Draft induction, Vietnam War

NICKEL-PLATED ANGELS

The first time I saw Terry Hawkins, he proudly wore cowboy boots, blue jeans, a broad leather belt, a snap-button brown plaid cowboy shirt and a sweat-stained cowboy hat. He had eyes as blue as the Florida sky and a thatch of red hair like the top of a palm tree. He had a thin, sinewy form as a young farmhand should have had, so I perceived he was a true cowboy, even though we were in Florida.

Many people don’t know this, but the interior of Florida has a thriving cattle industry, both dairy and beef. In fact, Muddy Flats, Florida, was the center of a ranching community: 50,000 cattle and 10,000 people.

However, when I met Terry he was leaving his familiar range and heading for Miami, Florida, a place that rarely saw the likes of him. We had both boarded a Greyhound bus with tickets provided by the Selective Service Administration, otherwise known as the draft board. The year was 1968; the Vietnam War was at the height of its carnage.

Why was I in Muddy Flats? Three days before my student deferment expired, I had been hired to teach there, which qualified me for another deferment – teaching in a disadvantaged area. I had called my draft board immediately and was told to fill out the appropriate paperwork, which they would send me.

Before that paperwork could be processed, I received a notice to report for a draft physical in Jacksonville in September. I applied for a change to the draft center in Miami since Muddy Flats was closer to Miami. In October I received a second notice to report for a physical, in Miami in November.

On the appointed morning, my wife drove me to the Greyhound Bus Terminal; I showed the draft summons and was given a ticket. Carrying my small overnight bag, I boarded the bus for Miami and sat in a seat next to a window. I pulled out the paperback book I was reading, Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain, and settled in for the ride.

A few minutes later, a thin, muscular redhead in a cowboy hat stumbled on board and announced, “I’m going to Miami for the military exam. Where’s the other guy from Muddy Flats?”

I raised my hand. He came over, tossed his bag onto the luggage rack and plopped down beside me and offered his hand. “Terry Hawkins.” As soon as he said that, the bus with a roar pulled away from the station.

Although I could smell beer on his breath, I shook his hand. “Mike Stanover.”

He said, “I’m glad you’re not a nigger. I was afraid you’d be a nigger.”

Inside I cringed. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of my heroes, but I restrained myself since I would be riding next to the bigot for at least three hours.

“I knew you weren’t no spic ‘cause of your name.”

“I gather you don’t like Mexicans or Blacks.”

“I don’t. We’d be better off without ‘em. Don’t care for foreigners neither. Hate anyone that don’t speak English.”

“Miami’s got a lot of all of those.” My wife was an immigrant, half-Dutch, half-Latina. She spoke four languages.

“Hate Miami. Hate cities in general.”

“How much education do you have?”

“Dropped out of high school. Can’t stand college educated people. Hate teachers.”

“You work on a farm?”

“Ranch. Herd cattle. Fix fences. What do you do?”

“I teach at the high school.”

“Damn. Guess I stuck my foot in, didn’t I?”

“I’m college educated. Do you hate me?”

“Maybe not.”

“Did you get a draft notice?”

“Yeah, but I volunteered. The Marines.”

“That’s tough. You ready?”

“Yeah, I want it tough.”

“You’ll see plenty of fighting.”

“That’s what I want.”

“I’m just going for the draft physical. What made you decide to volunteer?”

“Want to fight for my country. Besides, I was getting drafted anyway.”

“You like Vietnamese?”

“Hate Gooks.”

“Do you know where Vietnam is?”

“Nope. Never been there.”

“From here, it’s close to halfway around the world.”

“Can’t grab that.”

“Do you know why we’re fighting?”

“Never thought about it. If I’m needed, I’m going.”

Before we finished our chat, Terry ran through all the groups that he hated a couple more times. The list seemed to include everyone on earth who wasn’t just like him. Then he decided to take a nap. Before that he asked about the book I had in my hands. “What’re you reading?”

“Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain.”

“Mark Twain? I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s most famous for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.”

“Heard of them, too.” Then he pulled his hat down over his eyes and napped.

By the light of the window, I finally read the first letter that Satan wrote to God about the planet Earth’s inhabitants:

"This is a strange place, an extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is sort of a low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'”

I glanced at Terry snoozing beside me. He was a piece of work. Did he have any realization that by going to ‘Nam that he was defending all the diversity that he despised?

He slept almost all the way to Miami and snored on and off. I nudged him awake as the bus stopped in front of a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard. “Hey, Terry, we’re here.”

He blustered awake, grabbed his bag and stumbled off onto the hot, humid, hard sidewalks of Miami. I followed him.

“Damn big buildings around here. I guess they got elevators.”

“Sure. Let’s go register.”

The lobby was huge, the size of a basketball court, with couches and chairs spread around over a red carpet. The lobby bubbled noisily with young men like us who were there for either a draft assessment physical or an induction physical. I led Terry to the front desk and handed my summons to the clerk, a short young Latina. Terry handed his over, too.

“Yes, Mr. Stanover, you are in Room 406. Mr. Hawkins, you are also in Room 406. Go right there and you’ll see an elevator on the right. You can take that to the fourth floor.”

“Damn, Mike, I guess they figured since we’re from the same town, they made us roomies.”

“Looks like it.” He wouldn’t have been my choice of roommate, but I could see the logic of it since we came from a small town. Neither the marines nor the army would have any idea that we had never met before that day, or that Terry was an uneducated redneck cowboy and long-time resident of the community whereas I was a college-educated newcomer, just the kind of person Terry hated.

Before we had taken a step, an amplified voice behind us shouted. “All candidates for draft or enlistment, pay attention.”

We turned toward the voice. An army sergeant stood with a bullhorn. “Supper will be served at six o’clock until seven o’clock in the restaurant behind me. You will have a choice of three main courses. You must be on time. If you are late or if you don’t like any of the choices on the menu, then you must pay for your own supper.

“After supper your time is your own, but I suggest that you get to sleep in your rooms by ten o’clock because breakfast will be served at six o’clock in the morning. Bring all your gear with you to breakfast. If you miss breakfast, you’ll be very hungry the rest of the day because the examination process with take until the afternoon. Once in the examination building, you will not be allowed to leave.

“You are now dismissed until supper.”

Some guys went to the sergeant and asked questions, but Terry and I wanted to go to our room. We found the elevator doors and pushed the button and waited as the elevator rattled down to us.

When the door opened, before us stood a stout, bespectacled, middle-aged Latino in black pants, white shirt and a red vest. The elevator was the old-fashioned kind with an operator. The operator nodded to us. We got in and I said, “Fourth Floor” and held up four fingers. The doors closed and the box began rising.

Addressing the elevator operator, Terry said, “Does this joint have a lounge?” The operator said nothing.

“Hey,” Terry said louder, “I’m talking to you.” He poked the man’s arm with his finger.

With a puzzled look, the man turned to look at Terry.

“What’s a matter? Don’t you speak English?”

“No hablo ingles.”

Glaring at the man, Terry fluttered his fingers around his throat and trilled a long guttural “r” that sounded like a dog growling. “r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.” That performance was his imitation of Spanish articulation.

I cringed again. I knew that a lot of the early refugees from Castro’s dictatorship had been professionals – doctors, lawyers, professors – in Cuba, but because of the language barrier, they couldn’t practice their professions in the United States, so they had taken any jobs available to them in order to support their families until they learned enough English and retrained themselves to pass the bars in a much different system. I suspected that the poor elevator operator might have been one of those; he seemed gentlemanly. If so, he was much more highly educated and cultured than the redneck clown who was humiliating him.

