NEW YEAR'S EVE

You: Are you ready to celebrate tonight?

Me: Celebrate what? The COVID death total has reached 345,000. Trump is still attempting to destroy our democracy. I turned 70 two days ago. I've been fighting a sore throat and GERD. The gloomy weather reflects my mood. And I don't feel like commencing the year with a hangover. I'm in the fourth quarter of my life. If we estimate our life spans at 80 years, then at most there's 7:30 left in the game that we knew the outcome from the start. The only question is the margin of defeat. Will we score a few touchdowns before the final whistle or will we even tally a first down? 

You: It's called a new year for a reason. You can start over. 

Me: You're wrong. It's a cumulative effect. Time isn't on our side. When we're young, time is like a thief in the night. You don't appreciate your youth until suddenly it's gone. I spent my birthday mostly shaking my head. I stared at myself in the mirror and I found it difficult that I was contemplating the image of a 70-year-old man. I'm suffering from COPD because I've been smoking dope since I was 15 and I've enjoyed cigarettes when I've been drinking. I'm not smoking anymore because I prefer a deep breath these days, but returning to the analogy of the football game, I have the ball in the shadow of my own goal post and I'm mired on a field that has turned into a sty.

You: You're being too hard on yourself. Throw back two tequila shots and you'll be your old self again. You've been the life of the party since we first started hitting the streets more than a half century ago and it's fiesta time. Seventy isn't old in the age of modern medicine unless you catch COVID and you have COPD. Just kidding, bro. You have game. You haven't lost your mojo. And there's always Viagra. Are you going to spend the rest of your days moping because you're not young? There are plenty of people six-feet-under who wouldn't think twice about changing places with you. If you lost 20 pounds from your belly, you wouldn't look a day over 69. Let's party. Downtown will be fun tonight.

Me: I'm serious. I'm not going out. I'm not in the mood. I don't need a New Year's Eve to drink and party. Guys like us get shitfaced on a Tuesday night. I'm in one of my usual moods in which I'm wrestling with the futility of it all. There's so much I still want to do, but I'm losing it both physically and mentally. How am I going to perfect my backhand if I can't walk? How am I going to finish my next book when I can't think? Didn't Hemingway kill himself because women no longer found him macho and he couldn't write a coherent sentence? And he was ten years younger than I am now.

You: Don't panic, bro. We're not sending you back to the minors. You're not washed-up. In fact, you're in the starting lineup because you have the quality that makes the key difference: You haven't lost your desire. Your aspirations are an inspiration to me. These are dark days and there is a bleakness, but don't lose your wits. Trump will soon be gone. We are going to weather this pandemic and then you can realize your dream. One year from now, after you finish your present work, you'll be in Portugal writing poetry in a Coimbra cafe. You say that you have the ball with 7:30 remaining in the fourth quarter? You know as well as I that seven minutes and change is an eternity in sports. And at 70 isn't it about time you grew up and put your priorities in order? You've lived like a damn kid your entire life and it has cost you. I think it's about time you matured and became more responsible. It's not too late to perfect that backhand. It's not too late to finish The Coronavirus Chronicles. At 70 you may finally realize that you have to take it slow but stay steady. We're going to lose, but there's no reason you can't finish with a flourish and chalk up a TD or two. And when you're down to your final seconds, you can unleash your Hail Mary pass. That might be the one that gets you into heaven.

Me: I'm not ready to be old, but I am. Some take comfort that with age comes wisdom, but I don't know a goddamn thing. I'm as ignorant as the day I was born and I have no confidence that I'm escaping that reality. In fact, you can't convince me that from the beginning we weren't condemned to futility. We push forward because we are ruled by our instincts, but our heads are empty. We know nothing. When it's all said and done, it's strictly about our physical needs until our bodies rebel and we die. Maybe we become more adept at playing the game, but since we're destined to lose, we're little more than pretense with no sense.

You: I've had enough of your bullshit. You're spewing nonsense. You can stay in your dark room and rue about the absurdity of your circumstances, but while you're sucking on your bitter fruit like a little bitch, I'll be downtown hooping and hollering. And if I'm fucking some strange pussy in the wee hours of the morning, then 2021 will already have been a successful year. 

CAN THE END COME SOON ENOUGH

 While many in the nation shiver from cold and hunger, President Donald Trump is at his Florida White House playing the best golf of his life although his buddies, who can't agree if he's the greatest president since George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, take certain liberties when scoring the Commander in Chief.

According to these questionable sources, the president shot one-under on Christmas Day. There are reports about several mulligans, a whiffed drive and a half-dozen gimmes when he was within five feet of the hole. Nevertheless, there was unanimity from those in attendance that Trump shot one-under. He easily defeated the three other members of his foursome, In fact, the president hasn't lost once on the links since losing the presidency. His lawyers keep insisting in courts throughout the land that it was a mulligan, but judges are dismissing the argument and counting it as a stroke.

Even his supporters--or the few who are remaining since he has stabbed more Republicans in the back in the last two months that a Democrat could ever accomplish in a lifetime of politics--wish he would stay on the golf course 24/7. He isn't registering any holes-in-one when he's off the links. He is flailing helplessly away in Washington D.C. and throwing his clubs at his newest enemies of the day. The paranoid president--who knows that the shit is going to hit the fan when he can no longer escape litigation once the Bidens evict him from The White House--has to stay in power by hook or by crook or he will soon find that he has been adjudicated a crook.

The country is mired in a mess. While Trump was feasting on Taco Bell for his Christmas dinner, many of his fellow Americans weren't sitting down to their traditional turkey meals. In fact, millions were lucky to still have canned soups in their cupboards. Of course, more than 3000 didn't have to worry about eating on Christmas day since they had perished from COVID, which, according to Trump was going to miraculously disappear last spring, brings the total deaths to 340,000. As Trump, who gives himself outstanding marks for overcoming the Coronavirus challenge, infamously said, "It is what it is."

It didn't have to be this way, but Trump's incompetence and indifference have certainly threatened our delusional claim as being the greatest people in the history of mankind. Trump is no longer governing. He is wreaking havoc in retaliation against those who are in positions of power, but refuse to abuse their influence by assuring Trump four more years in office even though he lost by more than seven million votes. 

He has vetoed the defense bill because he doesn't want military bases honoring traitorous Confederate generals renamed. He is holding the COVID bill that is depriving individuals and companies of needed funds with the sudden demand that he wants to provide families with more money after he never offered any suggestions during the negotiations between the two parties who miraculously discovered common ground and passed a measure that will put money into the pockets of Americans and prevent many from being thrown out of their homes. And Trump's good friend and mentor Vladimir Putin has launched a cyber attack on the United States that the military experts qualify as unparalleled. Speaking of good friends, Trump is pardoning his buddies right and left who can easily be categorized as bad people.

Our countdown has reached 24 days. It just seems like the other day it was 33 days, so time is moving, maybe not quite as fast as people are dying, but it's moving. Trump's judicial strategies have seemed to have run their courses although there was a blurb that the Supreme Court was going to hear one of Trump's complaints after the inauguration. Is this the court's attempt at humor?

On January 6th both Houses of Congress will meet to officially count the electoral votes with Biden holding a 306-232 lead over Trump. There is an objection process that a few Republicans may employ to postpone the final tally, but this strategy has even less possibility of succeeding that the scores of judicial cases that in some cases have been rejected in less than 30 minutes because there was no evidence to substantiate the accusations. 

Trump has predicted that January 6th will be special. He is summoning his followers to the capital on that date and is promising "a wild day." Will there be a showdown between his militias and the capital police? Will he launch a nuclear attack on Iran? Will Melania and Ivanka bear their breasts and in an election that won' be rigged will Trump's trolls decide if Melania or Ivanka has the best tits?

The end is coming. Or at least we hope the end is coming. Trump says that he will return the conqueror in four years. We could care less. We don't want him around for the next four years. If Fox has slow news days and wants to run his tweets, that's their prerogative. We only want to hear about him when he or one of his family has been convicted of a crime. For the last four years this country has served a sentence, which can only be attributed to the bad karma accumulated over the decades in our treatment of Native Americans, African Americans, other minorities, woman and children. Now it's time for the Trump dynasty to serve time for their many crimes against humanity.

