VAL VERDE


VAL VERDE. . .Texas. . .It's hot, it's always fucking hot, the ruby sky is on fire, the town a smoke signal of desperation, a volcano transit spot within the siege, the war of cultures, ripping its guts apart. Brown, bad, bullet vaqueros wearing white Stetsons, Tony Llama's, alligator, crockodile and lizard skins, point men of honor, cowboy boot respect worn as Cholo badges, insignias of immigrant soldiers. Big, really big belt buckles, hiding under well fed bellies, blending and sidling near the tortoise shell buttons of their jefe's shirt, gold inlaid grins, flashing under clipped black moustaches, smiles used by important ex peons of dignity just before murder. Just before they kill a man for a glance misused, some slight from a border narc, an excuse abused as some loco honor system tattooed into a Mexicano's thundering pride filled heart.

Ellis Island, yids, micks, wops and spics, so long ago, when the world was sane, filled with hope and dreams, no semblance to the wetbacks screams. No boats, nor welcoming shores, no statue of the raised flame, nor barefoot maple skinned contessas dancing near the taco stands. Broken backs and callused feet, religion and god and metal spines, a coyote's trail of iron wills, madres, padres, tios, tias and ninas too. Dying one by one, the golden line, the Rio's edge, a watery grave, steps by bloody step closer to paradise, a living wage, no more knocks at the plywood door at 3 AM, peasants vanishing in the night, bullets and silent graves and toil and sweat and blistered hands, as the tragic music spills way South in old Mexico from the Mariachi Bands.

Guats, Nics, El Salvadorian, Colombian and Mayan tribe guys, que mas, que pasa, que quires, that's right, they want it back, all of it, every fucking bit of it. The want the dirt, the flies, the cactus, the ochre yellow water river, the hideous border keeping them from their casas, the heat and the boiled Sun that originally fried their skin bronze, they want that too, cause they're pissed with bad intent. They got memories nina of the original conquistadoria theft and the disgrace they've deep fried in every waking moment remembering it, they, the zaftig wild horse men, the plate scrubbers, pickers, campesino field hands, day laborers, greasers, puta's and chile eaters, they know the slang, fuck they know it well. Never deaf to their own disgrace, and their biding time, eyeing the prize, knowing it's close, the desert tortoise wins the race, Texas winds erode granite souls and they can smell, taste it rotting corpses and now they can touch it and now their ready to die for it.

America the fucking beautiful, linda, bonita, it's degenerating right before their peso eyes. They can see it, the bangles and the whacked out pretty behind the plate glass, they want the Buick and the bitch model hawking it, they want that too. Shit, they ain't blind, they can see the food carts stuffed with the gluttony of an obese nation of Lazyboy Couch burritos who are NFL anesthetized and don't give squat that their country is vanishing before their eyes, as long as they can guzzle one more beer before halftime ends, fuck dude, where's the fries.

The recruitment drive is alive, the battalions, the armies are growling and growing, twenty million of their irate amigos have joined up, soldiered up, placed their pencil X scribbles next to the enlistment queue, the bogus citrine line on the map. They're armed and breeding, every fucking one of them, loathing, lead and leather, cinched along Levi thick legs, holsters and bandoleers strapped along heavy barrel chests, machetes no longer aiming for the corn stalks, now throbbing in hate, looking for pay back. Titanium hands, brass cartridge men built low to the ground and blood is what they want and they want it now, cause they got time, education, books and pens and pistols and wills, wedges of ice called pearl handled Colt 45's. They got lap tops and Arizona State U and families hacked off value and love and their Listo, ready to rock, to end the war, one they have already won, burning to gun down the white fucks that thieved them, stole it all from them, of them, of past and sin, so ripe to raise their green, white and red blood stained flag una mas. Once and for all, one last time, never hearing those vile words again, no more a part of the fray, erasing it from time, those words of "Remember the pinche cabron Alamo" when the new catch phrases should simply be, Ven Aqui, step aside, the new tricked out citizens have rumbled in, tax payers, church goers, M-13's and cane cutters and bendehos, tu comprende, si entendo me bro, me nuevo amigo.

Hades or Hell, church steeples and grave stones, deserts acid etched of white bones, the echo has bounced back for the weak shall not inherit this slab of burning earth, and the Bible is phat as the valiant and the brave grind and groove, manana, no mas, Hasta Luego Baby as a whole people is on the move. Pesos and dollars, maize and salt, earned and risked, found and lost, to the mat they've gone and beware Pepe for your lust, Juan and Maria too, for Manifest Destiny will break your balls and in the end you may get your wish and never have to ever again wash another fucking dish. But beware senor, Cuidado, too much, she is bad "NO" and how you gonna deal, keeping kids and wife from the video, TV feed and Britney Spears, watchin' watchin' your ID, your kid smokin' that primo weed, and your daughter knocked up by a football hero, maybe man, you in the beginning had all you would ever needed and shouda stayed at Tijuana ground zero. Viva Zapata Juan, you WON, America, she's yours amigo. . .Now you fucking deal with it.