose to his feet wavering back and forth still swearing. I cut in telling the MP’s I could handle Dunc and get him off the streets. I grabbed his thumb and started leading him towards the hotel. Dunc cussed at me and for the umpteenth time vowed to break me in two, stomp my scurvy body until it was as flat as a goddamn tortilla; then he was going to cut me in pieces and feed 'em to the sharks. He didn’t stop yelling even after we arrived at the hotel going up the steps to his room with me still pulling him along by his thumb. The guys said I looked like I was walking a big dumb ape. I pushed him on the bed and waited until he fell asleep.

In Dunc’s version it was me that provoked the MP’s. He threw me over his shoulder and took me back to the hotel.

I decided not to challenge his recollection about what actually happened in PI so I changed the subject.

“I went over to my old house on North Loop by the Indian Reservation. The house and the pines I planted in ’85 are still there but all the neighbors are different, not friendly like the old ones. Seems like the city’s grown and the community’s shrunk somehow. Nothing’s the same as it was 20 years ago.”

“Ain’t that the truth? When I went back to my folks’ place in Clarksdale all the small farms were gone. All the land was just one big ass spread owned by a syndicate that doesn't give a good goddam about the land. I couldn’t stay. Plus I was all fucked up in my head from the war anyway. You weren’t much better off if I remember.

He was right about that. A lot of us weren’t right after Vietnam and nobody seemed to know what to do about it. The visibly disturbed ones were put in VA hospitals for untested therapies and drugs that probably made things worse. The rest of us lived with whatever was in our heads. Some did better than others.

“Soon as I healed up from the windburn I went back to LA, married a sweet girl but it didn’t last long. She couldn’t take the flashbacks and not knowing what I would do next. Three years, she was gone.

“After she left me I kicked around the country not looking for anything in particular, just moving around until 1984. By then I was on VA disability. The doctors gave me pills for depression but I stopped taking them because they were making me more depressed. The only good thing is the pills made me lose my taste for alcohol. Smelled like old piss. Kicked it except for a couple of beers now and then.

“I went up to Seattle and spent a couple of months at my sister’s place. Her husband’s doing real well; some kind of marketing genius, so they let me stay and wouldn’t let me pay for anything. When I had to move on again they staked me $500. That, plus my uncashed VA checks got me to Las Vegas where I lost most of my money.

Marsha and I met there. She was a cocktail waitress and at first I thought she was just cozying up to me for the money which was fine by me. What’s money for anyway? But she stayed with me after it was gone, been with me ever since. She’s at her mom’s now, up in Utah for a month. I remembered you and we decided to come here and look you up sometime around ‘96. You were gone by then. Some snotty asshole, said he knew you, told me you’d gone to Florida to sell TV’s or something.

“We were out of money so I went to work as a warehouseman and Marsha found work as a receptionist in a lawyer’s office. We were doing ok. My boss liked me, gave me extra hours and responsibilities. One day some dumbass kid ran over my foot with the forklift, broke my ankle. Doc said it would take months to heal right. The bossman felt bad about it, like it was his fault, so he gave me a job I could do, gimpy leg and all, fixing broken palettes. New palettes cost about $22 and there were always broken ones laying around. Good times ‘til my boss had a heart attack and died. The new owner fired me.”

The sun was taking away the shade so we moved our chairs to another cottonwood. I could see his house, a utility shed, and a wire pen with a couple of dozen chickens pecking at the ground.

Dunc pointed to the house and said, “We had a little money set aside and put it down on this place; house, barn, four acres. It was touch and go for a couple of years. We almost lost the place; fell in arrears more than once but made it through. I couldn’t find a steady job so I started going around to warehouses offering to fix their busted palettes. Two months trying and nobody took the bait. In the meantime I picked up broken palettes from dumpsters all over town. Then I had an idea. Why not show up with a pickup load of rebuilt palettes and trade them one for one for broken ones plus $10 each for the good ones. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was a good deal. It was good for me, too. My only cost was for the spiral nails and my time. I had lots of that.

“I did that for a year or so, barely getting by. Been doing better every year after. Got contracts with a couple of small warehouses; going for a Walmart contract. If I get that I’ll need to hire some help.”

Dunc went to get us another beer. Just for something to do I tried to estimate how many palettes Dunc had on his lot but he was back before I could finish my calculation.

