Excerpt from a recently completed novel: Late Bus to San Cristobal

 Fiction by Daniel Cano                                                                                    

San Cristobal, Chiapas, El Centro

 

Interview with a Vietnam Veteran: Ralph Salazar

Bar Sam Clemons, San Cristobal, Chiapas, MX

February 7, 2013

By Anthony Reza

                                                                              

     Ralph Salazar waits, for what seems like an eternity, looking at his drink. He listens to the young guitarist on stage, Pablo Verdugo, who starts in on the next song. In a calm voice, he begins, “Professor Reza, three incidents brought me to this point in my life.”  

                                                                                   37.      

     ONE: In his senior year of college, Ralph not only made the Dean’s Honor Roll but his shit list, as well. He was fervently anti-war and understood the children of privilege, like himself, would be exempt from serving. It was a poor man’s war, the first truly integrated war—blacks and Asians welcome, come one, come all, and he hated the injustice of it.

     He was also a thorn in the dean’s side. If there was a protest march, Ralph and his friends either helped organize it or participated in it. He was young and rebellious, a Jesuit high school education, a liberal’s liberal, and, at 6’-4”, an intimidating Chicano.

     His parents were an anomaly, both university graduates, his father an engineer and professor, his mother a pediatrician, the two of them Pacoima born and bred. After their careers took off, they bought a home in the upper-class, Westside enclave of Cheviot Hills, near MGM studios, midway between Beverly Hills and the Pacific.  

     At twelve, Ralph was reading science and politics. He liked novels and, by fourteen, he had read all of Twain, but his favorite was Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, his high school freshman Jesuit lit teacher inspiring his students to identify with the downtrodden, Jesus’ people. Whatever sport was in season, he participated, accepting Ignatius Loyola’s belief in the sanctity of both body and soul. He was an academic and athletic prodigy, an All-City tight end his sophomore year.

     In college, he was way ahead of the other Chicano students, academically and socially. Instead of hanging out with students like himself, he chose to run around with the politically minded ethnic kids, Chicanos and blacks, public high school graduates, the best and brightest of their communities, and he encouraged a few who nearly dropped out to stay in school and avoid the draft. He quickly noticed they had what he lacked, insights into the underbelly of American society. While he protested poverty and social injustice, they lived it.

      That’s when he met an older grad student, Gilbert Miro, a dynamic and ruggedly handsome older Chicano activist, who could hold a student audience riveted for hours. A committed Vietnam veteran against the war, Miro had experienced what they learned in class, which drew students into his orbit, except Ralph, who was wary of the older student’s magnetic personality.

     After promising to end the war, the U.S. invaded Cambodia. The anti-war movement seethed. In Madison, Wisconsin, someone had bombed a military research building on campus, killing a grad student working late. In Oakland, Huey Newton had just been released from prison, and the word was, the FBI was infiltrating the Black Panthers and activist student organizations on college campuses.

     The killings at Kent State made everyone aware: if the government could kill middle-class white kids, they could kill anyone. Many believed the initial media reports that students had ambushed and killed two national guardsmen, a lie planted in the press by a national guard commander. Later reports described guardsmen chasing and shooting unarmed students, who had thought, all along, the guardsmen were using blank rounds. At Jackson State, days later, authorities killed two more students and wounded twelve. The country was on high alert. Middle America believed Chinese, Russian, and Cuban meddling was the real culprit.

     The President ordered the FBI to destroy the student radical movement by any means necessary, legal or not. J. Edgar Hoover disagreed. He didn’t want his agents on college campuses. That should be the work of local law enforcement. What he really feared was losing his power to the executive branch. Law enforcement across the country saddled up their forces. Nobody knew what to believe. It was in this boiling caldron that word had spread quickly about the big Chicano celebration, anti-war march, and moratorium in East L.A.

     It was a warm summer day, and though Gilbert had warned him to stay away from the moratorium, Ralph ignored him and met some friends at Laguna Park. As he remembered it, everything moved so fast, speakers, music, art exhibits, and fellowship, a true peaceful experience, thousands of people, enjoying the day and picnicking, until, without warning, a wave of helmeted police and sheriffs, swinging their batons, rushed the crowd, causing a wild fracas, confused people running in all directions seeking escape.

     In the melee, Ralph and two friends ran into a dead-end alley followed by a deputy they’d seen strike a young woman on the head with his baton. A surge of anger rushed through Ralph who coaxed the deputy forward, whispering to his friend, “Just follow what I do.” 

