The Last Time

Beer & Whine at Billy's Last Stand

“It’s my old lady, man. Billy says she’s too drunk to drive and he’s holdin’ her keys. He says come down right quick, she’s raisin’ hell. If he has to call the Sheriff she’ll go to lockup for sure. You gotta go with me to get her and you drive her truck back, ok?”

Jim and his wife, Angel, are my neighbors in Carson County nearer to Hereford than Amarillo. We’re kinda like family. They don’t have kids and I don’t have a wife. I’m the timekeeper for M & G Drilling. Jim’s a roughneck, same outfit.

Wednesdays are Girls Night Out for Angel and two of her friends.

“Goddamit, Jim, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning! Just leave the truck there. We'll get it tomorrow.”

“No, man, Billy’s sure to have it towed. Last time cost me $150 and they scratched the paint.”

Oh, yes. I remember.

The last time…

It was about a month ago...

Friday being payday Jim and Angel plus some other couples decided to party at “Billy’s Last Stand”. Fair size place near the county line, neon beer signs, pool tables, all smoke and sweat, small bandstand and dance floor that almost goes all the way around the bar at the center. Cozy for maybe 100 people. I tagged along for the company but I couldn’t drink because I had a broken ankle and the painkillers that made everything look pink and gauzy don’t mix with beer. Also, sometimes you see scary things nobody else does. Damn roughnecks get nothing but scratches, bruises, and hard brown skin working all day on the rigs. Me, an office drone, skin so pale people think one of my parents was a polar bear, gets a broken ankle tripping on a printer cable.

Texas Pool Boy

After a few beers the men and women separated. The guys went to the pool tables for some high stakes gaming, twenty-five cents a pocket playing 9 Ball. The girls joined up at one table to continue drinking, gabbing, and sizing up the boys in the band; young, rangy guys, big hats, looking like they thought they could have their pick of the women. I couldn’t play pool or dance with the cast on my foot so I took my diet Coke to the bar to shoot the breeze with the bartender. Maybe he had something I could use to scratch the itch under my cast. 

Sometime around midnight everybody in the bar was friendly drunk, the band was playing loud. At the pool tables things got sloppy but nobody was getting mad. Even the bartender relaxed. Another two hours and he could shut down, count the take, and go home. Some cowboys at the far

At closing time everybody looks good

end of the bar called out wanting shots. He left so I turned around to look over the scene.

I saw Angel and her friends get up to dance. They knew they couldn’t get their husbands off the pool tables so they joined the line dancers. Even drunk, they danced pretty well; at least they didn’t fall down.

Then two things happened at once. Jim was doing ok at pool. He still had some bills in his pocket so he figured he was winning some. Suddenly, his opponent said something about Jim scratching. Jim said, no I didn’t, and you owe me $3. Over at the dance floor, Angel was smacking some yahoo in the face with a full can of beer. In some bars if a woman refuses an invitation to dance, she is definitely a Lizbin. Now, Angel can take care of herself just about anywhere she goes even if sometimes her payback exceeds the crime. Calling Angel a Lizbin is a high crime. After she bashed the guy with her beer, she kneed him hard. He hit the floor face down. Angel was on him fast, punching and scratching at his head.

At the pool tables Jim and his pool partner were staring each other down. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Oh Yeah? Yeah. Who’s gonna make me? You and what army? And so on. Jim had been in this spot before and he was all the time planning how to take the guy down and come away clean; a fast jab, center chest, right cross to the temple. Done.

Jim and Angel been married for 15 years or more and like most married folks can hear each other’s voices among a hundred others. So when he heard, “Motherfucking asshole!” ringing out, he knew it was Angel. Okay, time to go. Fast jab, center chest, right cross to the temple. Done. Go see what’s going on with Angel.

Angel and the guy were standing, squaring off when Jim came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. She whipped around and landed a gut punch with her elbow before he could stop her but he was ready, knowing all about her hair-trigger temper.

Righty tighty, lefty loosey? You sure?

The guy sized up Jim as Angel’s man right off but just couldn’t let a woman beat him up. Lose a lotta points that way. So he gave Jim a ‘come on’ sign with his hands waist high palms up. Jim works the chains on the oil rigs. His nose has been broken a few times. The scars on his face are evidence that he’s likely dealt a lot of punishment in the past. He’s also 6 foot a hundred, 210 pounds, 1½ oz of body fat. Instead of squaring off with the guy, he took one step forward, hands at his side, inviting the guy to throw a punch. The crowd was yelling, “Fight, fight, fight!” Then the guy made a mistake. He glanced away from Jim for an instant. Fast jab, center chest. Right cross to the temple. Done.

Unfortunately, the Sheriff witnessed the knockout as he walked in and had no choice but to arrest Jim. (Nobody owned up to calling the Sheriff). When the guy came to, he refused to press charges, insisting the he and Jim were good buddies, just fooling around and things got a little bit rough, so the handcuffs came off.

Nobody makes Sheriff Tom come out of his office, into his car, make him drive half way across the county just to make him out a fool after eye witnessing an obvious crime. Somebody had to pay.

He doesn't need you and he expects the same

“Now, Jim, I see you’re dead drunk. If you get in your truck I’ll arrest you on a DUI. Same goes for your friends if you get in with one of them.”

“Shit! Then I’ll walk home, Sheriff.”

