By Grant McGee
He lived across the street from me in Bisbee, an Arizona
town just a rifle shot from the Mexican border.
Mack, The Border Patrol agent.
Mack’s license plate on his pickup was a vanity plate: “BIG TXN.”
“So you used to work at the Big Texan in Amarillo?” I yelled
across the street to him one day, the first words I ever spoke to Mack.
He turned and stood there for a few moments.
“Hunh?” he said.
“I see your license plate, I figured it had something to do
with that restaurant in Amarillo where if you can eat the big-ass steak in an
hour it’s free.”
“Naw,” he said, “I’m from Houston. I got that plate ‘cos I’m from Texas and I’m
6-foot-5.”
I walked across the street and introduced myself.
“Yeah,” he said, “I just transferred here from Del Rio. Del Rio’s too hot for me.”
“How hot does it get?” I asked.
“Oh I ain’t talking about the heat, I’m talking about all
the tonks trying to get across the border.”
“Tonks?” I asked. “You
mean lots of Chinese?”
“Chinese?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I
heard lots of Chinese try to make it across the border.”
I just figured ‘tonks’ must’ve been Border Patrol slang for
Chinese.
Mack laughed.
“Yeah, there’s Chinese,” he said, “But tonks is what we call
illegals.”
“Where’d that name come from?” I asked.
Mack opened up the door to his F-150 and pulled out his long
black high-beamed flashlight.
“’Tonk’ is the sound this makes when you hit an illegal on
the head with it.”
Mack demonstrated by smacking the flashlight into the palm
of his hand over and over.
Tonk. Tonk. Tonk.
“I see,” I said.
Over time I’d have conversations with Mack about his border
work.
One day while I was out working in my yard he came skidding
to the front of his place, got out and slammed the door.
“Bad day Mack?” I hollered across the way.
Mack spun around and stared at me for a moment. Then he motioned for me to come across the
street.
I moseyed on over. By
this time Mack was standing at the back of his pickup. He pointed to his license plate. In between “BIG” and “TXN” someone had taken
a Sharpie and written “DUMB.”
“Well who would’ve done that?” I asked.
“Some of the jerks at work,” he said.
“So you gonna report that to your boss?” I asked.
“Hell, you don’t report shit like this to your boss, then
everyone will think you’re a pussy. I’ll
take care of this, I know who did this.”
Another day I was leaving for work when I saw Mack across
the street.
“What kind of adventures have you had with The Border Patrol
of late?” I yelled across the street.
“Aw, we had a big incident but I can’t tell you about it,”
said Mack. “I’m one of a few that stand between
you and hordes of illegals who wait for nightfall to literally invade our
country. Let me just tell you this, if
you Liberals knew what people tried to get across our border you’d be singing a
different tune about peace and love and all that stuff.”
“Me? A Liberal?” I
said with a smile. “Where do you get
that idea?”
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well, it
must be a duck, that’s what my daddy always said.”
“Hell Mack,” I said. “When
it comes to politics I just want to see people do the right thing.”
“What’s ‘the right thing’?”
“The right thing,” I said.
I smiled and waved, got in my car and went on to work.
Weeks later I came home from work to see Mack’s pickemup
truck in front of his place. There was a
U-Haul trailer hooked on to his F-150.
I walked over.
“You missed all the fun,” said Mack. “I’m finished loading now.”
“Wow,” I said. “Just
like that, you’re moving.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I
been transferred to Ajo.”
“Dang,” I said. “I’ve
been there. There’s NOTHING there. Oh wait, are they transferring you ‘cos you
kicked someone’s ass at work?”
Mack laughed.
“I can’t say,” he said.
“Official U.S. Government business.”
And with that Mack and I shook hands and he drove off into
the sunset.
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