Politics

Men Arrive To Take Country Back From People Who Were At Work

The country was reportedly reclaimed for about ninety minutes on Saturday. Nobody who was working that day noticed the change in management.

EL PASO, Texas - The men who marched through Washington on Saturday to take their country back did not specify from whom, but the general shape of the answer is people like my uncle Rodrigo, who runs a welding shop on Mesa Street and who spent Saturday welding.

I called Rodrigo to tell him that four hundred masked men had reclaimed the country. He asked whether that meant somebody else was going to finish the trailer hitch by Tuesday. I said it did not. He said the reclamation sounded incomplete and went back to work.

"If they want the country so bad, they can have my route Monday. Forty-one stops. It starts at four." Marisol Reyes, delivery driver, cousin

The Replacement, Reviewed Locally

The marchers believe they are being replaced. I ran the theory past the block. My cousin Manny, who fixed three trucks before noon on the Fourth of July, said that nobody has ever attempted to replace him, including on holidays, including when he asked.

My grandmother's assessment, offered unprompted, was that men who love their country show their faces doing something for it. She then provided examples: teachers, linemen, the man who opens the panaderia at five, and every soldier in every photograph in her hallway, faces visible, names sewn on.

The Asymmetry

Here is the part the national frame misses. The marchers walked between two train stations and went home. That is the entire deliverable. Meanwhile, the people they marched about picked crops, cleared plates, hung drywall, staffed the holiday ER shift, and drove the buses the marchers did not take. One side of this arrangement is carrying the country. The other side is carrying shields.

Editor's note: The deadpan competition between Kyle Saunders and Tomas Reyes is now tied. Kyle has requested a review. The judging criteria remain disputed.