Warday

split their profits weekly. If there are no profits, nobody gets paid that week.

A brightly painted schoolbus jammed with people finally came down Paseo de la Revolucion. Radio “A” got louder as the bus got closer. Buses are supposed to stop whenever somebody hails them—there are no fixed stops in El Paso. But this one passed us by. It was full.

As we watched one jammed bus after another pass us by, we began to get nervous. The big purple Super Express tickets Senior Espinoza had given us were valueless if we couldn’t make it to the bus station.

Finally a half-full peseta came along. We were almost surprised to see it stop when we hailed it. The fare is ten centavos “A” for holders of yellow co-op cards, which most people wear pinned to their shirts and blouses. These cards identify their bearers as part of Aztlan’s network of cooperatives. Capitalists must pay one peso “A” to ride. We paid our pesos happily.

I got in the front seat of the massive old Buick station wagon, repainted many times, now the bright red of the flag of Aztlan. In fact, Aztlan’s red flag with the gold radiant sun in the center snapped from both front fenders and the radio antenna. Jim was jammed in the back with three other people, all wearing yellow cards. “Estacion de la autobuses del norte, por favor,” I said. My Spanish is less than minimal.

As we traveled into the center of town, I collected these impressions of El Paso:

The cemetery beneath the complex tangle of the Spaghetti Bowl where I-10 intersects the Expressway is in prewar condition.

Unlike the situation common in Dallas, new graves have not been dug in among the old. But there are many empty buildings, empty houses, and abandoned cars. Just before we turned onto Piedras, we saw along the side of MO the glittering aluminum ruins of a jet, cracked plastic windows in the few bits of intact fuselage, the plane’s markings no longer readable.

Japanese soldiers passed us in squat Toyota military vehicles. Their light khaki uniforms were spotless, the Rising Sun on their shoulders. As they rode along they shot pictures of the distant Franklin Mountains with Minoltas as small and thin as credit cards.

Earlier we had noticed a restaurant with the odd name “Gunther’s Lotus Blossom.” A closer look revealed that the sign had once read “Gunther’s Edelweiss.” Before Warday, the U.S. Army used to train soldiers of the German Federal Republic at Fort Bliss, which is just up the road from here. We wondered if Gunther was still around, or if he had left only his name behind.

Japanese military planes flew low overhead. They were odd-looking things, with their wings canted forward instead of swept back, so that they appeared to be flying backwards. Instead of a jet’s familiar scream, they made a low drumming noise that seemed almost to thump your chest. I recall the strange cant of the wings from NASA designs for future hypersonic aircraft.

We had ridden in silence for some time when the driver decided to try striking up a conversation.

“Hey, gringo,” he said with a big smile. “Let’s talk norte americano! See if I can still do it!”

His name was Carlos Leon, and he was from San Antonio. “I’m from there too,” I said. “So is he.” I nodded toward Jim.

“Hey! Compadres! I grew up there. Left in ’86 to get a job out here. Once the Mexican economy started to recover, there were lots of jobs here again. I was managing a McDonald’s. Kept at it, too, until the meat stopped getting delivered. Then I said the hell with the franchise, sold the equipment, and signed up as a cooperator. They assigned me to pesetas and gave me a permit to buy a station wagon. Our co-op consists of me, my wife the bookkeeper, and my cousin the mechanic.”

“Where did you live in San Antonio?”

“West Side! I lived on South Zarzamora. My dad was a garbage man—but not in his own neighborhood! We had to take our garbage to the dump ourselves until the fifties. My mom and dad died in San Antonio.”

“I lived in Terrell Hills,” I said.

“Rich, eh?”

“My dad was an oilman.”

“Oh boy! You’re poor now, eh? I see you work with your hands!”

“I’m poor now.”

From one of the passengers: “Good for you! Join the rest of the world.”

I laugh. “No more oilmen.”

“Hey, that’s good. No more oilmen! Just British and Israeli oil import agents, right?”

I did not mention that Texas oil was flowing again, and that refineries were opening up all over the United States. There was a razor edge of anger among these people. This was their place, their time at last, and these their days of sunshine.

Walls pockmarked with bullet holes were a common sight as we neared the center of town.

“Jim and I went to Central,” I said, hoping Carlos might also be an alumnus. This is not as unlikely as it sounds: Central Catholic had a substantial Hispanic population when we attended.

The sudden silence tells me that my suspicion is correct. Carlos stops the car. “Well, goddamn.”

“Brother Halaby?”

“Shit, yeah!”

“Brother Arana?”

“The Spider! I haven’t thought about him in years!”

The Spider taught world history and his real name was Brother Gordon, but his thin, six-foot-four frame gained him the nickname Brother Arana. So total was his identification with us that he was known to get mean when freshmen called him Brother Gordon.

“I’m Brother Arana,” he would snarl, “and don’t you forget it.”

Carlos had been five years ahead of us at Central. “You remember Brother DeLoach?” he asked.

“He was principal our freshman year. He retired.”

“He taught me a hell of a lot. I was a real bad kid when I went there. Angry, you know? And so damn stupid. I’d been a year at Southton already! They hit me with a razor strap there. I was down for selling grass. Shining shoes and dealing grass to the soldiers on Alamo Plaza, then going to the Alameda to see Cantinflas movies. You know what we got for a joint—we called them Mary Janes—back in the fifties? We got a dollar. But they cost us eighty-five cents apiece. So we were risking years of freedom for fifteen cents! Sure enough, the next thing I knew I was down for a year and my mom and dad were thinking they had raised a rotten kid. When I got out I applied to Central. No way I’m gonna get in, my parents figure. I’m fourteen and already a jailbird. But DeLoach, he lets me in. ‘You stay away from the Mary Janes or I’ll paddle your behind’ he says. ‘You’re a smart kid, that’s your problem. We’ll give you a little something to do with your mind, you’ll stay out of trouble.’”

“Did it work?”

“I loved that school! One of these days I’m gonna go back. I’m gonna see—”

Silence. We are suddenly very still, we alumni. Night has just touched us in the middle of the afternoon.

The Dream Bandidos

The Trailways sign had been taken off the wall of the station, and the newsstand carried papers with names like Revolucion and Viva Aztlan! There were also Mexican and Spanish papers, El Diario and La Nota. The Japanese Asahi Shimbun en Espanol was prominently displayed, as was the London Times—in English, of course. I would have bought a copy, but it cost the equivalent of three dollars.

Jim was delighted to find that the candy counter was well stocked. Last year, M&Ms and Hershey bars reappeared in Dallas, but here in El Paso you can get all manner of colorful locally made confections as well. We stocked up on fresh pralines and other indigenous sweets in the fifteen minutes we had before the bus left.

It was a brand-new Japanese Hino, very comfortably appointed and efficiently air conditioned. In El Paso in August this is a definite plus. It was about ninety degrees, and would probably be a hundred before the end of the