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| Shadows of a Faded Past |
In my newly completed novel, Shadows of a Faded Past, Anthony Reza and members of his veterans' support group have finished investigating the disappearance of their friend and group founder, Raul Armena, who failed to return home from a weekend in Tijuana, B.C. After three months of consulting numerous sources, on both sides of the border, Anthony wrote, "The more I read, the more I realized Raul's disappearance didn't begin that last day in Tijuana but back in 1974, when he had received a visit from a CID detective investigating alleged war crimes committed by Raul's recon unit, the Lions Claw, in a place called the Red River Valley, Republic of South Vietnam."
2.
Raul told the Army CID investigator he knew
nothing about atrocities in Vietnam’s Red River Valley from August to November 1967, at least none that he could remember. The case went to an Army tribunal
but was dismissed when military investigators couldn’t find more veterans to corroborate
the allegations. The Pentagon didn’t pursue it, coming so soon after the My Lai
trials. Finishing his third year of graduate
school, Raul hoped he could finally put it all behind him.
In 1995, a journalist from St. Paul,
Minnesota called Raul at his office on campus to request an interview. Apparently,
someone had leaked the “real story.” Raul’s recon platoon, the Lions Claw, had carried
out months of unspeakable horror in the Valley, some soldiers confessing to
slaughtering innocent civilians. Raul told the reporter he’d already talked to a
military detective twenty years earlier and had admitted: those months in the
Valley had been rough, on both sides, but atrocities, like My Lai? No, nothing
like that. Besides, a Pentagon investigation found no evidence of a crime.
The journalist tried appealing to Raul,
saying he owed it to the Vietnamese villagers who lost relatives, and to his
fellow Lions, those who had committed suicide, succumbed to alcoholism, or
alienated themselves, emotionally, and, in some cases, physically, from their
loved ones after their discharge.
Tired of the accusations, Raul exploded,
maybe stronger than he intended, “Atrocities! You want atrocities? How about
illegally bombing the shit out of Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam, massacring
thousands, mostly innocent villagers. Nobody said boo. Now, after 30 years,
you’re going after men with families and jobs, guys who at 19 and 20, followed
officers’ orders. If it was a slaughter, go interrogate to the brass who
ordered it.”
The visit caused Raul to obsess about his
year in Vietnam. Guilt? Who knows for sure? In fact, Raul had been proud of his
military service, especially as a Lion, a guerilla fighter. When they got to
the Valley, Raul and his team, with the bare necessities, had trudged through
the jungle for months with little relief, rarely a hot meal, shower, or change
of clothes, constantly making enemy contact, and always following questionable
orders, sometimes, yes, taking the law into their own hands. It fogged the
brain. If soldiers malfunctioned, like broken machines, who could blame them?
Once home, Raul justified the war, saying
he was helping save the Vietnamese citizenry from the throes of Communism,
keeping the country safe for Catholicism, the religion of his people, and,
ultimately -- liberty. If not for U.S. intervention, Vietnam might not have
today’s thriving economy, the margin of profit the saving grace.
He worked hard to control what he once
told his own psychologist were “urges of the psyche,” evading the vices and
distractions that plagued other veterans, mind over matter and all that, more
Jungian than Freudian. He practiced strategies he mastered while earning his
doctorate in psychology. He found he could ignore the awful messages his mind
was sending his body, but, as one veteran friend had asked, “Wasn’t this just
masking the problem?” to which he’d answered, “Masks have always played a spiritual,
healing role in every society.”
When he began his internship as a psychologist,
Raul found Chicano vets denied war’s trauma. Like their forefathers, they
toughed it out, snickered in trauma’s face. Raul blamed their refusal to
discuss their emotions a cultural trait, la raza’s machismo. So, he
tried a different tactic. He invited a group of Chicano Vietnam vets he knew,
some from graduate school and others from his old neighborhood, to play basketball
at a local gym.
He started with a small group, guys who
had finished their degrees and, also, settled into stable careers. They played
hard, competitive, maybe even a bit of arrogance or pride due to their personal
achievements. Afterwards, they’d head out to a nearby bar, grab lunch and pitchers
of beer, and talk about the old neighborhood, friends, grad school and their
jobs, a lot of laughter.
The more they drank, the more they
loosened up, and, eventually, someone mentioned the military, more laughter, and
the war, their messy personal lives, talking like drunks at an AA meeting,
careful about how deep to go in their revelations. They’d taunt each other,
downing beers, until, on one session, Kiki Salas, broke down into tears,
sobbing, rattling everyone. Those wouldn’t be the only tears they’d shed, but
it was the start of Raul’s support group, the “hoop-sessions.”
