Marcelina Perez Speaks...

"Hundred-proof whiskey
is a cowboy's color TV..."
- Chili Perez, 2009

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - She was eeeetin' a sweet potato when I pulled my muddy pickup into her cracked driveway. I tol' muhself, that thar's a very old woman, and ah hopes she can darn talk, 'cause I'd come to far to work with a mute able only to throw me hand signs. A reeeeeporter knows when he's in a world of crap, and it hit me that this old lady might pull a trick or two on me.

Her name is Marcelina Perez, the old-as-sin mother of Det. Chili Perez. It's muh turn with the story is what muh editor tol' me when he rang my doublewide in Combes and said, "Junior, get your skinny ass in here!" I drove muh ass rat over, yessuh. Faster'n that first explosion of a bad case of projectile diarrhea. Shore you knows what I'm sayin' at you.

Anyways, my visit with Ms. Perez turned out to be a gas. Man, that woman shore can talk a story. Ah hit her with enough tricky questions about her missin' son that most Brownsville weemin woulda been turned dizzy after the second salvo of my questions. Ah wanted to knows: Why would anyone wanna kidnap Chili Perez? And has thar been any word of a ransom request? Boys at PeeDee tellin' ya anything, Marcelline. I went French with the way I spoke her name, thinking she'll see me as a learned man, not jes some stump of a cowboy breezin' into her life like some insurance salesman pitchin' the investment plan to a woman almost a-hunnered years old. Marcelline would look at muh after every question as if ah was her priest. Swear to that, straight on.

"Chili is not like this," she began. "He is a good son. Turned 61 last year, but he's still my boy. I still have his bunkbed in my garage. He carved his name on it, so that's how I know it's his."

Ah, said: Yore son's been investigatin' the killin' of that young Herrera woman, and now he's done dis'ppeared. Ah's jes wunderin', what you thin's goin' on here?

Ms. Perez inhaled a deep breath and cleared her wrinkly throat.

"I had a local blogger come over and esplain the whole thing to me," she threw out, eyes staring at a passing crow. "He said Chili is being held, or was killed, by someone who didn't want him on the case. Chili has never failed. He's solved our biggest cases in town, like the murder of that museum director and that strange check deposit by the mayor. You know the one, the mayor knew that wasn't his $26,000 check. Chili cornered his ass and info flew out of that man's mouth. He wasn't convicted, but that was not Chili's job."

Ah reached for muh Pearl beer down by muh ess-pensive harness boots. She'd handed me the cold one and asked if ah needed chips and salsa. Ah said, mebbe 'fore ah leave, iffa you don't mind. She smiled like a beeee-ut-ful grandma and patted me on the head. Ah always takes muh hat off when ahm with older weemin. Muh daddy didn't raise no five & dime fool. Ha ha ha.

Well, ah said next, you think Chili's still alive?

Marcelline grew thoughtful, took a blade of grass from her feet below the plastic chair she sat on in the front yard and said, teeth gritted, "He better be, or someone'll have to deal with me!"

She had no opinion either way on 23-year-old Louise Herrera, the young filly offed by someone at the base of a craggy mesquite along an isolated ravine frequented by coyotes. Chili had reeeeplaced another detective on the case after that detective began cryin' during a police press conference. Ah smelt sumthin' there, so ah brought it up: "You think that other detective knows sumthin' he ain't throwing out, lak that he was havin' hisself an affair with the 'ttractive college student?

Lak a javeline-thrower, Marcelline threw her tiny, bird-like head back, a snowball of thinning, grayish hair fallin' back toward her home's porch. "Could be," she said next, smilin' like a cartoon coyote, big'un, showin' me a mouth with barely three yellowish teeth. Ah was almost stoopyfyde an it came 'cross muh brain that mebbe that was an angle for this here story. Mebbe that other detective, Alfred Alpaca, cried for a reason. Man loses his main squeeze lak that and, yessiree, he's gonna cry hisself to sleep. Alpaca may hold the key to this case, is what ahm thinking.

Anythin' else you think ah should know 'bout, ah say to her. It's late in the day and the punks in her neighborhood are already walkin' the streets, all lookin' like two-legged cockroaches headed for the seven-eleven, all of them laffin' lak teen punks with no damned idea how our by-cameral congress works. Marcelline yells at one offem to put out his ciggy. The kid tugs at his falling pants and laffs lak a complete, dumbass moron.

Ah turn to look back at Marcelline as the punks move on down the street.

"I would advice you to go see Alfred Alpaca at the hospital and pick whatever's left of his brain," she lobs at me. "This fuckin' town is known for strange unions, if you get my drift. Where there's a pretty woman, there's an ugly story. I know something about Louise Herrera, but we'll leave that story for another day."

She was tired. Ah grabbed muh hat from where ah had it on muh knee and bid muh farewell. She struggled to her feet, poked me on the head agin' and tol' me to watch muh back. Ah nodded three times and thanked her for the beer 'fore makin' muh way back to muh truck.

When aboard, and after ah'd dropped the clutch ahead of pullin' out, ah threw muh old girlfriend Cylantra's face onto muh brain. Danged straight woulda been a bitch to know that the dead girl coulda been Cylantra. Don't ratly think ah woulda been so eeeee-nclined to mosey over to the 1-2-3 Lounge for a good time.

See, ah see things dis way in dis town: Brownsville teaches you the sins and then it throws itself as some discount mattress at ya. Dammit, this is the town that 'nvented cryin' yo'self to sleep. Ah floored tha gas pedal on muh truck jest as a tune by Johnny Rodriguez exploded offa muh dash radio. 'Nuther assignment completed, ah said to muhself, dancin' muh shoulder with da music and then movin' muh head from side to side lak some hip dude.

Gotta love it...

- 30 -