Hearing that, the Sheriff drew himself up, put his hands on his hips and grew a lot bigger and wider.

“You do that, sonny boy, and I’ll get you for drunk and disorderly in the commons, maybe something worse if I put my mind to it. You’re better off spending some time in the tank. Come on, now. I’ll have you a hot breakfast when you wake up. On me.

“The rest of you, I’m taking Jim to the tank, then I’m coming back the same way or maybe I come back another way. I don’t want to see you and you don’t want to see me. Go home. Billy, time to lock up.” 

Jim didn’t get out of the tank Saturday morning like he expected, or Sunday either. Sheriff Tom and the County Judge went weekend fishing somewhere out of cell phone range. And there was another small detail. The Sheriff hadn’t logged Jim as a prisoner in the inmate register. In effect, he wasn’t there so there was no way the Deputy could release him because logic: If the books don’t show a prisoner arriving, then they can’t show one leaving either.  

Angel must have made at least 15 calls to Deputy Dudley Saturday but Dudley always did everything by the books. Nothing was going to happen until the Sheriff returned Sunday night. Sunday morning Angel and I went to the jail hoping that taking the Deputy some hot coffee and fresh donuts would help ease Jim out of his cell. 

Deputy Dudley was at his desk studying the Carson County Jail Regulations Manual when we arrived. He got up to set the coffee and donuts on a table next to the coffee pot. My ankle was hurting so I asked if I could sit at Dudley’s desk. He was busy slurping coffee and scarfing donuts and said ok. Angel was on him about letting Jim out but he wasn’t moved. "Rules are rules", he said. 

I’d heard Angel’s arguments too many times already so I amused myself by paging through the Rules Manual just for something to do. So many rules! Shape and size of cells, bedding accommodations, lighting, approved paint for the walls, calorie counts in every meal, use of handcuffs, weapons storage, and BINGO: Regulation 367.20 Cell Locks and Doors. 

“Deputy Dudley, it says right here in your book that if a cell in unoccupied it must be left unlocked and open. So if my friend Jim isn’t here as you say by your rules, then the cell he’s in should be unlocked and open. And if he happens to walk out and away, there’s nothing you can do because he isn’t here.”

“No! I can’t let him out. It’s against the…. rules. Anyhow, Sheriff Tom will have my hide when he comes back.”

“Dudley”, I said, “I think the Sheriff didn’t log Jim in because meant to let him out the next morning but he forgot; probably looking ahead to the whiterock bass waiting for him and the Judge at Red Bluff Reservoir. And it sure would look bad if you kept a law abiding citizen in jail for no legal reason. I’m smelling something. Angel, do you smell a lawsuit, too?

“Sheriff Tom’s gonna retire sometime. Best to have a clean record in your jacket if you want to take his place. Think about it, Dudley. The rules are all on your side now. You can save Sheriff Tom and yourself a lot of embarrassment. You don’t want to be the deputy to the next Sheriff do you?”

Near as I can tell Sheriff Tom returned to his jail Monday morning, saw everything in order and sent his Deputy home.

Now here I am, 2 o’clock in the morning, riding with Jim over to Billy’s hoping to get Angel out of whatever scrape she’s in this time, bless her heart. Stay tuned.

Hizzoner de Mare – a story

  

“Mayor Mike Wilson, 69, died in his sleep last night. His wife, Mary Ann, told our reporter that he had gone to bed around 9:00 PM and when she went to check on him an hour later, she found him sitting up in his bed with an open bible on his lap. The distraught widow refused to answer any questions, begging callers to leave her to her grief.”

So read the top story in the “Rancher’s Weekly” in Shorthorn, TX (population 6000). Only four of those 6,000 knew that the Sheriff, responding to a frantic call from an unknown female, found the Mayor out behind the stockyards, stone dead, next to his car, with his pants down. The caller was never found.

The death of a small town mayor is usually not news anywhere except among the locals who then gossip about it for years afterwards. But in the faraway capital, Austin, the news was a shock to legislators and lobbyists who depended on Mayor Wilson in every election. It seems he had a gift for supplying whatever numbers of votes were needed to swing a victory for his party. How a small city in a small county could routinely provide more votes than there were eligible voters was a mystery no one in Austin could fathom but none of them cared to wonder about for too long.

Mike Wilson had become very rich during his 30 year tenure as mayor. His second wife, Mary Ann, 28, had once been 2^nd runner up in the Miss Dairy Queen pageant, 2^nd runner up in the Texas Teen contest, and 2^nd runner up in the Miss Texas competition. Now she was the 2^nd richest widow for 500 miles around.

By the time the real truth of the mayor’s death became known six months later, Wilson’s heir apparent had re-established the connections to Austin’s grifters, and the graft resumed as before. But at least the locals had the mayor’s inglorious death to sift through; and small town grist mills grind exceeding fine.

I was a traveling farm equipment salesman at the time, ranging from the Panhandle to Brownsville in South Texas. Shorthorn was on my route and I had made a habit of stopping for a beer at the “Almost OK Corral Bar & Grill”. Jesse the bartender set a mug of beer at my usual place at the bar when he saw me drive up.

“Hey, it’s good to see you again. How ya been?”

“Doing ok. Sales are better than last year. The new Slice n’ Burn nutcutters are a hit with the ranchers all up and down the Panhandle. I think it’s the mother-of-pearl inlays on the handles and the built-in cauterizer that does it; all electric, two lithium batteries; go all day. Bull to steer in under a minute. Probably sell just as good here. Might even sell some to the Mexicans across the border.”

