Bushland

This was something I wrote and posted in my diary at the Agonist. Actually though, I did this for a Mexican photojournalist by the name of Julian Cardona to try to give people a glimpse at the hometown of George W. and how his background influences the foreign policy of our country. Drugs are just a small part of a much larger problem.

One of the most embarrassing things I have to do in this day and time is to admit that I share anything in common with George W. Bush. But I do.

I spend a lot of time issuing disclaimers about bush—about how he’s really a cold-hearted blue-blood Yankee wrapped in a Texas hide. And about how no God-fearing Texan could possibly be that bad. While there is some truth to that, the fact remains that my compatriots overwhelmingly voted for him, and do share a lot of his views. I can’t begin to describe how much it hurts to say that—to know that my homeland has produced such a man. And continues to support him despite the daily proof he offers to suggest he is an incompetent elitist with little or no compassion for those of different persuasion.
When he speaks, it is with the thick accent I also have. His hat looks a whole lot like mine. We both tend to be cocky—this trait seems to come with the territory. He gets in your face with his beliefs and tends to say what is on his mind. He is a vain man and works hard to maintain his image. He is willfully ignorant—nothing that wasn’t thought up by him or another Texan is worth knowing anyhow. Didn’t you know everything we have in Texas is the biggest and the best? And that’s a fact.

Unlike Dubya, (he was born a Yankee), I was born in Midland, Texas in the year 1957, which makes me a number of years younger than he. But we went to the same junior high—San Jacinto Junior High School, and I suspect there wasn’t a hell of a lot of difference between the people I grew up with and his crowd, aside from the fact that I avoided hanging out with the rich white privileged group from which he was spawned. They wouldn’t have me anyway. Class and social status was always a big thing in Midland. And if you didn’t live in the right neighborhood, you didn’t belong. (I did live on the fringe of their territory, but ours was new money—I didn’t quite know how to wear it.)

We both profess belief in God and Jesus. I have seen the all-white church crowd with which he attended Sunday-go-to-meetings, although recent years has made it increasingly more difficult for me to stomach their company. I have worked the oil fields for others like bush, used the same drugs, gotten drunk on the same booze, and chased the same wild women.

Yes, even Sunday-go-to-meeting types tend to chase whores every once in a while in West Texas. But of course they admit that only in the company of chosen others like themselves; in the presence of their wives, girl friends and most preachers they swear to God they’d never do such things. I’d be willing to bet over half of Midland’s men know exactly where and what boy’s town is on a personal level.

When I once told a friend that I had confessed to my wife about an encounter with another woman he told me, “Are you crazy? If my wife caught me naked on top of another woman I’d jump up and ask, ‘Are you going to believe me or those lying eyes of yours?’” A person in bush’s crowd will not get caught whoring around, and if caught, will deny it to the grave.

Truth be known—the reason people like bush so hate the Bill Clintons of the world is that now that they live in a position of constant exposure, they can no longer get away with bedding those nimble young morsels they so desire. I know.

At least there are a few Condoleezzas in the world to fill the void. Or jacking off. But these are a poor substitute for a wild ride with an uninhibited Texas whore after snorting a big ole line of cocaine.

And, by God, if I can’t do it, nobody can.

* * * * *

In order to understand Midland, you must also take a look at Odessa. For in this part of West Texas, it wasn’t good enough to put the undesirables across the railroad tracks—another town was required—some twenty miles to the west.

Midland, Texas lies in a vast flat, barren stretch of West Texas that looks like the floor of an ocean without any water. It rarely rains—the average is somewhere in the vicinity of ten inches a year and most of that might come on a few days, accompanied by violent winds and large hail stones. Dry dust storms are more common than rain—the sky turns red with the approach of strong winds billowing out of the Northern plains and off of the Rocky mountains far to the west; the winds generate speed as they travel over plowed cotton fields of the Panhandle of Texas where they rip soil from the earth. The cloud of dust comes with a rush and engulfs the town; residents flee to their homes and cars and huddle indoors until it passes.

In the rich neighborhoods of Midland, tiff grass lawns grow like the greens of a golf course under sprinkler systems that come on automatically each day, providing massive amounts of very precious and expensive water for the yards. A big open sky provides the sunlight; generous amount of fertilizers and chemicals are spread without regard to cost. Every blade of grass is manicured to perfection by a reel-type mower—traditional lawn mowers won’t cut such thick fine grass to the specifications required to be part of the elite in Midland. And of course, the man on or behind that mower is never the owner of the yard, but always someone of a darker hue—either brown or black. And the woman that cleans the house, makes the beds, does the laundry, and washes the dishes, necessarily is the wife or the daughter of that lawn man—if not that of the garbage collector.

