Texas Justice
Another beautiful dawn, or early morning rather – the sun’s been up for an hour at least. There’s nothing spectacular in Texas – except the vastness maybe – but this morning at the rest stop, everything is so fresh and new, the hills glow in the kiss of first sun, the birds sing their joy, the yellow grasses murmur with the wind in delight.
I am walking around the picnic table structures, searching for an outlet to plug my computer into. As I get closer to the main building that houses the bathrooms, the attendant, a tall white fellow that I assume from his speech must be deaf, approaches me with a question.
Even though the rest stop is full of trucks, cars, and rvs, he knows I come from the peace truck. He says he agrees with me we should bring our troops home and let those people kill each other.
I say they weren’t killing each other before we invaded. I ask him if he knows when the first suicide bomb went off in Afghanistan or Iraq? He tells me he’s not smart enough to know.
I don’t think he’s deaf – I can’t see hearing aides cause his blondish-white hear curls over his ears and falls to his shoulders. But I see his tongue looks deformed and he’s missing lots of teeth.
He appears to doubt my suicide bomb statement, but is thinking about it. He agrees with me again, we should bring our troops home – but what jobs will they have? He complains about his job, $7/hr and his boss having hundreds of millions of dollars, land in North Carolina, oil fields and cattle.
He’s at that point where he says, “what can we do?” I say what do you want to do? There’s SOOOOO much to do.
He says the first thing we should do is get rid of rich people. I agreed wholeheartedly. He says he just wants to be rich enough to not have to work here, scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, picking up after tourists and Texans.
We go our separate ways – I continue to walk around the rest stop taking in the early morning air, he goes back into his office.
Later he comes bursting out the door and catches up with me. He has the answer. We should take all the murderers and rapist out of jail and send them to fight in Iraq and bring home our troops.
I tell him but what about the Iraq people? The Iraq people are just like him & me, and want just what he & I want – they are just like us. He looks at me as if I just said his filthy rich boss who doesn’t care about him, is going to give him a huge raise.
He tells me how ‘they’ drive into the rest stop – he gestures to the road ‘they’ come in – and then mimes ‘them’ praying, bobbing, kneeling, praying some more. And this action makes him not trust ‘them’.
I’m put in mind of the first time I saw Catholics and the crossing and carrying on.
I say so because you don’t understand what they’re doing, you want to kill them? Or allow our troops to kill them?
No no he concedes again.
Well, what we really need is another president like Abraham Lincoln. I ask him if he thinks we’ve got him now.
His eyes start twinkling and his smile widens as he laughs, saying I got it!!!
I am walking around the picnic table structures, searching for an outlet to plug my computer into. As I get closer to the main building that houses the bathrooms, the attendant, a tall white fellow that I assume from his speech must be deaf, approaches me with a question.
Even though the rest stop is full of trucks, cars, and rvs, he knows I come from the peace truck. He says he agrees with me we should bring our troops home and let those people kill each other.
I say they weren’t killing each other before we invaded. I ask him if he knows when the first suicide bomb went off in Afghanistan or Iraq? He tells me he’s not smart enough to know.
I don’t think he’s deaf – I can’t see hearing aides cause his blondish-white hear curls over his ears and falls to his shoulders. But I see his tongue looks deformed and he’s missing lots of teeth.
He appears to doubt my suicide bomb statement, but is thinking about it. He agrees with me again, we should bring our troops home – but what jobs will they have? He complains about his job, $7/hr and his boss having hundreds of millions of dollars, land in North Carolina, oil fields and cattle.
He’s at that point where he says, “what can we do?” I say what do you want to do? There’s SOOOOO much to do.
He says the first thing we should do is get rid of rich people. I agreed wholeheartedly. He says he just wants to be rich enough to not have to work here, scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, picking up after tourists and Texans.
We go our separate ways – I continue to walk around the rest stop taking in the early morning air, he goes back into his office.
Later he comes bursting out the door and catches up with me. He has the answer. We should take all the murderers and rapist out of jail and send them to fight in Iraq and bring home our troops.
I tell him but what about the Iraq people? The Iraq people are just like him & me, and want just what he & I want – they are just like us. He looks at me as if I just said his filthy rich boss who doesn’t care about him, is going to give him a huge raise.
He tells me how ‘they’ drive into the rest stop – he gestures to the road ‘they’ come in – and then mimes ‘them’ praying, bobbing, kneeling, praying some more. And this action makes him not trust ‘them’.
I’m put in mind of the first time I saw Catholics and the crossing and carrying on.
I say so because you don’t understand what they’re doing, you want to kill them? Or allow our troops to kill them?
No no he concedes again.
Well, what we really need is another president like Abraham Lincoln. I ask him if he thinks we’ve got him now.
His eyes start twinkling and his smile widens as he laughs, saying I got it!!!
posted by Xan @ 11:46 AM
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