Early prototype of "Slice n' Burn"

The three cowboys sitting at the far corner of the room began laughing loudly. One of them said something else and the laughter got louder.

“What’s that about?”

“Oh, you heard about how Wilson really died, right? Well, since the truth came out that’s all anybody is talking about. First, they said they were shocked. Then they said, oh yeah, I knew all about it. Then with each telling somebody added a new tidbit, true or not. Then when that game got old they started making jokes. They’re telling jokes about Wilson’s young widow being the 2^nd easiest lay in the county; the cowhands going back for seconds, that sort of thing. Not saying she’s slow witted or anything but you ask her anything and she says, “Just a second.” Tending bar I hear all this stuff over and over.”

The front door opened and a man stood there for a moment as though he had forgotten why he’d come.

“That’s Cal”, said Jesse as he set a longneck on the counter. “He must be at least 80 by now, lookin’ better n’ me and I’m only 60.”

He was 170 pounds of old cowboy, sunburned sinew and gristle spread over a 6 ft. 4 inch frame. He took off his greasy hat, gave it a slap against his thigh, grabbed the longneck and sat two stools away from mine. He gave me a squinty sideways look that told me he’d decided I was harmless, took a long swallow of beer, and signaled Jesse for another.

The cowboys started laughing again and Cal snorted in disgust. “Sumbitches call themselves cowboys. Just sittin’ there gossiping like a bunch of old hens. Don’t know shit about cattle or horses. What’r they cackling about now, Jesse?”

“Same as yesterday, the Wilsons.”

“Shit.”

He caught me looking at him. Turning to me he said, “You’re not from around here, I can tell. California, I bet.”

Before I could answer he said, “Mister, Mike Wilson was the slickest Texas politician you never heard of. I didn’t like him much but then there’s damn few people I do like. Wilson had the good ole boys in Austin eating out of his hand for years. Imagine that! A dirt poor cattle rancher become a millionaire from miscounting votes. Paid off for Shorthorn, too -- a rodeo arena and Community Center that holds more people than live in the whole county for god’s sake. You tell me how a pissant town like this gets the State and the Feds to build us brand spankin’ new courthouses. First Class all the way, too. A lot of money got spent out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“So how did a dirt poor cattleman become mayor?”

“Well, now we’re talking about the mayor’s race in ’81. That’s how he got in the first time. He won again two years later. After that nobody bothered to run against him. But that first race --- that was something to behold. There weren’t no TV commercials and stuff. It was just old fashion rallies with lotsa speechifying. Hell, nobody running had any money; and besides, this county’s so poor there wasn’t any spare money to donate. The campaign signs looked like “Wanted” posters.

“Jesse, do you remember the first time Wilson got elected?”

“Yeah, I thought the town had gone nuts. Five candidates for a job that pays nothing.”

 “Yep. Crazy, alright. It was Big Bill, Randy, Cody, the blind Meskin guy Raúl, and Wilson.

“What a hoot! Big Bill ran his campaign from the county jail. Randy was in the psych ward in Amarillo. Everybody knew Cody was nuts. And Raúl was blind and deaf!”

I looked back and forth at Jesse and Cal. The hook was set. I swallowed it and followed with the line and sinker. I put a twenty on the bar and asked for a round of beer.

Cal paused and waited until Jesse came back with fresh beers, including one for himself, pocketed my twenty and laid a stack of ones next to my mug.

“Big Bill had a fine opinion of himself and he liked his guns. He strutted around town campaigning suited up like a TV gunslinger; six shooter strapped low, snug up against his leg. His big idea was to bring law and order to Shorthorn, except the only crimes we had were petty vandalism. Hell, the last big crime was the Calahan boys rustling a half dozen steers back in ’62. Them dumbasses got lost out past Wild Rose Canyon. Me and the boys rescued them a week later nearly dead from thirst. Had to keep their daddy from beatin’ ‘em to death.

“Jesse, you were at Big Bill’s last rally, right?”

What Big Bill saw in his mirror

“Yeah, I was. Ole Bill was holding a rally at the town square going on and on about how he didn’t want Shorthorn to become like the big cities full of crime and drugs. Some guy standing in the back asked if he knew who was shooting campaign signs full of holes. Big Bill ignored him at first but the guy kept on about it. I was standing next to a guy who was holding up a sign with a picture of Cody’s face on it. Big Bill saw it and pulled out his shooter and put two bullets in it. One in each eye, quick like. The people that didn’t scatter hit the dirt except for the Sheriff who stood his ground and arrested him. Judge Porter put Bill in the clink for a 30 day stretch at county."

Cal said, “UFO’s. Ever see any? Randy did. Don’t rightly know what UFO’s had to do with being mayor but he ran for it anyways. For years Randy told the folks about triangle shaped aircraft flying over his land but nobody else ever saw ‘em. Everywhere he went, everybody he talked to got an earful about his visions. Nobody believed him, of course. Some of us laughed in his face. About a month before the vote he started hallucinating about being abducted by aliens and being probed like a hamstrung hog. That last thing made the folks at his rallies kinda uncomfortable, but I think it was the tinfoil covering the windows in his house that made his wife commit him to the psych ward in Amarillo for six months.