CHRISTMAS

I call myself a writer and I have nothing to say on Christmas Eve. Maybe there are too many memories that create nothing but chaos inside my cranium. We were a happy family when I was a child and my parents, in spite of the overwhelming economic challenges and eight children, did everything within their powers to create the perfect family.

Our Catholic faith dictated our lives. Both my parents worked the Friday night bingos to pay for our parochial school tuitions. My dad often reminded us that he spent two years in the seminary after WWII and my mother never forgot to inform us that she was named after Therese the Little Flower. And they both emphasized that being of Irish heritage was synonymous with being Catholic.

During the holiday season we heard nothing but Christmas music and my mother would rent a television for the month of December because she loved the Christmas shows, but the other eleven months were dedicated to reading. 

Dickens' Christmas Carol captured the excitement that enveloped both Christmas Eve and Christmas Days for us. We never opened gifts until Christmas Day, but I was usually the one who shouted in the wee hours of the morning that Santa Claus had arrived and my siblings would pour out of their rooms. My parents would follow yawning since they had only been in bed for a few hours after assisting Santa with his work.

Though clothes were the least appreciated gifts, they were the attire that we would wear to Christmas mass as my mother would never support anything but an immaculate appearance at church. We could hardly aspire to being the perfect family if we weren't dressed for the role.

Since we had had turkey for Thanksgiving, turkey wasn't quite as exciting as it had been the previous month, but those were the only two days we feasted on the stuffed bird and there were no complaints since we weren't unfamiliar with empty stomachs when times were occasionally tough. We often asked for seconds, but the refrigerator and cupboards were bare.

"Eat everything on your plates," my mom and dad must have repeated a hundred times at dinner since there would be no more food until breakfast the following morning. "There are millions of children dying of hunger in China."

We were a struggling working class family slowly moving up the economic ladder, but despite our financial woes, my parents managed to place dozens of presents beneath the Christmas tree. They provided us with enough toys for us to forgive them for the clothes that we would wear until summer vacation when the bite of scissors would reduce our jeans to shorts.

December is a dreary month in Sacramento. The fog will hang over the Central Valley for weeks. The sky is gray, a mist falls and the temperature hovers in the mid-fifties. The elements never stopped us from congregating at the school yards to play football or basketball, but Christmas Day was strictly a family day and we never left the house. 

With dinner at three and new toys to entertain us, we were content to remain as one. And my father, who never complained about the incalculable sacrifices he made for his wife and children, would convince my mom to relinquish the television for a few hours so he could watch a NFL game.

I take a deep sigh. Our lives are a flash punctuated by instances. It is beyond our comprehension that the moment we're living that we'll be reflecting on its more than a half-century later. And many of those on whom our memories rest are resting in peace. Since I was blessed, Christmas symbolizes for me goodness and innocence.

And, of course, there were the many Christmases that I celebrated as a husband and a father. With my parents as role models, the sacredness of the day seared into my consciousness and economically comfortable, I did my best to do my parents right by maintaining the tradition they had so lovingly instilled in their children.

During my adult life I have spent a solitary Christmas or two because I was no match for my parents 63 years of matrimony and on those lonely nights I have gone to bed early comforted by the past. Life ain't never a straight line.

Tonight will be a quiet family night with the mother-in-law's tamales the main dish. A few of the kids will return home and there will be an aunt or an uncle in attendance. Presents will be exchanged and good cheer will reign, but there will be an essential presence missing. What is Christmas without a child anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus? 

And Christmas tomorrow? Sadly, it won't be much more than another day.  

HOLE IN ONE

For those who don't know, the 600-yard, par 5 18th at the Brownsville Golf Center, it has a dogleg left at about the 300-yard mark, but if you can drive with authority, you can cut the corner. Adrian Garcia, the legendary Hanna coach from days or yore who had no more beer to drink, wanted to get to the 19th hole as quickly as possible so he decided to hit the ball over the forest of palms on his left.

He took a deep breath, farted and smacked a ball that disappeared in the distance. I don't think Babe Ruth hit homers that far. I was smoking a joint and driving the cart. Adrian asked if I saw where it might have landed, but I told him I was having one of those paranoid dope moments thinking about death and I couldn't help him.

We drove around the bend and down the middle of the fairway toward the green, but we couldn't find the ball anywhere. We stopped at the edge of the green. In my paranoid state--it was Austin hydro--I thought I saw a snake slithering across the green. I walked behind it and it disappeared into the cup. I couldn't imagine a cup that deep so I followed my curiosity to the hole where, lo and behold, I discovered a golf ball.

"Were you hitting a Callaway 2020?" I shouted to Adrian.

"Yeah. How did you know?" he asked.

"Here it is, cabrón."

He shook his head and remarked, "This must be my lucky hole. I've made three hole-in-ones now on the 18th. Maybe the yardage is off. The sign reads 600, but I would estimate it isn't much more than 575."

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was the snake and it was headed toward the clubhouse. Beers were on Adrian.

ODIOUS OGRE

 Is Trump a god to whom

we owe homage

when he has contributed

to the deaths of 320,000 Americans

and displays not one tear of pity

for the suffering he has caused?

He does just the opposite.

He credits himself with a ten

for a job well-done confronting COVID.

The man is a monster.

The man is evil.

The man is supremely incompetent.

The man is the worst president

in the history of the United States.

The man vomits in his own bowl

and then tells the press

that he is enjoying seconds.

The man eats his own shit.

The man has led the lynching of our country.

Unlike you cowardly Republicans,

we Democrats are not afraid of him.

May the bastard burn in hell!!!

GORILLA TRUMP

 Just short of 320,000 COVID related deaths, it is a sunny, temperate Sunday with the Dallas Cowboys intent on another inventive strategy to lose in one of its historically worst seasons in recent memory. They have gone from mediocre to terrible. 

As I write these words that won't be etched in the same stone that God presented to Moses, Dallas is tied 24-24 with the San Francisco 49ers in the fourth quarter. The game will be over before I finish this article. I'm sure my three readers will be sitting on the edge of their seats awaiting the result.

Today is December 20th. Inauguration Day in January 20th. When we think of months, we think in terms of 30 days, but luck is not on our side. December has 31 days, which means there are 31 days until the beast slinks back into the jungle where he will pursue his savage existence. 

Even the gorillas turn away from him in disgust. The males don't trust him for a second around their females. Melania has so deprived him of sex for four years that he is dangerous. He's gone well beyond being content with grabbing a woman's pussy.

The soap opera continues. He sues and sues and sues and the courts throw out his frivolous demands. He plans on another assault on the Supreme Court and he is predicting a "wild day" when Congress reconvenes of January 6th to count the electoral votes and officially declare Joe Biden and Kamala Harris president and vice-president of the nation. His critics claim that the loss has contributed to Trump losing his mind, but how can he lose something that he has never possessed?

While 320,000 Americans have found eternal peace during the last ten months of Trump's term, we the living desire nothing more than peace from Washington D.C. We want our leaders to go about their business in their usual special-interest manner quietly. We have had enough of Trump's reality show, which would have been cancelled three years ago if it had been a television program.

But only God, whom we have previously noted has declared that Trump will spend eternity in hell, a well-deserved sentence, knows the infernal this devil will unleash on the nation before this burn-out individual extinguishes himself like a match.

And while the shock of defeat has unraveled Trump, the shock of victory has Texas reveling: Dallas, 41; San Francisco, 33. 

DISOWNED WIFE

 And she wondered why

her marriage didn't work out?

She slept with every guy

from one end of town to the other,

from el barrio to the country club, 

from Brownsville to McAllen,

from Matamoros to Reynosa,

from Nuevo Laredo to Laredo,

from Monterrey to San Antonio,

from Mexico City to Denver.

And her husband finally said:

"I disown you, wife.

"You have no shame."

SEX ADDICT

I am addicted to sex. Who would ever grow bored with ejaculating? And I've always had a predilection for strange pussy. Aren't most men in the same boat I occupy? My downfall began with masturbation and one of my sisters. It was the confluence of two streams that merged into a raging river that sweeps away everything within its reach. I'm still caught in a white water current that threatens my relationship with Ophelia. The year I lived with her I didn't cheat on her once. I've been on my own for more than three weeks and I've been with four women and two men. I've penetrated two of the women, one of them twice, and the men have each given me excellent blowjobs. There has never been a dearth of sex in my life and perhaps I should give credit to masturbation for giving me a writer's imagination.