For that reason a certain number of Mexicans and Negroes are tolerated in Midland—someone has to do the menial labor and it ain’t gonna us rich white folks. That, and the need for good football players. It is a plain and simple fact that niggers can run faster and jump higher than most white boys.

Of course someone like bush no longer says nigger unless he’s among his own—that same crowd that shares in the hiding of his secret exploits. I have always found it remarkable to compare and contrast the conversations of my people while in the presence of other elite white male co-conspirators and what they say in public or in front of a woman or a member of a minority race. No woman like Mrs. Bush will tolerate such a word in her house—that language will get a young boy’s mouth washed out with soap right quick in the home of a rich white Midlander. But Mrs. Bush and her type wouldn’t even dream of living next door to a Negro. No way in hell.

These dark skinned people have their own sections of town: Nigger town, (colored town, for Mrs. Bush), and the Mexican barrio. A railroad track separates the communities. Blacks or Mexicans had better not get caught driving around in the rich white neighborhoods after dark, or for that matter during the day if they don’t have a lawn mower on that trailer behind that old truck they drive. Midland cops know well who belongs where in this town. And they are watching.

We have co-opted the things we liked from their cultures and made them our own. Barbecue and good music from the blacks, enchiladas, tacos, and a few tricks with horses and cattle from the Mexicans.

Summers are brutally hot in Midland, but the rich seldom suffer—massive central air units keep temperatures inside a steady 70 degrees year round. All cars are equipped with air conditioners. People go from house to office, mall, or grocery store, and in each of these places the air is cool and clean. Even gyms are air-conditioned and the rich work out with barely enough clothing to cover the hard-earned physiques they sport, but not less than would be considered socially acceptable. I have seen a hint of just about every body part there is to see in such a place—a man like me or George W. would find it hard not to.

On occasion though, braving the elements is required—we still haven’t figured out how to enclose or air condition golf courses yet—but golfers do ride from shot to shot in golf carts and spend as little time as possible out in the sun hitting the balls. And for the ultra-tough of the elite, riding a polo pony may be required on occasion. Of course the pony is trained, fed and exercised by a Mexican, who even saddles the horse and legs up the rider so he can showcase his stuff to admiring onlookers.

Afterward, the polo player lounges under a shade drinking ice-laden beverages and revisiting his exploits on the field. And all the women in the flowery dresses and fancy hats shine for their man while they recite the latest gossip.

Many miles separate Midland from any body of water of decent size, but that doesn’t stop the rich from having a boat and a new pick-up or a Suburban to pull that boat. You ain’t shit if you don’t have a boat. And maybe a ranch with a herd of cattle and some horses, but not just any horse. They must be registered and worth a lot of money. We like Quarter horses.

The water in Midland is hard and contains too much fluoride; so all rich and even middle class folks buy drinking water. Those who drink tap water throughout their youth develop extremely hard and ultra-white teeth with faint brown spots from the excess fluoride. I can spot a poor person raised in that region of Texas just by looking at his or her teeth.

Were it not for black gold underground, Midland and Odessa would be nothing more than a few gas stations to provide fuel for cars traveling through the West Texas desert expanses. But Midland/Odessa rests above a very large reservoir of oil known as the Permian basin. Pump jacks surround the sister cities in every direction; as a kid I always thought of them as big rocking horses, until I got close to one and realized how large they are. Each stroke of these pumps lifts precious crude, or nasty black oil, depending on how you look at it, to numerous tanks or pipelines that crisscross the earth, both above and below ground. The oil goes to refineries and is turned into gasoline to fuel our nation. The wells also produce natural gas, which is gathered and funneled into larger pipelines that carry the gas to heat cities and fuel electric plants.

Most refineries sit in remote parts of the surrounding desert. They look like some artist’s rendition of hell, with twisted pipes and assorted receptacles; fires flare gas and smoke and steam belch from tall smokestacks. A sulfurous smell taints the air, but to those around Midland this is something they have learned to tolerate—to them it is the smell of money. Lots of money. Enough money that at one time Midland had more millionaires per capita than any city in the United States.

People from Midland own the oil fields; those who live in Odessa and a few more small neighboring towns drill the wells, service the machinery and keep the oil flowing. (In this part of the world a “neighboring town” may be many miles away.) Oilfield work is heavy and dangerous and exposes workers to all the elements. Activity never stops, day or night, regardless of the weather.

When I worked as a roughneck, we got off one day a year—Christmas—and if you didn’t show up for work without sending a replacement, you were fired. Wells sometimes blew out, incinerating people when they did. Moving extremely heavy equipment strained cables to the breaking point; the slightest miscalculation could crush the life out of a body. Rare was the seasoned roughneck with all fingers intact. But it was never a rich white citizen that suffered or died from these mistakes.