Got Milk?

“The hell of it is that in 2005, the flyboys at Lackland AFB in San Antone, fessed up about experimental, triangle shape aircraft they had secretly tested about the same time that Randy said he saw them. Now he won’t stop talking about how the Air Force was just covering up the truth about alien visitors.”

“Then there was Cody”, Jessie said. “Lotta folks here and about thought maybe he spent too much time alone in the desert. He had a fossil museum over on Third and Main. Visitors would go in and look at the fossils he’d dug up over the years, which was fine until Cody went into his talks about how the earth was 6,000 years old; how his bone collection proved beyond a doubt that men and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. Some tourists stood and listened (he could go on for hours). Most of them backed out as fast as they could.

“But, I gotta tell you. At one of his rallies he did say one thing that almost made sense.”

Cody's Flintstonemobile

 Cal’s eyebrows shot up and he glared at Jesse.

“Now, don’t look at me like that, Cal. It’s crazy, I know, but it made me stop and think for a minute. He was telling the crowd that Shorthorn would do itself real proud if it elected him, a God fearing Christian. There were some ‘Amens’ in the crowd. Then a kid in the front row asked how did Noah get the dinosaurs into the Ark? The crowd got real quiet, like they never thought of that before. Thinking, HOW?

“’That’s easy,’” Cody said. “Eggs”.

Cal said, “Nobody ever thought Big Bill, Randy, or Cody stood a yella dog’s chance of winning but there ain’t much to do on market day after the shopping’s done so going to the voter rallies was a way to pass the time. Make a day of it, you know?”

Jessie added, “Well, with the three of them out of the way, that left Raúl and Wilson as the only candidates with any chance of winning. Which I thought was kinda funny because I didn’t figure Raúl had any chance at all, being a Meskin and all of us being whites but people were talking him up. The tide was moving his way just 10 days to go to Election Day. Didn’t I say things were crazy? Maybe something in the water.

“I couldn’t figure it until he came into the bar one afternoon and started talking to me about my ex-wife. He knew stuff nobody else could know except my divorce lawyer and my ex.

“That’s when I knew that blind and deaf Raúl was blackmailing the whole town. He mighta been half blind but his hearing was real good.

“How did he do it? Raúl made his living by being a gopher and courier for a lot of the lawyers working out of the old courthouse. They paid him a buck or two for each delivery. They gave him contracts, settlements, and decrees to deliver from one lawyer to another. He wore bad suits, looked sloppy, didn’t ask any questions, and was always available. Everybody knew him and paid him no mind. He just hung around the offices, listening to lawyers talking among themselves or on the phone. He read the documents they gave him to deliver. So, if the Sheriff got you on a domestic beef, Raúl knew all about it. Divorced --- details. Bad debts – details. Raúl was the fly on the wall in the town’s livin', breathin' soap opera.”

I know everything. Everything

Jesse took the empty bottles off the counter and went to fetch another round.

Cal cleared his throat and said, “Only thing Wilson was good at was lyin’. Smart people thought he was dumb. Yes, sir. He was so dumb he got rich. He didn’t know much about ranching but he knew people. You might say he was coyote smart. No matter what you did to protect your chicken pen or your pocket, he’d find a way in.

“He always had big plans that never worked out, like the idea to make his place into a Dude Ranch. Or the time he thought NASCAR would come to Shorthorn if it was promoted right; always looking for an easy way to make a fast buck. Couldn’t rightly tell why he wanted to be mayor. The job wasn’t much at all.

“Ya know, the Meskin, Raúl, almost won, too. If it wasn’t for the County Clerk giving Wilson the votes we woulda had a blind, deaf, Meskin mayor. If anybody thought there was something fishy they didn’t say nothin’. Wilson wasn’t anybody’s idea of a mayor either, but at least he was white.

I must have made a face because he added, “Things ain’t like that anymore. Town’s changed; people changed.” Glancing over at the laughing cowboys in the corner, he said, “Well, most of us anyway. Maybe you can leave one of your nutcutters with me on account. Might have a need for it after all.”

Jessie set the longnecks on the counter and said, “Best move Wilson made was to marry Betty Jo, the County Clerk, a few months after the election. Folks scratched their heads over that. Betty Jo was plain as can be; thirty years old, a spinster for sure. But when Wilson looked at her he saw a beautiful thing. He saw POWER and an easy way to get it. With Betty Jo counting votes he could sell Shorthorn County votes to Austin --- as many as they wanted. All he had to do was propose to Betty Jo and win the first time.”

It only matters who counts the votes

                         

Author’s Note:

This story is fiction. However, some of the characters in it are based on an real election that took place in a real town in Texas in my lifetime. For the purposes of this story, the candidates’ attributes were modified to make the story believable. They were more bizarre in real life.

When the bartender rolls his eyes

South of the middle of nowhere

I arrived in Eagle Pass from El Paso around 4 o’clock, hungry and thirsty after seven hours driving. Bypassing the usual national chain fast food joints I stopped a place called Barney’s Bar & Grill, Best Eats, Coldest Beer in South Texas. Inside, Barney’s looked like a hundred other mom & pop eateries I had visited over the years; outdated tables and chairs, neon signs advertising beers that no longer existed, dog eared menus with old prices inked out, new prices added in ballpoint pen; a jukebox whining predictable country music.

