The Ted Jasso Show...

"La mucura esta en el suelo
Ay mama no puedo con ella,
Me la llevo a la cabeza
Ay mama no puedo con ella..."
- Texas Tornados, La Mucura

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILE, Texas - Ted Jasso took the dimly-lit stage in his usual fashion, like an insane Pendejo, which was his signature artistic personality. Balding and wearing his advancing years none too well, he was trying his damndest to make things happen in this dead bordertown, doing his part to erase the false hope brought here of late by the Blues, a dream that had died a merciful death. Ted Jasso thought he had the idea of a lifetime.

By day, he was a carpet-layer apprentice, laboring mostly at new construction homesites, earning a humble living, but fully believing better things lay ahead. The rapping had been the idea of his best friend, Burton "El Analfabeto" Jimenez. Both had graduated from Porter High School. Jimenez, half-Black and half-Mexican, had married a mountain of a woman from neighboring Matamoros, Mexico; Jasso had never found a woman who would tolerate him, much less like him. More than one had told him he dressed like a nursing home desk clerk. All of them had kindly told him to get lost. Ted Jasso had one thing going for him: he was a loser, but he knew it.

At a club known as El Pocito, a dingy underground joint operated by a leg-less war veteran patterned after the famous Cavern Club that had birthed The Beatles in England, Ted would take the stage before the joint opened to work on what he called "Conjunto Rapping." He would strap on his beat-up accordion and step up to the microphone to throw out raps about God, the border, politics, Homos, fleamarkets, fajitas and fast, heartless Chicanas. The owner, Louis "El Sin Piernas" Infante, would watch him from his office and laugh his ass off. Ted Jasso couldn't see him from the stage, so he acted out his part with gusto, thinking himself as rapper with a bit of Elvis thrown in to spice up the act.

"I ain't heavy, Chevy," he would rap as the bar sweeper ran his broom in front of the stage. "I'm my brother. He ain't my brother; he's heavy."

This would go on until Infante would tire of the crap and storm out of his office in his electric wheelchair, yank the microphone's electrical cord from the wall socket in anger and tell Ted to get off the stage. By the time the first customers strolled in, Ted had packed his accordion and beat feet, without bidding Infante adios. In his mind, he knew he'd be back and that one day the bar owner would beg him to serenade his customers.

"Conjunto rap is the next big thing," Ted kept repeating all the way home.

Two weeks later, a local newspaper reporter knocked on his door and said he was interested in writing an article about him. Ted Jasso nodded as if he knew this day would eventually arrive. He waved the young reporter in and motioned him toward the ragged living room couch. An hour later, the reporter said he had enough info and bid his farewell.

"When is the story being published?" Ted asked, his tongue sweeping across his lips, his tone the tone of a third-rate circus acrobat suddenly getting attention.

"Don't know," the reporter told him, walking away.

That Sunday, the newspaper published the story. The headline was telling: "Local Man Lives Weird Rap Fantasy." It was more of criticism than a story about someone trying something new. In it, he was quoted liberally, which Ted thought had allowed hima chance to explain his act and his vision for the new music genre. The story, however, was a disaster. The reporter had paraphrased much of the interview and, as Ted read it, he got the idea that readers would laugh uproariously from beginning to end, at him, at his goofy idea.

At noon, Ted Jasso's telephone rang. It was Infante, the club owner.

"I don't want to see you at my club anymore, Ted," he said, succinctly, not waiting for a reply.

Ted had fallen back on his old couch and stared at his apartment's ceiling. Conjunto rap is a freakin' winner, he repeated several times. Conjunto rap will sell. He dozed off dreaming of the day he would fill arenas with adoring fans. He could see himself being whisked around in limos, tended to by a number of flunkies. He could hear himself mouthing the lyrics to his raps. He could. He just could.

Two days later, a friend found him dead in his backyard. Ted Jasso, a self-described visionary, had blown away half of his face and fallen over a used tire he'd converted into a birdbath...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...This story is a work of fiction. Any similarity to living individuals is merely coincidental...]