     The deputy approached, his baton raised, like a cobra ready to strike. Ralph was faster and charged, taking the big cop by surprise. “I’m a deputy sheriff!” he screamed, as a warning. Ralph wrestled him to the ground, his friends pummeling him with fists and feet then turned to make their escape. They called to Ralph, who had his knee on the man’s chest and his long, fingers around the cop’s throat. Ralph squeezed. The cop gasped for air. His friends pleaded with him get off the cop and run. Ralph heard a gurgle and saw the whites of the cop’s eyes. “You shit,” the deputy gasped, looking up at Ralph’s cold eyes. 

     Four white-helmeted LAPD rushed up and blocked the exit. One of Ralph’s friends managed to break free. Ralph stood, wild-eyed, fists at his side. The police surrounded him and his remaining friend. Without a word, just a grunt, Ralph took down one cop before the others began pelting him and his friend with their clubs. Ralph raised his hands to protect his face. Then it stopped. Ralph lowered his hands, looked up, and saw Gilbert Miro on top of him, an FBI badge dangling from his neck. Gilbert placed handcuffs on Ralph’s wrists, and he hollered at the cops to back off. Two officers, one a lieutenant, ordered Gilbert, “Move away! He’s our bust.”

     Gilbert spat, raising his FBI badge, “No, man! He’s in my custody. He’s been under federal surveillance for months.”

     “Over my dead body, the lieutenant roared, placing his face right up to Gilbert’s, who stood and pulled Ralph up from the ground. “You want your boss dealing with J. Edgar Hoover’s operation,” Gilbert said, sharply, “take your chances.”

     The cops surrounded Gilbert. They waited as an LAPD car pulled up. Two cops blocked Gilbert as another cop hit Ralph a few more times in the ribs. Then, they threw him into the car. Finally, the deputy stood up, still gasping for air. “Kill the son of a bitch.”

     With their scholarly son facing ten to fifteen years for assaulting a police officer, Ralph’s parents hired the best attorneys, who pled self-defense, and, as evidence, showed photos and home film of police chasing and beating people during the event. Ralph’s lawyers argued that any citizen had the legal right to defend himself against police if the police used excessive force.

     Gilbert appeared in court to testify that Ralph had been a federal asset in numerous investigations, which was news to Ralph and his attorney. The deputy Ralph had assaulted testified that the kid had nearly choked him to death, which the judge found something of an exaggeration. The prosecutor argued even federal assets could not assault police, whether the cops used excessive force or not. The judge, pushing 70 years of age, looked like he just wanted to get home. He found Ralph guilty, but rather sentencing him to the ten years the prosecution had requested, the judge sentenced Ralph to five.

     Gilbert, in the privacy of the judge’s chambers, and only the attorneys present, asked the judge and prosecutor to consider offering Ralph a choice—incarceration or the military? Ralph’s attorneys reminded the judge, their client had no criminal record, a sterling academic record, and was due to graduate with honors the following year. To the prosecutor's ire, the judge agreed.

     When Ralph’s attorney dropped the good news on him, Ralph sat for a moment, quietly. He cried out, “Hell, no! I’ll go to jail before I go into the army.” He was vehemently opposed to military service, and to the war.

     His parents had protested the war, so they understood, but they told Ralph a prison record would ruin his future. He’d be labeled an ex-con, a scourge to society. They insisted he take the deal. With his education, they might even make him an officer. He’d do a couple of years in the Army, get out, finish college, and move on with his life.

     It took some arguing, but Ralph agreed, reluctantly, except one of the prosecutors, Jonathan Fortlow, a preppy attorney vying for D.A., snickered at Ralph and said if this deal was going to happen, it had to be the Marines, and the infantry at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he’d be far from home, and bad influences. The court agreed and managed all the details. Within two months, Ralph had completed Boot Camp, jungle warfare training, and was on his way to Danang on a Navy carrier. 

     “I hated the Sempre Fi, Orah! bullshit, like being with a herd of sheep. I couldn’t split or they’d impose the original jail sentence. One way or another, they got one more Mexican to fight their war. I can’t even describe my level of pissed off, back then.”

     I hear a loud click, the end of the tape. I slip in another. Ralph waits until I press the “play.” He falls into a rhythm and talks like he’s gone over the story a thousand times.