When I was more or less ten and my sister eight, we found ourselves in one of our house's bedrooms alone and I assume safe from any intrusion. We began to explore each other. It quickly became a habit that we couldn't break nor did we want to break it. At every opportunity we would fondle each other. I can remember vividly this comment I made to her: "Can you imagine the fun we're going to have when you have tits and we both have hair?" She agreed. 

She slept in a bedroom with two of my sisters. My bedroom was at the opposite end of the hall. I would become so horny that I would tip-toe past my parents' bedroom and enter my sisters' bedroom. Her bed was at the far end so I would have to walk quietly so not to disturb my two sleeping siblings. I would kneel at the side of my sister's bed, reach under the covers and into her panties, and I would masturbate. while I fingered her This went on for years. My two other sisters had to have noticed, but they never said anything. My parents never rose from their slumbers either. I made overtures a few times at my other sisters, but they promptly rebuffed me. My other sterling contribution to the family included instructing the brother that followed these three sisters the art of masturbation.

We were in high school and the behavior between the two of us had begun to subside, but one day in the late afternoon, I can still remember the setting sun outlined by the window, we were alone when she pulled out a condom and suggested that we have sex. It was the only time we had sex and I don't recall the two of us ever being intimate again. 

She was the most challenging child for my parents. From the time she first started talking she stuttered. There were such horrific fights between her and my mother that my mother called the police on her. Nevertheless, she went to college, married a great guy with a well-paying job, became a nurse and had two children. When I would return to California for family visits, she and I would hug and kiss, engage in small talk and left the past in the past as if it were the forgettable antics of playful and innocent kids.

The difficulties between my mother and sister continued to simmer throughout the years, but I had left California and the distance and infrequent trips back home kept me immune from the occasional family crisis. I would always ask my mother about my father because he was in the throes of alcoholism and she would wearily answer that he had either quit and she was hopeful or he was drinking and she was disconsolate. With seven siblings and two more generations of nephews and nieces there would be discord, but I was never interested and seldom delved into the details. I communicated mostly with my youngest brother while remaining on good terms with everyone.

That changed two years ago. My mother called me and in a terse voice requested my address. She terminated the call by saying that she was busy and didn't have time to talk. A week later I received a letter from her. I wish I had it. I would print it verbatim, but I don't. Succinctly, she informed me that I was no longer welcomed in California after my sister shocked her with the news that I had raped her when we were teenagers. My mother added that I would always be her son, but she never wanted to see me again. I communicated with my younger brother and related to him the conversation as well as the sexual history between my sister and me. It had been consensual I insisted. He had had his falling outs with her and didn't need any convincing that the relationship had taken place more than a half century ago and had no relevance now. With my mother in her late eighties, my brother couldn't comprehend my sister's intentions other than her behavior was yet another example of her conniving and sinister character.

My mother saw my sister's revelation as a reprieve for herself. Their confrontations were a result of my sister using my mother as a scapegoat because she was the victim of sexual abuse and my mother was the most convenient target for her anger. Having my youngest brother's support was sufficient for me. There was no point attempting to reason with any of my siblings and I wasn't going to waste my time broaching the subject because my mother had found comfort in clearing herself of any wrongdoing since I was the villain and the obvious cause for the conflicts between my mother and my sister. I didn't suffer when my daughter died and I didn't suffer when my father died. And I am not suffering now. In fact, I have decided that I am the real victim. The affair with my sister turned me into a sex addict that has led to three divorces and countless other deleterious incidents because I could not resist the urge of a moment's pleasure in spite of the impending consequences. I'm foolish because my needs are so overwhelming although not so intense that I have wanted to rape someone.

I am presently out-of-control once again. Besides blaming my sister for my excesses, I also blame Ophelia for my recklessness. I have never forgiven her for her promiscuous past. When I screwed her for the first time, I was the third guy to bed her in three weeks. She had had a series of lovers in high school until one of them impregnated her. Theirs was a short marriage but with the collateral damage of two children. Between her divorce in her early twenties until she met me when she was 28, she went on a rampage. She described herself as out-of-control. The torture of others manhandling her has plagued me from the beginning of our courtship. After ten years of marriage, we divorced and spent seven years apart until our reconciliation a year ago. I am over her past previous to our marriage, but she has added another cast of characters to mortify me in the latest interim. Before our divorce was finalized, she was the talk of the town with a genuine loser in which she appeared on the various blogs embracing him. He had friends who told me that he was bragging about fucking her. I confronted her and she denied everything. But the traumatized look in her face betrayed her.

Over the next several years we would have our ups and downs. During the ups, we would resume our activities, but I would infect her with a venereal disease and we would immediately enter a down period. She has insisted that during our separation that she has never been with anyone. In regards to the first fling and the subsequent years I don't believe her for a second. She has taken a pride that in spite of her lying and cheating she has escaped unscathed. I was in a steady relationship with a well-known politician. I never hid it. We traveled to Europe and shared many enjoyable moments together. There was even some loose talk about marriage. But I knew that we were doomed. She didn't excite me sexually. I was entertaining a woman who was the opposite of Ophelia: She had had few lovers and hadn't had sex in three years. She did everything to please me, but I couldn't achieve a boner the majority of the time we were intimate. Even Viagra was of little use.

Frustrated, Ophelia and I started seeing each other for quickies on a regular basis. When she was hesitant about visiting me, I would offer her a $100 and she would tender her services. She didn't question me much about my companion. I asked her if she was seeing someone and she answered in a vague matter that she had been meeting with an individual, but they were just getting to know each other and it wasn't serious. 

Little did I know that she was up to her old tricks. My lady friend and I were driving to Austin when she received a call from Claudia. She passed the phone to me. "So you're taking her to meet your son. Fine. I will have some interesting news to break to you later." I became jealous, but there was nothing I could do at the moment. When we arrived in Austin, I had a chance to free myself and I called Ophelia. She said she had been having a "romance" for a year with a border patrolman who had introduced her to his son and the rest of his family. He further explained that he was going to accept a transfer from Laredo to Brownsville. She could live with him, she wouldn't have to work and he would cover her expenses. He was also buying her a ring the next day.

"So you've been fucking him?"

"No, I haven't been fucking him."

"You're telling me that he is going to provide for you and he's not fucking you. Bullshit. You have had a 'romance' for a year and you're not fucking him. You have a goddamn history of fucking guys on the first date."

"Not everybody is like you or thinks like you. You've had your lover so you have no room to talk."

"You've been fucking him, right?"

My companion was flying to Washington D.C. the next morning. After she departed, I rose and drove back to Brownsville which included a ticket for speeding. I called Ophelia and told her I would be back in Brownsville by the early afternoon. I shouted at her over the cell that she shouldn't be accepting a ring from this SOB or there would be hell to pay with Timmy because I intended to inform him about the real Ophelia and not the loving mother he knew but the whore who made love to every guy who looked at her twice. She answered that she had told him that he could buy a ring for her, but she wasn't going to wear it and that he was returning to Laredo at noon. I told her that I would call her as soon as I arrived and for her to meet me at the hotel. By two o'clock we were fucking. She revealed that in the morning her cowboy had ejaculated twice on her stomach. 

Thus began our reconciliation. I ended my ongoing relationship and a month later I was living with Ophelia. She retracted her statement about having sex with him and argued that she was only trying to excite me since I liked to hear her tales about regaling past lovers with her tail while we were fucking. She returned to her original defense that he never even touched her tits. Somebody is woefully stupid here. Either he was a fool for not receiving a reward for his many promises or I was a fool for believing her when the whole time she was lying and cheating on him with me.

If she finds herself with a case of VD, I'm going to say that her own karma has returned to haunt her. Did she really think she would escape the repercussions for her promiscuity before she met me? Did she think for a second that I would believe that she hadn't had sex with various men during our seven-year separation when there was irrefutable evidence to the contrary? And when she decided to select two dogs over me and kick me out of the house, didn't she think that I wouldn't turn to other women because I was no longer at the house and I wasn't going to listen to her lousy excuses about refusing to come to my place because she was hurt and didn't like the arrangement. As a result of my incestuous relationship as a child and the endless torment with Ophelia as my mind conjures up a dozen different scenes surrounding this 'romance' she tries to mitigate in the most innocent fashion as if he and she were a priest and a nun titillated by a harmless infatuation as well as the hundreds of my one-night stands, week-long affairs, friends-with-benefits arrangements, lovers and prostitutes in between, it has been impossible to overcome my addiction. Then again, perhaps it's not an addiction. Perhaps I need to admit to myself that I truly enjoy fucking lots of different women. And nobody gives a better blow job than a man. Between consenting adults, why limit your opportunities?.

