by Mark Gimenez
She and the camera turned to him.
"So, Governor, the cowboy image isn't just an image?"
He wore the same jeans from that morning, but he had changed into a denim shirt and old work boots. He didn't want to clean crap off his handmade boots.
"I've been a cowboy all my life."
"I like cowboys."
"Do you now?"
Bode couldn't tell whether she was flirting with him or setting him up, but being male he naturally sided with flirting.
"Those poor children, living out here for a year. And the girl, getting raped and beaten."
Bode thought, Here it comes.
"Governor, how did you feel when you shot those men?"
"Pretty damn good. They were dead, and she was alive."
"Governor, it seems incredible that a Mexican drug cartel could operate a huge marijuana farm right here in Texas."
"They're not just here in Texas. The cartels are everywhere in America now. The drugs are here, and the violence is coming. We're outmanned and outgunned. The GAO says we have operational control over less than half of the border. That's like saying the NYPD has control over only half of New York City-how safe would that make you feel?"
"How do we stop them?"
"Secure the border."
"But the president went to El Paso just three months ago-he said the border is secure."
"We're standing a hundred seventy-five miles east of El Paso and eighty miles north of the Rio Grande in a marijuana farm operated by a Mexican drug cartel for the last year-that seem secure to you?"
"Governor, you're not worried that the cartel might seek revenge?"
"Against me? I'm the governor of Texas." He stood tall and aimed a finger at Ranger Hank. "They'd have to come through that big Ranger to get to me, and then they'd find out that I'm not much fun in a fight."
The reporter's eyes twinkled.
"Governor, the tea party sees this incident as supporting their anti-immigration position-do you agree?"
Bode stuck with Jim Bob's play.
"Look, I'm a politician, but everything I do isn't about politics. What I did out here two days ago wasn't about immigration policy-it was about little Josefina and those twelve boys. They didn't deserve to be abducted and held as slaves, whether they're Mexicans or Methodists. I'm the governor of Texas, and those cartel hombres, they were committing crimes in Texas. That made it my business, not my politics."
Lindsay cradled the child and cried. She had heard a scream, and then a boy had come running to her. The nurse was needed at the river.
"?Apurate! "
She hurried. At the river, a small child lay next to the water. Blood drenched the dirt. Other children had gathered around. Lindsay slipped and stumbled and got muddy going down the low bluff to the river below. When she arrived at the child, she knew immediately that the child needed more than a nurse.
"?Llamen al doctor! "
Get the doctor.
"That was a good line," Jim Bob said. " 'My business, not my politics.' "
They were back on the jet and drinking bourbon.
"I winged it."
"Well, it worked this time. But don't do it again, okay? Makes me nervous."
"You're the boss, Professor."
Jim Bob drank his bourbon and felt the warmth inside him. Eight years he had begged the networks to interview Governor Bode Bonner; now they were begging him for interviews. It felt good, tables turning and all. It felt good to have a stud horse he could ride right through the front door of the White House. This was his chance to escape Karl Rove's shadow. To make his own shadow. To prove to his ex-wife that she should've stuck with him for better or for worse-because it was fixing to get a hell of a lot better for James Robert Burnet.
Jesse had taken the camera crew for a brief tour of Colonia Angeles. They now stood at the farthest point from the river. The border wall was visible in the distance.
"We stand on land that America has abandoned in the drug and immigration war, a land that is neither here nor there, neither-"
A dog barked in the distance. Then he heard a boy's scream.
"?Doctor! "
A boy ran toward them, trying to keep up with Pancho. They both arrived out of breath.
"Doctor," the boy said in Spanish, "we have been searching for you! Come quickly! To the river! The nurse, she needs you!"
FOURTEEN
"How pathetic is that?" Jim Bob said.
The next morning at nine, Bode, Jim Bob, Mandy, Ranger Hank, and the thirteen Mexican children stood just inside the front entrance at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and stared at the mass of humanity waiting in line at the security checkpoint to be scanned, searched, patted down, felt up, and otherwise subjected to personal humiliation by employees of the Transportation Security Administration.
"Like sheep lining up to be slaughtered," Jim Bob said. "American citizens letting a government employee violate them, just because they're scared."
"This is bullshit," Bode said.
" Caca de toro, " Miguel said from behind Bode.
Not an exact translation, but close enough.
"It is indeed," Jim Bob said. "All a president has to do is promise to make these sheep safe and secure, and they'll hand over their constitutional rights. Just to fly on a plane."
"Not that," Bode said. "That I've got to fly commercial, go through security like everyone else."
"Oh. Yes, you do."
"Why can't we take the state jet?"
"I told you, Bode, you can fly the Gulfstream all over Texas because Texans don't care. You're Republican, they're Republican, they're gonna vote for you no matter what. Democrats and Independents are irrelevant in Texas."
His phone rang. He checked the caller ID-"MSNBC… as if"-then muted the ringer.
"But if you want to play politics on a national stage, we've got to change your game for a national audience. It's a different market. For some reason-mental illness, lack of education, bad parenting-not everyone in the other forty-nine states is Republican. So things that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in Texas go viral in other states."
"What's that got to do with flying commercial?"