We were rather well paid. Now, a lot of the roughnecks are Mexican nationals and the pay is not near so good.

Midland has a large white-collar community—all the geologists, engineers, and oilfield executives and their pretty secretaries live there. Being pretty tends to be required of secretaries in Midland, and the ones that really do well learn a few tricks not officially taught in school. Plastic surgeons selling fake tits also do well in Midland. Most residents are either rich or a servant of the rich and poor—those aforementioned types that cut the lawns, clean the houses, man convenience stores, clean motel rooms, and provide other basic services for the wealthy. That is not to say a middle class doesn’t exist—it’s just proportionally much smaller than that of Odessa.

Odessa on the other hand is mostly a blue-collar middle class town with a bunch of rough hard-working folks—those who actually get the oil out of the ground and turn it into useable products. As a rule, oilfield workers tend to be a salty lot; they like to fight, fornicate, and drink; recent years has seen the addition of other drugs to make the fighting, fornicating, and drinking more enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong—the people from Midland also like to take in such activities, especially the latter two, but not in their town. There are no tit bars in Midland, so Odessa supplies double the normal amount to support the excess need Midland’s deficit generates (which must be doubled again to take into account all the roughnecks and oilfield workers). Each city is home to around a hundred thousand people.

A trip to a tit-bar in Odessa reveals lots of good looking women ready to do just about whatever you want or need, assuming you have plenty of cash on hand. Prostitution is illegal, but that never stopped anything. You want sex? You can buy it in Odessa. Drugs also. But you better stay the hell out of Midland with that stuff.

However, unlike many other cities in Texas, queers aren’t well tolerated around Midland and Odessa. You know the Bible prescribes the death penalty for queers, don’t you? And all abortions are an act of murder. (A young white girl needing such a service most probably will need to take a short vacation in a place like perhaps, Austin.)

Football is a religion in West Texas. The only reason Midland has other sports is because they are required to by law, and they have to give the girls something to do, but the only one that really matters to anyone is football. Nearly every year at least one team from these two cities will advance far into the state play-offs; between Midland Lee and Odessa Permian, quite a number of state champion teams have been produced. Each game fills a large stadium—if you ever happen to drive through West Texas on a Friday night in the fall of the year, the glaring lights of football stadiums illuminate the countryside for miles around. And whole communities are out supporting their team.

People get serious about their football in West Texas. Kind of reminds me of practice for future wars. I can almost picture young Dubya—the cheerleader—admonishing his Negroes to throw themselves into the other team with reckless abandon. Only now the football field has become Iraq. And instead of throwing footballs, the players hurtle real bombs and bullets at each other. And George ain’t about to go face this enemy any more than he was those bad-ass boys from Odessa Permian—the sons of his dad’s employees—who would gladly have broken his bones and kicked his puny white ass, given the opportunity.

Midland’s Jesus is at least six feet tall with light brown hair and blue eyes. He is always clean—even when he’s getting crucified—and his long hair is always freshly washed and brushed. He has a halo above his head. And those who follow him are guaranteed success in whatever they do. You want money? A good job? A pretty wife? Better listen to Jesus. Cause he has all these things and he doesn’t mind sharing with those who believe. It has been reported that he will give back at least tenfold to those who donate to the collection plate—if not a hundredfold. Hard to get a hundredfold return on your money anywhere else. And it works. I have seen it with my own eyes.

But Midland’s Jesus don’t like evildoers. No siree. Them damned Moslems and the like need to be done away with. Turn Iraq to glass if need be (all the oil is underground anyway). And if a few innocents get caught in the onslaught—well sometimes a price has to be paid for freedom—and we’re just sending them to eternal paradise in heaven anyway—where they get to sit around and play a harp for Jesus forever and ever. The forces of Armageddon are amassing. God, Jesus, and the United States Marine Corps are waiting for the command to save the world—to bring hell’s fire down upon their ass.

But only a chosen few will hear the call and the rest of us need to be prepared to do whatever is required for the greater cause. Even to lay down our life if necessary. Without asking questions. It takes total faith for this thing to work.

Midland’s Jesus gave up his communist lifestyle for democracy and the free-enterprise system—the only really true and fair system in this world. And he gave up Aramaic for English—a much better language with which to understand scriptures. But not just any English. Those who really want to understand the absolutely totally unadulterated words of Jesus know that they are to be found in one and only one version of the bible—The King James version. And every word contained in that book was inspired by God—is in fact God speaking through the writer. Every word. Meanings get lost in the other versions, but old King James—well—he got it all right.