Sometime, in the mid-80’s, Raul, pushing
45, had divorced and received joint custody of his daughter. With little
explanation to any of us, he abandoned psychology and accepted an
administrative position, which, some friends claimed, led to his downfall. Professionally,
he climbed the administrative ladder quickly, from dean to vice-president, his
eye on a presidency somewhere. He still attended our group sessions, when he
had time, up until September, 2001, when he crossed the Tijuana border and didn’t
return.
*****
He
arrived in Tijuana for the kick-off of border city’s annual fiesta, and its Sunday
afternoon climax, a bullfight spectacular, El Espada de Oro, which he attended
every year.
He was reported to have been seen walking
to La Coahuila, three or four-square
blocks filled with streetwalkers, where inside the seedy bars, men made drug
deals, optioned prostitutes, sealed contracts to smuggle pollos across the border, or involved themselves in the hundreds of
vices available in border towns across the Southwest.
The first time Raul visited La Coahuila he
was fourteen. His uncle had married a woman from Tijuana, and they invited him to
visit her family, who lived in a stark, cinder block house in the mountains
overlooking the beach, la colonia
Ramon Morales, an illegal settlement, where Raul learned, without a doubt, he
was more American than Mexican.
In 1960, Las Playas de Tijuana stood nearly empty, for miles, except
for a few scattered farms, modest housing developments, a couple of beachfront
hotels, and the new 25,000 seat Plaza Monumental de Toros that catered to the
North American bullfight aficionados who had outgrown the old wooden downtown
bullring, El Toreo de Tijuana.
Some days, Raul would break away from the
other boys and sneak into the mysterious, circular concrete structure. He’d leap
the barrera and stand in the ring, the hard sand under his feet, and he’d look
up at the rows, imagining the raucous crowd, the music, the celebration, and
the thunderous hooves of a bull charging in to the arena.
His aunt’s younger brothers laughed at
Raul’s romantic notions of the bullfight and his promise that one day he would
stand in front of a bull in front of thousands of people. Still, the boys of
colony liked the pocho from Venice, California, and together they roamed
the mountains, hunted jackrabbits with old .22 rifles, and made the long trek
across a stretch of farmlands to swim in Tijuana’s rough surf.
One Sunday, the boys took Raul on a bus
into downtown Tijuana to see a movie. Later, in front of the theater, a grand
palace that held 400 people, as night approached, and the masses strolled
through the streets, the boys ate nickel tacos from street venders and drank
strong Mexican Coca Colas in glass bottles. Not ready to return home, the boys
decided to take Raul to explore La
Coahuila.
Laughing and nudging each other as boys
do, they had walked the few blocks, rounded a corner, and stepped onto
sidewalks filled prostitutes of all ages. He couldn’t comprehend exactly what
he was witnessing, but he knew the streets reeked of sex, and the sights and sounds
carved passageways into his psyche.
Now, forty-some odd years later, Raul walked
the same streets. Tijuana had changed little. Women, more than he could
remember, even Caucasians, African-American, and Asians joined the other women
on La Coahuila's sidewalks. They
milled about outside the bars. An Anglo minister stood on a wood crate and
preached in stodgy Spanish against the evils of the flesh and the fires of
hell. Some people booed him. Others listened politely. A Conjunto played a rousing rendition of a Tigres del Norte song on
the adjacent street corner as Tupac’s voice boomed from one of the many bars.
A bartender claimed to have seen Raul walk
into the dimly-lit bar, order a beer, and watch as nicely dressed American
men--probably San Diego professionals--crowded in among the border's shady
characters, indulging in underworld cool. Coupled bodies filled the dark booths
along the walls.
Did it remind Raul of the portable
Vietnamese bars that sprouted up overnight whenever his unit operated in a new
location? After each mission, behind thin plywood walls, young G.I.s, lost themselves
in drugs, booze, and female flesh, many for the first time. The war justified
it, a gift from the American tax payer. Impending death encouraged it, and
though his body had craved it, Raul had not indulged, the words of Catholic
School nuns and priests warning of hell’s damnation.
His ex-wife once asked him after they’d
been married a year, and he lugged her home drunk from a friend’s wedding
reception, “How can you be so God-damned controlled, Armenta? Aren’t you tired
of always being so responsible?"
He’d responded, “You’re drunk. One of us
has to be in control.” He realized her drinking was becoming more habit than
social.
She’d said, “At least I have fun and can
sleep at night and don’t stand in the living room, alone, staring out the
window until the sun comes up.”
She’d seen the worst of it, whatever it
was he carried, and that’s what he regretted most—that she’d seen it. So, it
wasn’t as hard the day he packed his bags and walked out, infuriating her. Speaking
of his ex-wife, it appears that's how this whole thing started.
*****
Early that Saturday, Rosalie, Raul’s ex,
had driven their daughter, Iliana, back to her dorm room at a private
university in San Diego after her semester break in Los Angeles. Raul followed
in his car, carrying Iliana’s possessions.
After unloading everything, Raul and
Rosalie, a hotshot attorney living in Brentwood with her new bank executive
husband, had stood at the curb arguing, Iliana at the balcony watching. Raul,
had stood, hands in his pocket, letting Rosalie vent, about what? Probably
money.
Raul wanted Iliana to find a job on
campus, live on a budget, mature and be independent. Rosalie said that as long
as Iliana was a student, she should have an unlimited income so she could
concentrate on her studies. It was an old argument and Iliana, of course, sided
with her mother. After the argument, Rosalie had stormed off and driven her
Mercedes north, back to Los Angles. Raul hopped into his Range Rover and headed
south, to the international border at San Ysidro.
It was something he did a few times each
year, visit Tijuana, to get his head straight. Usually, he’d drive his car
across the border and drive to the Playas
de Tijuana, eat shrimp at the food stands on a bluff above the shore and
talk politics with the locals. He’d attend the bullfights, either at the new
bullring by the sea, or downtown at El Toreo, depending on the time of the
season, always taking a seat in the first row, shady section. As he aged, he began
seeing the spectacle just as violent and agonizing as it was mystifying,
different from the glamour of his youth.
After each corrida, he’d wander among the
crowd and enjoy the music, food, and festivities. He’d have dinner downtown, at
a nice restaurant, and, after, drive home, often getting stuck for two-hours in
the line of cars heading back into the U.S., but he always needed the
convenience and control of being in his own car.
This particular afternoon, he broke
tradition, and instead of driving to the Playas when he arrived at the border,
he parked his car in a San Ysidro visitor’s lot, walked across into Tijuana,
and he took a cab downtown. After he explored La Coahuila and the adjacent neighborhoods, he checked into the
famous Hotel Cesar, on the main boulevard, Calle de la Revolucion, where
he remained in his room until a little after midnight, when he emerged.
In his mid-50s, still a robust, handsome
man, somewhat distinguished, he surveyed his surroundings. Each Saturday night,
teenagers and young adults--many obscenely drunk, filled la Revolucion. Cops
handcuffed teenage boys, who had lost all sense of reason, their heads shaved
clean as cue balls, nails for eyes, and outrageous baggy clothes, larger even
than those worn by the pachucos of his
day. On the streets, lines of cars and motorcycles barely moved. Boom boxes and
car horns blared, revved engines screamed, and music from the bars echoed in
the night air.
He climbed
three flights of multi-colored lighted steps, entered a club, and watched young
American coeds dance on raised stages as a gaggle of men cheered them on. He
sat for an hour. One girl, an American, at a nearby table, nodded to him. He hoped
she wasn’t a former student. In college classrooms and offices, he had
encountered thousands of students throughout his career, and years later, many
would approach him to offer thanks or just introduce themselves. It was
flattering but disconcerting.
The young woman walked up to him, said a
few words, and kissed him lightly on the lips. She walked back to her table and
friends, laughing. He paid for his drink and left.
He’d been seen jumping from club to club,
“Senor Frogs” “Iguana-something or other” “Key Largo,” flashy, glitzy names.
Did they evoke memories of his R & R in Bangkok, a 20-year-old soldier, paying
a driver and a pretty young woman to accompany him the entire week. He visited
at her home above the Chao Phraya River, her mother preparing home-cooked meals
for him. He bought the family food and household goods at the local PX, all in
exchange for five-days of her company and service, anything to help him forget
the hell he would face when returning to the Valley.
Between 1:30 and 2:00 A.M., he headed
back to his room at the Hotel Cesar, home to the world-famous Cesar Salad. Through
1930s Yankee Prohibition up until the 1960s, Cesar’s was the most prominent
hotel in Tijuana, playing host to presidents, diplomats, celebrities, and
millionaires from around the world. Raul knew that great bullfighters and
celebrities had taken up residence there before each Sunday’s corrida.
Hotel Cesar had been Pasadena-rich, old
money, posh, dark wood, Cuban cigars, Chivas Regal, Carey Grant, and Grace
Kelly. He had known about Cesar's history from all the bullfighting books he'd
devoured in his youth. In a journal, Raul had written how, as a teenager, he dreamed
of spending a night there. Has he, finally, fulfilled a dream?
The clerk who had run his credit card said
Raul had marveled at the bullfighter’s trajes de luces, photos of movie
stars, and dignitaries behind glass cases in the lobby. The heads of famous
bulls were mounted on the walls. Raul also knew that in 1960s, the old place
had fallen on hard times, when the postmodern elite saw the once proud hotel as
stuffy and conservative.