Mercifully, the doors opened onto the fourth floor. I stepped out and barked, “Come on, Terry. Leave the poor guy alone.”

Terry stepped out but yelled into the shutting doors, “Learn English, you spic bastard!”

I said, “He’s not Mexican. He’s Cuban. He fled Communism for the freedom in America. Give him a break. He’s just trying to earn a living.”

“If they come to this county, they outta [ought to] learn English.”

Our room had two beds and overlooked the boulevard and Biscayne Bay. I went onto the balcony to admire the view and saw that our balcony was joined with the room north of ours. The two inhabitants of that room were already out on the balcony: a tall one leaning on the railing, a short, thin one slouched in a chair. They said hello, so I went over to meet them.

“Hi, Mike Stanover. Are you guys part of the draft physical?”

“Sure,” said a tall brunette. “Name’s Dane Michaels.”

I shook his hand. “Drafted?”

“No, actually, I graduated from college and lost my deferment, so I joined the Air Force. I figured that’d be better than the army.”

“Wise move.”

Dane’s roommate was a scrawny dishwater blond. He said, “Doug Rivers. I’m drafted. I’m screwed. I’m hoping to fail the test. Haven’t eaten anything much for two weeks. Some guys pack in food to go over the weight limit. I figured I was too skinny to do that, so I’m trying to go the other way.”

“How’s that going?”

“Can’t say, but I’m hungry as hell and have lost seven pounds. Could eat a whole cow if I let myself.”

“Are you eating tonight?”

“I’ll eat and drink enough to keep me alive, but I want to be as weak as I can be by tomorrow.”

Terry came out onto the balcony. I said, “Let me introduce my roommate. Fellows, this is Terry Hawkins. He’s volunteered for the marines.”

In unison, the two from Room 404 said, “Ouch.”

Terry came over, shook hands, and introductions went around again. We all got chairs from our rooms, pulled them up so we could put our feet up, smoked cigarettes and talked about the war that was tearing the country apart. No one was crazy about the war, but we all agreed that the one thing we wouldn’t do was flee the country.

Terry remained quiet until Doug said, “So, Terry, what’re you going to do?”

“After dinner, I’m going to get drunk as hell and party like this is my last day on earth.”

“The marines are a tough outfit.”

“Well, if you’re gonna fight, you gotta fight with the best.”

Dinner was bland but filling. Dane and Terry and I cleaned our plates. Doug ate a couple bites of his steak and one small dinner roll and washed it down with water. The sergeant that we had seen with the bullhorn earlier came over and said, “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you eating?”

Doug smiled and said, “Guess I’m a little nervous. That always makes me queasy.”

“Well, get as much down as you can.”

“Maybe I’ll be hungrier at breakfast.”

When the sergeant turned to walk around other tables, we other three grabbed some of Doug’s food and put it on our plate and ate it.

When the sergeant came back around, he glanced at Doug’s plate and said, “That’s more like it.”

We returned to the balcony and decided to walk around downtown and get a beer somewhere. With his cowboy outfit, Terry was the oddball in the group; the rest of us could have arrived from any suburb in any city.

We hadn’t gone more than two and a half blocks when we saw a neon sign announcing “Bar.” We pushed the door open and went inside the narrow front into a dimly lit, smoky, alcohol-infused atmosphere. At the back of the bar came the clink of billiard balls.

We lined up along the counter and ordered beer, although Doug said, “I’m only drinking half; one of you can have the rest.” Then Terry ordered a shot of whisky, threw it down and blurted, “Who-o-o-wee!” loud enough so the seasoned bartender, who could sense trouble, gave him a quick glance.

Dane said, “Let’s sit over there.”

We followed him to a small square table and sat and sipped our beers, all except Terry, who stood at the bar and ordered another shot of whisky.

Dane said, “I don’t think Terry’s as gung ho about joining the marines as he pretends to be.”

Doug agreed. “Yeah, he seems to be washing that decision down with a lot of liquid courage.”

Terry strutted over and leaned down over my shoulder. “Mike, I want you to know that you’re the first college-educated person I ever liked.”

“Thanks. I’m glad to hear that.”

He straightened up. “I can’t sit when I’m drinking. Think I’ll play some pool. You guys want to play?”

Dane said, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m just going to drink this one beer and then head back to the hotel. It’s already nearly nine. We’re supposed to be in our rooms by ten.”

“Me, too,” said Doug.

“I think that’s the wise thing to do,” I added.

“Screw that,” said Terry and turned to wander to the back of the bar where the pool players smoked, drank and sent the wooden balls skittering around the green felt-covered tables.

Dane, Doug and I chatted about girls; I said I was married, and Dane said, “I’m getting married after my stint is over. We’re engaged.” Doug said, “I had a steady, but when I got drafted, I thought, why tie myself down until I get out. So we broke up. Then she told me she was pregnant. I said to get an abortion. She said she didn’t believe in it. So I said that if I made it through the war, I’d come back and see if we still cared about each other. She didn’t like that and told me to go to hell. I guess that’s where I’m going unless the skinny thing works.”

We finished our beers and sat there chatting and smoking when we heard Terry’s voice rise. “Goddamn motherfuckers!”

The bartender leaned over the bar and in a cautioning tone said, “Hey, fellows, you better calm your buddy down or I’m calling the cops.”

I rose and strode back to the pool tables where Terry strutted around like a fighting cock, his hat pushed back on his head. “Hey, Terry, what’s going on?”

Three guys, gripping their pool cues like pikes, stood together on the opposite side of the table. The tallest one said in a Southern drawl, “Y’all’s friend there is crazy.”

“This motherfucker is from Alabama. I can’t stand anybody from Alabama,” Terry growled.

“Well, you need to calm down. The bartender’s fixing to call the cops on you. You want to spend the night in jail?”

He pointed his finger at the tall one who had spoken. “I ain’t afraid of you.”

The tall one said, “Can’t y’all get him outta here? We don’t want no trouble.”

I said, “Terry, we’re going. If you want to fight, you’re going to have to take on these guys by yourself. Let’s go.”

He slowly backed away and followed me out. The bartender nodded thanks to me as the door closed behind us. Dane and Doug were already standing outside as Terry stumbled out into the garishly lit street. Dane said, “I can’t believe you talked him into coming.”

“He likes me, remember.”

Doug said, “But he likes whisky more.”

And to emphasize the point, Terry loudly launched himself into a couple strolling down the street. His tirade was unintelligible, but the couple winced and detoured around him. We three others crossed the street as if we didn’t know him.

He yelled after us, “Come on! Stay out and party!”

We waved goodbye, ignored his pleas, and kept walking.

Before Dane, Doug and I retired, we had one more smoke on the balcony.

When I fell asleep, the other bed in the room remained empty.

But I was roused from that sleep by a bumping noise and woke to see Terry stumbling into the room. I sat up and realized that all Terry had on were his jeans. Cowboy hat, boots, belt, and shirt – all were gone.

I said, “What happened to you?”

He mumbled, “I met a hooker. She took everything.”

“Money, too?”

“What I’m wearing is all I got.”

“Well, try to get some sleep.” I glanced at the room clock, which indicated 4:02. “They’ll be waking us in an hour.”

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be ok.”

I turned over and did just that, but at five the phone rang and I staggered up to get it. A woman’s voice said, “Five o’clock wake up call.”