If you hang around the Midland church crowd long enough you might get confused into thinking Jesus also wrote the constitution of the United States. And the lessons of Jesus seem to apply only to those within our own borders. The rich of Midland learned long ago that there are limited resources in this world, and if we divide up everything equally, well, some of the luxuries Jesus’ people need and deserve just won’t go around.

And because we are God’s chosen ones and so blessed, the rest of the world is jealous and hates us. They hate freedom too.   

You see, us Texans around Midland have got this all figured out. Now, if the rest of the world would just listen and do what we tell them, everything would work out fine.

But y’all don’t worry. Ole Dubya prays constantly, telling Jesus exactly what’s going on and what we need. And he knows things we don’t.

You are just going to have to trust me on that one.

And if worse comes to worse he has a whole bunch of nucular missiles ready and waiting to defend our freedom. He goes nowhere without that briefcase needed to fire them babies.
Don’t you feel safer already?

* * * * *

I was asked to write this piece on Midland, framed as the birthplace and home of our current president, George W. Bush. I will be the first to admit that I dislike Bush. That’s putting it mildly. So the above diatribe is not an entirely accurate picture of the city itself. Nor is Midland entirely to blame for Bush. He lived there only a very few years of his life—long enough to pick up the accent, some of the mannerisms and prejudices of West Texas—but there are those of us who still swear wholeheartedly he is not a true Texan.

To be sure, both he and his dad quickly outgrew the pond that is Midland; it wasn’t near large enough to contain their global aspirations. And not everybody who lives in Midland or was raised there is like bush.

Midland is not so different than many other small cities throughout Texas and the Southwest. The city was established to service the needs of a growing nation—first a stopping place to get across the great desert that we now call West Texas, and then later to explore for and exploit the oil found under the ground there to fuel this nation.

Midland represents the conquest of one culture—the European white race—over that of others—the Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and blacks that were imported as slaves. I know most of us, as Midlanders or Americans, will deny that fact—to say such a thing is politically incorrect. It just happens to be the truth—at least in this day and time. But the struggle is ongoing, and the war is not over.

Ask any kid who has to attend a public school in Midland or Odessa. Racism and the struggle between the races is still very much alive.

Most of those who are part of that white race are not even aware that we have oppressed others. We simply did what we thought best for our own. Most of the time our intent was not malicious. But as is often the case in this world, what is good for one harms another. The implementation of white European lifestyle destroyed or severely altered the way of life of previous occupants of this country.

The people who settled the area had to be a hearty lot—the environment in which they built is hostile by anyone’s definition. The fact that they successfully created an oasis in such an environment is testament to their work ethic, ingenuity, and determination.

And as these white people established their community, I am sure they thought they were providing a better way of life for those of other races and cultures as well. Perhaps they were. But this is a question that will be up for debate and many answers will not come until the entire story is told.

White Americans believe in our system of government, the rules and laws that create order in our society, and the moral standards under which we live. And we think that other cultures would benefit by implementing these same standards and laws in their own countries and worlds. Not all our ways are bad. We stand in lines and wait our turn. We stop at red lights and let the other guy go until our light turns green. We do provide for the poor of our country. An education and many other services are offered to all who live here. We try to keep our communities clean and sanitary. Few do without food or clothing in this country.

There were those of us that thought we did a service even to the Africans we enslaved—bringing them to this continent to share in a better way of life—that being a slave here was preferable to being a free man and starving to death in Africa. The time came when we invited these people into our communities and gave them equal rights under the law.

American Indians lived very primitive lives. Many white men envisioned that these people could be assimilated peacefully into our culture—to provide a better way of life for them as well as us. But when some resisted our intrusion, we forced our ways upon them. And in the end we slaughtered entire tribes to get our way.

I now see what we are doing in Iraq and the Middle East in similar light. Those who wrote the Project for a New American Century manifesto, (PNAC), envisioned going into other parts of the world and teaching these cultures how to live like we do, under our care and guidance. They are determined that we should shoulder the burden of the rest of the world not only for our own good and protection, but also because they truly believe in the long run it would be best for these other cultures as well. (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc.) These people think it important that the United States of America should maintain and further it’s advantage over the rest of the world for as long as possible, for the good of all.

George W. Bush is one of them.

Unfortunately, many of the Arab worlds do not like our plan. Nor will those south of our border, those in Africa, or those in the Far East. Once again, we are killing people that resist our encroachment, and assimilating those who don’t resist. So far, we have the bigger guns and the greater force.

But history has not been kind to cultures that try to force themselves upon the world. And this story is not over.

In the meantime there are about two hundred thousand souls out in West Texas who think Midland/Odessa is the best place in the world to live and raise their children. And they’re just doing the best they know how.