I sat on the barstool nearest the door, ordered a beer, and studied my grandfather’s hand drawn map showing how to find the five acre property he’d given me in his will. The bartender brought my beer and scanned the map.

Coldest beer in South Texas

“That’s next to the Double Aught ranch. Real nice there by the river, cottonwoods all around the house. Mr. Gonzales and his wife been taking care of the house for years. You thinking about buying it?”

“No, Don Francisco was my grandfather. He died last year and left it to me. I’m just here to look it over.”

“Oh. Sorry about your dad. Your map looks good but just in case, stop at the Texaco outside of town on the 480 Loop. Pedro’ll tell you how to get there.”

A customer came in and sat on the bar stool next to me, dropped his worn leather gloves on the bar and ordered two Lone Stars. The bartender nodded and looked at me questioningly, how about you? I nodded back, sure.

There was a sheen of sweat on the guy’s face and his hair was pasted to his skull under his cowboy hat.

“Hard day? Damn hot, gotta be over a hundred,” I said.

“Yeah, and it’s even hotter when you’re working on asphalt.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m the crew chief for the road team. Maintain the roadways in the county. Fix potholes; sometimes there’s accidents. We clean up after.”

“How long have you been on the job?”

I ever tell you about the time me and..

The bartender was setting the beers in front of us, looked at me, and rolled his eyes thinking Ben's gonna talk this guy's ear off.

“Been at it near 24 years now. By the way, my name’s Ben Cooper.”

He half turned on his stool to face me and rested his elbow on the bar.

“I said I was the crew chief. Well, I am and I’m not. I only got one guy on my crew so it’s not much of a crew. We do all the repairs on two, three hundred miles of county roads hereabouts. Used to do it by myself but fifteen years into the job, the powers that be musta took pity and hired a guy to be my assistant. Sometimes, I wonder though, if maybe they gave me more work to do by adding the kid.

“Most of my time we’re in the truck going up and down looking to see if anything needs fixing, potholes, pick up the roadkill. Got most of the tools in the truck so if we see something we can fix it right off. Log everything we do and file a report with the state.”

“Ben, what did you mean about having more work to do with an assistant? Seems to me, the helper would do just that – help.”

“I thought that, too, but I guess it depends on if you’re helper is smart or not. And, come to think of it, some days a dumb one is better than a smart one and vice versa. Know what I mean?”

I shook my head, no.

“You seen those steel barriers on the road every time you cross over an irrigation ditch or canal? They’re put there so cars don’t fall in the canal and the passengers drown. Used to be those guardrails were so strong cars would crash into them, get totaled and the rails would hardly get a scratch. Good for the barriers but bad for the people that hit ‘em. Some bright engineer figured that maybe it would be better if the rails broke off if they got hit. That way the impact wouldn’t be so hard and the humans might get by with a coupla broken bones instead of landin' in the morgue." 

He sipped his beer, shook his head and said, "I'll betcha the Chief Engineer wondered what kinda engineers Texas Tech was puttin' out these days. 'Boy, we don't build stuff that's gonna break.' But higher ups musta figured different so now we got these break-away barriers. Praise be."

Lonesome roads

“Ok, but what does that have to do with your assistant?”

“I’m gettin' to that. See, at one time, the really strong barriers were a good idea but then somebody looked at ‘em and figured that not so strong was a better idea like I said. Same with people. Sometimes it’s better to have a helper that’s smart and sometimes it’s better to have one that isn’t.

“Fact is, sometimes I think Danny, that's my helper, was sent to help me and other times I think I’m his baby sitter.

“Don’t know for sure if he was born that way or if he got dropped on his head. Most folks think he was odd from the git go then got worse after the accident. Don’t get me wrong. You meet Danny now and all you think is ‘nice guy’, not a bad guy to know. But I’ll tell you what, he can be a trial sometimes.”

“What accident did he have?”

“There’s some question about that. Some think it was the Garcia boy’s fault with his drinkin' so much, but nobody actually saw what happened. Both Danny and Miguel were thrown out of the pickup when they hit one of the new barriers. Neither of them remembers anything.

“Miguel came out of it with a broken nose and arm. Danny was hurt less but wasn’t the same afterwards.

“Both of them liked to hang out at “El Indio Loco” down the road from here. “El Loco” had this cute little waitress they both wanted to date but, truth is, she didn’t date anybody far as I could tell. I think she was from Vera Cruz or some place like that and she had these dark, dark eyes. She come take your order and look at you like you was the man she was waitin’ for all her life. Miguel was smitten real bad and didn’t see that every man got the same look. In his mind, he could see himself and Rosalinda marry’in and livin’ happily ever after. So every payday and spare minute he had he’d hang around “El Loco” tryin’ to make time with the girl. Don’t know what happened to her. She just left town one day.

“The night of the accident the boys had spent most of their pay at “El Loco” and by closing time both of them were pretty drunk. Drivin' home they hit a barrier on 11 Mile Road.

“Not a year after the accident I get a call from the state office that they’re sending Danny to be my helper. Now, mind you, I never asked for an assistant but I was glad to have one. Drivin' around eight, ten hours a day all by yourself gets a bit lonesome so I was glad for the company.

