𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐀 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐗𝐄𝐃, 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐄, 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐉𝐔𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐘𝐀'𝐒 "𝐄𝐋 𝐑𝐑𝐔𝐍 𝐑𝐑𝐔𝐍"

                                                         

Clockwise from upper left: Margarita Zamora, Art Trevino, Juanito Cowen and Pete Cardenas

                             

There are things that break bones and there are things that break spirits. And sometimes, the latter is no larger than the hole in a forgotten stretch of pavement behind a fast-food restaurant, on land that, by the reckoning of the gods of paperwork, belongs not to the people, but to a merchant consortium.

And yet—here begins our story.

One April morning, while the city slouched into the heat with the sighs of the old and the indifference of the young, a declaration emerged, loud and proud from the digitized agora. A man, let us call him Treviño, the Drive-Thru, for such was his boastful style, took upon himself the mantle of savior, as so many apparatchiks and petty nobles have done through the long annals of provincial corruption.

“There is a hole,” he proclaimed. “And I shall fill it.”

Not his land. Not his jurisdiction. Not his responsibility. But that is precisely what makes such declarations dangerous in the Republic of Texas: they are not lies, but pretexts.

Weeks passed. And lo! By June, the gods of asphalt and gravel, disguised in fluorescent vests and burdened with shovels, descended upon the pothole. These were no private contractors. These were men of the City of Brownsville, emissaries of public labor, emissaries of us all. They entered the sacred commercial domain behind McDonald's, bearing the banners not of retail, but of municipal authority.

But the street, O naïve citizen, was no city street. A sign, ancient by the fast-disappearing standards of local memory, declared in cold letters that the road was privately owned, not maintained by the City, not to be paid for by taxpayer obligation.

Yet, they crossed it.

And soon came the tributes and self-congratulations! . A video surfaced, cheerful, triumphant, with Commissioner Pete, stalwart son of the system, and Commissioner Linda, handmaiden of this small empire, singing praises to the laborers and the deed. And behind them, silent but smiling, stood Treviño himself, that tireless peddler of influence, glowing with the joy of a plan fulfilled.

They called it a victory.

But victories have a cost. And truths have a stench. The bond between Treviño and Commissioner Pete was no secret to those who had eyes, who remembered the two boys as schoolmates in the cloistered halls of St. Joseph’s Academy, now men of shared ambition, businessmen, family-men, loyal to the twin cities of Brownsville and Matamoros, two faces of the same coin, minted in the foundries of power.

It so happened that Commissioner Pete was locked in an electoral duel with a challenger named Zamora, Margarita to be precise, a woman who dared speak of potholes not as metaphors, but as grievances of the people. And what more damning evidence of Pete’s resolve could he offer than the healing of a wound in the street?

Let it be said plainly: the pothole was mended just in time for the vote.

He won, of course, the pothole mender, the private property fixer.

And when the dust had settled and the tar had cooled, a chorus rose from within the bureaucratic Kremlin of Brownsville: “RIP to McDonald’s & Academy’s Pothole!” And thanks were offered, grotesquely, to Helen “Overpaid” Ramirez, City Manager and keeper of the city’s inscrutable ledgers and lengthy agendas.

But whispers began to spread. What law had permitted the City’s labor to be expended on private land? Who had signed the order? Was there a vote? Was there a payment? Was there... anything?

A voice emerged from the higher caste of developers, one Reba Cardenas McNair, who confirmed what all already knew: the land is private, belonging to commerce, not the city, not the people.

Cardenas, the Commissioner, offered only vague riddles: “We looked at some easements,” he said. “We talked to the owner.”

And that was that.

The Mayor, the stoic Juanito Cowen, who had aligned himself with Margarita Zamora in a lost election, admitted what could no longer be denied: there was no leak. No great danger. Only a hole, into which the City had poured not merely asphalt, but also trust, law, and the dignity of its laborers. He claimed it was done for “public safety.” He said he would ask the developer to pay. He would ask. LOL!

But had PUB issued an order? Where was the paper trail? The logic? The justice?

Now the people murmur.

A precedent, once laid down, is a rail that leads only in one direction. If this, then why not others? Why not every plaza, every mall, every benefactor of campaigns and graduates of elite academies?

And Treviño? He struts now across his social platform as a self-anointed tribune of the masses. “They all follow my page,” he boasts. Perhaps they do. But to follow is not to believe.

So we are left with the image of a hole—not in the pavement, but in the covenant between citizen and state. And it is not the first and it will not be the last.

For in the Republic of Texas, there are no small acts of corruption, only small people who suffer them.