The Valdez Brothers...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Vince was the one who made advances at his older brother's wife. Joe was the one who bedded his neighbor's old lady. And Raul was the one who'd been married five times. The Valdez Brothers, owners of a tire shop on Paredes Line Road, don't often talk about their escapades, but a lot is known about them in this rowdy bordertown.

Born in a three-year span back in the late 1960s, all three sons of Julio and Apolonia Valdez graduated from the same high school, Porter High, and all three served the American military. Vince attended Texas Southmost College here, studying auto mechanics and earning an associate's degree. Joe Valdez returned from an Army stint in Germany, married a girl from Mexico and cheated on her pretty much daily. Raul saved his money while in the U.S. Navy and came home with a new pickup. The tire business was one they inherited from their father, himself a veteran of the initial years of the Korean War.

What the Valdez brothers say now is that life along the Mexican border is to blame for their failings, for their philandering and for their lowly status in life. Says Vince, interviewed at La Palma Lounge during a night when Mexican boxing on TV excited the portly, mustachioed patrons, "I am living, and have lived, a Valley life. I am not to blame for anything."

Joe Valdez, seated next to Vince, throws this out: "Maybe if I had moved to Califas, man. But Vince is right. Brownsville is a loser and that makes me a loser. How long you been in town, man?"

The fourfth person at the bar's table says little. But Raul Valdez will tell you - with astonishing ease - that his five marriages are par for this community. "Everybody was after my wife, man," he says, shaking his balding head. "That's why I dumped them and kept getting a new one. You know what that's like, man - when you lose trust in your wife? It happens here every focking day!"

Vince admits he made a sexual move at Raul's third wife, a woman about his size, a woman he thought would fit him in the sack. "She was a wild broad," he lobs as he walks back from the bar with a bucket of beer bottles. "I knew I'd go for it from the moment I first saw her. Nice hips and small breasts, my favorites. A guy just knows, man. My brother, Raul, didn't know what was happening at the time, and I'm glad. I'm glad he dropped her cheating ass."

The recollection leads to wild laughter from Joe, who then runs through that episode that had him stalking and then bedding his neighbor's wife. "That one wanted it, man. I could tell just by looking at her. Her face asked for it. Ha ha ha. But, you know, I couldn't tell you what the hell ever happened to that broad. It was meaningless, man. I couldn't pick her out of a line-up, even if they put her up there naked."

The life the Valdez Brothers have chased here is not unlike those lives lived by any of a thousand other local men. The newspaper is full of stories about spousal abuse, spousal betrayals and spousal knifings. Not that anyone shies away from the portrayal. It is said that confessionals at the local Catholic churches offer the best in erotic literature, that hairdressers know the score, that if you ask a hotel chambermaid for a few tips on call girls, that those same chambermaids will soon have someone's painted wife at your door.

On a recent evening, while this bordertown played footsies with its neighboring Mexican community in paying tribute to the Mexican charro, the downtown streets were full of bar-hoppers and fun-seekers.

Joe Valdez strolled into his favorite cantina not far from the international bridge, walked his best dollar bill to the jukebox and plucked at the numbers to his favorite corridos. Minutes later, Vince walked in, followed not much later by Raul.

Once more, Los Hermanos Valdez were on the prowl...

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