By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor-In-Chief
HARLINGEN, Texas - Nothing much happened here yesterday. Nothing, really. Some people waltzed into
Las Cazuelas for their daily Huevos Rancheros drowned in a gallon of red salsa, others killed brave weeds in their backyards, while still others could only dream of being somewhere else, anydamnedwhere.
It was Friday in Harlingen.
Droopy plumpish faces hung low out in the streets. Heavyweight bodies were being thrown this way & that, the worker ants going where they hated to go and the unemployed do-nothings glad to have another fucking day off. Life is easy in this town of almost 70,000 love-starved souls. They say it openly, as if it justifies a unique sort of life, settles old scores with fatfuck authorities or throws some more bullshit out into the innocent morning air. No one died here yesterday, although lives were spent horribly, the pisspoor returns always equalling the effort. A few flies just in from Mexico pulled into the Whataburger on Ed Carey Drive, all ordering cokes, no ice. It's a weird pattern of living here: local animals get it, humans don't.
A battered Buick Oldsmobile moves slowly, heavily acoss an intersection. It carries the hopes and dreams of a nuclear family - a mom, a dad and six brats. They're all headed for Walmart, to shop for shoes, for bathing suits, for candy, for the hell-of-it. Life's little pleasures can be found at Walmart, shitty shirts over at Mervyn's, or that's what my friend, the plutonium-fueled blogger Jerry McHale, likes to say about that. He shops for his shitty shirts at Mervyn's, and, of course, he looks out of fashion with fashion, his rolling philosophy more akin to that of a goddamned cabbie in Bangkok than the ups & downs of his bordertown - that under-achieving, mind-fucking, low-blowing, Lambada-dancing, taco-scarfing and ever-adulterous Brownsville. He knows all the words to
La Macarena and
When A Man Loves A Woman by Percy Sledge...and can sing them in English and Spanish, drunk or sober, but kinda better when he's waiting for a table at an outdoor
taqueria in the company of a
character
, or so say his best friends, the gadflies.
A helluva lot of a locals sail on the same aimless boat. It could be a killer show on TV overnight. Just aim the camera at Blogger Jerry Deal's face as he types another story for his news blog and applies the the time of his effort to the latest tale. He's on fire, that guy. Pan the town. Over there is Mayor Chris Boswell ambling into City Hall, looking nifty and shifty, on third gear as he moves his body into the pedestrian building, his eyes ablaze and his stomach screaming for a plate of scorched fajitas. The guy has big things on his mind. What to wear for that Bass Pro Shops "
Grand Opening" down the road, yeah. Perhaps a rented tuxedo from San Antonio, although, here, it really should be dirty overalls. You look at the dude and you easily picture him in overalls. Guard that City Hall, you Old Guarder, come the screams from the peanut gallery to the south of town.
Beer flows. It's the National Drink of Harlingen, sleep being the favored activity, after boozing, of course. And chasing women. Women in this town have no chance. They're dealing with unsophisticated men, uncouth shitbags who get turned-on by the cotton panty display at JC Penneys. Why worry about it, they say in a collective sigh the size of Russia. Women keep score, however. They throw magnets on their refrigerator doors that stand for the many times their men cheat on them, beat them, take their cash, flash the knife. It's easy to be a man in this part of the world; women won't fight back, although it's a coming doomsday. Wives have come to learn the way of the errant spouse, and they, too, are turning-on to the feeling of forbidden love - that sensational feeling of accepting new sperm down there, of feeling the new bloom. Watch out guys. All you may have in the end is a weekend series at Harlingen Field, long, boring baseball games featuring guys who look like Zetas in bad uniforms sliding into second base and coming up proud. The long drive to deep right field looks like it's going out! Naaaaaah. It falls at the feet of the fuck-up fielder, another shitty bobble in a long string of dogshit ball.
It's a life.
They'll all sleep it off...
- 30 -
31 comments:
Vicious! Is this a Bob Dylan song about Harlingen. i can put music to it!
Exellent report. Writing between the lines, huh? I like it. You say so much without even saying it. that's a skill, sir. thankz
Shiraz is a good wine. feldman's in McAllen has the best selection in the Valley. Check it out. Tho johnny Walker ain't bad. Blue is the most expensive, isn't it? Or Gold. Have to go look. Nice article.
I think this could be a movie. Is it a screenplay, Mr. editor. The scenes are vivid. I can see this story on TV. you are the best.
Harlingen deserves the bashing only Paz-Martinez can write.
I hear two local Dentist approach a man that wrote an article about Harlingen's decaying buildings. Old guarders of course.
Status quo bro, even at eating stablishments a little better than Medranos Casuelas...well life goes on Harlingen, Brownsville, it is just the same.
Yesserreeiii, good post, or they say at the local bus station. Bus now leaving Harlingen, stops, San Benito, Olmito, and Brownsville, can anyone tell the difference, I can't, low end towns as the Trib's editor writes.
Mr. Paz-Martinez, Editor's note top write, so could we say, you are having a Corry M. moment...just a joke of course.
The word was, the ordor of beer was very strong, at the commish meeting.
