The Border Candidate...

"Have you seen her dressed in blue?
See the sky in front of you
And her face is like a sail
Speck of white so fair and pale
Have you seen a lady fairer?..."
- The Stones, She's A Rainbow

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - She knew where she stood. The game had been defined long-ago. Here, as she postured herself for public office, Astrid Barrera wasn't talking about promises or problems or ethnic gains or any of those tired topics favored by male candidates. Her reasons for seeking the office were simple: Do what's right, and do it without corruption, of her morals or of her beliefs. Astrid took a few questions from the press and allowed for a photograph. The story of her campaign would begin in the morning edition of the local newspaper.

There were others in the contest. A goofy-looking bureaucrat who worked for the city also wanted the post. He'd ben in politics a bit longer, and he'd lost his last election decisively, but there he was asking voters one more time to grant him a better, however-flawed social standing. His name, she believed, was Ted something or another. Astrid thought he was too ugly to serve the community in any capacity other than dogcatcher, but she'd never have said it. That was the game played by the Machos, the men who forever promised a better town, but never delivered. Too many of them, she knew, had visited with her kingmaker father, Manmountain Barrera, and asked for his blessing. The old man, however, had grown weary of the long line of liars and had lately turned them away from his front door.

Another time, Astrid might have simply stuck to her domestic duties. There were three children in the house, the oldest being 16 and the youngest eight. Her husband had been killed in a traffic accident near an intersection home to three cantinas. The driver of the car that had broadsided her husband's SUV had managed to keep going, crossing the nearby international bridge in a cloud of smoke. He'd never been captured. Her husband's burial, she remembered, had been a gathering of most of the city's leaders, from the mayor to the chief of police. But that was now going on five years ago. Astrid had her eyes on another phase in her life, one that she knew would make her family and her husband proud.

Later that day, after her interview at the newspaper's office, she sat down to work on her campaign's progress and plans. There was a speech she would deliver at several nursing homes and an appearance on a local radio show. The weekend would bring opportunities to press the flesh at a variety of public venues, from the local fleamarkets to the busy shopping mall. One thing bothered her: There was a clear taste in her mouth that she could fall into the same-old manner of campaigning the males practiced in town. She wanted to do something different, to create a new kind of buzz, to take the lousy mold and break it on the tiled floor of her resaca-front home.

Astrid was busy at this when the telephone rang. She took the call in the kitchen, on the wallphone near the refrigerator.

"This is she," she said, replying to he caller's question.

"What?!" she asked next. "Can you say that again?"

Her body fell back to the kitchen wall. A certain dificulty in breathing followed. She could feel her heart beating faster than normal. Astrid hardened her grip on the phone and asked, "Who is this? Who are you?"

She got nothing return. And then the line went dead.

A bird landed on the window sill outside her kitchen, fluttered its feathers and then flew off again. Astrid held the phone to her chest, still unable to make sense of the call and the caller's words. His tone had been the tone of a thug, a gravelled, menacing voice thrown out with ease, the sort that threatens the worst. She placed the phone back on the wall mounting and slowly slumped to the floor, her butt landing softly on the cool floor.

"Get out of the race," the man had said. "Get out if you want your children to live."

When the police arrived, Astrid gave them a full account, but had troubled repeating the worst sentences. No, she had no idea who the caller had been. And no, she could not even venture a guess. No, no, no, she replied in a series that followed questions from the police.

The next morning, Astrid Barrera announced plans to withdraw from the race. What she said by way of explanation was that she'd lost her taste for politics, that she'd be concentrating on her family. A number of letters submitted to the newspaper questioned her sanity, one writer saying the town was better-off without her public service and another labeling her "the usual female ditz."

She read them all.

On election day, Astrid stayed home and did not vote. When she watched the results coverage on television later than evening, Astrid struggled to overcome the urge to puke...

- 30 -