“Danny was brought up on a farm like the rest of us so he knew how to use tools for most chores but pretty soon I started thinkin' something wasn’t right. He knew how to do everything he knew before the accident but couldn’t remember how to do anythin' new. I would show him how to do somethin' and he would do it right but couldn’t remember how to do the same thing the next day. That’s ok, I guess, our work isn’t complicated. He coulda been a smartass, the kind you couldn’t teach anything.

“I feel sorry for the kid but he doesn’t seem to be the worse for his condition. On the plus side, I can tell him the same stories and each time it’s the first time he heard it. That might sound weird but a man only has so many stories in him and things could get ugly if the listener starts sayin' stuff like, ‘not again’ or ‘you tell that again, it’ll be the last time.

“Tell you one thing though, I learned to keep the bullets in my pocket after the kid nearly killed me.”

“You have a gun in your truck?”

“Yeah, actually, it’s a 30 06. Lotsa times cattle or deer get hit by traffic and they’re injured so bad you gotta kill ‘em to stop the sufferin'. There’s no more pathetic sight in the world than a dumb animal that can’t do nothin’ about its injuries.”

“You’re helper almost killed you?”

The bartender gave Ben the side eye, slammed a tray full of glasses into the sink, flung the bar rag on the counter, and headed for outdoors for a smoke. Ben was winding up now.

“Oh, yeah, he almost did me in. Ever had good South Texas chili con carne? One day we stopped for lunch at "Mamacita’s" out on Pecan Street. Don’t let anybody tell you different, she makes the best chili in the state. You eat till you’re full but the hankerin’ for more stays with you for a long time after. Next day, of course, you’ll wish you had a snow cone 'steada toilet paper, but that don’t stop you from havin' more of that chili again.

Straight from the center of the earth

“Anyway, that day the chili was as good as ever but maybe the meat was left on the butcher block too long and mighta spoilt a bit. About an hour later we’re drivin’ along the Loop and my belly’s grindin’ and twistin’ and I get this mighty urge to evacuate my bowels sooner than later.

Last gas for 53 miles

“We pulled into Pedro’s Texaco, I grabbed the key off the wall and barely got to the toilet in time. I'm sittin' there moanin’ and groanin’, beggin’ God to help me, swearin’ vengeance on Mamacita, but nothing came out. Finally, I give this big push and the toilet bowl explodes under me. I thought for sure I’d shit my guts out. I tell you what, I was afraid to look.”

“The toilet bowl exploded?”

“The way Pedro told it, he and Danny were talkin' and Pedro spied the gun behind the seat and said could he see it. Danny took it out put it up to his shoulder, pointin' it at Pedro. Now, Pedro’s nearly 80 years old and he’s seen just about everthin' that can happen with a gun so he says don’t point it at me. And Danny says, ‘Hell, it ain’t loaded. Watch this.’

“Pedro’s old bones hit the dirt just a hair before Danny pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the wooden walls like they was paper smack into the toilet where I was dealin' with whatever Mamacita’s chili was doin' to me.

“Meanwhile, Sheriff Hernandez is drivin' by, hears the gunshot, sees ole Pedro layin' on the ground and Danny holdin' the rifle. So he pulls up to the scene and draws a bead on Danny, tellin' him to drop the weapon and get down on the ground. Meanwhile, I’m in the toilet and I finally get my wits about me and head out to see what’s goin’ on, ‘cept I forget to pull my pants up and I fall out the door.

"I see the Sheriff, Danny and Pedro face down in the dirt, the aught 6 near Danny. Right away I know what happened to the toilet bowl and somehow I remember every curse my Marine DI ever laid on me in boot camp and I’m hollerin’ at Danny, damnin' every sorry ancestor that made his existence possible, to no effect whatsoever.

“Pedro and Danny are still on the ground but they're lookin' at me and laughin'. The sheriff drops his gun, puts his hands on his knees, and nearly falls over he’s laughin’ so hard. And, me, standin' there with one hand on my britches, shit all over me, yellin’ several dozen obscenities I’d just invented.

“It took a while but the laughin’ stopped long enough for the Sheriff to hear what happened.

“Danny, he said, I’m citin' you for, heh, heh, negligent discharge of a firearm and if I could write you up for scarin' the crap out your boss, heh, heh, heh, I would. And, Ben, heh, you owe Pedro a chili-proof toilet bowl.’

“I told Danny to drive me home. He said, ok, but you have to ride in the bed.

“I guess I can laugh about it now and, really, the kid’s kinda grown on me. Sometimes he can be a wonder. A coupla weeks ago we found a Deer Crossing sign knocked down over by Mosquito Creek; had to go to the home office to get a new one. Anyway, we dug out the old post, put in another one, bolted on the new sign. As we’re drivin’ away Danny looks back at the sign and sees a deer crossing the road not 10 feet from the new sign. He says to me, ‘Gosh, Ben, I wonder how long he's been waitin’ to cross.’”

Ben finished his beer, time to go home. We said our goodbyes, and he left. The bartender came over and put a Boiler Maker in front of me and said, “It’s on the house. Ben's been telling that story for years. I musta heard it a thousand times."

Not Always Right But Never Wrong

Drive friendly, now

The story was in all the papers statewide. A Texas State Trooper had overtaken a car being pursued by the County Sheriff’s car, forced it to stop, and then discovered that the driver of the ’57 Chevy was not a criminal but a Deputy Sheriff. And the person driving the County Sheriff’s car was a civilian. Of course, there were pictures of the Deputy, the civilian, the cars, and the State Trooper, and much more.