"Because that national audience got mad as hell when they saw Pelosi flying around the country on private jets at taxpayer expense and Boehner skirting the security lines at Reagan Airport. But Pelosi and Boehner did it anyway, because they're tone deaf to the people. Because they think they're better than the people. Bode Bonner doesn't."
"I don't?"
"No. You don't. Bode Bonner is a populist, a man of the people. He flies commercial, he stands in the security line like everyone else, he goes through the scanner like everyone else, he gets felt up like everyone else…"
"He does?"
"He does."
Bode sighed. "Jim Bob, you sure about this?"
The Professor pointed at the security line.
"The path to the White House starts at the back of that line."
"Are we at least flying first class?"
The Professor now regarded Bode as he would a D student.
"Hell, yes, we're flying first class. You and me. Mandy and the kids and Hank are back in coach. We'll go through security with this rabble, but we're sure as hell not sitting back in coach with them for four hours."
But it was a long journey from where he now stood to a safe seat in first class. He had to go through security, walk down the terminal to the gate, loiter among the citizens for an hour, subject himself to possible verbal abuse-a Republican governor out among Democratic voters-and otherwise expose himself to enemy fire. This was his first public appearance since he had shot three Mexicans dead. How would the public react? More specifically, how would the liberals in Austin react? Would he again be greeted with "You're a fucking Nazi!"? Would they toss the f-word and perhaps fast food at him? Would they shoot angry glares and middle fingers at him? And he couldn't exactly hide; he stood six-feet-four-inches tall, and everyone in Texas knew Bode Bonn
er on sight.
"Jim Bob, you really think this is a good idea? This ain't Lubbock."
"Trust me."
Bode felt as if he were taking the field against Oklahoma-in Oklahoma. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
"Let's do it."
As soon as they took their place at the back of the security line, Bode knew why the Professor had earned a Ph. D. in politics. An obese woman smelling like McDonald's and wearing a stretch sweat suit-why do they do that? — just in front turned to Bode, stared up at him as if in disbelief, and then cried out in a shrill voice.
"Oh, my God! You're Bode Bonner!" She held up her cell phone. "I'm one of your followers!"
The man in front of her turned and stared at Bode. His eyes got wide, and he cried out, "Bode Bonner!" The woman in front of him turned and shrieked, "Bode Bonner-in line with us!" Word ran up and down the serpentine security line and people turned to him like dominoes dropping "Bode Bonner!"
"He's in line with us!"
"Can you believe it?"
— until every person standing in line was staring at him and pointing at him and grinning at him with faces as bright as Becca's when he had surprised her with a pony for her fifth birthday. Their hands instinctively came up armed with cell phones. Hundreds of little lights flashed like machine-gun fire and voices called out to him.
"You the man, Bode!"
"Way to go, Governor!"
"We got your back!"
"Send all them Mexicans home in body bags!"
And then the chant rose up from the crowd.
"Bo-de! Bo-de! Bo-de!"
His worries evaporated like spit on the sidewalk in August. He stood there and took it all in and let the people's admiration wash over him like a star athlete who had just won the big game-or a war hero home with victory in hand. And maybe he was. Maybe this was a war. A culture war. The Second Mexican War. A war the American people wanted desperately to win. Maybe they had found their hero.
"Bo-de! Bo-de! Bo-de!"
Stubby arms suddenly clasped him around his waist and put him in a death grip.
"Take my picture, Earl!"
Aw, shit, the fat woman wanted her photo with him.
Bode cleared security first after enduring the full-body scan; he hoped his manliness made him proud on the screen. He put his boots and belt back on and pushed his wallet and other personal items into his pockets. Jim Bob emerged next, grumbling something about "Russia and the goddamned KGB."
"How'd you know these people would react like that?" Bode said.
"I didn't. I had a hunch. Now all those cell phone photos will be posted online, picked up by the news outlets. Bode Bonner, man of the people."
Two of those people, round white-haired women, waddled over in their bare feet and wrapped their Michelin man arms around Bode and squeezed tight. They released him, and one said, "You're even better looking than Regis Philbin." They turned and went over to the conveyor belt to retrieve their personal items.
"Cat ranchers," Bode said.
"Cat ranchers?"
"You go to their house, I guarantee you they got two dozen cats each."
"You're a cattle rancher. You got what, five thousand head?"
"Yeah, but I can eat a cow."
"Never know with those women."
The kids trickled through next. Then Ranger Hank emerged. Even a Texas Ranger could not carry weapons onto a commercial flight, so he had to empty his holster and pockets. Out from the holster came the nine-millimeter handgun and two spare ammo clips, the Taser, the Mace, the cuffs, the flashlight (actually a sledgehammer with a light on the end), and the sap (an eleven-inch leather strap with a lead weight at one end); from one cowboy boot came a. 22-caliber pistol; from the other boot came a compact serrated knife with a T-type push grip; and from his pants pocket came a rolled-up sleeve of quarters, a substitute for brass knuckles, which were illegal in Texas. Hank walked over in his white socks and carrying his cowboy boots and looking as if he had just undergone a body cavity search.
"Think you got enough weapons there, Hank?" Jim Bob said.
