“Sorry it’s not from a lower altitude,” the captain apologized, “but at least you have a memento of your visit.”
The Road to Aztlan
Jim and I are on a train between Dallas and Austin, passing through Waco. I remember Waco as a small, intense city in the heart of the cotton-growing country. The parents of our friend Jay Westbrook lived there in the sixties, and the three of us used to be invited up for occasional weekends—usually after Jay’s mother had been to the apartment we all shared in Austin and had become concerned that we were too thin.
The train rattles along at about forty-five. It’s clean, but pretty worn. Twelve Amtrak chair cars and a baggage car. There is no diner and no snack bar, and air conditioning is provided by keeping the front and rear doors of the cars open. The windows cannot be opened, for these prewar cars were built with many assumptions that no longer hold true. The trip will take two hours and thirty minutes station to station, with four stops.
Most of our fellow passengers are business people. The cotton industry in Waco is booming. With the collapse of cotton imports from Egypt and other countries, the local growers are finding their product much in demand. Jim tells me that Governor Parker is hoping to make cotton and cotton products a net export item in the Texas economy soon.
We are asking our fellow passengers about Aztlan, the Hispanic Free State that stretches roughly along the Texas–Mexico border from Piedras Negras to New Mexico. We intend to go there via Austin, San Angelo, and Odessa, with a stop in Austin to interview the Governor. But our fellow passengers are not encouraging.
MRS. TOM MULLIN: “I had a sister lived in El Paso and all of a sudden one day she turns up at our house in Waco with everything she owns in a shopping bag. She just got kicked out by the Mexicans, she says. And a lot of people weren’t so lucky. They got hanged from street lights. And in Roswell—the Indians went in there and just about tore the place apart, the way I hear it.”
JODY PICKEREL: “It’s probably not really a separate country from Mexico. The way I see it, Mexico went in there and started something. We mighta forgot the Alamo, but they never did. They remember the Alamo and they want all of Texas back. Unless Parker gets on the stick, they’ll be in Austin before too long, or maybe even up here in Waco.”
LIZ PICKEREL: “He’s right, it’s a Mexican thing. You have to remember that they didn’t get touched by the war. They still have an army and everything. They’re in good shape down there, except for the money troubles and the food troubles and… well, I take that back, they’re in bad shape. But that just makes them all the more dangerous.”
CARLOS GONZALEZ: “I am on my way to Aztlan right now. You know what I am doing there? I am selling clothes. That’s right, clothes I bought in Atlanta. I have them on this train. Seven hundred good, strong pairs of overalls. You think I’ll get a nice price?
You bet I will! Fifty Aztlan pesos each, and you know you can change them things for good Japanese yen. Americans don’t want to trade with Aztlan. Everybody’s scared. Like, this train doesn’t go south of Odessa. You’ll find out. I have to take a truck down from Odessa. The train goes on that old Santa Fe freight track up through to Albuquerque. They fixed up those tracks last year. Before that they ran buses.”
MINDY SCHWARTZ: “I don’t really know much about it. I live in Odessa, and we don’t much go to El Paso anymore. I really don’t think about it.”
TOM LEGAN: “You two gringos are going in there? Lemme tell you, they cleaned house last year. No gringos allowed. They hanged ’em if they stayed. You’re a couple of assholes, you know that? They’ll hang you if the bandidos don’t get you first. Fifty miles south of Odessa the trouble starts. You try to stay on I-20 down there the other side of Monahans, and them bandidos are going to carve up your asses. That’s all I got to say about it”
The train pulls into the station in McGregor, which serves as the stop for Waco. There is a lot of bustle, people getting off and on, men wearing weathered jeans and straw hats, carrying duffels full of possessions, people pushing carts loaded with baggage, children crying, voices rising in joy or sorrow at the partings and returns.
About three-quarters of the passengers get out. We buy Cokes on the platform. We will eat out of our backpacks, to save money.
Five minutes later the train is full again, with a few people sitting in the aisles. We pull out exactly on time. Like many of the other passengers, Jim and I have our homemade lunches. The train is due in Austin at 4:07. It had better be on time, because our interview with Oliver Parker is scheduled for 4:30.
When the wind is from the south, I understand that the corrupt odor of San Antonio is sharp on the Austin air.
Oliver Parker, Governor of Texas
You know, Whitley, the fact is that some of the states are becoming separate countries. We have the beginnings of a military structure right here in Texas. I’m pushing a bill that will place the U.S. Third Army, the Twelfth Air Force, the state national guard, and the highway patrol under the overall authority of the governor’s office. I consider this the most important single thing I’ve done so far in my administration.
We are going to restore authority in the areas of Texas where there’s a problem. Especially down in South Texas. Those people have suffered enough. They’ve really had it much worse than in most of the rest of the country, what with the destruction of San Antonio and the sickness and all. Plus there has been a tremendously high level of illegal immigration. All authority in Mexico has broken down. Without any significant oil income, with the collapse of trade and tourism, and our inability to export foodstuffs, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mexico hasn’t experienced a greater population decline than we have. I’d put it at forty to fifty percent in five years. I know from personal friends that there have been eight revolutions in Mexico City, and when we were suffering from the famine here, they were absolutely and totally destitute. They had no corn, no bread, no soy products, only their own beans. They lacked cooking oil. In Mexico City there was no potable water because their U.S.-made sewage treatment system failed. Mexico City was hit as bad by dysentery and cholera as it was by the Cincinnati Flu. You had whole huge areas of the city where there was nobody left alive at all.
If people wonder why in the world they’re still coming north in spite of what we’re going through, that’s the reason.
You said you wanted me to say what I was doing on Warday.
Well, I was in Dallas trying to get my campaign for the Senate together. I was going to get that seat from the Republicans. Mary was with me, and so was Elizabeth. The other kids were in San Antonio, I’m sorry to say.
After we’re finished, we can go over to the house and you can see our war baby, Oliver Junior. Perfect formation. He looks just like his mother.
I don’t live in the Governor’s Mansion, by the way. The state doesn’t have the money to keep it up. We’re just barely staying solvent as it is, so I live in a raised ranch over on Red River. Maybe next year we’ll reopen the mansion.
I deal with real basic issues: defense, disease, food, shelter, crime. I classify this whole Aztlan thing as a crime. As far as I’m concerned they’re rebels, no different from the Confederates. I consider Texas a part of the United States, and Aztlan a part of Texas. If there’s ever a new Constitutional Convention, Texas will certainly be sending delegates.
Other crimes we have, mainly, are crimes of desperation. There is still a lot of hunger. Real, raw hunger. Hell, people are dying of hunger and a lot of other things down in South Texas every day.
The area between Houston and San Antonio is blighted. I guess you could consider that whole area depopulated.
You know, from the roof of St. Edwards University south of here—you remember St. Edwards? Well, from the