I hung up and looked around. Terry’s bed hadn’t been slept in but it was missing a pillow. I heard the shower running. As I walked toward the bathroom, I saw the broken shards of a water glass on the carpet next to Terry’s bed. I looked in the bathroom and there lay naked Terry asleep in the shower, curled in a fetal position, a water-soaked pillow cushioning his head, the falling water splashing on his body, his foot dribbling blood. “Jesus!” I said and walked over and turned off the shower.

I shook him awake. “Hey, Terry, get up. It’s time to go to breakfast. Can you make it?”

He slowly raised himself, hobbled to his bed and fell on it and began snoring.

After picking up the broken glass, I took a quick shower, dressed and went over to shake Terry awake again. He mumbled, “Go on down. I’ll be down soon.”

Then the phone rang again. This time the sergeant’s voice, with a hint of anger, said, “Who’s this?”

“Mike Stanover.”

“Well, mister, you’re in big trouble for calling in the middle of the night and cursing the operator.”

“Ah . . . that wasn’t me.”

“The call was from your room.”

“It was probably from my roommate. He came in late and drunk. I was asleep all night.”

“Oh, what’s his name?”

“Terry Hawkins.”

“Put him on the phone.”

“He’s passed out on his bed.”

“Ok, just leave him be and come on down.”

I left Terry be and met Dane and Doug in the hallway. We rode down together. The operator wasn’t on duty that early, and his red vest hung on a peg in the cab.

Dane asked, “Did Terry make it in?”

“About four this morning. Drunk as a skunk and wearing only his jeans. Some hooker took everything else he had.”

Doug said, “If I were in his shoes, I might’ve gotten drunk, too.”

The lobby was bustling with sleepy young recruits and draftees, so we went over to the steps of the restaurant, whose doors were locked, and sat there.

Twenty minutes later, we heard the elevator open and the patter of bare feet. Around the corner staggered Terry in his jeans and the red vest of the elevator operator. He saw us and ran in our direction, tried to leap a couch, caught his foot, and executed a pratfall onto the red carpet. The crowd hushed, but he staggered up and made it over to the steps and sat next to me, said “Morning’, guys,” fell backward and began snoring again. His nose was bleeding slightly.

Dane said, “He does like you.”

We three laughed.

When the doors behind us were unlocked and opened, we rose and went in to breakfast, leaving Terry be on the steps where he slept. Doug took a couple bites of egg and ate a biscuit, but this time Dane and I scooped his food onto our plates before the sergeant made his rounds.

However, the sergeant never made the rounds. He and a corporal were stopped by Terry’s body spread on the steps, lifted him up, dragged him into the restaurant, sat him in a chair at an empty table, brought over a pitcher of coffee and began forcing the hot liquid into him.

After breakfast we boarded the bus for the testing center. A lieutenant came aboard and took roll, calling out our names to which we each shouted “Here!’ or “Present!” He called, “Terry Hawkins!” No answer. “Terry Hawkins!” He scanned the faces of the seated youth. Dane, Doug and I all raised a finger and pointed back toward the restaurant where the sergeant was still pouring coffee into our “buddy.” The lieutenant said, “Oh” made a mark on his sheet, finished calling the roll, and told the driver. “Ok, that’s it. Take ‘em away.”

The testing took until early afternoon. First was a paper exam testing knowledge and aptitude to see if we had the mental where-with-all to become soldiers. We had finished that and were waiting for the physical testing when Terry showed up escorted by two MPs in white helmets. A marine sergeant came out and took him into a private room for testing. He hadn’t seen us sitting at the rear of the hall.

The physical tests were to determine if we were strong enough, and could see and hear well enough, and were coordinated enough to be a soldier. I passed everything and my card was stamped temporarily1-A.

Dane and Doug passed, too – all 1-A material for slaughter. Doug grumbled about body-mass ratios.

I saw only one happy face among us tested: an obese boy who both wept and laughed as he received his 4-F status. Many of the others gave him a thumbs up and a thin boyish voice yelled out of the crowd, “You lucky son-of-a-bitch!”

Then we were loaded back onto the bus, which was going to drop us at the Greyhound terminal. Outside, a line of straight-backed young men stood proudly waiting next to another bus that had “Marines” painted on its side. Then we saw barefoot, shirtless Terry escorted by the marine sergeant, who was giving him an earful about being a marine and how he, Terry, was heading to Camp LeJeune just as he was because they would make him into a marine or kill him trying. He left Terry, like some weird end punctuation, at the rear of the line of Marines.

Our driver got in, closed the doors and revved the engine of the bus. Terry looked over and saw me looking at him from the window of the bus. He grinned and waved. I saluted him and mouthed, “Good luck.”

Our bus pulled out and that’s the last I saw of Terry Hawkins. I knew he wouldn’t have it easy in the military service as diverse as it was. All of us had had our lives detoured by the war; for years none of us would be doing what we had planned for our lives. I have often wondered if Terry Hawkins made it through the war, or if I would find his name on the black wall in Washington, D.C., among all the peoples he hated.

END

Of all my high school buddies, only one went to Vietnam.  He had been a hellraiser in high school and joined the Green Berets.  He was wounded seven times and returned to combat after recovering each time.  After he returned home, he spent a year surfing up and down the coast and doing drugs.  After that year, he had a religious experience and became a Christian preacher.  I lost track of him at that time, but I hope he's had a good life.
 
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ENCOMIENDA


Chapter 14


Melvin Alcorn seemed pensive, focusing on his driving on the trip to AGG’s eastern camp. I thought that he seemed even younger than he did standing outside, and that the crisis he was about to be involved in would probably be the most crucial and transforming of his brief career. Confronting evil is always bracing. So I began our conversation lightly.

“How long have you been with AGG?”

“Almost three years.”

“Have you always worked in agriculture?”

“More or less. I grew up in a small town in Central Florida. My grandfather had orange groves for many years, so I grew up around farms. My father was an agricultural inspector for the state. However, my degree was in business administration. My first job was with a supermarket chain, but I quickly realized that I wanted to be closer to production than distribution. I wasn’t great with customers. So, I networked a little and found an internship at AGG. Last year, I was hired full salary. That’s when I came to Immokalee.”

“How’s the job going?”

“Not bad, but I have to tell you, I wasn’t really prepared for the squalor that some of the migrants live in. I interned at corporate headquarters in Kansas. This is my first real assignment, so I’m really still learning the ropes.”

“Do you get along with your boss?”

“Al Genepri? Sure. He’s a great guy, but very busy. I sometimes wish he had more time to instruct me. When he does, I always learn something valuable. In fact, he’s in a meeting in Kansas right now. That’s why I’m doing this. Which reminds me, what exactly is going on at the eastern camp?”

“You should be able to tell me that. For instance, what do you think of Joseph Beanland?”

He glanced at me and said, “Well, I can’t say we have a lot in common. In fact, I don’t care for him much at all. He’s crude, tells jokes I don’t appreciate. But his crew seems pretty efficient.”

“No complaints?”

“Well, there was one incident in November last year when a farm worker complained that Beanland was terrorizing him. Beanland came to the office and explained things to Al’s satisfaction. According to the office grapevine, the worker had been harassing some of the women in the camp and Beanland sat on him, literally.”

“Ouch. That’s quite a load.”

He laughed.

We were in the lead vehicle and he turned the caravan onto a gravel road heading roughly east, northeast. The road had been elevated above the swampland, so there were deep water-filled ditches on either side of the road. Beyond the ditches were sabal palms, palmetto brush, scotch pines and waterlogged land. The tires crunched over the gravel and threw up thin dust clouds.

