The city smoldered. Smoke hung just above the rooftops like fog— as if it were a warm day with winter snows still lingering on the ground, as if it were a late night near the woods and it spilled forth from between trees on either side of the main road, as if it were summer just before dawn— just before a storm, a smog so thick you could taste it. He could taste it, the storm, it tasted like victory, and it tasted like finality, like the end of many years of fear death and pain. It tasted of charred concrete, blasting powder and burnt flesh; he choked it and the memory of home down and savored it.
Choke it down, push past, and get over it. Be positive, that was Joe. Everyone knows a Joe. Everyone knew Joe. You know Joe— sandy brown hair, blue-eyed, bright smile, kid next door. Son of the pastor, model student, model citizen, hell that all American look, he could have been a model. Joe, back up on the HS baseball team, childhood lemonade stand owner, Dad bought me a station-wagon— first car driving Joe. He worked two jobs in summers, bagging groceries at the market and mowing lawns on the weekends. He was the face in the high school year book; voted best … most likely to … Joe was a just face in the baseball team picture, the kid in the background of the cutest couple picture— awkward, another face on a page of 50. You only remember looking at Joe, you wouldn’t remember him. Joe was the kid you knew for doing nothing wrong, nothing right, good or bad. Everyone knew Joe, but Joe was a face, just a kid, lost in the crowd.
Santa Anna burned. Santa Anna burned around him, back home no one would have guessed Joe was caught in the middle, if they even caught this on the news. Small town coup turns smoke filled blood bath tonight at eleven. Had Joe been watching he wouldn't have believed someone he knew could be caught in this. He couldn’t believe he was caught in this; the quiet life he had made himself here was shattered. He was always caught— in war, with himself, between his father and God’s commandments, between being good and being accepted, he was caught between his dreams and his mediocrity. As the smoke rose around him and was caught in his lungs he thought of how he got here.
Beneath the veil of death cast over the city the boots of soldiers sounded like hard rain upon the roof of his first car. Artillery and supply trucks in the streets below made his knees shake like the sound of thunder; they sounded like thunder in the distance, as their engines grumbled in the streets below where he had perched. There were cries in the distance… women, children he couldn't tell he didn't want to know. The voices sounded like his baby brother—crying, he was a cry baby. He could hear Peter his brother cry while he sat in the basement watching TV instead of doing his studies… they like he were distant. He tuned them out. He would not count the voices, they would not haunt his dreams, and there were too many things that haunted his dreams already. Like home, like his father, he still hid in fear from his father. Like now, when the soldiers came, when a hand came and forged order out of chaos.
He saw soldiers spill through the streets at a gesture; something so empty yet held so much power. Consequence danced on those finger tips and he remembered; his father whom taught him fear. He never feared his father's empty hand. His father needed a bottle, needed a belt, needed a bible... He needed a brick. The memory of that beating still lingered: it was how he survived prison, it was his first interaction with God, and it would become his day of reckoning, his rite of passage. That day God showed him: the more pain the more love; the harder the lesson the longer it would linger. That God truly worked through people. He would never forget the way a teenage boy became a broken butterfly. When his father tore open his cocoon he set him free. He loved his father for that, but no parent should abuse their child… he hated his father for that. Thank God caterpillars become butterflies, he hated God for that. Can you love someone deeply within your heart; void of jealousy, void of envy, can you love without feeling some form of hate? He loved God for that.
God... Sunday school was a long time ago. God's image had become a reflection in a steamy mirror, more difficult to see, harder to discern. Eventually you just believed, because if that image wasn't there when the steam lifted you didn't exist. Did he exist? Little lights that shine are meaningless against the darkness in the hearts of men. Mamas don’t teach you that in Sunday school. Papa was a preacher man. Communion became common place after she left. The memories of the Sunday sermon before God took her echoed in his mind like curses "God is a jealous God, God is a jealous God." His father’s voice would ring from the pulpit through the rafters. Joe listened because he believed, until he realized God was selfish. How do you take someone’s mother before they stop needing her? Ambivalent God… your own child sent to suffer because you loved him; abusive God. Joe would set out to teach the world to love like that, like God and love for something can't exist unless you hate it just a little. 30 years away from that little boy he had come to hate this world and he loved it.
He packed his bag. He packed his bag, glancing over his shoulder on occasion in fear. Staring into the darkness of his room where the door stood closed, he glanced as if expecting his father to appear. He glanced, and then doubled his focus on the task at hand, stuffing the small duffle with the salvage of his seventeen year old life. Not many happy memories but they were all he owned, all he dared take with him. Eighteen would be different, he was free, he could still hear the church bells on the day they buried him. His father rolled away the passage door to the Underground Railroad, those bells… those bells he imagined similar to what he read about slaves in American History class. He was free. Tomorrow would come; he would walk past his step-mother. She would ask in her meek southern drawl so different from his real mother, “Joe where you headed with that bag, dinner is at 8 ask your brother what he wants.”