The year was 1958, the Deputy’s name was Thumper, and the civilian was Juan, a teenage shade tree mechanic from Balmorhea. The stories in the paper gave the Trooper’s account big play mostly because the Balmorhea County Sheriff ordered his Deputy to say nothing to anybody, and because Juan’s mom, Rosario, kept him indoors and made reporters understand that crossing the property line to her home would result in consequences they would regret. The long axe handle she carried out to the fence line whenever reporters approached said everything she needed to say.

In the end, Thumper didn’t get fired but he lost his seniority and suffered public humiliation for months afterwards. The judge remanded Juan to his mother’s custody figuring from the looks she was giving the kid that no court ordered punishment could surpass what Rosario had in mind.

The whole mess started when Mike Bennett Jr., ran his dad’s 57 Chevy off the road to avoid hitting a family of armadillos. He was going fast despite his promise to keep his speed under 60, swerved off the road and drove over a low pile of rocks. Luckily, there wasn’t any damage to the bumper or the body but the muffler had a gash from one end to the other and a hole the size of a silver dollar. However, even if you couldn’t see any damage, you could hear it. Before the damage the engine sound was a low rumbling whisper. Now each explosion from the eight cylinder engine sounded like a gunshot.

 

Mike Bennett Sr. didn’t buy the armadillo story and revoked his boy's driving privileges for 50 years.

Juan was a self taught mechanic just turned 19. He was known for honest work, low prices, and a scrupulously clean garage. If you needed a tool he would gladly lend it to you but would give you the dead eye if it wasn’t clean when you returned it. He looked at the hole in Mr. Bennett’s muffler and said he could rivet a patch over it and the thing would be good as new. No problem. You can pick it up tomorrow.

As promised, the car was ready the next day. When Mr. Bennett came by to pay up, Juan got in the driver’s seat, started the motor and revved it twice. The sweet sound of the 283 V8 was sublime to Juan’s ears. At that moment he would be hard pressed to choose between the Chevy and his girlfriend. He left the engine running and got out of the car.

“Sounds real good. Whada I owe you, Juan?”

“Ten dollars. I checked the oil and water, too.”

Mr. Bennett pulled a 10 out of his wallet. Juan rested his behind on the fender, looked at the money then back at car.

“Tell you what, Mr. Bennett. I’ll trade you that 10 for your permission to drive the car from here to Fort Davis and back. It’s only 40 miles and it’ll blow out the carbon on the valves. Deal? I’ll be back before you know it.”

The deal was struck. Bennett went to Rosario's Good Luck Bakery for coffee and a donut while he waited for Juan's return.

Three minutes later Juan was on SR17 heading south from Balmorhea to Fort Davis. He cruised at 60 for a while then took it up to 70, then 75 by the time he whooshed past the Balmorhea State Park where Deputy Thumper was waking from his usual morning nap under the trees.

Balmorhea is farm and ranch country out in the West Texas desert 200 miles east of El Paso and 350 miles northwest of San Antonio with nothing in between. 

 

Balmorhea, the Oasis of West Texas

Where the deer and the antelope play Country Music 24/7

It isn’t a big place. In '58 it had a thousand residents most of whom probably knew more about each other than they did about themselves. Deputy Thumper  knew everybody and what kind of car they owned. That white-over-powder blue Chevy that just flashed by was Mike Bennett’s car but there was a brown kid behind the wheel. Something wasn’t right. He turned his siren and flashers on and tore out of the park behind the Chevy.

It took a minute for Juan to notice the cop car closing fast behind him but when he did he knew he was in a lot of trouble; not for speeding, not for leaving his driver’s license at home. No, his big trouble was scarier than any judge, jury, or jail. It was his mother, Rosario.

Rosario was a very old forty-two. Her family had come to Texas as migrants to work the melon fields sometime in the late 1930’s. They followed the harvests across the country year after year. Spring and summer they worked the melon fields in South Texas then moved on to the upper Midwest to the cranberry and bean harvests; back to Texas in the Fall for the dreaded back breaking short hoe [1] work in the lettuce and onion fields. The men and women who wintered in the Midwest worked construction jobs or found work in slaughterhouses and kitchens. It wasn’t a way of life for the weak. The ones that survived were tough. 

Back breaker

Sometime in 1938 Rosario married a young man from Balmorhea and she stayed behind when her family moved on to the harvests in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Soon after her son was born she was left to fend for herself when her husband was killed in a hay baling accident. A young woman with a baby, no husband, and no family, she found work cleaning ovens and scrubbing baking pans in a bakery. A few years later she opened her own bakery.

Years of keeping a low profile because of her immigration status taught her to obey every single ordinance, law, and local custom to the nth degree. Ever mindful that she and her son could be deported for the smallest infraction or social slight she made certain that Juan knew those risks as well as the dangers of disobeying her. So as soon as he saw the Deputy’s cruiser in the rearview mirror, Juan worried about what his mother would think and what she might do. 

Thumper recognized Juan in the driver’s seat and canceled the stolen car call to the Sheriff’s office.

“Nice day for a drive on the open road, son, but by my reckoning you were a good 20 miles over the limit. I know I don’t have to check with Mr. Bennett to see if you’re telling the truth about your deal. On the other hand, I can’t let you go so easy. I have a sworn duty to uphold the law. Speeding is a public hazard and you don’t have your driver’s license either. ”

Juan remembered Rosario’s rules: Never argue with a policeman even if he’s wrong. Never beg for a break because it makes you look weak. But despite his mother’s admonitions he tried to explain.