They all gathered around and waited for Josefina and Mandy, who was sticking close to the shy girl now. The TSA screeners waved Mandy through.
But they stopped Josefina.
They pulled her out for a pat-down. Her expression showed her confusion. Mandy stepped over to the screener and said, "She doesn't speak English." A Latino screener spoke to her in Spanish, and little Josefina now understood. She screamed.
"?No, no, no! "
The security line froze. Screeners and armed TSA guards swarmed the scene like a SWAT team, surrounding the little Mexican girl. Her brown eyes turned to Bode. She was crying. He groaned.
"Aw, shit."
Ranger Hank stepped forward, but Bode stopped him.
"I'll handle it, Hank."
Bode hitched up his jeans for the turf battle he knew would ensue. He had fought many such battles in his years as governor, as all governors had, over education standards, air pollution permits, water quality, prison conditions, Medicaid, and taking Mexican kids into custody on a West Texas ranch. The Feds would fight you over anything and everything just because they could. Because they had the power to make your life miserable. To withhold federal funds. The EPA was perennially the worst offender, of course, but the HHS and HUD, DOJ and DOE, ICE and FEMA and OSHA and even the USDA weren't far behind. But since its creation, the DHS-Department of Homeland Security-and its airport storm troopers-the TSA-seemed determined to take federal arrogance to levels never before seen outside the Supreme Court Building, treating airline passengers as suspects and patting down old folks, people in wheelchairs, and even young children.
"She's just a kid!"
Josefina's TSA screener was overweight and wore a United States badge, never a good combination. By the time Bode arrived and stepped between Josefina and the screener, Mandy was in her face.
"She's scared!"
"Ma'am," the screener said in the way that let you know she wasn't saying "ma'am" out of common courtesy but only because her work rules required her to, "she either gets patted down or she don't get on the plane."
" Doesn't," Mandy said.
Correcting a federal employee's grammar was always a mistake, in Bode's experience. The screener leaned her massive body toward Mandy as if to intimidate the oh-so-lithe Mandy, but Bode's gal held her ground. Mandy Morgan was a tough little broad. Bode figured he'd better break this up before blows were exchanged.
"She's with me," he said.
The screener's glare remained fixed on Mandy.
"Then you better get her outta my face so I can do my job."
"Not Mandy… well, she's with me, too, but I mean the girl. Josefina."
The screener now pivoted like a politician after a bad poll and faced Bode. The realization of who was standing in front of her came across her face, but not in a good way. Her expression changed from a woman itching for a cat fight to a Democrat still angry because four years ago her candidate had lost to the man standing before her.
"Governor, she can be with God Himself, but she's gonna get patted down."
Great, a federal employee with attitude. But then, he was being redundant.
"Look, the girl suffered a traumatic experience, I'm sure you saw the story on TV."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Where have you been the last three days?"
"Here. Working overtime. People got the flu."
That's the thing about disease that always frustrated Bode: those who should get it never did.
"Well, she's in a very delicate state right now, and your patting her down would not be good for her."
"Wouldn't be good for the passengers on that plane if she's carrying a bomb."
"A bomb? " Bode moved just enough to reveal Josefina hiding behind him. "Does she look like a terrorist?"
"We're not allowed to engage in profiling."
"Just in stupidity?"
"Step aside, Governor."
"No."
The armed guards stepped closer. The crowd in the security line had grown restless and vocal.
"You tell 'em, Governor!"
"They're supposed to be working for us!"
"This ain't Russia!"
"Don't worry, Governor-we got your back!"
As much as Bode enjoyed the thought of decking a federal employee, having the governor of Texas wrestled to the ground by the armed guards on national TV-cell phone cameras rose above the crowd to record the moment-might not be the best political move, so he tried to defuse the situation.
"Would you please call your supervisor?"
She gave him a "proceed straight to hell without passing GO" look then said into her shoulder-mounted microphone: "Supervisor, gate eight security. A-S-A-P."
It didn't take long for an older man to arrive in a golf cart. He stepped out with a two-way radio in his left hand and walked over with a slight limp. He assessed the situation then stuck his right hand out to Bode.
"Governor-what's the problem?"
Bode shook hands and checked the supervisor's nameplate-"Ted Jenkins"-then motioned Ted away a few steps. Josefina stuck close to him.
"Ted, you been watching the news, what happened this past weekend out in West Texas? The shooting?"
"Yes, sir. Good job."
Thank God-a Republican.
"Used to work Border Patrol," Ted said, "till some border bandits shot me in the leg. Couldn't foot chase no more, so I transferred to TSA."
"So you heard about the children being held captive-"
"Yes, sir."
— "and that a girl was held as a sex slave for over a year?"
"Yes, sir."
Bode leaned in and lowered his voice.
"Well, Ted, this little girl behind me-that's her."
Ted's face registered his shock. He peeked around Bode at Josefina.
"She's just a kid."
"Yes, Ted, she is just a kid. Who's terrified of being touched by anyone, especially strangers. If your screener pats her down, she's likely to have a psychotic episode, fall down to the floor screaming, probably start foaming at the mouth. Right here in your airport."
"A psychotic episode?"