He would tell her he was leaving and keep walking— she had come to question nothing her frail existence diminished by the loss of the God she served. He would walk past her, she was as much to blame as the God she worshipped...his father, lay still, hands empty, drowned in the blood of Christ. Amen
He would find his own way, drink his own bottle, rotten apples don’t fall far from dying trees. There is a strange freedom in falling. At age eighteen he stumbled drunkenly through Mexico, the brand of his first beer fading like the memory of his father, less about the man more the experience. Small towns gave way to jungle roads Belize, Honduras, Panama (but that place had become too civilized for the likes of him), nineteen, twenty, Columbia, cocaine, he fell. He landed in Peru; a place cell phones and internets couldn’t catch him. He found a town, made a home, he worked a job, and he lived a life. A life he was unaware was caught between his past, future, the back of a Peruvian government, and a westward push from Columbian cartels no longer welcome.
He found a job, he found a bar, and he found a bottle. Joe sat in that bar and made himself familiar with the dingy mint green walls, the place fit him. It had a sort of sun faded tranquility, a little dirt, a spot of grime on what would otherwise be a happy place. The room was lit by faulty fluorescent lights that flickered and hummed; they gave walls life on empty mornings. His favorite seat was a half broken bar stool, and the cleanest glasses in the joint were the dirty ones but the alcohol remedied that. Joe thought Santa Anna was the town where time stood still long before he was born. The broken jukebox in the corner played sometimes in the background stuck on some Beatles tune with Paul singing lead vocals about wanting some woman, it fit.
She fit, in her own way a sort of dark skinned brightness that made her stand out in this place. She wore turquoise and a simple gold bracelet; nothing like the jewelry he knew or remembered from music videos he watched in the basement when his father wasn’t home. She was simple; she wore a simple band of gold wrapped around her wrist etched with symbols of her native people. Her name was Carlita.
She had told him once in conversation that heritage is what defined you. But honestly what did she know about where he’d been? If she knew anything at all she wouldn’t have found herself sneaking to or from his apartment in the hours after the bar closed or in the morning before the sun kissed the horizon. In between— they kissed, as he held her and watched the rise and fall of her chest for the first time in his life, he believed in peace. But morning comes fast and like the memory of any dream, peace was fragile.
Just before dawn his peace was broken by the cocks their crooning; a rude awakening, unison chorus like the refrain in a church hymnal… funny— he still remembered those. He washed his face in the bowl dismissively as she undid what had been undone. His mornings consisted of a kiss goodbye and a tug at his dusty boots, accompanied by the mile and a half walk to the facility where he was a delivery driver. He deplored the repetition of it all but adored his life’s simplicity. Every day in the same truck, the one with the sunken seat where a man far too large had worn down the springs he sat. Every day he drove past his first two customers without stopping— opting to do his farthest and largest drops first while he had the energy. His lunch would find him back in town, back at the bar expediting the nights festivities before the sun was high.
He ate prison food, they all ate prison food; spiced rice, canned chorizo, with refried black or pinto beans, water slightly browned from old copper pipes, and fresh coconut water when he wasn’t being friends with a bottle. She asked what his mother used to cook for him. Carlita always had questions, but he could only remember his step Mom’s ability to order out. She cooked less after that night the turkey was particularly dry… Dad had one too many beers to chase it down. He watched him— chase her down. Joe looked away in fear… covered his ears… but he could still hear through his flesh muffs “YOU EXPECT ME TO EAT THIS SHIT?” Joe couldn’t tell Carlita that memory.
He still feared rhetorical questions, the type his father always asked with bruises, more if you attempted to respond or run… His step mother always answered. Maybe that is why she loved his father? Maybe that’s why Joe couldn’t remember her cooking…
“Penny for your thoughts” she asked. She always wanted to know his thoughts. Some memories you just forget.
Come to think of it, honestly it was her. He thought about her. She tasted sweet when they kissed, there was something familiar there, and it reminded him of his first girlfriend’s lip gloss. Making out in the station wagon as rain kissed the roof and hood. The rain drummed the body of the car mimicking his fingers on her back, back of her thighs, yes, she reminded him of that one adolescent bright spot. He had a set of keys from that old rust bucket, his first car, a keep-sake from when he left… a memory.
As for Carlita there was more to her; there was defiance in how she walked, her eyes moved over things as if she measured them and found them lacking, her hips whispered “I dare you” when she moved, there was strength in her. As beautiful as the deep olive skinned brown-eyed woman was; her scent was intoxicating, more intoxicating than poppy fields meeting Chinese pipes. She smelled of lotion, fresh mango, a hint of lime, natural femininity, sweat from hard work and freedom. She smelled free: free like his first step into the rest of his life, free like the first time he crossed the border into Mexico, free like teenage rebellion. She smelled like rebellion.
She waited for his response, smiling patiently for an answer that wasn’t coming. She gazed into him part flirtatious with a splash of seduction. Her smile rebelled against his silence. His scoff was lost to the sound of the Beatles on that old juke box, his smile lost in his smirk at the irony.
It was prison food.
It tasted like freedom.
This was not prison, however. Prison was his father’s dinner table, was the baseball diamond, and was his high school. Prison was a cage staged cock fight, a depraved mix of pain and self-consciousness. Prison was miles away from Santa Anna, a place people went and never returned from was the rumor. Here was a club Med paradise valley there was Texas chainsaw. That prison was where the joy of child birth became a nightmare, and your child's screams a rude awakening from the dream sleep you called escape.