And as to my dear mother with whom I was on the best of terms for so many decades and with whom I often confided my problems, there is an irony that ended her relationship with her siblings. Born and raised outside of Boston, she had lived many years in California before her parents died. To the dismay of her brothers and sister, she did not return for their funerals. She didn't tell them, but she would tell our family that she would rather spend the money visiting me and my children in Brownsville. We've come the full circle. Based on the current circumstances, I will not be attending her funeral.     

GOD RESCUES AMERICA

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KENNEY'S AUTO

 We were talking to our old friend Tony Gray, a former Brownsville Herald columnist who left the dying daily to work for two decades as Representative Rene Oliveira's aide. He is currently resides in San Miguel de Allende where he is writing the Joe Kenney biography entitled Notes of a Nobody.

"That's not a very admirable title," I responded.

"You miss the point," replied Tony. "A hundred years from now history won't record Joe's time in Brownsville and the many contributions he made to the community. His fate is the destiny of many fine individuals who fade from memory and disappear into history as if they never existed. They were the cogs that allowed the machine to operate, but only the machine are memorialized. I want to honor one of the cogs."

"He is a worthy subject," I offered. "He falls into the category of a Ben Neece or a George Ramirez who loved Brownsville and did everything within their power to return our town to its former glory as the New Orleans of the Rio Grande."

"Joe epitomizes the classic outsider who settled in Brownsville because he saw a beauty that locals oftentimes don't recognize. The old adage that they can't see the forest for the trees rings true for them. It isn't a question of less love. It's a question of lacking the proper perspective to appreciate the beauty that surrounds them.

"I couldn't agree with you more," I added. "From the Checker's Cafe downtown to Cobbleheads and all the stops between, nobody has paid his dues quite like Joe. And his establishments, besides the good food, have been the city's top music venues. Are you interviewing Joe for this work?"

"Good writers don't need to do any research," answered Tony. "Consciousness is a combination of reality and fiction and writing is no different. I've had the pleasure to chat with Joe on a thousand occasions and I don't need to ask him any questions because I can anticipate his answers. Joe is an open book. Now the time has come for him to officially become part of that book."

"How's life in San Miguel? You aren't afraid of COVID?"

"I was more afraid of COVID in Texas. With more than 300,000 deaths and loser Trump still insisting that it's just going to disappear because hoaxes don't last forever, I don't feel as if I were in any more danger in Mexico. Besides, I can't stand living in our country even if it's Austin. Too many boring and brainwashed people have turned our nation into a barren wasteland."

"Do you plan on visiting Brownsville in the near future?"

"I should have this book published by late spring. With everyone vaccinated, I will host a huge book-signing bash at Joe's Cobbleheads. Until then, I will continue on my Odyssey to nowhere. Some people are disappointed when they arrive because it was ultimately all about the journey. In my case, I will remain optimistic in my sojourns because I will never arrive."

WHAT'S UP

This is the holiday season. Nobody is working hard. Drinking hard is another matter. Still politics never ceases. It is worse than COVID in it refusal to go away.

So what's up?

The City of Brownsville has dismissed the entire Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC) without a whimper from the seven humiliated individuals. The mayor and his six commissioners are now filling the seven vacant seats. They fired the seven previous members because they refused to terminate GBIC CEO Mario Lozoya. If the city went to the extreme of humbling seven respected citizens for refusing to follow its whispered mandate, will they fire Lozoya?

TSC and the BND are content with their boards in the wake of the elections. Races at both entities avoided nasty confrontations and bloody controversies. It's business as usual at both places as leadership at the two institutions enjoy the full support of its boards.

The BISD can never escape controversy. The district controls too many jobs and can make millionaires out of individuals and companies when it dispenses its $550 annual budget. The voters chose stability over insanity in November. The thought of Erasmo Castro, Carlos Elizondo and Viro Cardenas as board members was a nightmare that the electorate rejected by overwhelming margins. The district is going through a honeymoon period and everyone is content to smell the roses. And, of course, there is the unending curiosity about Dr. Sylvia Atkinson's fate.

County Judge Eddie Treviño seems to spend most his time counting the dead from Coronavirus. You can be assured that when everything appears to be quiet, the greedy Treviño is operating nosily behind the scenes. 

Everybody agrees that John Bruciak and his two overpaid henchmen at PUB should be fired for lying about the $550 million Tenaska scam, but those in power appear powerless to act. This debacle has been ten times worse than Titan Tire and the Bridge to Nowhere combined, but the gringo Bruciak and his two bandido buddies aren't held responsible for this white-collar heist.

What else is going on around the Third World Capital of the United States? Downtown is slowly reviving, but a surging COVID may bring it to its knees again. Matamoros, sadly, remains a mess. On the northside La Pampa, Toscafino, Mi Pueblito and the more popular chains are doing a brisk business. If we're going to die tomorrow from the pandemic, let's live today.

And nobody is complaining about the weather. As the Christmas song goes, "It's the most wonderful time of the year..."  

COVID EXPOSES TRUMP

"I keep a close watch on this heart of mine," sang Johnny Cash to the inmates at Folsom Prison. "I keep my eyes wide open all the time."

With 34 days remaining until Trump's dictatorship comes to an end, I am not taking anything for granted. I've known too many women who have lied and cheated, but none of them compared to this lyin' and cheatin' son-of-a-bitch. In his private, professional and political lives he has shorted people time and time again.

Two days ago the Electoral College confirmed that Biden defeated Trump, 306-232. Combined with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the Texas suit that would have discarded the votes of four states that supported Biden in an unprecedented filing, hope grows that Biden will take the Oath of Office January 20th.

Even the Republicans prostrated before Trump are rising to their feet and addressing Biden as President-elect. On January 6th both the House and the Senate will meet to confirm the outcome. There may be procedure strategies that the most fanatical supporters of the traitorous Trump will attempt to implement, but the experts are predicting that their tactics will be even less successful than General George Custer's bloody fiasco at the Little Big Horn.

Trump and his foil Rudy Guiliani are maintaining that the president is still going to win the race, but credibility has never been either's strong suit. For all intents and purposes, they have exhausted every judicial option, Trump's own appointees rejected one conspiracy theory after another. 

Paranoid to the end, I only fear Biden's death. If he dies prior to the January 6th congressional session, the electors would be free to cast their votes for whomever. If, however, he survives the sixth but dies a day later, Kamala Harris will cause the KKK to lynch themselves as she will become president.

Trump diehards are consoling themselves that Trump will return in four years to wreck his revenge. Good luck! Four years is four centuries in American politics. Reduced to a common citizen, he might find himself ultimately reduced to a common criminal. 

With the exception of Fox on slow news days and their cowering management allowing Trump to appear on screen and give the impression that he is politically relevant, there will be no doubts that Trump's inevitable court appearances will reign as page-one news. 

If he thought the mainstream coverage was negative, he hasn't seen anything yet, particularly when it comes to the rape charges since he has never been able to control himself sexually with his penchant for reaching out and grabbing pussies. It is going to be music to my ears when he is howling after the judiciary has grabbed him by the balls and sperm is spewing from his mouth.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself. There are still 34 more days of purgatory to endure, particularly for thousands who have died and will die as a result of Trump's incompetence and indifference regarding COVID. We don't know the date when each of us will be inoculated from the dreaded pandemic, but if our democracy holds, we are marking our calendars on January 20th to take a moment to express our gratitude that one disease wiped out another even more deadlier disease. 

US THE TRUMPS

Lucifer and his legions rioted in front of the Pearly Gates of Heaven protesting their exile to hell after the Angelic Wars, which they lost decisively. St. Peter laughed in their faces and they slinked back to their fiery pit dragging their pitchforks behind them. They have never emerged from the infernal abyss they inhabit.

Trump's infidels are rioting in the streets of Washington D.C. Their demonic hero lost by more than seven million votes and they have no qualms about overthrowing the government and installing the Son of Satan on a permanent throne encircled by an eternal flame.

"We will never back down to the satanic pedophile globalist new world order and their walking dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden," bellowed with a viper's tongue one of their leaders. "We will never recognize Joe Biden and he will be removed one way or another!"

