ODE TO TUESDAY

Tuesday in the forgotten day of the week. Monday is a reality check. Wednesday is hump day. In college we started our weekends on Thursday because we only had one more session of classes and we could float through the day. Friday, Saturday and Sunday speak for themselves, but Tuesday, pobre Tuesday, nothing distinguishes it except that we only have work ahead of us and the weekend is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. When I used to teach in the school district, it was a perfect opportunity to take a sick day. Most of my colleagues preferred Friday and Mondays for their sick days, but Saturday and Sunday sufficed for me. My biggest challenge was surviving the week and opting for Tuesday, the orphan of the days of the week, was a perfect solution for me. I taught 39 years in the BISD and if I had never taken a sick day during my career, I would have collected 390 sick days since we're allotted 10 each year. My remaining tally was zero. Between hangovers and staying home with sick children, I used them all. When I reach the end of my days, I hope that those who are gathered around a puddle on Elizabeth Street to cast my ashes will say, "Jerry lived all his days."

Another political season is upon us. I have lost track of the number of campaigns I have covered. When I was 31 I ran for city commissioner. I finished a distant third in a three-man race. Two years later I ran for mayor and the Palm Lounge was my headquarters. I had friends with the two television stations and they filmed me standing atop the bar and announcing my candidacy. My platform was: "Let's make our resacas blue." Like me, Brownsville has aged, but I'm still infatuated with her natural beauty and downtown's architecture. I fared much better in this contest. I faced incumbent Mayor Emilio Hernandez and used car salesman Mauro Ruiz. After spending $1500 hundred dollars on the hustings, I garnered second with 1700 votes. The mayor breezed easily to reelection with 4100 votes and Ruiz pulled up the rear with 800 votes. Both Emilio and Mauro are dead. I became good friends with them. During the campaign I met Ruiz's daughter at Garcia's and she said she was voting for me. We drank like young people drink and by the end of the evening we were sleeping together in a cheap Matamoros hotel.

The election isn't until May and the candidates and their supporters are already in a frantic mood. They are in life or death states of mind. They give the impression that they can't sleep at night because they fear losing. I have found that losing is the best teacher. After losing twice as a politician, I learned that I never wanted to step into the ring again. I discovered that writing about the contentious showdowns was more fun and I could actually effect more change by being the power behind the throne like today's kingpin Dr. Carlos "El Mago" Marin. What he has had in money, I have had in words and I have never had any qualms about using them wantonly and prodigiously. My ally /DP-M says that we need to treat "politicians like dogs" although he recently qualified that statement when he said I shouldn't criticize an aspiring leader for his or her physical appearance. I disagree. I use words like a cartoonist uses his pen. These poor guys and gals forget that chasing their egos places them in the spotlight and reduces them to a target. And when we journalists discover that they can't handle criticism, they excite our piranha-like instincts and we go on a feeding frenzy. And God forbid if I'm drunk or high or angry because the chick I'm fucking is acting like a bitch. I'm capable of writing anything. On more than a few occasions I have awaken during the night, quickly rose and erased a story or a poem that I had typed on the computer only hours earlier. There are limits, particularly if I've ripped apart for public consumption the woman with whom I happen to be enduring a brief period of bliss because she has deceived me with her bullshit.

The Brownsville Herald, as expected, isn't covering the elections. The dying daily has been reduced to a pair of small rooms in one of those businesses that specializes in virtual offices. It is a far cry from those halcyon days when I was working fulltime as sports editor in the late seventies. The newsroom buzzed. The backshop buzzed. The presses buzzed. As I looked in on the Herald yesterday at their new headquarters, I felt like I was at a funeral home viewing a corpse. The newspaper has decided that acting dead preserves its existence. I spend a few minutes scanning the paper's headlines on the internet and then I turn to our ineffable bloggers. The community, gathered at their favorite restaurants for breakfasts or wateringholes for Happy Hours never say: "Did you read the Herald today?" Instead, they say: "Did you read the bloggers today. Montoya broke the story on the mayor. Bobby was going nuts. Jim nailed the county judge. /DP-M took no prisoners at the Sheriff's Department. And McHale? Fuck that has-been. Es un pinche bato who only has enough energy and relevance to repost his colleagues' articles.

I have jumped into the middle of the election season with both feet. And it could be a long season. The mayor's seat and the three commissioner posts have at least three contestants in all four matches and it is feasible we're looking at four runoffs. Off the top of my head, I'm with Trey Mendez for mayor. We need a dramatic change in direction. I won't vote for Mayor Tony Martinez under any circumstances. He has been a colossal failure. I would side with Charlie Cabler before this hollow man. At-Large "A" I'm backing John Cowen. John is sharp and I'm a big fan of the Cowen family. I won't support Los Juniors' Carlos Guerrero even if he were holding a gun to my head. Ismael Hinojosa is my second choice, but with a pregnant wife, three small children, little money and a fulltime law practice, I can't imagine that he would be a factor except, sadly, forcing a runoff between the capable Cowen and the groveling Guerrero.

In District I, more commonly known as the Southmost, a runoff between educator Rick Longoria and attorney/businesswoman Nurith Galonsky is inevitable. Longoria has served for 16 years, which has its advantages and disadvantages. He has a fervent following, but he faces that aged-old criticism that he has been in office too long. Galonsky, with diplomas from Stanford, SMU and UT/Austin, is growing more formidable by the day. In District II I've never seen a worse collection of misfits than this trio. I'm surprised that Ernie Hernandez and Roman Perez haven't announced by submitting false addresses a la William Garza. Then we would have enough clowns to promote a circus. I have been vilified for calling incumbent Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa fat, ugly and stupid, but the facts are irrefutable: Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa is fat, ugly and stupid. Don't take my word for it. Ask Commissioner Ben Neece. Ex-Mayor Pat Ahumada can't take no for an answer. If you are persistent, perhaps you can change a female's mind, but the voters have said it before and they will shout it again: "NO!" And then there is the gentle and sweet Caty Presas-Garcia, the former BISD trustee. Like a cannibal who collects heads, she collects balls. It will be a sixty-degree day in the middle of a Brownsville summer before I would vote for the repugnant Tetreau-Kalifa and the irascible Ahumada. It may be Caty and only because I have shared a long bromance with her husband.

One of a writer's greatest challenges is concluding a story. The lead is more important, but the conclusion is consummation. I'm sitting here thinking. I'm listening to Julio Iglesias' greatest hits. My critics might accuse me of being a musical lightweight, but besides enjoying his songs, which bring back many memories, I love listening to his Spanish. I will never master Spanish like I speak English, but there is another person that is me that can only be expressed in Spanish. There is seldom a day that I don't read Spanish, watch Univision and read El Bravo. There is much vocabulary I need to learn and I'm try my best to refine my accent, but I'm content with English mixing with my Spanish. The combination creates a unique sound, but there are certain words mispronounced and you reveal yourself as a pinche gringo who should keep his mouth shut instead of pretending to be Don Quijote mounted on Rocinante with Sancho Panza at his side in search of his Dulcinea and declaiming with the flair of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. God decided that I would best serve his universe fighting windmills in Brownsville. I have never quibbled with his dictates and I have never had any regrets about the 43 years I have resided in the Third World Capital of the United States, along the banks of the polluted and poisonous Rio Grande and next to Matamoros, Tamaulipas and Mexico where decapitated heads float on rivers of blood.

God bless Tuesday. If it hadn't been for Tuesday, I wouldn't have written this piece. Like a good lead, I have started my day on a positive and productive note.