Now that we know what to call it, I said, “How are you doing with PTSD, Dunc?”

“Oh, sometimes good, sometimes bad. It’s dogged me all my life. I couldn’t keep a job; pissed off all the time. Some nights I didn’t want to fall asleep, you know why. Next day I was a wreck, started fights, got fired. Drank too much. Just pissed at the world. You know, Mex, all my life I’ve wondered who I might be if not for the goddam war. I’m a goddam civil engineer for god’s sake.

“Marsha’s the one who kept me halfway sane. I don’t know how, she understands what I need when I need it. She’s there. Hate to say it but I thought a lot about killing myself. Last few years though, I’m not pissed anymore. I just feel bad sometimes about the things I did over there. It’s different, you know? Anger’s not the same as grief; grief’s a lot heavier. It’s less now. I guess I’ve paid off some of what I owe.”

The moment over he looked up and gave me a little smile and said, “Whatever happened to Dr. Tim?”

That wasn’t his real name and I don’t remember now why we called him Dr. Tim. He was a few years older than the rest of us; a sage, a guru of sorts. After we were discharged Dunc and I fell in with a small group of anti-war students and Dr. Tim. They weren’t full blown hippies but they occupied an area between pro-war patriots and the anti-war protestors. They dressed down fashionably like hippies but bathed regularly, drank cheap wine, liked to party. Guys like us, back from that lousy war, were guests of honor. There was sex, drugs and rock & roll enough for everybody.

One night after a party, Dunc and I crashed at Dr. Tim’s house. About two o’clock Dunc had a flashback. He sat up hollering, “Incoming! Incoming!” He jumped up and started pushing the furniture against the door, yelling and crying at the same time. Dr. Tim rushed in and got him in a tight bear hug, talking softly. In a little while, Dunc went slack in is arms and began sobbing so hard I started sobbing, too. Whatever he had, I had it, too.

“Dr. Tim? Don’t you remember? He was grad student at UCLA, working on his Master’s, Dunc. Psychology, maybe Sociology, I think. Spence told me a long time ago that the VA hired him right out of college. Still there. Heads up a big department.”

“All the pills and stuff he had. Really good weed, too. I think we were like lab rats to him. Remember the time he tried to give us LSD? I said hell no, but Mex, you took it. I thought you were gone for good. All the while Tim had his arm around your shoulder, humming some shit; rocking you side to side, the crazy music.”

My brain felt like it exploded when the LSD hit my nervous system. Everything glowed. The green carpet, the white beanbags, my shoes, the posters on the wall shimmered intensely like hyped up neon on the edge of bursting. I was afraid. I closed my eyes but the electric colors continued, swirling, combining. I heard Dr. Tim murmuring over and over, “It’s ok. Just let it go, let it go. Everything is possible. Let it go. Everything you see is real. Let it go.”

I don’t know when it happened but I began to enjoy the experience. Everything was new. Everything was possible as soon as I let it go. My mind was free to go anywhere it wanted; no barriers, no warnings, no stop signs, no looking back. Everything was possible. Hours later, when I felt normal again it was with a clarity I had never experienced before. It would be more than ten years before I had another flashback.

The sun was setting now. We moved our chairs under the shade again and continued talking about the other people we knew, Russ, Max, Spence, Marc, and Sergio. I told him about our reunion in Florida and how my lawn was set on fire, the dorky fire chief, and the neighbors’ little spat in my back yard.

“I wish I’d been there. I haven’t seen anybody but you since ’72. Next time see if you can get the guys to come out here. Not much to see but sand and jack rabbits but, hell, we can have fun just laughing at each other. I’m being polite now, Mex, but I cracked up when I saw you getting out of your car, your belly hanging over your belt, squinting like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day.”

I agreed that it would be fun to get together again, said I’d update the guys about his whereabouts as soon as I got home.

As we walked to my car I saw his sign again: Caesar’s Palettes. I had to ask.

“Where did that come from?”

He turned towards the barn, hands on his hips. Real proud. “When Marsha and I wound up here all we had was a few bucks and this.”

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a five dollar Poker chip. Caesar’s Palace.

“Just about all we had left after Vegas. Don’t remember if I thought it or Marsha. Either way it worked.”

Driving north on FM78 I pulled over to the side of the road a mile or so from Dunc’s place.
I felt bad for him. I felt bad for me. I felt bad for everybody.