A few miles down the road the truck eased up onto a ridge that flattened out for a hundred yards and extended northward for hundreds of yards and in the middle of the ridge was the camp, at which the road ended. The truck skidded to a halt, the dust settled and we stepped out.

A ten-foot-high chain-link fence ran from one ditch to the other. A gate was in the center of the fence. Centered on the gate were a green triangle and the white letters AGG. A wooden guardhouse sat just inside the gate. I thought, Arbeit Macht Frei.

A skinny, baseball-capped guard carrying a shotgun appeared from inside the guardhouse. He recognized the company truck and unlocked the gate. He said, “Howdy, Mr. Alcorn. Beanland told me he didn’t want anybody coming in and to stay out here. But I guess he didn’t mean you.” The guard was in his fifties, Caucasian, well-worn and nearly used up: missing teeth, unshaved, tufts of hair unruly from the rim of the baseball cap. And when he got close, his smell told a smoker’s unwashed tale.

Alcorn said, “How ya doin’?” However, I could tell that he didn’t remember the guard’s name. This verified Alcorn’s difficulty with customer relations. Front people had to remember customers’ names; they had to love people. It also verified that he hadn’t been to the camp in some time.

“Ok.” The guard nodded at the deputies and looked at me inquiringly.

“Lieutenant Suarez,” Suarez said and showed his badge.

“Hi, name’s Bob Cocker.”

“We’re looking for a couple missing boys. Seen any newly arrived young men around here.”

“Well, Lieutenant, migrants come and go. We get plenty of new ones all the time. I don’t know half the crew anymore. Everybody’s out working now.”

“So you can’t verify that they’re not here?”

“Can’t say ‘yes,’ can’t say ‘no.’”

“Who else is in camp?”

“Just me and an old feller that’s sick.”

I showed the guard the pictures of Nano and Paulie. Cocker looked at them, removed his cap and scratched his head. “All I can tell you is I don’t recognize ‘em. These fellers look a trifle highfalutin to be migrants.” He didn’t seem to be lying, but he also didn’t seem very bright and perceptive. He was just a worn-out old guy who had found a job that would carry him to the end of life. He didn’t know much and didn’t care to know much more. Just the kind of person Beanland could rely on.

Alcorn said, “We’re going to look around. You can stay at your post.”

Cocker looked relieved that his powers of conversation and knowledge would be stretched no further. He pulled a thin pack of Camel cigarettes and a match book from his shirt pocket, extracted one cigarette, flipped the matchbook open – all these practiced physical motions he did very well – struck the match and inhaled the first carcinogenic puffs with great pleasure. I envied his blissful ignorance a bit, but not enough to share his and Suarez’s habit.

Alcorn, the deputies and I turned to the camp. Near the gate was a doublewide mobile home and four smaller trailers around it and two sheds and a pen of some kind behind this cluster. Alcorn indicated that that was where Beanland, the camp cook, the custodian and the guards lived. A rusty, ancient Oldsmobile sat next to the trailer closest to the fence. Beyond was the main camp. It was laid out very precisely in rows of cabins centered on a central building. Eight rows of cabins twenty deep bracketed the central building. One hundred sixty cabins in all. The uniformly white cabins were prefabricated dwellings set up on cinder blocks and anchored to the ground by staked cables. Each had a door and steps in front and two screened windows, one at the back and one on one side. These were always open because the units had no air conditioning.

As we walked down the middle rows, I looked inside. Each cabin was about as large as my bedroom and had two metal bunk beds and four simple, plastic, straight-back chairs and one circular plastic table on a central pedestal. Other furnishings were varied depending on the residents. I did the math: 160 times 4 equals a designed capacity of 640 workers for the workforce. None of the cabins had plumbing.

Plumbing was in the central communal building, which was a concrete block rectangle with three areas: the west end was a kitchen and cafeteria; the central area was a community recreation area with a television, Ping-Pong tables and vinyl couches; the east end held toilets and urinals and showers and wash basins – a dozen of each. I did the math: the 640 residents would take about two hours to cycle through the restroom area at the end of the day if each one spent about ten minutes washing. I imagined that the line at the toilets could get pretty desperate after dinner. However, at the north end of the camp were a row of twelve port-a-johns, so that would relieve the pressure on the toilets.

We walked up and down each row of cabins until we came to one with coughing sounds inside. We peeked in and there was the “old feller,” probably the same age as Cocker. He was unconscious, coughing in a fitful, shivering, feverish sleep. We left him in peace and walked on.

The camp was very secure from both ingress and egress. North, east and west, the camp was surrounded by bogs and swampy land full of reptiles of various sorts. Not an area that any sane person outside of Survivor would want to pass through. South was the supervisor’s compound, fence and gate and guardhouse.

At the end of this trudge, Alcorn said, “I guess the guard is right. Nobody’s home. Are you guys satisfied?”

I said, “Let’s take a tour through the administrative area.”

Alcorn shrugged, “Whatever.”

The trailers surrounding Beanland’s doublewide were uniform, no doubt bought wholesale: one for the cook, one for the custodian and one each for the two guards.

As we approached, we heard the dogs for the first time and that explained the pen we had seen. They must’ve heard and smelled us approaching, so they started growling and barking and howling. None of our scents or voices were familiar to them. We went straight to the snarling, barking dogs: an assortment of six in a three-compartment pen: two Rottweilers in one, two Dobermans in another, one shepherd and a hound in the last. The fence was a ten-foot chain link just like the entry fence. The three doors to the pen were just large enough for a big man to enter. Behind the pen, a small airboat was tied to a tree.

The male Deputy Johnson whistled.

The female Deputy Johnson said, “These dogs are not pets.”

Suarez said, “Guard dogs.”

Alcorn said, “I think it’s Beanland’s hobby.”

I said, “Could we take a look inside the sheds?”

Alcorn hesitated. “Gee . . . I don’t know . . . I’d have to call . . .”

I said, “This is all AGG property, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, technically, but I’m not sure if the sheds are for our stuff or Beanland’s. I’d have to get an attorney’s approval.”

“Nevermind. Let’s go. I’ll ride back with Suarez.”

On the way out I spoke to Bob. “Say, what’re all those dogs for?”

He said, “Them’s Beanland’s.”

“Yeah, I figured that, but what does he use ‘em for.”

“Night patrol.”

“What’s night patrol?”

“You know, after lights out, he lets the dogs out.”

“When’s lights out?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“He lets them all out?”

“Naw. Two at a time. Fer a few hours each. That’s their run time.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Naw. He flashes the lights at the community center at ten. Then he walks to the pen and lets a pair out. Everybody knows to keep their doors closed after that.”

“Thanks. Have a nice day.”

End of Chapter 14
 
Arbeit Macht Frei is German and was the motto at the main gate into Auschwitz, where Eichmann ruled his slaves and victims; in English it reads "Work Shall Make You Free."
 
Neither Dobermans nor Rotweillers are inherently vicious animals.  They must be trained to be guard dogs or attack dogs.  However, they are quite territorial and will not allow strangers into the home area without the permission of the owners.  That they were originally German breeds and used to patrol concentration camps is meaningful.
 
John Steinbeck's masterpiece Grapes of Wrath concerns the migrant stream that left the Dust Bowl for California during the Great Depression.  It's a wonderful treatise on suffering and compassion and righteous anger.
 
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Buck must find two college students Ch.13

ENCOMIENDA

Chapter13



Holding the piece of paper as he sat at his desk, Suarez said, “That’s one of the multinational agribusinesses. They own a lot of prime cropland around here and have several operations. I believe the letters stand for ‘Agricultural Green Grocer’ . . . or maybe it’s ‘American Green Grocer.’ Anyway, they never use the full name anymore. Everyone knows them as A-G-G.”