"He will be removed one way or another!" 

In keeping with this theme, what is this unhinged individual talking about? Is there no extreme? Are there no limits? Is violence acceptable? Have a significant number of Republicans lost their minds? When Jim Jones served the juice to hundreds of his followers, they died physically. Trump's concoction, a cocktail of conspiracies, has destroyed his sycophants' mentally. Like this lunatic previously quoted, they have succumbed to psycho rants.

Are we replaying the election of 1860 when Abraham Lincoln triumphed and the South seceded? There wasn't a description too despicable flowing from the foaming mouths of these racists that they didn't direct at Lincoln whom they perceived as evil incarnate. Trump's mindless minions want to form another country. Their ancestors did form another country where slavery ruled.

Tomorrow, December 14th, Joe Biden's 306-232 electoral college victory over Donald Trump will become official. What recourse will Trump have next? On January 6th Congress will meet to count the electoral college votes and declare under normal circumstances that based on the numbers Biden will become president on January 20th.

There are some procedure moves that the Republicans may implement in one last outlandish attempt to crown Trump King Donald I, but like all the failed cases in the courts, this gambit is being given a lesser chance of flipping the election.

For those of us who don't consider the election won until Biden is taking the oath of office and Trump is at some COVID ravaged airport declaring that he is running for the presidency in 2024, we are sitting on the edge of our seats. Since tomorrow is a pivotal day in this transitional process, we are counting the hours, minutes and seconds until the result of the electoral college is formalized.

We are taking nothing for granted. We are dealing with a sick man who has infected millions of Americans who as part of joining this crazy man's cult have become deranged themselves. Since Trump is turning on his own Republicans because they won't allow him to steal the election, do his rabid robots believe that Trump would have any qualms about grabbing their wives or daughters' pussies or shooting their husbands or sons merely to show that he is so powerful he can do anything he wants without facing any repercussions? 

Carlos Cascos, our ex-County Judge, is a Republican. He was once a Democrat, but politics within the party prevented him from winning the Democratic nomination for Cameron County Judge. He won three times when he baptized himself a Republican. In reality, he is a moderate Independent, conservative on financial issues, open-minded on social issues.

He is an objective thinker. Or at least we thought. He is contemplating another race for county judge, but at the mere mentioning of Trump he abandoned his independent sympathies and immediately started stuttering in the gobbledygook language that there middle-of-the-roaders employ. In so many words, he slipped into an apologetic tone and said, "I don't support the impolite way he comports himself, but I am voting for his policies." 

What a coward! He is so desperate to win that he is willing to sell his soul to the Trump base because he knows that if he doesn't pay homage to the ogre, the Republicans would select an African-American over him in the primaries. And as to his wife and two daughters' pussies, one would assume that Cascos would have no qualms about Trump fisting them. 

I can't think of a more horrible existence than having to defend a maniac who is the very essence of treachery and treason. Thousands of Democrats switched their party and provided Cascos with the winning margins on three different occasions. If Cascos refuses to defend the dignity of his wife, daughters and women because he is willing to take Trump's cock up his own ass, he should abandon his political career and content himself with purchasing an inflatable Melania Trump tramp and at least exacting some revenge for delivering the most important females in his life to a monster who has stripped our country of its health and wealth.

SUPREME COURT DISMISSES

Drinking and driving are an obvious negative. Drinking and writing are not a plus. Drinking and trying to do anything lead nowhere. You would think men with years of experience would learn from their failures in the bedroom that drinking doesn't accomplish anything. After an abusive night, I can't get out of bed until the early afternoon when my stomach begins to growl and I stagger to the refrigerator for cold chicken and a Topo Chico. With the imagination of a zombie, I sit before my computer and pound out a short essay.

It is four o'clock in the afternoon of a day already wasted but with faint hopes that the evening can still be rescued. I can generally count on two shots of tequila restarting my motor. I never regret my drunks. I usually drink too much because I don't want the moment or the night to end. The company is good and the meal was delicious, so there's no point in bringing this momentary pleasure to an end. I usually succumb to the temptation that the present abuse will be worth the impending cost.

Claudia and I went to Toscafino. The place was packed. We sat on the patio. The night was precious. There were several Christmas parties in progress. Good cheer filled the air, but our joy may come to an abrupt half more sooner than later. I talked to my son in Austin and my step-daughter in South Antonio and they said that COVID is ravaging both cities and extensive social restrictions are on the horizon.

(Out of curiosity I check the Coronavirus stats. We have officially cracked the 300,000 deaths barrier. Texas is nearing 25,000. On the average 3000 Americans are perishing each day. Brownsville only suffered two deaths yesterday, but those numbers are on the verge of an abrupt change. For Brownsville, the interchange between San Antonio and Austin is intense. As in my case, the Rio Grande Valley residents have an extensive family and friend network in those two cities. A substantial norther is arriving tomorrow night. Will COVID rides its current and descend upon our poor city exiled to the fringes of civilization like God's Destroying Angel killing the first born during the time of Moses?)

Despite the desperate need to have a good time and fool ourselves into thinking that everything is normal and Trump is right in fulminating that COVID is a hoax and one of many baseless conspiracies to dethrone him, there was cause for celebration. The Supreme Court had taken down our Supreme Leader as the justices refused to listen to another of his frivolous cases. We are one step closer to the overthrow of this democratic dictator, but we still have 39 more nightmarish days to endure before he is escorted out of the White House by the Washington D.C. police. 

As quickly as he is losing it as he lashes out more vociferously against his former Republican allies because they are refusing to prostrate themselves before this emperor who wants to impose his own dynasty on the American people as if we were Chinese kowtowers, his fanatical followers have become vigilantes who want to hang democracy and our government from the nearest limbs with all the vigor their ancestors once lynched African-Americans.

Once a naked Trump is stripped of his power and there is ample evidence that his small hands reveal the reason this bully has an inferiority complex and is always preoccupied about size--whether it's the margin of victory or the alleged millions comprising his crowd or even the length of his own penis--we will gladly applaud as this dastardly bastard surrenders his power and turns pathetic. 

Trump once bragged that with him as our president we would grow tired of winning. With the Supreme Court's curt dismissal of his case,  Trump is in the middle of one of the longest losing streaks in the annuals of history. They say that Joe Dimaggio's record of hitting in 56 straight games will never be broken. Beginning with his election defeat, Trump finds himself in a legal losing streak that is unprecedented. He is on his way to the minors. The bigger question: Is he on his way to prison, which would seem to be a logical destination for this loser.

It is not my intention to wish bad luck on anyone, but I am willing to make an exception for Trump. More than 300,000 are dead as a result of his incompetence and thousands more will die in the coming months because this megalomaniac was incapable of leading. For no logical reason, he bashed wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding large crowds, the first line of defense that every individual can implement to battle this terrible scourge. And the millions who emulate his deadly behavior defy explanation. Infected by millions of idiots among our ranks, how can we dare say that we are the greatest nation in the history of mankind? 

With the Supreme Court putting an end to his judicial strategies, he will resort to even more intimidating tactics to recruit more sheep to his reactionary army who have lost all sense of their American heritage. In their senseless hysteria, they are capable of forming a Neo-Nazi Party swearing allegiance to a Constitution that only means what the Fuhrer Trump wants it to mean. 

Alexander Hamilton always feared these ignorant masses rising in madness and wrecking havoc on the country, but Thomas Jefferson insisted that there was good in every human being and that man's more noble instincts would prevail in the end. Hamilton's trepidation was justified and Jefferson's confidence in his fellow man was misplaced. Trump has the instincts of an unfettered beast followed by a pack of savage swine who are running wild in this country with murderous intent.

This is not an exaggeration.

Beware! 

The pigs are in the streets!

TITANIC

 The countdown began the day he took office and imposed his dictatorship on the American people. If he hasn't destroyed democracy in this county, then Donald Trump leaves office in 40 days. Will it rain for 40 days and 40 nights as nonsense gushes from the mouths of Trump and his Republican renegades?

Let's not build another ark. Let's build another Titanic that guarantees a repeat performance. With Trump the featured guest, we will book 5000 of the most right-wing Republicans. The destination will be the Bermuda Triangle. We won't need a iceberg. Just like Trump said that the Coronavirus would miraculously disappear, Trump and his Republican rodents will--poof--miraculously disappear.

