Tales Of Degradation...

"Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest..." - R.G. Ingersoll

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

COMBES, Texas - Lately, a lot of people say they see me in town, at their local coffee shops and in this or that bar. Not so. They're all faaaaaaaaaaaaags! I do get out, of course. But any photos taken by aspiring, looking-for-the-legend photogs are certainly not of yours truly. You'll see Junior Bonner here and nowhere else. At least for now.

Last night I was thinking it's strolling time again. I could see Cylantra pacing the floor.

She likes to get out and hear the noise of the night. Something about surviving the music of revolution in her native country south of Mexico. They say that about gunfire, your know. You can never lose the sound of death, absolutely. Like the other day, I ran over a cat without even knowing it. I was just a-movin' up the dusty, unpaved, country road that takes me from my doublewide mobile home here to US 77, the highway I cruise into boring Harlingen.

Anyway, the cat somehow sped across the road and the next thing I know I hear these awful, haunting guttural sounds under my El Camino. I thought I'd hit a landmine that was thinking about exploding and sending me to Kingdom Come. But I rolled a few yards onward and then stopped. When I got out of my two-tone vehicle, I looked back and saw a bloody pulp about the size of a basketball some 20 yards back behind me. I still can't get over the scene, and that sound of death still blows me away. I'm sure you've had similar experiences, especially you women with abusive husbands. A blow upside the head ruins you forever, is what they say.

In any case, I'm headed into Brownsville this morning for some barbacoa tacos at some joint whose name I forget. But I got a map to the joint from my border journalism colleague Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully, the emerging balladeer known for his Martina McBride covers, and he tells me this one place serves the only killer barbacoa tacos in the entire Rio Grande Valley. Cylantra ain't going with me. She drank herself silly last night, downing a crazy-shaped bottle of Chianti I'd bought her for - what? - $9 at that discount liquor store downtown. Cylantra loves her booze. It makes her frisky, so I don't mind it one bit. I sorta assume the Billy The Kid pose with her after dark, and maybe because I sorta educated her on The Kid's lovin' ways, well, she fawns over me until I pat her on the head and she goes on down, if you get muh drift. Yeah, we have some photos of that, but they'll stay personal.

Brownsville hangs on me for a few days after I visit that hellhole. You know, if it wasn't for all those sick and physically-eccentric characters in town, and I don't speak only about the politicians, Brownsville would be Harlingen. I'd bet that if you paired up the citizens of both towns and had them duke it out that Brownsville's citizens would kick ass. Harlingen is the Valley capital of wimps. As they say about Harlingenites in our bars, "Son de San Luis!"

So, barbacoa it'll be on this lovely Sunday mornin'. I've got Johnny Cash tunes comin' of my dashboard CD player, which was a bitch to install 'cause my El Camino didn't come with one. Here, let me singalong a bit: "...I said, 'My name is Sue, how do you do!!! Now you gonna die!!!' " Love that song. I'm sure all Valley Chicanoes can relate to the lyrics. Ha ha ha.

As I once said to my three illegitimate sons (all by different women) in Western Colorado, don't take what others say about you seriously. People will talk, and they will try to be part of your world, 'cause their world must suck Big Time. I'm used to getting yelled-at by strangers from across the street. Critics are a peso a dozen in in the RGV.

They just can't let Junior Bonner walk by...

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