“Do they have a camp east of town? That’s where Teresa pointed.”

“They might. I’ll call ‘em. By the way, I got feedback on the fat guy. His name’s Joseph Beanland, nickname ‘Chunky.’ Last known address was in Pahokee. His traffic record is fairly clean: one ticket for running a stop sign and one DUI. Only priors are disturbing the peace, illegal fishing, hunting out of season, poaching on a national preserve, and an assault and battery for a bar fight. Seems like a mean, rowdy guy without a whole lot of respect for rules and regulations.”

“And knows how to handle a knife and a gun. How ‘bout his employer?”

“Listed as ‘independent contractor.’ Probably means he’ll do whatever he’s hired to do without compunction.”

“He must be working for AGG.”

“Could be.”

“That would explain Juan and Teresa’s reaction.”

“I’ll call now and ask about that, too.”

While Suarez was on the phone, I made a couple calls, too. One to the office: Neither Caridad nor Ruben had anything additional to report, except that Concepción’s insurer had sent a claims adjuster who would be arriving in Immokalee soon to look at the Samurai. Another to Christian Osceola.

His report was more interesting. He told me which migrant camps had the worst reputations. One was the private camp of a Dan Nichols, but this local farmer had had his stingy, ornery reputation for a long time and so attracted only the most naïve or most desperate workers – winos and bums; besides, his farm was southwest of town. The other two were contracted by AGG. The story there was that AGG itself had no brutal policy, but it was laissez faire in its management of the camps, leaving the details to the private contractors. One camp was north of town, but the other – the newest one – was east. This was its second year of operation. The Mexicans called the foreman ‘El Gordo,’ said he was the meanest crew boss around.

So, when Suarez got off the phone I knew what he would say.

“You’re right,” he said. “AGG has a contract labor camp east of town and the camp is contracted to one Joseph ‘Chunky’ Beanland.”

“Can we go out there now?”

“Sure, but since I have no warrant, we have to wait for an AGG official to accompany us.”

“Can we get a warrant?”

“Not on the basis of your disappearing witnesses. Don’t worry. An AGG guy is on his way here now.”

While we waited for that official, I stepped outside and called the office again and talked to Ruben. “Ruben, call Scotty, see if he can come here today and bring three or four of his guys with him. Tell him that they should come heavily armed and with their firearm licenses and security IDs and night gear and prepared for outdoor work. Call me back when you’ve made arrangements.”

“Sure, Buck. Should I come?”

“No, not necessary. This is more precautionary than essential. Talk to you later.”

I didn’t want Ruben to come because I couldn’t face Luli and the kids if something happened to him, and my belly was telling me that this case was about to take a nasty turn into something evil and brutal. If knives were going to slash and bullets were going to fly, I didn’t want Ruben in the path of any of those deadly metal edges and points.

I also wanted to get Iris to a safe place and make her stay put.

Scotty headed Bulwark Security Operations, a firm based in Fort Lauderdale. His men were the best: physically conditioned, well trained in both unarmed and armed combat, provided with the latest technology and weapons, disciplined and confident. Plus, he was a friend whom I had known since he left Whitehall and moved to the States to start his own security business some dozen years ago. He would honor my request and follow my instructions to the letter.

As I re-entered the station, Suarez was heading out. He had Deputies Johnson and Martha with him. This time I read her tag: surprisingly Johnson also. I said hello to the Deputies Johnson and shook their hands. Suarez said, “They’re coming with us, just in case. A show of force never hurts, with or without a warrant.”

“You and I think quite alike.”

Outside again, we met Melvin Alcorn, an assistant manager for the Immokalee operations of AGG. He looked fresh: white shirt, green tie, black trousers, work boots – all except the boots immaculate. He looked to be in his early thirties, but already a little paunchy, probably spent more time at his desk than in the fields. His brown hair was newly cut and groomed. He smiled a broad smile and asked, “Suarez?”

“That’s me. This is Buck Jaspers. He and the deputies will go with us.”

But Melvin had a question. “Just why is it we’re going out there to the east camp?”

“To see if some missing boys might be out there. We’ve heard they were seen there.”

“I doubt it.”

“How often do you go out there?”

“We’ve got eight camps, Lieutenant.”

“That wasn’t my question. Maybe I should ask when the last time you were out there was.”

“I was out there in October. Everything was in order then.”

“The very beginning of the season. Get in your truck. It’s time to pay a follow-up call.”

I said, “Mr. Alcorn, may I ride out there with you? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Ok, over this way.” I followed him to a white long-cab, pick-up truck displaying on each door a green triangle and the letters AGG in white with shadow.

As we pulled away from the station, I saw Iris running toward us, then stop and wave her arms. I couldn’t hear, but she seemed to be shouting something. I had purposely left her behind because I didn’t know how dangerous this trip could be. She looked angry. I hoped that she didn’t know how to hotwire a car; otherwise, my Z3 might soon be following us.

End of Chapter 13
 
More and more of our food is being grown by multinational agribusiness corporations.  They are very good at producing huge quantities of food and distributing it, but to do so, they use synthetic fertilizers, growth hormones, and pesticides.  So, what exactly are they distributing?  Is it as nutritious as they would like us to believe?  Are we getting more chemicals than is good for us?  Are there any other less dangerous ways to produce such vast amounts of food?
 
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Accident on the poet's road

ACCIDENT: ROBERT FROST EXPRESSWAY

Ironic,

the traffic—

boisterous buses, truculent

trucks, cacophonous cars—

all tumbled together, scrunching

into the tip of an arrow

to pass by—ogling slowly—

the little Japanese

car and the Corvette

bashed together,

and their upwardly

mobile drivers

grimacing in

morning’s

heat and

fumes

on this road

more traveled.

And that!

Up there!

Was that an

avuncular poet’s

face sneering down

from the water-heavy

cumulus

over the city?

June 1987/2010

"Accident: Robert Frost Expressway" was first published in City Magic, 1987. It is a shaped poem, the visual form of which reflects its meaning.  I find it ironic that the author of "The Road Less Traveled" should have a Miami expressway named after him.  When I got tangled in a traffic jam one morning on that same expressway, the poem came to me--I began writing it on a notepad as I sat immersed in the conglomeration of vehicles.
 
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Explosions: Challenger and Hindenburg

APOSTROPHE TO THE GOODYEAR BLIMP

ON BEHALF OF THE CHALLENGER



For us living

The cerulean bay is tacked with silver

As the colly birds ply from their rookery.



Once upon a time,

You were the inspiration

With which our hearts rose.



There was a time

In which, you too, exploded

At the very peak of rightness.



Now you’ve got that eye

For spectacle and catastrophe,

A wanderer among the winds.



You’re a silvered man

In aviation, wise and alive,

In your cool uses.



Pray for your baby.

Let her be worthy

Of the phoenix

And the unicorn.



January 1986

"Apostrophe to the Goodyear Blimp on Behalf of the Challenger" was first published in City Magic, 1987.  Shortly after the Challenger explosion, I was sitting on my balcony when the Goodyear blimp passed by.  It had been covering a sporting event in Miami.  My mind made the connection between it and the space shuttle; thus, the poem.

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Buck must save two colllege students Ch.12

ENCOMIENDA


Chapter 12


My cell phone rang as Iris and I were leaving the motel room for breakfast the next morning. I answered. A female voice said, “Es usted el hombre que buscara los dos muchachos?”

“Sí, soy él.”

“Yo les vi.”