And so the charade continues. The Texas attorney general--under investigation himself and banking on a Trump pardon for his work--is demanding that the Supreme Court annul the votes from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin and give Trump another four years. A Texas state rep wants a referendum mandating that Texas secede from the Union. For the Trump fanatics, Fox News has suddenly become too liberal. That's like saying that deep in his heart Hitler really loved Jews.

I'm serious when I say this: I fear for Biden's life. This country is full of Timothy McVeighs, the Oklahoma bomber whose terrorist act cost 168 lives, who fervently believe that our present government is evil. And with Biden--the communist, the socialist, the anarchist--as president, they wouldn't have any second thoughts about dropping a nuclear bomb on Washington D.C.

Even with Trump in office, I have no hate for our government. Our government has served us well. My family and friends have lived a good life because of our government. To hold such animosity toward our government is Unamerican. Of course, government is imperfect because the people who comprise our different political entities are imperfect.

Trump has done everything to turn our nation against the government because government is his enemy. He seeks absolute power and government prevents him from realizing his dastardly intent. Even these brainwashed Republicans will have to lay down their arms if the Supreme Court supports the rule of the people and not the rule of the individual.

Meanwhile, back in Brownsville, the Third World Capital of the United States, we relish our winters. The citrus groves are flourishing, producing some of the sweetest oranges and grapefruits in the world. With local politics on the backburner during the holiday season, we are savoring a well-deserved rest from electing the least of evils in November before we have to repeat the process in May.

Why is Brownsville the Third World Capital of the United States? Experts from various think tanks and media outlets have affirmed that Brownsville, for a city its size, is the most impoverished, uneducated and corrupt municipality in the country. Despite this stark reality, we are an optimistic people. We celebrate our infamous distinction.

To underscore our ignorance, in a town of approximately a quarter million people, we don't have a bookstore. Combine that fact with the libraries being closed to prevent the COVID spread, there are some of us feeling desperate for good literature. While I'm sure I could find something perusing the internet, nothing compares to a good book.

Since my existence tends toward a bohemian bent, I travel light. I don't keep books. Books are meant to breathe, not suffocate from gathering dust in a book case. I had reached a wretched state as I was rereading the few books I owned. Claudia keeps a collection of books and "Delta" Dave Handelman, back with his band on Thursdays at El Hueso de Fraile, has book cases with nothing but the classics in both fiction and history.

I have read several of Isabel Allende's books. Claudia loaned me her copy of Paula. I knocked at Dave's front door and told him to act quickly because I was on an emergency mission. I needed him to pick three books for me. He returned with a biography of Andrew Jackson, Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and the play Becket. 

I don't need a television because the internet provides all the entertainment I require, but I have to read the best authors in order to keep my chops. When you live alone and the walls are closing in around you, books are indispensable. To allow an author to excite your imagination is the purest form of escape.   

BIDEN HASN'T WON

 More than 3,000 died from COVID yesterday, more Americans that died on 9/11. The national death toll exceeds 290,000 and at the rate that our fellow citizens are dropping like flies, we might crash the infamous 300,000 barrier by the end of this weekend.

And Trump? He has almost 20 Republican state attorneys suing to throw out millions of votes in order for Trump to serve a second term. I have voted for Republicans in local election, but based on their commitment to a monarchy rather than a democracy, I will never vote for a Republican again. Rather than sentencing the king to the guillotine as the French did, the Republicans want to crown this arrogant aristocrat King Donald I. And don't think there isn't a King Donald II or a Queen Ivanka 1 waiting in the wings.

Combine one's own depression with the depression of COVID killing our people and Trump killing our government with the aid of his cowering and cowardly Republicans, we ask ourselves if there will come a time when we have survived these pernicious threats to both our mental and physical health? Forget the Russians and the Chinese. We have become the enemy.

Friends of mine are still celebrating Biden's victory and Trump's loss. What victory? I will say it again and again. There will be no Biden victory until January 20 when the former vice-president takes the oath of office. Trump still has 41 more days in office (What will be the COVID death total be by that date since Trump could give a shit about the number of American deaths? The only figure that mesmerizes him is four more years.) and he will spend every second of that time trying to reverse an election that he lost by more than seven million votes and by a whopping 306 to 232 vote in the electoral college.

Noah would have never survived 40 days and nights at sea had Trump been his God. And we're expected to survive the next 41 days drowning in this insanity! Trump may not have the power to eliminate the human race, but he will stop at nothing to obliterate the human race as know it in this country. 

We are going mano-a-mano with a tyrannical monster. So far the judicial system has lived up to the checks-and-balance system. Will the Supreme Court side with the people or the potentate? Trump is banking on his three appointees and three other conservative judges on the nine-person court to ultimately rule in his favor.

I am hopeful that our democracy will prevail, but I am not confident that we will win in the end. The Republicans, with a regal reactionary holding the reins, is comprised of racists, rednecks, renegades and the religious right. Dictators find sympathy in this ignorant faction. 

Though the Democrats brought 81 million to the polls, Trump counts on an army of 74 million. These fanatics could care less about democracy. They have sold their souls to the diabolical Trump and the Demonocracy Party. They want to rain so much fire and brimstone on our nation that the ark would have sunk on the first day.  

THE DOGS AGAIN

You call me with your doubts. There are no doubts. I left the house because the dogs had brought me to the breaking point. I could no longer live under the same roof with them with their constant barking and biting. It is the sole reason I left. Some people have found your decision that you would dump the third dog hilarious. Others find your decision that you would choose dogs over your "husband" and the relationship between him and his son tragic. You keep looking for an ulterior motive because you refuse to accept that you chose the dogs over me. I am not pursuing another woman. Women are not throwing themselves at my feet. I am nearly 70 years old in declining health and with a few thousand dollars in an even faster declining bank account. Why would I leave a home in which I had everything I needed except peace and quiet? Why would I leave Michael? I left because I might so severely beat those mongrels that I would have earned your hate and Michael's hate forever. I might have gone to jail and completely destroyed my reputation in the community I would also have been left with the unpleasant experience of looking at myself in the mirror and coming face to face with a crazy man. I took the only option available to me. The consequences for losing it were too overwhelming, but I was close to throwing caution to the wind in order to kick the shit out of those mangy mutts. But I have not left the family. I have just left the house. I have bought you and Michael a beautiful new car. I have wined-and-dined you. I treat Michael like a king and very carefully monitor his athletic activities. Many fathers would say that their child support was sufficient and ignore the family's needs. I have never been that type of person and I have only renewed my efforts to never be that type of person. I have remained faithful and dutiful to the family. I don't know the garbage your friends are pouring into your ear with all these wild scenarios and conspiracies, but women love to shed their alligator tears with their alleged sympathies. Women secretly revel in other women suffering. I live a solitary existence blown like a leaf by the wind. I left the house for one and one reason only and it's time you faced that fact: The dogs were driving me absolutely crazy after a year of trying my best to maintain a happy household, but in the end you chose them over me. YOU CHOSE THE DOGS OVER ME!!! Ni más! Ni menos! Get over endeavoring to find other scapegoats for our physical separation. YOU CHOSE THE DOGS OVER ME!!! You bragged about it on Facebook. I love you and Michael and our family. 

THE ACT OF CONTRITION

I went to Cameron Park on a sunny but chilly afternoon as the sufferings of summer have completely faded away into the cool darkness my memory. Father Jesus P. Cadissimo, the defrocked priest who still ministers to the poor as a son of God and a disciple of Jesus, opened the door of his trailer less than a block away from San Felipe Catholic Church. I was on my annual mission to make a contribution to his Christmas fund.

He prepared tea as I took a chair in his frugal abode. Though the Catholic Church no longer recognizes him as a priest after he led a vocal campaign against several pedophile bishops who retaliated by stripping him of his cassock, the church leaves him alone because his good works speak for themselves.

"I read the article about your Catholicism and I was reminded of an aged-old question," he commenced. "Is it better to have loved and been deceived than to have never loved at all? I ask you, my dear friend: 'Is it better to have believed and been deceived than to have never believed at all?"

"What do you know about love, Father?"

"I wasn't always a priest. I entered the seminary later in life. I knew both the good and bad of love. In many ways my amorous misfortunes led to my calling as a priest. Therefore, I can say that it is better to have loved and lost or I wouldn't have chosen this path that has more than fulfilled me."

