Hard Row

*Twins

January

% El Toro Negro sits next to an abandoned tobacco

warehouse a few feet inside the Dobbs city limits.

Back when the club catered to the country-western

crowd, a mechanical bull used to be one of the attrac-

tions; but after a disgruntled customer took a sledge-

hammer to its motor, the bull was left behind when the

club changed hands. Now it stands atop the flat roof

and someone with more verve than talent has painted a

picture of it on the windowless front wall. As visibly

masculine as his three-dimensional counterpart over-

head, the painted bull is additionally endowed with long

sharp horns. He seems to snort and paw at hot desert

sands although it is a frigid night and more than a thou-

sand miles north of the border. Two weeks into January,

yet a white plastic banner that reads FELIZ NAVIDAD Y

PROSPERO ANO NUEVO still hangs over the entrance. A

chill wind sweeps across the gravel parking lot and sends

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MARGARET MARON

beer cups and empty cigarette packs scudding like tum-

bleweeds until they catch in the bushes that line the

sidewalk.

Every Saturday night, the parking lot is jammed with

work vehicles of all descriptions and tonight is no ex-

ception. Pickup trucks with extended crew cabs pre-

dominate. Pulled up close to the club’s side entrance

is a refurbished schoolbus, its windows and body both

painted a dark purple that looks black under the lone

security light. A rainbow of racing stripes surrounds

the elaborate lettering of the band’s name. Los Cuatro

Reyes del Hidalgo are playing here tonight and when-

ever the door opens, live music with a strong Tejano

beat swirls out on gusts of warm air.

Like most of the Latinos clustered beneath the col-

ored lights around the doorway, the muscular Anglo

who passes them is without a woman on his arm. He

has clearly been drinking and the bouncers at the door

glance at each other, silently conferring if they should

let him in; but he has already handed over his fifteen-

dollar cover charge. They sweep him thoroughly with

their metal detector and make him empty his pockets

when the wand beeps for a handful of coins, then stamp

the back of his hand and let him pass.

Inside, he heads straight to the far end of the long

bar that stretches down the whole length of one wall.

Even though dark faces beneath wide cowboy hats line

the bar three and four deep, they move aside to let him

prop a foot on the wooden rail and order a Corona. In