About 1965, a resurgence in Hemingway’s
writings, especially, the Sun Also Rises, began to take hold, and Hollywood
rediscovered Tijuana and the romance of the bulls. For those with no time to fly
off to Pamplona, they headed across the border and enjoyed the cockiness of
new, modern La Sierra Motel & Lodge two blocks from the downtown Tijuana
Bullring, El Toreo, on the old road
to Ensenada. Lines of limos pulled up to the front doors and dropped off
celebrities and aficionados, the waiters and footmen rushing to meet them and
carrying their luggage inside.
These new aficionados were the film industry’s
elite, like Stephanie Powers, Robert Wagner, and Natalie Wood, hot tickets, new
money, open shirt-collars, and gold chains--pre-Laker courtside, before the
adoration of the Shaqs, Kobeys, and Jordans.
They idolized the young, handsome, dynamic
toreros of the day, Ramon Tirado, Paco Camino, and the wild dramatist,
El Cordobes, and each Sunday, they filled the old bullfight arena to capacity.
Earlier in the day, Raul had taken a taxi
to La Sierra Motel and Lounge, surprised the place hadn’t been razed, even if
it appeared neglected, run down, actually. He walked the grounds, maybe think
back to his teenage years, those days he stood outside and watched beautiful,
buxom blonde women and handsome, tanned men stroll about the pool and upper
balconies, marijuana smoke wafting in the air, the waiters running from one
side to another, their trays filled with drinks.
By 2001, the once swanky motel of his
youth, with its quasi-art-deco design, vibrating pulse, and tropical
sensuousness, had fallen into decay. Broken chunks of cement disfigured the
once beautifully curved lines. It was no more than an aging, crumbling motel.
Across the street, a new 100-room hotel
graced the side of a mountain. It looked like Spain’s Alhambra. Mercedes,
Lexus, Land Cruisers, and Escalades filled the parking lot. Probably, none of
their owners came for the bullfights. Many tickets had gone unsold.
The cars, more than likely, belonged to
business people with interests in the maquladoras,
the state-of-the-art factories
sharing Tijuana's dry mountains with hundreds of shantytowns just outside of
the city limits. Progress never stops. Many maquiladoras had begun
closing as American corporations found cheaper labor in China, Indonesia, and,
ironically, Vietnam, now an American ally.
At about 2:00 A.M. Raul entered the
Cesar’s lobby, nodded to the clerk. Then, without a word, Raul turned, and
stepped back out onto Calle Revolucion.
He entered a strip club, El Nido del
Aguila, the exterior typical of the city’s 1940s and ‘50s dives, but inside,
the place was no longer a dumpy, Tijuana strip joint. A long, hand-carved
wooden bar, liquor bottles from floor-to-ceiling, state-of-the-art lighting
equipment and sound system, the entire production stank of wealth. The men
inside dressed smartly, no college students here, no maquiladora cowboys, or off work taxi drivers. Suits and ties,
blazers, loafers, maybe an Armani or two roamed the room.
A drink went for $6.00, pricey for Mexico
in 2001. Around the perimeter of the club, topless women danced on stages and hung
from poles. They could have dropped right out of Playboy. And not only Mexican women but Asian, black, and Caucasian
beauties strutted across the room. They spoke both Spanish and English, some
Japanese.
According to the bartender, Raul had two
more drinks, back-to- back. A young woman approached him. The woman, Beatrice
Salinas, lived in San Diego’s Barrio Logan. She received her degree in
accounting with a minor in Spanish lit from San Diego State and was studying
for an MBA. She crossed the border each night to work at El Nido, to supplement
her income, which helped support her mother, two sisters, and an elderly
grandmother. She earned more in one night at El Nido than she earned all week
at her part-time job at a small accounting firm in San Marcos.
Raul had smiled one of those smiles meant
to discourage her from expecting anything more than a free drink. He told her
he was an educator. She engaged him in subjects from literature to NAFTA and
the NFL to China as a world power. An hour passed, maybe more.
She could tell he had a high tolerance to
alcohol. She wouldn’t say much about what followed…something regarding a
discussion of the psychology behind Carlos Fuentes novel, Aura. They walked to his hotel, where she, “took him into the eye
of a hurricane.” He thanked her, and she left.
The next day, he checked out of his hotel, some say heading to the border,
and other claim they’d seen him at the bullfights, where a strange scene
unfolded. He had leapt into the arena, none of it verifiable.
Two days later, his car was found
abandoned in San Ysidro parking lot, no sign of him leaving Mexico, not even on
the border video cameras. In New York, terrorists destroyed the World Trade
Center. Media reports of a drunk American Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD,
who disappeared in Tijuana, hardly merited any news coverage in either country.
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