"Let's hear about those adventures, Father."

"A writer penning soap operas could tell a better story about romantic failures. I've shed those heavy clothes from the past and I bask in the attire of a guayabera, a pair of khakis and sandals. I'm free to save souls and by doing so I free mine. You're the one who hasn't shed the burden of your Catholic millstone. In your life Catholicism cuts both ways."

"On the positive side, it liberated me from falling victim to a Jehovah Witness knocking at my front door and convincing me to follow him or her. It's all a mythology to me. I respect the Jewish history, the beauty of the Bible's prose and poetry, its stories and the life of Jesus Christ, but in terms of my own personal salvation, it's all fiction to me."

 "I understand, but the difference between you and me lies in faith. I don't question because I don't take the Bible literally. It points in a direction that brings meaning to my existence and I follow. I accept that we are all different in our beliefs. I'm not attempting to convince anyone of anything. I simply explain the source of my happiness. I found a breeze wafting through the universe and I flow with it. You have chosen to stride against the river's current."

"I don't do it intentionally, Father, but Catholicism fills you with guilt. From the time you first hear a human voice, which becomes a scream when you start parochial school, is that you were born with sin, that every questionable act is either a venial sin or a mortal sin, that your poor grandmother is burning in purgatory because nobody, with the exception of the Virgin Mother, dies without sin on his or her soul and must spend an interminable period roasting in purgatory until this infernal place purifies you with its fires and that ultimately your destiny may be to spend eternity in hell. You go to confession to confess your sins, but who has the guts to reveal that you've been masturbating imagining your mother nude? If that isn't a mortal sin the mind of a child, what is? Then you complicate your existence by receiving Holy Communion with a mortal sin on your soul, which is a mortal sin in itself. You keep committing one mortal sin after another and you're so filled with guilt that you can feel the flames licking at your feet. You grow up thinking that if you're doomed to hell, you might as well get your money's worth and surrender your life to mortal sins."

"I never mention hell to my congregation. I tell them that Jesus tended a flock of a hundred sheep and the one he loved the most was the black one. You talk about your admiration for the teachings of Zen. Jesus was no different than the Buddha and many believe he is a reincarnation of the the Enlightened One. Like most Buddhists, I don't dwell on an afterlife. It is not important because we're all going to walk the same path. With the except of a few truly evil humans, we will share in the same rewards. And if there is no consciousness, we will be liberated from pain and we will reside in a state of perfect peace. I can't speak for others, but I turn to Jesus for guidance. I love, perform acts of kindness and forgive and I do it because Jesus is my light."

"Nobody will ever accuse you, Father, of drinking from a half-empty vessel. I can never escape the belief that I am 99.99% animal and .01% human and that I'm ruled by my instincts. Except for karma, and I have reaped more times that I care to remember what I have sowed, I am not a spiritual person. This world gave birth to me and one day this earth will reclaim me and it will be like I never existed. You will die a good death, Father, because you will not be tortured by guilt, but I fear that as I begin to decline these demons will assail me mercilessly and my last days will be a nightmare as a result of the guilt that I have carried with me since childhood and have only exacerbated throughout my life. If I have loved ones at my side when I depart, they will be traumatized for the rest of their lives witnessing the terror in my face."

"You exaggerate, my dear friend. You have done much good. You have nothing to fear. The reason we have closets is to keep the skeletons. You don't owe anyone apologies. Live your life. God blessed you with an open mind. Breathe deeply and when you take your last breath, you will go in peace."

Like St. Paul falling from his horse, I was struck by an old prayer from my days as a fervent Catholic who took great pride in reciting an altar boy's Latin responses during the mass. I dropped to my knees and the Act of Contrition, which was once seared into my brain, returned to me more in a verse from the Palms: 

"Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen."

The day was not over. I played tennis in the afternoon and in the evening drank beer with my oldest son as we shared a father-and-son moment watching the Cowboys playing in a manner deserving of a sentence in hell or at least a long stay in purgatory. We free thinkers pay a heavy price for our gift, but it's a worthwhile sum when Jesus and not Trump is your inspiration.

TRUMP HATER

I had breakfast with Anthony Starr, the longtime president of the South Texas Independent Journalists Association (STIJA) We met at The Toddle Inn for huevos rancheros.

"It's cold and gloomy," he pronounced as we both took off our jackets and settled into a booth.

"The weather is the least of our challenges," I responded. "Donald Trump is cold and the COVID prognosis is gloomy for the next several months as the death rate in the country has now exceeded 285,000 people. But nobody seems to care as Trump with his goofball attorney Rudy Guiliani are stopping at nothing to overturn the election. As foolish as Guiliani appears on television with hair dye running down the side of his face, wiping his nose and then wiping his mouth with the same handkerchief and last but not least farting during a hearing, his witnesses to support his fraudulent election results have less credibility than convenient store clerks. It won't be long before Trump and Guiliani claim that Martians were spotted transporting Biden ballots from outer space to earth. Trump is the king of chaos and he is sowing so much confusion with his outrageous charges he hopes that even his fellow Republicans who are questioning his facts and conspiracies will throw their arms up in frustration and surrender to his outlandish wishes. As crazy as this evil of a man who has ever existed in American politics is, his followers defy logic. Religion must have lobotomized them and made them susceptible to false prophets. They probably believed that God created the world in six days and equate Trump with Kings David and Solomon who fornicated--that is the Bible's favorite word--with hundreds of women because they could kill and rape and none of their subjects would dare protest."

"How much coffee have you had this morning? You're on a tear."

"How much longer can we keep it together with Trump and COVID threatening our sanity on a daily basis? We've lost our health and wealth as a country under him. He tries to sell himself on his past record, but he doesn't understand that politicians, like athletes, are judged on the present. You can argue that you hit 50 homers last year, but if you're striking out every time you appear at the plate this year, you're on the next plane departing for Mudsville and the minor leagues. Trump resides in a fantasy television world in which everything is staged. He can't face reality and that the consequences of his innumerable failures culminated in him losing the presidency by more than seven million votes and nearly 100 electoral votes although this electoral college is a sham. We are supposed to be a beacon of democracy and yet the only office in the land--and the most important--isn't decided by popular vote. There were many ideas approved by our Founding Fathers in the late 18th century that aren't applicable today and the electoral college is at the top of the list. Most citizens don't realize that we don't have a pure democracy. We have a representative democracy which means individuals in power can annul our votes and choose for president whomever they want. It's a blatant farce, but it's a blatant farce that Trump is exploiting. He wants to throw out thousands of votes and leave the selection of the next president to state houses and the House of Representatives populated by spineless politicians and ideological idiots."

"Why didn't we learn about the government's treacherous assault on true democracy in our high school civics class?" posed Starr who merely wanted to keep me spewing no differently than the right-wing Republicans promoting their own conspiracy theories. "Are you saying that we are no different than the brainwashed lemmings in Russia and China who are bombarded by so much propaganda that they think they are greater than the greatest county that has ever inhabited this earth?"

"I know that you are a worthless motherfucker who never takes anything seriously," I answered, well aware that Anthony was amusing himself by egging me on in order to hear that I would become so extreme in my denunciations that I would soon be comparing Trump to Hitler, but I wasn't taking that bait although I truly believe that Trump is an evil man who as a dictator would be capable of any action since he finds his hero Putin's killing of journalists expeditious. "How can so many intelligent people be so ignorant about this malevolent man? Don't they see through his hypocrisy when he wraps himself in the flag and holds the Bible high in the air over his head! He only uses these symbols to expand his power which enhance his access to riches. He couldn't recite a line from the National Anthem or quote a verse from the Old Testament if his life depended on it. And the millions of god-fearing people who have joined Lucifer's legions. Incredible! The man traffics in nothing but heat because his survival is based on dividing and conquering."

"He has successfully turned you into a hater," poked Anthony.

"Why do you say that?"

"Your hate for Trump is palpable in your contorted and twisted countenance."

"I respect your judgement. You are a fair and objective journalist. If you so decree, then I accept my designation. I am proudly announcing that I am a Trump hater!!!"

HISTORY 101

 I have stood in the middle of Gateway Bridge, called the New Bridge in Brownsville even though it was constructed decades ago, and looked down into the roiling, brown waters of the Rio Grande on the tail end of its 2000-mile trip from its crystalline source in Colorado. I have often added to the poisonous and polluted waters by vomiting over the rail after a night of partying in Matamoros. 

