Some Jalapenas A Six pack Of Lone Star And Thou

Just another Holiday Inn Friday night in Harlingen, Texas. Downstairs in the El Cid Lounge, Dapper Bobby Denisio chinks his way through “Honey” on jaundiced Steinway keys as travelnumbed citrus buyers and Margaritagiddied steno queans evanesce in the dim. At one a.m. the El Cid will shut the bar and the last local television station will sign off following some creep’s attempt to get every insomniac in the Valley hot for Ezekiel 26:20. Upstairs in Room 216, however, the night is yet moist from the womb.

“Man, I just love sittin’ back and watchin’ everybody get fucked up like this,” Johnny Rodriguez smiles at a -glass of Texas ratio Smirnoff and soda. Across the room stands Andy Anderson in a $150 Nudie shirt, sucking into his «th drink of the evening. Andy has composed songs for such Texas crooners as Gene Autry and Spade Cooley and stunt-ridden in just about every fifties B Western to hit the screen. Earlier tonight he had come in from nearby McAllen to accept^ a Western Hall of Fame Award from Johnny during the half-time entertainment segment of the Rio Grande (make sure you voice that e, glitter fag) Valley Rodeo. Sitting on a coffee table, road manager Phil Jones chisels out a conversation with two Corpus Christi girls who had travelled down for just such an experience. A jeweler from Arizona and his wife, her spine straining under the $850 Edsel of Mexican silver and turquoise that hangs from her neck, listen raptly to some crasher pretending to be national rodeo star Larry Mahan tell about his toughest rides. Les the gofer, pianist Rick Durrett (formerly of Pacific Gas & Electric) and yours truly are trying to horn in on Esmeralda, a Mexican girl who had shipped her labia into town for a penile how-ye-do from Johnny Rod. Someone named Red just sort of stands there telling no one in particular about the best goddam nigger to ever play high school football in the entire goddam state of Texas. Roy, a representative from Miller Boots assigned to present Johnny with a $300 pair/of anteater skin pointy-toes, floats in grasping a half-empty fifth of Canadian Club. A short, sweaty guy conceals himself alternately with trying to tune in country station KSOX and pleading with room service for some munchies. Yolande, the best looker in the room, quietly sips Jack Daniel’s, secure in the knowledge that hers will be the softness chosen to scrunch the tubesteak of the star later this evening.