SOMEWHERE PASSES THROUGH NOWHERE

I spent the last ten days in San Antonio, San Marcos and Austin visiting sons number two and three chronologically. First and foremost, the heat was smothering. We don't have the same oppressive weather in Brownsville. The gulf breezes are refreshing and our temperatures seldom reach three digits.

As it is well known by my three readers, I don't own a car and haven't for several years. I save on a monthly payment, insurance, gas and maintenance. Instead, I spend the extra cash eating, drinking and traveling. When I go to Mexico City, I generally fly, but on my visits north I take the bus. I don't know if I have too many trips left in me after this last journey.

Jokingly, I call this nine-hour sojourn to San Antonio the South Texas Tourist Trail. If you never embark on this route, you won't be missing anything. Leaving Brownsville at nine in the afternoon and arriving in the Alamo City at six in the afternoon is not time well-spent. No book rivals this challenge.

I expected to take a Greyhound since I paid for that line, but a bus painted a variety of colors pulled into the stall. I wondered if the City had given Matamoros two ambulances in exchange for this clunker. I was the only white among the black and brown passengers, which caused me no alarm. 

When I think of Trump, I come to the immediate conclusion that there are too many gringos in this country. I've done my best contributing to the melting pot as my three wives have all been pochas--attractive, intelligent and professionals--and I have three sons who are half-breeds. 

We need immigrants to fill the military ranks because as policemen of the world we have an obligation to kill our many enemies lurking everywhere. Mercenaries say Haitians are good foot soldiers and Venezolanos are excellent at setting up ambushes. Sign them up. We middle-class citizens don't want our boys and girls losing their lives for no reason other than for old politicos believing they are still machos.

We departed and arrived in Harlingen, once the KKK capital of the RGV. They may have a finer airport than we do, but their bus terminal is a shabby construction. It is a collapsing building with a corrugated overhang that I would expect to find in rural Mississippi with a whites only sign over the entrance to the segregated bathrooms.

Next stop was the magnificent metropolis of McAllen. At least that is the opinion of their inhabitants when comparing their city, in their unbiased opinion, to our Third-World city. Fuck 'em! I prefer our downtown, our meandering resacas, our palm trees standing like sentinels and the fact that we are five degrees cooler in the summer and five degrees warmer in the winter. And when the hell is the freeway construction going to end. It seems like it's been a decade of congested traffic now.

After filling the few remaining unoccupied seats, we turned north. There is a short stop in Edinburg. Next year UTRGV will have a Division 1 football team that will play an annual game at Sams. They will be a part of the Southland Conference, a league comprised of lesser known elevens from Texas and Louisiana. We know that there will not be many Valley athletes even sitting on the bench. The Vaqueros are only recruiting big white boys to block for fast black boys.

Exiting Edinburg, the scenic part of the journey commences--monte, or as we say in English, brushland. I try to imagine Spanish conquistadors trekking through this impenetrable track of stunted shrubs with blood-thirsty thorns. I don't want to think of the harsh conditions they endured as they futilely searched for gold. Of course, they were luckier than the illegal aliens who have to find their way to civilization on foot. In a land of seven-foot rattlesnakes and hungry coyotes and pterodactyl-sized vultures, is it any wonder that the sun-baked terrain is littered with human bones?

The checkpoint fills some of the passengers with paranoia, but the officers are in a friendly mood. Apparently, there isn't a Islamic terrorist disguised as a Mexican. The next two stops are the fun-filled communities of Falfurrias and Alice. The only excitement in these once oil boom towns is Friday night football. If my memory serves me right, neither has had a decent squad in years. I'm surprised that Lopez hasn't included them on their schedule. It's been a long time since the Lobos have howled at the moon in the wake of a victorious performance.

This is where a reasonable trip fragments into an unreasonable trip. I remember there was a time when we could take a bus directly to Corpus Christi and continue to San Antonio. It's bad enough having to go to McAllen before heading north to San Antonio, but at Alice we veer east to Corpus Christi. At this point the air-conditioning shuts down and a baby starts screaming. Everything spirals downward from here as we pull into Corpus Christi's facility at three. Six hours from Brownsville to Corpus Christi. I'm sure some woebegone, barefooted mojados can cover that distance in a shorter time.

I tell myself I'm too old for this bullshit. My back is killing me. I'm hungry and thirsty, but the bathroom is disgusting. The pace from Corpus to San Antonio picks up, but so does the clamor in the bus as the passengers start yelling at the driver over the lack of air-conditioning. Then another child starts bawling. I tell myself again as I have told myself again and again that I'm never going to take the bus again. This milk run only includes George Best. I have no idea who George Best was, but I conclude he was probably just another Eddie Lucio who had to be recognized as a political favor.

At last I spot the San Antonio skyline on the horizon. I take a deep breath. The travail is coming to an end. At the station my beautiful baby boy, now a grown man, is waiting for me. I quickly forget the past and embrace the future. I have paid higher prices for lesser pleasures.