Wild night, Paz? that story is totally a run through the jungle. watch out for the lions, dude. They come out and they like to bite back. nice write up about the mayor. he talks about Bass Pro shops everywhere e goes like it's his baby. Big flop coming!
Hey some bloggers are calling, our illustrious Mayor, Chris Soprano Boswell.
You should have seen him at the last meeting, he was questioning Korri about a vote. Korry who appeared to be 8 miles high, was all smiles. And changed her vote after a brief lecture.
All Chris Soprano needs is a couple of body guards.
Okay, bloggers so how else can someone forget the problems of everday life. A few cold ones make life bearable.
Hey, Mr. Martinez, man you like fancy booze, thats okay, beats natural beer.
Enjoy the week-end.
Mr. Editor, what is all the fuzz about Goverment shutting down. Common on, bro, goverment has been broken forever, people just haven't noticed.
Okay, so this is my second, [as they say at la movida bar in Brownsville, que buena esta la Michelovia bien fria], just my second beer.
mayor Boswell is living on the past. he will lose the next election. pobre sonso.
(A few flies just in from Mexico pulled into the Whataburger on Ed Carey Drive, all ordering cokes, no ice.)
Funniest damed thing anyone's ever written about Harlingen. LOL!!!
What a sad story, about the Viet-nam veterans son. One of these days, someone with commons sense is going to have to stop all this damn conflicts. They aren' wars, they are civil disputes within a nation. America, needs to stay out of other nations business. Just stay out, lets clean up our mess. Right here in the good usa!!!.
What, flies from Matamoros, what, in a Whataburger by Ed Carey Drive.
Mr. Editor, that is my favorite place for biscquits and coffee.
Mejor me voy para las cauelas.
Hey, Martinez, you aren't singing Dixie, fat bodies thrown here and there. This morning they were everywhere, el Taquito, pumping out food like crazy, yuk, and fat men and women were put in the stuff away, like never before. Man your write up was excellent.
Harlingen, like the rest of the Valley, puro low rent town usa.
Hey, most of the flies we get in harlingen are from Brownsville. The winds from the gulf of mexico bring them here. LOL!!
Agree with Anon that the Vietnam son story in the sidebar is a tearjerker. poor kid never had his dad but he will have him while making this movie and then after it's done. He's smart. i almost cried.
wow!!! Six guys to kill one teacher? That pastor Perez has no mercy in his rotten body. Hope he hangs. the story gets uglier by the day and I get angrier at this SOB. Someone kick his ass!
Ralph, the sob was no preacher, he was a greedy bastard, who looked at his wife as a way out of poverty.
Six guys to injure a working mother, Cabron, ojala y te quedes en la carcel toda tu pinche vida.
Sad, to read about the son of a veteran, who never knew the father. Pobre nino, and pobre familia de la maestra.
And he calls himself a minister, he ought to be ashame of himself. Look at the pain you have caused your family. sonsonete
Preacher man will pay in jail. who will defend his sorry ass behind bars. Six guys against her? what a coward!
That's the way it goes in the Valley, bro. You get a gang of vatos and go beat up someone. when is the last time you saw or heard of a one-on-one fight? Been years!!!
This bunch of bungling idiots were not Murder Inc. More like worlds dumbest criminals.
The first two arrested were bullies, they were recommended to the preacher man, by a woman, that goes to his church. What kind of a church are they running at el Ranchito?
But two more guys, Why??, man this people are looking at 5 to 99 years, or maybe the death penalty. They will die in prison.
Now look at Vanessa Garcia in Mission, hired 4 guys to kill the hubby.
The love of money, par de put**&*nes.
Damn, Mr. Editor, Jerry McHale buys shirts at Mervins, hey, thats like buying them at K-mart or Wallmart.
You are right, he is no fashion guy, but a cab driver in some Asian country, sounds more like a cabbie driver in low rent Matamoros.
Chris Boss Hog Boswell is going to wear that beat up black suit, that never gets pressed.
By his looks you know he doesn't miss many meals.
For openning day which is scheduled to be in November of this year.
Say, maybe he will cover his big fat belly with a flashy green coveralls. Hill Billy Jim, look out.
Editors note, count your lucky stars you are living away from the border, go out in the morning a take whizz of air in Brownsville, and you can suffacate, all you smell is the fumes from matamoscas, oops, I meant Matamoros.
I am totally disapointed on Obama, he isn't a fighter. Someone tell him that to deal with the GOP, you have to be Mother f**&*%r. Being nice to them won't get you anywhere.
Eddie Dennis of the wingers, look to be on pudgy side. He wasn't like that when he first came to town. OOOHHH,Boyyy, those fajita tacos do majic to a man, right around the gut. No pun intended, Mr. Island man.
Just so you all know, the flies on Ed Carey come out from the Border Patrol station on New Hampshire. Second, ordering cokes without ice means more soda and getting your monies worth? Three, eating at Las Cazuelas is like having more guests than the ones that are sitting at your table? Roaches!!! Send that short shit from channel 4 and get a surprise? Four, the women allowing the so-called womanizers or cheaters use them is their own fault? It always takes two to have that relief stress er, right Kori? And then you got that little short piece of shit murderer and evidence destroyer, Chaparo!
Post a Comment