TWO: I got to Vietnam in ’72, a wild time up near the DMZ, the war’s end, or so we thought. A lot of guys seethed because they knew the Army had started shipping troops home, and they figured the Marines were next. Talk about confusion. “Vietnamization,” turning the war over to the South Vietnamese we knew would be a disaster. They didn’t want to fight, and the Saigon government was corrupt. Most Vietnamese knew Saigon’s democracy was a scam and the South could fall, anytime. We woke up each day with one thing on our mind – to survive another day.

     We heard rumors about the army. Officers down south were hiding out in headquarters, either drunk, gambling, or waiting for their gourmet dinners, and their ticket home. The soldiers were mostly anti-war protestors--draftees. The word was everyone was getting high, not just weed but opium and heroin. Nobody wanted to fight. They just wanted to stay stoned until the war ended.

     It started spreading to the Corps, enlistment down, so they had to start drafting. Officers and NCOs stopped sending their men on unnecessary missions. You’d get half a squad disobeying orders, anyway. Most NCOs and officers understood. They could read the writing on the wall.

     I had a month to go, and I didn’t want to lose one guy. A few lifers knew it would be their last chance to earn medals or a promotion before Washington pulled the plug. Lieutenant Mariano Moore, an Annapolis grad, joined the Marines and was itching to make captain regardless of who he had to sacrifice. My machine gunner, Tommy Moreno, said, the way he saw it, Moore never forgave his Mexican mother for abandoning him to a violent Protestant English, Irish father, so Moore took his rage out on us, the Chicanos in his command.

     He’d order us on operations other officers refused. If we even questioned him, he’d threaten to bust us. “You’re Marines, first,” he’d tell us. “Don’t forget that.”

     It didn’t matter if reports said the mission was a death trap. He volunteered us, anyway. Even the chopper pilots didn’t want to fly. When it was finished, we lost guys for nothing. After, I was ready to waste him then and there, to hell with prison.

     I had friends who told me to wait it out, until the right time. Then, Moore volunteered us for another operation, just when three guys in our squad were ready to go home. No need for details. I’ll just say in any band of young, armed desperate men, there is always someone crazy, scared, or determined enough to eliminate a threat, and once that threshold is crossed, there is no return.

     Moore avoided the bush, so we waited for the right time. It was a routine patrol, just beyond the perimeter of our base camp, Moore buzzing around overhead in his chopper. We got him to land.  He near panicked when the chopper took off without him. Someone heard a shot. Everyone started firing, mass confusion. I detonated a claymore. Moore went down, just like that, fast, zip.

     The USMC investigators chalked up Moore’s death as another casualty. Forget the evidence pointed to something more sinister. The CID ignored the rumors that Moore would be leaving Vietnam in a body-bag or a Medivac. Lieutenants were like fodder. For the officers who remained, one more dead Louie meant more medals and promotions for them. We never knew whether it was a bullet, a grenade, or my claymore that did the job on Moore, not many recognizable remains. Get this. I go to Vietnam and end up killing a half-breed Mexican, and I had no hesitation in doing it.

     I hit the stop button on my recorder. “Hold up a sec. I need a drink of water.” I reach for a bottle on the table, and I drain it, slowly, feeling the liquid flow down my throat. I try not to think, just act. I take a long breath. “Alright.” I press the play and record button to start, again. He talks, matter-of-factly, no stress.

     I met Gilbert in Thailand, on my R&R. He was on some kind of assignment. Strange, I turned to the man who I believed had betrayed me. I told him about Vietnam, how different it was since he had been there. I told him about Moore, but Gilbert said he didn’t want details into Moore’s demise. He had said, “There are worse punishments than death.”

     “Ralph, let’s stop a minute? I need to use the head.”

     He raises an eyebrow. As I walk past the people at the tables, it’s like they’re all watching me. I shake it off and try letting his confessions just slip off me, but they don’t. In the bathroom, I realize, even though forty-years have passed, I’m recording an American Marine admitting to assassinating an officer. Ralph has to know by telling me, it will be in my book, and made public. I wash my face, return to the table, and sit.

     I reach out to start the recorder. Ralph puts his large hand over mine. “You asked,” he says. “Write it just the way I’m telling it.”

     “You’re admitting to murder.”

     “I’m beyond their reach. Besides, Mariano Moore’s a pseudonym.”

     I press the record button on the recorder. He starts again, as if we’d had no break.

THREE: