Lone Star Legend Read online

  Keeping la Raza Plugged In

  by Hi Tech Aztec

  Using FaceSpace to interface with your peeps in Chiapas, San Salvador, or Bogotá? I can help you out. Need to know where to download the latest reggaetón? Hit me up. Whether you want to translate abuelita’s RSS feed or upload videos of your lowrider, I’m your man.

  On a Whirlwind Tour to Find Signs of Life Worth Living…

  by Philippe

  I’m writing to you from Luna de Miel in Beverly Hills, where they have the best tapas and the second best mojitos. I’ll be dissecting the local scene all week, and then the local scene will switch to Austin, where I’ll join my brothers and sisters at Nacho Papi HQ. I’m looking for the best in fashion, shopping, and society from San Antonio to San Francisco, from New York to New Mexico. Maybe your town next, if you write and let me know what’s worth seeing there.

  Hi, everybody. This is Lori G.

  by Lori G.

  I’m not too big on words, but I hope to see you soon.;)

  13

  Blog entry from My Modern TragiComedy, Thursday, March 23

  My work, it is a-changin’.

  I feel safe telling you guys this, since, as I’ve explained before, HeartThrob GeekBoy doesn’t read this site. Technically, he knows I thought about starting a blog a while back. But since blogs are too low-brow for his MFA-having self, he forgot about it almost immediately after I first mentioned it. As far as I’m concerned, that gives me poetic license, so to speak, to say whatever I want about him. It’s not my fault if he isn’t interested in my hobbies.:)

  Besides him, my only readers are my two best friends (Are you reading this, you two? Probably not, huh?:) ) and then all of you. Wonderful, anonymous You.

  So, as I said, I feel perfectly safe mentioning here that, despite HTGB’s reservations, I’m taking a new opportunity. That’s right—the Cheerleader talked me into joining her squad. I’m going to be writing a genre that’s completely new to me, and I hope you guys will read my work on the new site. Even if you won’t know it’s me writing it. I have to stay anonymous here, you know.

  But here’s a hint: If you hear about a hot new site coming out of Austin with hilarious and insightful cultural and entertainment commentary, think of me.

  If, on the other hand, you hear about a crappy new site with boring, fluffy hack work… then forget I said anything, okay?:)

  Love,

  Miss TragiComic Texas

  14

  The Friday after the site’s soft launch, Sandy stood outside the Fat Man waiting for Daniel. He was late, as usual.

  The coffee-shop-slash-bar was on the edge of Austin’s low-lying downtown. Although she was more than a mile from it, Sandy could easily see the top of the Capitol from where she stood waiting. There were only parking lots and one- or two-story buildings between Sandy and the famous stone lady, plus one shiny new skyscraper off to the side—the city’s first-ever skyscraper downtown. As she always did when standing downtown, comparing her hometown to Dallas’s or Houston’s glittery skylines, Sandy thought about the endangered owls and salamanders that were supposed to be benefitting from Austin’s lack of urban sprawl. She’d never seen any of these mythical beings, but she wished them well.

  Students and grad students and everyone else streamed through the Fat Man’s weathered wooden doorway, and Sandy began to feel self-conscious about standing there alone. She wished she’d brought her laptop so she could take a table by herself without feeling even more awkward.

  Instead, she pulled out her phone and called her friend Veronica, who answered from an art supply store in Dallas. They talked about Sandy’s first week of posts on Nacho Papi, all of which Veronica, a longtime devotee of Hate-O-Rama.com, had loved. They talked about Veronica’s upcoming exhibit, for which Sandy would drive to Dallas the next day.

  Then they discussed their mutual friend Jane, their respective parents, and Veronica’s dog. Veronica had begun giving Sandy a long list of suggestions for future Nacho Papi posts when Daniel finally showed up.

  Sandy finished her phone call and followed him into the Fat Man without a word, letting her silence do the talking. He knew she hated to be kept waiting, but he always had an excuse.

  “Am I really late? I’m sorry, but I had a student ambush me in my office to tell me some sob story about why she missed the last exam. I got out of there as fast as I could, believe me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sandy said tersely. What else could she say? There was always a reason.

  Someone called to Daniel—one of his fellow TAs—and, before she knew it, they were forging a path through the crowd to join his friends at a dark, crowded corner table under the shelf of replicated antique beer steins. Just like they always did.

  Everyone at the table—Mike, Kerry, Donovan, Michelle, and their assorted girlfriends, boyfriends, or friends—greeted Daniel and Sandy as they took the offered seats. Daniel ordered Shiners from a waitress in shorts and long striped socks. He gave Sandy a quick kiss and asked her how her day had been. She opened her mouth to give him a standard answer, and someone said, “So, Daniel, what about Whitfield’s new syllabus requirements? Total bitch, huh?” And then he was off and running with his buddies, down the endless road of university politics.

  Sandy listened for as long as she could with an interested smile plastered onto her face. For what felt like the hundredth time she studied the oddities and antique signs nailed to the walls around them. She watched the other patrons, other groups of grad students and TAs winding down after a long week. International students laughing around a dart board. Girls clustered around the jukebox, punching in the latest indie songs that only got played on the college stations. The inevitable creepy old guy in an unseasonable jacket, sipping his lager and staring at the coeds.

  She held a brief, strange side conversation about eighteenth-century literature with one of the other TAs’ girlfriends. But then that ended and, before long, Sandy’s thoughts drifted to her own work.

  “Bored?” Daniel whispered into her ear. It was the first thing he’d said to her since they’d taken their seats, and he’d just ordered the third round. “Do you want to leave?”

  Sandy realized that she must have been spacing out in an obvious way. “No, not at all. I’m good.”

  Assured by her smile, he went right back to his conversation with his friends. She went back to planning her posts for Nacho Papi next week. Gazing at her beer bottle, she was reminded of a billboard in her mother’s neighborhood for new Limonveza lime-flavored beer. The billboard was in Spanish.

  What, she wondered, was with the proliferation of lime-flavored products being marketed to Latinos? And what were the ramifications of targeted liquor ads? She’d have to research. If she could strike the right tone between humorous and skeptical, she’d have herself a winner.

  Her mind wheeled idly through different possibilities, and then it occurred to Sandy that sitting in a bar, surrounded by incoherent noises, being ignored and ignoring the conversations of others, was actually a pretty productive way to brainstorm.

  “We’re leaving in a little while,” Daniel whispered into her ear. He sounded irritated. Sandy wondered what was bothering him this time.

  SHE FOUND OUT during the ride back to his place.

  “You know,” he started, “if you didn’t want to go to the Fat Man tonight, you could have just said so.”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t not want to go,” Sandy answered. She turned to look at him, to see if he was serious. Behind his head, the lights of the university buildings and then those of Guadalupe Boulevard flowed by.

  “Right. That’s why you were sitting there ignoring everyone, then,” he said. His tone was light, but he stared straight ahead at the road and wouldn’t even glance at her.

  “I wasn’t ignoring everyone. At least, I wasn’t trying to. Sometimes you guys get started with your UT stuff, and you talk about things that have nothing to do with me, so what am I supposed to do? I can’t help sp
acing out a little.”

  “You could try listening. I would think you’d want to take an interest in my work and the things that affect my life.” He’d reached Hyde Park now and turned onto the street that led to his house.

  “I am interested,” Sandy returned. “But somehow I didn’t think Mike’s theories about which adjuncts Kerry’s slept with were something that affected your career.”

  Daniel sighed. “I’m not saying that. Mike’s a jerk. I’m just saying… It’s really important that I get along with these people, and you sitting there with an annoyed look on your face doesn’t help.”

  “I had an annoyed look on my face?”

  Daniel didn’t answer until after he’d pulled into his driveway. Then, finally turning to look her in the eye, he said, “Not exactly. You just looked like you wished you were somewhere else.”

  It was Sandy’s turn to sigh. “Daniel, if I hadn’t wanted to be there, I would have said so the first two times you asked me.”

  He didn’t reply to that. So she said nothing. But the air between them was crammed with unspoken thoughts.

  Sandy wanted to ask if he expected her to kiss up to his co-workers, or if it’d be easier for him if he was dating another TA. But she wasn’t brave enough to ask. She could tell he had things he wanted to say, too, but she couldn’t imagine what those things were, and he obviously wasn’t brave enough either.

  They climbed out of his car and started up the sloped walk to his lopsided little house, which, run-down as it was, was worth three houses in any other neighborhood.

  “Look,” she said, finally, “let’s not get into it, okay? I haven’t seen you all week and I was really looking forward to it.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Okay.” He gave her a quick half-smile of truce and then unlocked the door. Pausing in the low-ceilinged living room only long enough to drop his briefcase on the coffee table, he went straight to the kitchen to get them more Shiner.

  Sandy kicked off her shoes and sat on the squishy plaid sofa, facing the television set that was already running on mute. Daniel’s housemate wasn’t home, but they always left the TV on. She focused on the screen and didn’t bother to take stock of the surroundings. One, because she already knew what was there, in Daniel’s living room. There wasn’t much, and it never changed. Two, she didn’t like any of his furniture or decorations. His parents had chosen them, from among apparent cast-offs in their own collection. The resulting effect was that of a shabby 1990s hotel room, everything done up in slate blue, hunter green, and glossy burgundy chintz. Her garage apartment may not have been a wonder of modern design, but everything in it she’d picked out herself from the Swedish discount warehouse.

  It was time for a change of subject, Sandy decided. “So, did you see the posts I sent you?”

  “What’s that?” he called from the refrigerator.

  “Nacho Papi’s first week of posts. Did you read mine?”

  “Um…” He emerged with two beer bottles and joined her on the sofa. “Yeah.”

  “You read them? What’d you think?”

  “They were good,” he said. “Better than I expected.”

  A thrill ran through her. “Really? Which ones did you like? Which was the best?”

  “Um. The first one. The intro.” He took a sip of his beer and gazed at the television set.

  “The intro? Really? I thought that was kind of stiff.” Sandy leaned forward, eager to get his professional feedback. “I didn’t really start hitting my stride until the end of the second day, I thought. What’d you like about the intro?”

  “Um… I liked what you said about holding the media accountable. And representing Hispanics in politics. That was good. It was a strong mission statement.”

  Suspicion filled Sandy like a gust of hot air. “You didn’t read the other posts, did you?”

  Daniel’s reaction was a mixture of indignation, impatience, and guilt. “Yes, I did.”

  Sandy said nothing. But her arms crossed against her chest as she waited for further explanation.

  “I scrolled through them. Through yours. But I didn’t have time to read in depth, no, because I’ve been so busy this week. I told you that.” His voice became plaintive. He flipped back his bangs and appealed to her with his eyes. “Sandy, I bookmarked them all for later. I’m going to read them as soon as I can. I wanted to wait to give you my opinion until I’d had time to read them all in-depth. I was planning to take notes and e-mail them to you.”

  If Sandy had had feathers, she would have felt them ruffle and then un-ruffle and then re-ruffle again, back and forth, over and over. So he hadn’t had time to read her work. On the one hand it stung a little, especially knowing as she did that he hadn’t been impressed by her new gig to begin with.

  Then again, how could she complain? He had told her all week how busy he was. Maybe she should have printed her posts and pushed them in front of him at the Fat Man tonight, the same way he always forced his work on her.

  In the next moment, she conceived of a new suspicion. What if he had read all her posts but hadn’t thought they were any good at all? What if he was just stalling for time until he could think of something constructive to say?

  Sandy squeezed herself hard with her folded arms and then let herself go. “Okay. Well, hurry and take your notes, then. I really was looking forward to hearing your opinion.”

  “I will. I promise.” He extended an arm over her for a quick half-hug. “Come on. Let’s go to my room. Matt’s going to be here any minute now.”

  Matt was Daniel’s housemate. Although the house technically belonged to Daniel, it had belonged to his parents first. It had been their rental property and Daniel had agreed to allow them to continue renting out one of the rooms.

  Daniel stood and turned up the sound on the TV, then led Sandy to his bedroom, where he turned up the radio on his nightstand just as loud.

  “You want to…?” He turned off the ceiling light and lit his nightstand lamp, then picked up a T-shirt from the floor and carefully adjusted it over the plain white shade to dim the bulb. Then he pulled his two burgundy-encased pillows from beneath the lumpy blue-and-green-plaid comforter, plumping them a little before putting them back against the pine headboard carved with scrolls that matched those on the nightstand and the dresser.

  He looked back at her with a questioning smile.

  “I guess,” she said.

  She watched as he began to remove his clothing, starting with his shoes and then moving from head to toe, shirt to socks, laying each piece carefully across the chair near the foot of the bed.

  Sandy stifled a smile or a sigh, she didn’t know which. She had already removed her glasses and set them on his dresser. Next she would remove her own clothing and lay it alongside his.

  She might have wanted to laugh at his predictability, or to feel embarrassed at her own. But there he was, and there she was. She figured she may as well go through the motions.

  15

  Blog entry from My Modern TragiComedy, Saturday, March 25

  Open Letter to a HeartThrob GeekBoy

  Dear GeekBoy,

  You’re doing it again. Once again, you’re taking me for granted.

  I remember when I first met you. I thought that you were beautiful. Not just the best-looking TA I’d ever seen, but just as much a work of art as the poetry you loved. That was back before I knew just how long you spent working at those long, lean muscles you pretend not to work at… searching for those vintage shirts and close-cut trousers that make you so casually anti-establishment… sitting in the chair while Rolando dishevels your shiny black hair so it’ll fall into your green eyes just perfectly, for $55 a session.

  I used to feel so incredibly lucky that you wanted someone like me. Wanted to talk to me and to listen to me, or at least to my opinion of your work. Back then, it didn’t matter to me that I was the one doing all the listening. I was happy to do it. You had so much to teach me, and I was more than willing to learn.

  Now th
at I’m starting to find my own success, you don’t seem as interested in me. Why? Because nothing I ever do will be good enough for you to notice? Or is it maybe because you’re not interested in being with an equal? Maybe you can only be happy with someone who looks up to you. Looks way, way up to you, I mean.

  How long do you expect this to last, HeartThrob GeekBoy? How long do you give it before I get tired of being one of your admiring fans? Maybe you’re tired of it, too, but you can only say so in your poetry. You show it to me and don’t think I’m clever enough to read between the lines. But I am, and I do.

  Here’s a poem for you, Mr. Poet, in response to the last one you showed me, written in your very own style:

  He Walks on My Nerves

  Call it metaphor, simile, grad-school-grade allegory

  Your shady language can’t/can not change the fact

  That the other night, long after you went to sleep.

  I rolled over to finish the job

  You can’t ever seem to complete.

  That was fun. Maybe I should be the one getting a Ph.D. in poetry. Look out, HeartThrob GeekBoy. I’m catching up to you with my own career. Before you know it, I may have fans of my own.

  Love,

  Miss TragiComic Texas

  16

  Sandy Saavedra? Never heard of you.”

  The hulking monster of a security guard handed Sandy and George their newly minted press passes and pointed to the sign above the convention center door. It said austin lowrider show: $15 admission.

  “This is so embarrassing,” Sandy muttered after they’d paid and made their way through the throng at the door.