“Donde?”

“Tiene los cinquecientos dolares?”

“Sí.”

“Traigame el dinero y le decira.”

I agreed to meet her at a Mexican cafe in Immokalee.

On the way there, I called Lieutenant Suarez. “I got a bite on the flyers I spread yesterday. I’m going to meet her at the Caballero restaurant. Can you back me up?”

“Ok. I guess it’s huevos rancheros for breakfast. Give me a half hour.”

“If the info’s good, I’ll buy breakfast. Also, can you locate a homeless wino named James ‘Crickets’ Goodson? He’s done time for burglary and maybe some other things.”

“Ok, I’ll have a clerk look him up, and we’ll see what we got.”

Iris and I got there first to a one-story converted stucco house with a sign overhead announcing El Caballero, a green and red awning stretching the length of the house/restaurant and signs in the windows publicizing American and Mexican beers. I parked on the dusty street, told Iris to wait in the car and walked in bright sunlight toward the building.

Two figures stepped out of the shadow of the awning and stood in front of me. I squinted at them and shaded my eyes with my hand: one male, one female, Mexican, their bodies seemed young, but their Indian faces were hard and lined. The male wore a white T-shirt, blue cotton trousers, work boots and a baseball cap. The woman wore brown trousers, a denim shirt and tennis shoes. Her black hair was tied back in a ponytail. In her hands she gripped tightly one of the flyers I had spread around. Their eyes bore into me like little obsidian blades.

The woman said with a voice I recognized from the telephone, “¿Es usted el hombre . . .?”

“Sí, sí. Yo soy el hombre.”

“¿Tiene el dinero?”

“No estoy loco, sabe. Primero, tengo que estar satisfecho que su información es la verdad.”

The woman looked at the man with pleading eyes, but he remained silent and impassive.

Then I saw their eyes widen just before I heard a vehicle pull up and stop on the street behind us. They stepped back into the shadows and the woman dropped the flyer to the ground. I turned around. A large black Ford truck was idling in the street; a fishing pole and a shotgun rested in the rack on the rear cab window.

A huge white man got down from the cab and slammed the door and walked around, so he was facing us. A light blue jumpsuit barely encompassed his rolling flesh. A broad-brimmed straw hat rested on his broad scalp and muddy work boots held in his fat feet. I estimated his height, six feet four inches, and his weight, three hundred fifty pounds. His meaty, sunburned arms hung by his side. He was chewing as his tin-can eyes assessed me. A chill coursed over my body; I saw no human empathy in his eyes.

Then he looked past me into the shadow of the awning. “Juan, Teresa, I been wondrin’ when you were comin’ back to work. Come on. Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”

Teresa and Juan didn’t move. I said, “Excuse me, but we were talking. If they have to go to work, I can take them in a few minutes.”

He smiled, but the smile was insincere. “Well, we need ‘em to get to work now. Ain’t got all day. Vamos, Juan.”

“I told you I’d bring them in a moment. We’re discussing business here.”

He glared at me. “Bidness? What the hell kinda bidness you got wid ‘em? Who are you anyway?” He stepped forward. His hands rolled into fists and curled out again. “Look, mister. I ain’t got no truck wid you, so just min’ your own damn bidness. This ain’t got nothin’ to do wid you. But I need ‘em to come wid me.”

I readied my body for impact. I was sure he was going to take a swing at me.

Then Lieutenant Suarez pulled his car behind the truck, got out and walked quickly over. As he approached, he said, “What’s going on here?”

The butterball softened and stepped back like he remembered something he had to do. “Hi, deputy, nothin’s happenin.’ Jus’ lookin’ fer some a’ my workers. Got crops to get in.” He walked back to the truck, got in and rumbled away.

I said, “Who was that?”

Suarez said, “I don’t know his name, but I’m pretty sure he’s an overseer out at one of the farms.”

“Did you get his license?”

“Sure did. I’ll run it later and see if there’s any dirt on him. Did your informant show up?”

“Yeah,” I turned and found behind me a blank wall. “Well, shit, they were here a minute ago. Butterball must’ve scared them off.” I ran to my car and shouted back, “Gonna skip breakfast! Maybe I can still find them!”

As I climbed in, Iris said, “Whoa, who was that mountain? Was that the fat man? Was that El Gordo?”

“Don’t know. Crew boss maybe.”

I gunned the engine, scooted away from the curb and made a sharp right at the next corner. I scanned left and right for two small shapes, but saw nobody who resembled Juan and Teresa. I slowed to a cruise in second gear and the car growled down a street with fields on either side. I scanned again both fields. Each had undergrowth that someone could hide behind. I stopped the car and yelled, “Juan! Teresa! Venga! Tengo su dinero!”

Silence.

I motored slowly forward another thirty feet, stopped and yelled again the same plea. “Juan! Teresa! Venga! Tengo su dinero!”

Then I spotted on a parallel street Butterball’s black truck – pacing me. I knew the search would be useless as long as he was tagging along.

I did a U-turn and zipped back to the restaurant. Suarez was standing by his car. I stopped, got out and walked to him. He nodded and said, “No luck?” as if he knew the answer.

“No luck. But I know their names – Juan and Teresa.”

“Juan and Teresa what?”

“They didn’t say.”

“Well, with twenty-five thousand migrants in town, most of them Latino, how many Juans and Teresas do you think we have here?”

“A couple thousand?”

“Maybe.”

“But I’m sure they’re a couple.”

“That could narrow it to dozens.”

“In their twenties.”

“Ok, I’ll ask around.”

“Very Indian campesinos.”

I didn’t realize how intense I was until Suarez touched my arm and said, “Could you eat some breakfast now?”

“Yeah, that’ll settle my thoughts . . . and I’ll buy.”

“Then let’s don’t eat here. Bad rep. Follow me to a better place.”

We ate at a truck stop on the edge of town. I gave him all the details I could remember about Teresa and Juan. Suarez said that the fact that those two had shown up was a good sign, probably meant the boys were in the area.

For his part, he passed me a printout on James “ Crickets” Goodson. I skimmed it. Crickets had been arrested a few times for B and E, the last time over ten years ago. Since then he’d had arrests for disturbing the peace, possession of illegal substances and public intoxication. He had transformed from a professional thief into an alcoholic day laborer. His glory days were over.

I said, “Any chance locating him.”

Suarez said, “It won’t be easy, but I’ve got all the officers keeping an eye out for him. The thing is that he could be passed out in some thicket all day. What does he have to do with the missing boys?”

Iris said, “He’s seen them and he knows where they are. I talked to him yesterday.”

Afterwards, he cleared the dispatcher to do an all-points bulletin for Teresa and Juan, with a description. I liked him even more than I had.

While Suarez was doing his checking, I drove Iris around Immokalee to get a better feel for the place. It was busy. Busloads and truckloads of migrants heading out to the fields. Homeland Security personnel sitting in cars and checking the buses and trucks as they passed. Packing houses with trucks queuing up to be loaded, and loaders stacking crates of vegetables in each truck in turn. Trailer parks and the rows of small houses sat devoid of inhabitants, who were all hustling for their daily bread. I heard English – Southern and Caribbean – Spanish – Central American and Caribbean – and Haitian Creole among the voices filling the streets. Everyone hustled for all he or she could get.

And the missing boys were somewhere in the bustle. Buried alive. I felt sure they were alive and not far away. And my encounter with the fat man had shaken me up. What if he was part of what had gobbled them up? I didn’t like that. And I didn’t like the evil gloom that had passed as that man’s shadow.