A former General, Saul Esposito turned local magistrate, turned prison warden, was a reminder why no one wanted to be in a South American jail. General Esposito’s prison was where hope was executed, innocence was placed on trial, and cunning was rewarded with survival it was high school. It was the backyard of Hotel Bethlehem where the crows’ roost, a sadist’s dungeon, where living became negotiating traps with your cell mate— like three legged racers through mine fields. The two of you tied together likely to die dragging the other to their doom or fated to kill them inadvertently; prison was the high school social strata and the importance of choosing friends was not lost on the inmates. Life becomes high school, teachers become prison guards, and pencils become batons used to beat knowledge into and out of you. The floor becomes slate. It looks like slate, here chalk is still used, used to make marks where evidence of rape, torture and death have occurred. We walk around them through them through their memories like the ghosts of high school hallways; places where nerds and books dropped, suicides were forgotten and death was treated like an infectious disease.
No, this was not prison.
Adolescence was prison. That place was a death sentence. There where you longed for a gas chamber electric chair, only to be rewarded with a dull guillotine and rusty lever. Death would come as expected however tardy and agonizing. The general used that place as a sick torture bin of debauchery. Men intermingled with women oftentimes in the same cell, the nights were filled with cries of terror, and that was his mercy. When a woman was tortured— his favorite form was to allow the guards to have their way with her, making the men watch. A technique that appealed to their few scraps of humanity remaining, as women were pounded and ground into nothing, moving, breathing no more.
No other form of torture yielded more results, or deaths. Joe heard the stories. Men quick to defend were themselves taken and brutalized with anything that fit, some things that didn't. It was tradition. The torture chamber was detention, a place where examples were set. They wore uniforms called skin, women stripped of dignity bled openly monthly. Showers were orgies of food called lunch rooms where souls were devoured and cleansed as if water were a blessing. You could drown there if you resisted too hard. Some resisted, their countenance spilling down the drain. Baptism trial by fire, Amen. Even women helped quell rebellion against the status quo. It reeked here but not badly, the smell of death was covered by that of sweat and piss and shit.
He heard the stories.
Joe had become a story.
For the first time in many a year he was grateful to be American. He thought of being American, America, his state, his city, his neighborhood, his block, his home. He had rights all Americans had rights, his moment would come he would plead his case. The prison was a dark and damp place, his head ached, the days previous events a blur. Morning didn't come quickly. News that they'd found the truth had, his passport and $3000 saved for an emergency-- he knew that was lost but it was just a pittance in exchange for his freedom. When the guards finally came it was long after sun up. They led him through the prison out into a courtyard where sat a man. That man, a self-proclaimed God among men at a desk on dais overlooking papers he called evidence, he beckoned. He saw the ghost of his smiling father, a shudder ran down his back.
Just as their eyes met the man broke his silence, "Do you know why they fear me?"
Joe felt like a boy again, but grateful his father had taught him rhetoric. The man continued, "It is not money, or the drugs, nor is it my army or my reputation for hurting people. No. People fear what they do not understand."
It wasn't a question, silence mixed with a light grey smoke from a trash can and hung like a spirit, hung like his father’s smile. He imagined Jesus seeing a vision like this—being a vision like this, his day dream should have given him comfort. With a smile, almost a leer what was said next sounded as though words knew no gravity. "What am I to do with you rebel?"
Joe responded in earnest, "General, I am not a rebel, I am American I work at the factory as a driver I've done..."
Words were cut short by a leer that became pure joy "Nothing…I know rebel Joe, we found your passport right where you said it would be. I am more than aware you were not a part of the attack on my prison."
"Then why am I here," he asked.
"Finally a question worth answering" as he stood, gesturing with his open hand for his soldiers to stay back he moved closer, closer, close enough to whisper in perfect English. "You were born here rebel, you are just a jail house erection, someone's attempt to grasp at sanity but you have no idea how much shit you are in."
He could feel the smile as the warm breath danced across his ear. "You are here because I don't need to kill you yet, no your friends will kill you, your cell mates will kill you. When they learn you betrayed them, that you failed them, that you sold them out because you are American and you wanted to be free, they will kill you. Your death is why you are here. Rebel.”
The general placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders— he was a boy again, he created a space between them smiled, kissed each cheek and again full on the mouth. "I will make them trust you, then love you, they will believe and then I will give them my truth. They will break and their rebellion will die." He chided, he was giddy, General Esposito’s excitement was more repulsive the being kissed on the mouth by a man.
Joe was feeling like a boy again, standing blank faced, as shock overwhelmed him, as shock consumed him, as the smoke from the can overcame him and he coughed.
Again the General smiled and spoke, “And boy, Joe, average Joe, my little American rebel; what you smell burning is your passport.”
That was the first day of 5 long years.
Now he can look back on it. Look into Joe’s eyes you can see it there, just behind the glint of his beliefs, that prison, that day, home had never escaped him. Joe never escaped home.
End Part I