“I just couldn’t help it, Thumper. You know my car. I work on it all the time but there’s so many things wrong I can’t drive it over 40 miles an hour. A car like this is a dream. It’s solid and the V8 has more power than any car I’ve ever driven. I just had to do it just once.”

Thumper stepped back a couple of paces and looked at the white-over-powder blue Chevy and had to admit to himself that he, too, coveted a car like that; great styling, beautiful interior, a powerful short-block V8, and PowerGlide automatic transmission. For a long moment he imagined himself in the driver's seat, left hand on the wheel and his right arm over his girl’s shoulders, cruising to all the way to Midland for a night out on the town.

“Juan, I’m going to propose something but you gotta promise it’ll stay between you and me. Anybody finds out I could lose my job and you might go to jail.

“The next 15 miles the road is straight as a ruler. You and me trade cars, drive as far as mile marker 98 and trade cars again. Nobody finds out. Nobody. I let you go like nothing happened. Ok?”

  

Juan didn’t know what to think. He twitched when he thought he heard his mother say, “Don’t argue with a cop even if he’s wrong”.

“Well, ok, Thumper, but only to mile marker 98. And go easy. I don’t want anything to happen to Mr. Bennett’s car.”

 

The road's straight. The car's pointed straight. What could go wrong?

Off they went, Thumper in the lead, Juan in the cruiser close behind. At first, the Deputy stayed at the speed limit and Juan was having fun driving a cop car. But guys are guys and cars are cars. Put guys and cars together and they'll find a way to get into some kind of trouble. It doesn’t take long.

Thumper stepped on the gas and the V8 jumped from 50 to 60 in a flash. Seeing the Chevy accelerate like that, Juan sped up to keep pace. The speed was addictive, the race was on. Juan goosed the cruiser, speeding up until he was parallel with the Chevy. Thumper bumped it up to 70 and Juan did the same. They were bumper to bumper then Thumper floored the gas pedal and the Chevy bounded ahead.

They were having so much fun neither of them saw the State Trooper idling on the shoulder. He radioed Trooper headquarters in Fort Davis and the Sheriff’s office in Balmorhea reporting a deputy sheriff in hot pursuit of a white-over-powder blue 57 Chevy. With lights flashing and siren whining he took off after the cruiser and the Chevy. To his surprise, the cruiser pulled over right away but the Chevy kept on going.

What the hell? Some kid was driving the cruiser. There was no time to ask questions so he took the keys out of the ignition, handcuffed Juan to the steering wheel, jumped in his car to catch up to the Chevy.

And a dozen to go

Sheriff Jaxson was at the drive in window at Rosario's Good Luck Bakery on a donut run when the dispatcher relayed the State Trooper's hot pursuit call. He ordered a deputy to find Thumper's cruiser on the 17 and report back. Rosario, who was at the drive in window, overheard the radio call and knew instantly that the car was Bennett's Chevy and the 'kid' was Juan. Thinking fast about what Bennett might do if he heard something was going on with his car, Rosario casually asked him to mind the bakery while she went to the Post Office to get some packages. Oh, and help yourself to some more coffee and donuts --- on the house. She was out the door, in her truck, and on SR17 South in under a minute.
 

Thumper was in trouble. The accelerator linkage had jammed when he floored the gas pedal. He was now traveling at 85 miles an hour with no way to stop. He tried to remove the key but the PowerGlide transmission’s safety pawl was designed to prevent accidental or intentional removal of the key while the car was in Drive. He dug his foot under the gas pedal, frantically trying to pull it loose. The soft metal rivets on the muffler patch melted away, the patch fell off and the suddenly roaring V8 sounded like a runaway freight train.

In the meantime, the State Trooper was catching up while a few miles down the road other Troopers were setting up a roadblock.

The Chevy wasn’t slowing down even though there was no way the driver hadn’t seen the State Trooper's flashing lights. They continued this way for several minutes then the Trooper decided to force the Chevy off the road but when he pulled up door to door he saw it was Thumper driving. He was red faced, twisting around in the seat, and yelling something that the Trooper couldn’t hear over the Chevy's thundering exhaust.

They were still going bumper to bumper when they saw the roadblock a quarter mile ahead. At that speed there was no way to avoid a roll over if they went off the road. The Trooper slowed down and watched as the Chevy barreled towards a collision with the barricades at 85 miles an hour.

Thumper closed his eyes, resigned to whatever fate would follow. Fate obliged by sucking up the last drop of gas in the tank. The surging V8 stalled and the Chevy rolled to a stop a few feet from the barricades.

A cub reporter from the Daily Excuse made his bones and earned a byline that day. He took dozens of pictures --- the Troopers at the barricades, guns drawn, watching the hurtling Chevy limp to a stop; pictures of the Troopers, no longer grim professionals, laughing and mugging for the camera. He took twenty photos of the Balmorhea County Sheriff arriving at the scene, haranguing his humiliated Deputy without pause for a solid 12 minutes. And a single closeup of Rosario getting out of her pickup, her eyes fixed on Juan in the Deputy's car.

Footnote [1]

 Short Hoe

http://www.farmworkers.org/shorthoe.html 

 

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