Iris said, “That fat man gave me a chill. Do you think the boys are here somewhere?”

“Don’t know, but my gut is saying yes.”

My phone rang. Teresa’s voice pleaded once again for me to meet them at a convenience store on the edge of town and bring the money. I did. Nervous and shy, this time Juan handed me a packing label with a green triangle and the white letters AGG set in the broad base of the triangle. Teresa pointed east and said, “Alli estan sus hijos.”

“Traiga me.”

“No, no, señor. El Gordo es muy malo. Tenemos miedo.”

Their faces were taut sheets of terror, so I pulled out the five hundred and handed it to them. “Ok. Muchas Gracias.”

“Por nada.” They nodded unsmiling and disappeared into the bustle of that town. I never saw them again.

Iris said, “What did they give you?”

I showed her the piece of paper.

“It looks like a logo of some kind.”

As midday approached, we sat in the car and looked at the piece of paper with the green triangle. Suarez would know what it meant, so I went to his office. Iris sat on a bench outside the station and read her science textbook.

END of Chapter 12

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Dad has heart disease, mother has cancer!

SAVING GRACE


The autumn day Rory rejected the version of Christianity that he had grown up with had been the day that as the chosen sixteen-year-old youth pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church, he had preached the sermon “Come to Jesus and Be Saved.” He had been nervous his first time behind the pulpit, but as soon as he began to speak, the nervousness passed. He did his duty: poured forth the necessity to be saved from sin, offered Christ’s sacrifice to atone, and issued the steps to salvation. Somewhere in the middle of the sermon, he looked into the enraptured eyes of his audience, felt their hunger to believe, and knew that he no longer did. Despite that disbelief, after the sermon he stood at the doors of the church and shook the congratulatory, complimentary hands of the congregation.

His mother was especially proud of him and stood before him in a navy blue dress with white polka dots. For the first time he noticed that his mother was gaining weight. She had always been thin, but her stomach had rounded and was pushing against the limits of the dress. Was she going to give birth again?

“Oh, Rory, let me give you a hug.” He let her and she seemed as intense as he had ever seen her. When she pushed herself away, tears gleamed in her eyes.

His sister Chloe, half his age, hugged him, too. She said, “You’re better than Preacher Simms,” which made him laugh.

To celebrate the triumph, his portly father, a deacon of the church, took them to a restaurant for Sunday dinner. “Order anything you want,” said the father, who thought of food as God’s reward.

Rory’s steps away from the church had been occurring for months, and he had come to see God more as a temporal adversary than as an all-knowing, all-directing, everywhere-present force.

First, God had impeded his plan to become a jet fighter pilot by diminishing his ocular clarity: he discovered that when more than a year ago he had applied for a driver’s permit. It was a blow to his vision of the world. Since God was all-directing, he asked the question: Why did You do this, God? Now I must wear glasses and am ineligible for fighter-pilot training. I’ll have to come up with a different life plan.

Second, his pious father had had his first heart attack. The doctors said he might have only a year left: he had eaten too much fatty food and not enough fiber: beef, pork, dairy products, ice cream, refined flour, refined sugar and fried chicken. Rory’s question was, God, if You’re all-knowing, why didn’t You tell this very good man who believes in You about the dangers of a high-fat, low-fiber diet? Rory received no answer, but he gave up eating large quantities of such foods as his father had loved and consumed all his life.

However, one prayer was answered: his father didn’t die. He cut back eating the dangerous foods and took the medicine prescribed for him for high blood pressure and high cholesterol and began walking every evening after supper. In six months, he had lost twenty pounds.

Then Candy dumped Rory because he was trying to follow God’s commandments. Lately, the couple had been discussing “plans,” a natural course of conversation for two who had been sweethearts for two years. Her plan was marriage and nesting. His plan was college and an uncertain future thereafter. She said, “Yet. . . .” He said , “Not yet.” Of course, they had sat next to each other on the bus, held hands, kissed, embraced, necked and made out. What was next?

Next came one night as they kissed and caressed each other lying on the long front seat inside his father’s car. Rory dared more that night than he had before. He opened her blouse, unsnapped her bra, felt the soft roundness of her breasts and the hard roundness of the nipples. The two sweethearts breathed heavily, almost in unison.

“Take your shirt off.”

He tore it off and they pressed their soft, fragrant flesh against each other.

Rory reached down and unfastened her jeans and when she didn’t stop him, he pulled them down, so she could wiggle her feet free of them, so she lay before him in the flesh except for her white panties with pink hearts printed on them.

He pressed himself on her again and reached his left hand down and cupped the mound inside her panties. She gasped but didn’t object. He rubbed the mound, softly. She moved as if in involuntary undulations beneath his hand. She moaned, softly. He slipped his hand inside the panties and rubbed the mound, soft and moist. Her moan grew louder, her breaths deeper. He drew the panties off, sat up and looked at her lovely body and saw the damp crevice and felt his penis grow and harden. In his mind he saw something else: a swollen belly, a crying child, a drunken brute, the towers of Ilium burning, sperm-like meteors crashing into the earth as the dinosaurs gaped and shivered.

She said in a voice heavy with desire. “Let’s do it.”

He leaped into the back seat, almost breathless. “I can’t. I’m not ready.”

She sat up and looked across the back of the seat at him as if he had taken all the chocolates she had been about to eat.

In November, since she was ready and he was not, she dropped him for an older boy who was as ready as she was. His mother said, “Don’t worry. In college you’ll meet many more interesting young ladies than Candy.”

He felt guilty, as if he had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and could be chased from paradise at any moment. He asked God, Why did You make the most inviting act a sin? After the night he had spurned sex with Candy, whenever he looked at this mother, a shiver of guilt ruffled his spine, because he knew what his mother and father had done to bring him into the world. He also knew they wouldn’t approve of his growing skepticism about their religion.

In the winter of his sixteenth year in his advanced placement history class, the students were required to choose a book from a reading list. He chose a book about spiritual leaders Socrates, Confucius, Buddha and Jesus. Socrates and Confucius, polytheists, spoke of being true to one’s individual ethical self, rules of morality and the community. Buddha and Jesus, monotheists, spoke of being true to one path and separating oneself from the community of sinners and sufferers who didn’t believe exactly the same way. The first two brought everyone into a joint reality; the latter two separated society into opposing groups.

One day as he sat at the family dining table and read the book, his mother walked by and casually said, “What’re you reading?”

“A book about philosophers and religious leaders.”

“Oh?”

“Did you know Buddha had similar ideas to Jesus’?”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t say that! Don’t ever let your father hear you say things like that!”

He wouldn’t say anything about his ideas to them ever again, but his appetite for more knowledge and understanding had been whetted. Nevertheless, the doubting cat was out of the religious bag, so his mother knew he doubted, although she would not tell the father, who she knew would be chagrined by their son’s diverging awareness.

Rory wrote his report about the four religious-philosophical leaders and teachers, and asked his teacher what he could read that was more modern. His teacher said, “There’s always Spinoza.”

A few days before his seventeenth birthday, his mother had asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. As usual he said chocolate. In a voice that seemed part reassurance and part warning, she said, “You’re almost a man now.”

On his birthday, he came home to an empty house, devoid of sounds of the family moving about, of the smells of supper cooking, of any activity. Curious, he put his school gear in his room and went into the kitchen. On the kitchen counter were a stack of three nude cake levels, without frosting. They appeared obscenely unclothed. Mother hadn’t finished his birthday cake.

She had seemed tired recently. Had she fallen asleep? He looked into his parents’ bedroom: clean and neat as usual, but no mother.