(Those days are over, not only because I am an elderly gentleman, but the cartels' drug trade and accompanying violence have undermined Brownsville citizens' confidence in their safety venturing across the river.)  

Is there a river that has claimed and still claims more lives than the Rio Bravo as the Mexicans call it?

In 1520 the conquistador Diego de Camargo and his crew sailed west from the mouth of the river emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. They had to flee for their lives when a Coahuiltecan tribe ambushed them. The Spanish lost many men and all their horses. It would be years before they returned. They were looking for gold and Brownsville has never been that pot at the end of the rainbow. This confrontation may have been the first armed encounter between Europeans and the indigenous people on present day mainland U.S. territory. 

In the early 1750s Juan de Escandon established a string of towns culminating in Reynosa, Camargo, Mier and Guerrero on the southside of the river and Laredo on the northside. He is called the father of the Rio Grande Valley. In the early 1780s Matamoros came into existence.

In 1845 Texas joined the United States. A dispute immediately arose between the American and Mexican governments. The Americans insisted that the border between the two nations was the Rio Grande while the Mexicans countered that it was the Nueces River near Corpus Christi. The differences of opinion resulted in the Mexican-American War.

Victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Guerra under General Zachery Taylor in May of 1846 led to the establishment of Brownsville in 1848. Fort Brown, named after a major killed in action during the conflict and looking across the river into Matamoros, looked over the new town.

In 1859 Juan Cortina, a Robin Hood in the eyes of his people and a bandit in the eyes of the white Americans who ruled Brownsville under founder Charles Stillman and his two partners Richard King and Miflin Kenedy, the latter two creating huge cattle ranches in the South Texas brush country, shot up downtown. He doesn't receive the notoriety that Pancho Villa did when the latter attacked Columbus, New Mexico from Mexico in the early 1900s as Cortina did more than a half century earlier.

The Civil War ensued from 1861 to 1865 and most the populace was sympathetic to the Confederacy. Those who sided with the Union sought refuge in Matamoros. In the spring of 1865, after Robert Lee had surrendered to U.S. Grant at Appomattox, the Confederates defeated the Union east of Brownsville in the Battle of Palmito Hill, which is officially consider the last battle of the Civil War.

Throughout the rest of the century Brownsville and its 5000 inhabitants lived in obscurity, cattle rustlers and yellow fever the biggest challenges of that period. Brownsville finally found itself connected to the rest of the country when the railroad arrived in 1904. Tracks laid the foundation for the creation of Harlingen, Weslaco, McAllen and dozens of other cities as agriculture flourished in the Valley where promoters recruited Mid-Western farmers with the sales pitch that the RGV had three growing seasons.

In 1906 Brownsville became both nationally and internationally infamous when African-American soldiers at Fort Brown, frustrated and angry by the racism displayed by the locals, allegedly left their barracks under the cover of night and started rampaging through downtown. Though their guilt was never proven, they were dishonorably discharged from the military. Historians opine that the incident led to President Teddy Roosevelt's loss for reelection.

From 1910 to 1920 Mexico was in turmoil. The revolution spilled over into the Valley. The Zimmermann Telegram that proposed an alliance between Germany and Mexico during WWI had the entire border on edge. There was gunfire between both nations and the government sent thousands of troops to safeguard South Texas.

Between the two wars Brownsville was little more than a sleepy border town where Anglos ruled and Mexican-Americans accepted their role as second-class citizens. The few African-Americans who resided here adhered to the Jim Crow laws. 

As more and more Mexican-Americans completed their higher-ed education, they began to ascend politically in the 1950s. With a population that is presently nearing 250,000, Mexican-Americans comprise 95% of this demographic and their political power is immense.

With a low crime rate, Brownsville can best be described as a mellow city with its many meandering resacas and palm trees standing like sentinels. While the farmers don't raise the quantity of crops as in the past, the Chamber of Commerce will tell you that it's a good place to raise kids. Among the inhabitants who don't know the meaning of the word cold and buy jackets that last them 20 years, there is a general consensus that Brownsville is conducive to promoting good family values. 

I have lived here for 45 years and I have no complaints. My three sons share the same opinion. Brownsville has not only been good to me, but it has been good to a lot of people. Not even our corrupt and mean-spirited politics can divide us. Unlike Trump, once the results of the election are recorded, we move on to our normal lives. There's always another election looming in the near future to divert us. 

CATHOLICISM

When you are raised a Catholic, you die a Catholic. You may not believe in God and you may not attend Sunday mass, but when you are questioned about your religious roots, you proudly proclaim, "I am a Catholic."

It's Sunday morning. I was baptized, went to confession, received First Holy Communion, served on the altar, kissed the bishop's ring at confirmation, exchanged matrimonial vows once and watched my father receive extreme unction before his death. But I won't be going to mass today. I don't remember the last time I attended mass although I find a minute to step into the Immaculate Conception when I am downtown. Built in the 1850s, the gothic structure is the most magnificent building in South Texas.

I dip my fingers in the holy water, bless myself and genuflect when I find myself in front of the tabernacle. Jesus hangs bleeding from the cross, the Virgin Mary radiates like a beautiful nun attired in heavenly blue and the statues of various saints fill their niches, St. Jude Thaddeus my sentimental favorite. He is the patron saint of hopeless causes and as a family, after reciting the rosary before bedtime, we would beseech his intercession with God in the hopes that our financial situation might improve.

I went to parochial school from first through eighth grades and we held the priests and sisters on pedestals. The priests were Irish with their thick brogues. They were strong men. They were the opposite of today's pedophiles as they left the church in droves to marry. The sisters, of course, were the embodiment of purity. God forgive you if the sisters complained to your parents about your comportment. There were immediate physical repercussions.

As I grew older, Catholicism made no sense. As a by product religion made no sense to me. I saw the bible as a book of mythology and Catholicism as an interpretation of that mythology. Heaven, hell and purgatory failed to exist for me. I saw the entire promotion of eternal life as a rejection of death's reality.

I am not an atheist. The universe is incomprehensible and I am ignorant. Therefore, who am I to say if there is a God or an assembly of Gods governing the infinite realms. In regards to the eternal question, the minute logic I possess leads me to conclude that when I am dead, I am dead. Nevertheless, I owe many debts of gratitude to the church, the most important being that my Catholic upbringing has made me less susceptible to becoming a religious right reactionary. Religious fervor, in my opinion, is a negative. It turns a person into a lemming. Religious fervor gave us the devil Donald Trump. 

Like many secular Jews, we secular Catholics can't help but conclude that believing Christian doctrine is bullshit, but we don't hold individuals practicing Christians' beliefs against them. If the bible brings you succor in this volatile world, more power to you, but please don't try to convert me. Besides my logic, my animal instincts categorically reject the fantasy world that you have decided exists.

When you are indoctrinated with Christian/Catholic propaganda from the time you become conscious of your surroundings, however, you never escape the paranoia that the nuns pounded into your head from the time you were a first grader that the fiery pits of hell awaited you if you died with mortal sin on your soul. This fear fills you with a superstition that it may not be a bad idea to summon a priest for your final confession just in case there was some truth to these teachings and you don't want to spend eternity in hell because you didn't heed the warnings.

In the meantime, though, there will be no mass for me and I will continue to commit both venial and mortal sins since we have no other alternative when we're born with original sin on our souls. Had Adam and Even obeyed God, we would be residing in Eden sleeping with our heads against the flanks of lions instead of next to someone with teeth that cut to the bone like razor blades.

To be a Catholic, though, with all the traditions that allegedly stretched back to St. Peter and St. Paul, our Jewish fathers, evokes another time when faith ruled and its accompanying optimism in contrast to the dark pessimism that reigns today. 

Every First Friday we would stop at each of the fourteen stations of cross and relive Christ's tortures, his crown of thorns and his crucifixion only to gather in an opposite setting with my siblings on Easter Sunday two days later and drool over the turkey-sized ham and all the fixings steaming next to it. 

My brothers and I, attired in suits, would take our seats with my sisters, the pictures of innocence and angelic in their white dresses, nestled close to the table while my mom and dad reveled in their quiet pride that the family that prayed together, stayed together. 

Catholicism gave us these immemorial moments. But like my faith, these hallowed occasions are gone forever, but not even the delusion of eternal life wasn't meant to last forever.