LA MORENITA, Chapter 27

They began the trip from San Antonio to Richland in Norm’s Impala, towing all their worldly possessions in a small rental trailer. On the day they left, they pulled out of San Antonio at five A.M., N driving the maximum the speed limit allowed by law. They took Route 10, traveling past the rolling hills of the Guadalupe River Valley, Kerrville, and Mountain Home. From there, they passed Segovia, a small town with only a truck stop and a general store. Noticing how tense she seemed about leaving home, he remarked, “Take a good look at all the poverty, darlin’. This is the Texas we’re leaving behind.” She didn’t say a word even after they passed Roosevelt, Sonora, and Ozona. She still seemed dismayed as they drove past desert scrublands, rolling hills with clumps of cheat grass and cactus, through wide expanses of and open land sporting occasional patches of low bushes and wild bluebonnets. Seeing squirrels at play near the roadside and white-tailed deer grazing in the distance didn’t cheer her up. Even after
they passed Fort Lancaster, she still felt despondent. “Texas,” he said. “The good, bad, the ugly.”
“I’ll miss all of it,” she said.
Fumbling for a way to make her laugh, he switched on the radio and purposely found a Spanish speaking station. “Shit!” he grumped. She smiled. Rapidly, he negotiated through the frequencies carrying English speaking stations and landed on a station playing Mexican polkas.
“Dammit to Hell!” he exclaimed. He glanced over as she giggled softly. Next, he moved the dial until he stopped on a jingle they had heard before.
“I don’t care if it rains or freezes,” the voice on the radio sang, “as long as I got my plastic Jesus, sittin’ on the dashboard of my car. I don’t care if it’s dark and scary, as long as I got Magnetic Mary, sittin’ on the dashboard of my car!”
She reached over and turned the radio off.
“That’s what I’m going to miss about Texas,” he said. “All the things there are to make fun of.”
Near Tornillo, a town of about two hundred and fifty surrounded by cotton fields and pecan groves, he pulled onto the shoulder. “Look at that,” he said. “Texas is dying here. Everybody’s living in the past. That’s what all this cotton is. The past. Nobody picks cotton anymore but Coloreds and Mexicans. And we’re leaving all this behind and going to a place where the future is. Nothing but nuclear, I’m telling you. Nuclear plants. Nuclear medicine,—.”
“Nuclear waste,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I know you’ll miss your family,” he said.
“That’s only part of it,” she said.
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling Mexican again.”
“What you mean, again? It’s not something I can get away from. I feel Mexican every second of my life.”
“But you’re married to me,” he said. “And things are different now. How many times do I have to tell you, you aren’t any more Mexican than I’m German. We’re Americans, don’t you get it?”
“It’s easier for you to not be German than it is for me to not be Mexican,” she said.
“Look,” he replied. “I don’t even care about being American. I’ve learned from talking to guys who came back from Viet Nam that we’d all be better off if there weren’t any such thing as nations.”
“How do you figure?”
“If there were no nations, there’d be no national armies. If there were no national armies, then the big oil companies would have to hire their own goons to fight their battles, and nobody would have to die who didn’t volunteer for it. And all the rest of us could live free.”
“Is that what you think Viet Nam is? A war for Big Oil?”
“Yeah. Big Oil and Corporate America. Thousands of young American boys dying for Big Brother and the Holding Company.”
“So what’s that got to do with us?” she asked.
“Don’t you see?” he said. “They only thing that really counts is you and me. Nothing else matters.”
After passing El Paso, they headed north, through New Mexico. Just inside the New Mexico state border, new ghost towns emerged. Is this the future of New Mexico, too? she thought. After passing La Mesa, she wondered aloud, “Is the whole southwest turning into a ghost town?”
He didn’t answer.
“I don’t understand,” she continued, “I heard there’s new construction near Dallas and down in Houston. Why did we have to leave Texas?”
Again, he said nothing.
“Okay,” she said. “Why did you leave Texas?”
Still, he didn’t speak.
“Didn’t you hear my question?” she asked.
“I left,” he finally said, “to make a better life for you. Do you like the way you were being treated in Texas?”
“It was all right for me,” she said, “because I stayed with my own kind.” A few seconds later, she said, “Until I met you.”
“Okay,” he said. “I left Texas because I didn’t want to be near my family, and I didn’t want to live next to yours. Besides, I’ve got a great chance at some real opportunity up in Washington state.”
“You didn’t have any opportunity in Texas?”
“No,” he said. “Hell, no.” He didn’t want to tell her that he hadn’t been laid off. He’d been fired for fighting on the job.