He looked around for a note. Perhaps his father had been delayed at work. Something unusual was going on, but he didn’t know what. He turned on the television, but he had little interest in the programs.

An hour later, he began to worry. Why hasn’t anyone called to tell him they were doing this or that and would be late?

Hungry, he made himself a baloney sandwich and a glass of tea and sat at the dining room table. Had an emergency occurred? He remembered how as a rambunctious boy, he had often injured himself and had to be taken to the emergency room to be stitched up or his bones set. Had his sister Chloe done something like that?

Then he remembered his father’s fragile condition. Had he had another heart attack? Was he back in the hospital?

Rory had no answers, so he fetched his school books and did his math homework. Math had a calming effect on him because numbers were straightforward and he found the shapes and proportions of geometry beautiful and the formulae of algebra challenging like solving a puzzle. Once he was working, he became absorbed in the numbers and equations until he realized that darkness was falling and squeezing his vision.

He reached back to turn on the dining room light, and, that very instant, the phone began clamoring as if God Himself were calling.

Rory ran to the phone and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

His father’s shaky voice said, “Rory, I’m sorry I didn’t call before now. Did you get something to eat?”

“I made a baloney sandwich. What’s going on?”

“We’re at the hospital. Your mother had an emergency. We’ll be home in an hour or so.”

“Is she ok?”

His father sobbed, unable to talk.

“Dad, don’t worry about me. I’ll be here. Have you and Chloe eaten? Should I fix something here?”

“No, we ate. See you in a while.”

Rory tried unsuccessfully not to worry, but gave up doing homework. He doodled and wondered what could have happened to his mother until his father and sister finally clattered home. His eight-year-old sister ran up to him and whispered the word that she had heard for the first time that afternoon. “Cancer. Mommy has cancer.” But he could see that Chloe had no comprehension of the implications, no dread.

To his father, whose eyes were red from crying and whose shoulders slumped wearily, he asked, “What kind of cancer?”

“Breast.”

“Just like her mother died from.”

“Yes. Let’s sit down, hold hands and pray.”

The father, the son and the daughter held hands and sat on the couch as the father quietly prayed to the God that he had believed in for many years. Rory thought, He’s praying to the God that directed this, that let the cancer attack my mother and his wife, according to his beliefs. Rory’s thoughts blocked him from the prayer, but he held on tightly to his father’s hand because he loved his father and his mother.

After the prayer, his father retrieved and handed to Rory a $20 gift certificate that his mother had bought for him for his birthday. It was to a bookstore in the nearest mall, so Rory went there the next day and bought a book about Spinoza and his ideas.

A few days later when he visited his mother in the hospital, she seemed thin and pale. Holding his hand, she told him, “Rory, they cut away my breasts to save my life.” Then she began to cry.

“Don’t cry, Mother. We’ll take good care of you.”

“Oh, Rory. I’m crying because you had an awful birthday.”

“It’s just a birthday – another day in a year of days. But thanks for the gift certificate.”

“But this memory will be part of all your birthdays.”

He knew she was right. How could he ever forget his seventeenth birthday, when he had changed from a child into a man and had begun to put away childish thoughts?

“Are you helping your father around the house?”

“Doing the laundry, sweeping, washing dishes. Dad’s doing the cooking.”

“How’s he doing? He’s never cooked before.”

“Not so good. He only knows two spices: salt and pepper. And he knows only one method: pour it on. I’m trying to figure out some way of taking over the cooking without insulting him.”

She covered her mouth to disguise her laughter, but her eyes twinkled with mirth; Rory, seeing her momentarily happy, began laughing, too. They laughed because they shared the knowledge of the father’s ineptness in the kitchen. Rory thought, as inept as Father-God is in the world.

“You get home before he does. Just get supper going. You know where my cookbooks are. Just follow the directions. Let him finish it.”

“I can do that.”

“You have to do so much now.”

His mother came home for a week and directed his cooking, so the food was tastier. Worried about her health and her family, she forgot to ask what he had bought with his gift certificate, and he read Spinoza in his room where he could keep his study private (Caute! Sub rosa).

Then she was flown to Houston, Texas, for radiation treatments and chemotherapy. While she was gone, their entire church congregation held a prayer vigil for her recovery. Rory thought, sort of like calling a house where the phones lines had been pulled out of the walls. No one’s home. Moved. Service discontinued.

When she came back, she was tattooed with blue and red marks where the radiation gun had shot her. And she seemed thinner.

She was weaker and could barely sit in a chair. She was in pain, so Rory would see her as she walked from one room to another suddenly gasp, stiffen and lean against a wall for a minute. But if he tried to help her, she waved him off. “No . . . just give me a minute . . . to catch my breath.”

His father prayed every night for a miracle. His father told him what the doctor had said, “Mother waited too long. She knew something was wrong, but was afraid to tell anyone. She’s not going to live.”

She went out again to Houston in a cycle of every few weeks. Each time she came back thinner and weaker as if some vampiric demon in Houston was sucking the life out of her. Rory and his father moved a cot into the living room, so she could be with them. Wearily she told Rory, “You are a difficult, but rare, person. I worry about you, but I see the good in you.”

Finally, she was a skeletal figure who could barely speak. Rory was reminded of the pictures he had seen of holocaust victims in Nazi death camps.

Only her eyes remained their normal size and when she was awake they seemed, accusingly, to follow Rory around the room as he went about doing the chores that formerly she had done for the family all her life. One day, as she lay on a cot that had been pulled into the living room, her bony hand reached up and grabbed Rory’s arm as he was passing wearing her ruffled apron. She pulled him toward her and warned in a rasping, breathless voice, “Your father is a good man. He loves you children dearly. Don’t disappoint him.”

“I. . . .” He wanted to say I have to be who I am, but instead, he said, “I won’t.”

But her tracking watery eyes said she didn’t believe him and that she knew he was moving away from them in some way.

During her next trip to Houston, the demon finished her off. God just stood by, twiddling his thumbs and whistling, evidently, was Rory’s ridiculing thought, and he was surprised at how easily he discounted the patriarchal God’s force in the world as if He were a silly, weak old man with a squeaky voice.

At the funeral Rory saw his mother’s body, no longer thin or pale, in the coffin. It resembled once again the woman who had raised him for seventeen years. His sister Chloe came up to him beside the coffin. She spoke softly, “Mommy’s going to heaven. That’s why they have her so pretty looking.” He kissed his sister on the top of her childish head.

The next week his father – unshaven for several days and wearing the stale, wrinkled pajamas he had worn for those same days – sobbed, “I . . . hate . . . God!” Rory said nothing, but he halted supper preparations, walked to his father’s shaking figure, put his arms around his father and held him while his father sobbed. For Rory, the paternal God had become irrelevant; only a believer could hate Him.

END
 
This story is based on my family.  Mother did die of breast cancer. In 1963 the treatments and diagnostic methodolgy were not as advanced as in the 21st century.  Back then breast cancer was practically a death sentence.  Now the recovery rate has improved astoundingly, and women are much more aware of the danger signs and can be screened regularly.
 
We also know the connection between diets high in red meat fat and heart disease and colon cancer, so we can protect ourselves from that.  And sugar and diabetes.  We have advanced thus far through the application of medical science.
 
Also, if I were young today, I could be a fighter pilot since the main focus of the modern pilot is the electronic display in front of him.  One no longer needs eagle eyes to be effective.
 
Teenagers today are much more open about sexuality.  That must be liberating, although sometimes I wonder what such casual acceptance might cost us in other ways.
 
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