Written from 11:07 p.m. to 11:26 p.m.
"What the Sam Hell is going on down there?" the general asked. "Give me the goddamned phone." He snatched the receiver from the hands of the flustered radio operator, accidentally banging the kid on the forehead with the earpiece.
"Sorry son," he apologized.
He then turned his back to the boy and hunched over the receiver in an attempt to secure some privacy.
"You listen to me, soldier," he whispered into the mouthpiece, but a violent dust storm seized the atmosphere of the Utah desert and swept the general’s words away.
"YOU LISTEN TO ME, SOLDIER," he repeated, much louder, glancing around to see if anyone heard. "YOU HAVE TO BREACH THAT WALL, GODDAMMIT!" He pushed his index finger into the ear opposite the receiver and squinted into the white, dusty distance as he listened to the soldier’s response. During the following pause, the radio boy searched his many pockets for the wintergreen chewing tobacco he was sure he'd brought from San Jose.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO WATER?" the general yelled. "WHY THE FUCK ARE WE IN THIS GODFORSAKEN PART OF THE COUNTRY IF THERE’S NO WATER?"
He paused to listen.
"NO FUCKING KIDDING, DOBSON. WE BOTH WOULD RATHER BE NIBBLING SARDINES BESIDE A POOL IN SAN DIEGO, BUT IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN UNLESS WE GET SOME FUCKING WATER! THAT’S WHY THE GOVERNOR SENT US HERE, IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER!"
The general tapped the radio operator on the back of the helmet to draw the boy's attention. The radio operator turned to face the general. The action jerked the phone from the general’s hand.
"Damn, boy! Watch what you’re doing!" the general said.
"Sorry, Sir."
The soldier stooped and grabbed the fallen receiver, handing it back to the snarling general, who mashed it back onto his ear. "I need two sheets of paper and a grease pencil," the he snapped.
Confused by the request, the radio operator didn’t move.
"MOVE, DAMN YOU! WE’RE IN A FUCKING WAR HERE!" the general barked.
This time, the radio operator bolted toward the tents, jerking the phone from the general’s ear again.
The general rose to his full six-feet, five-inches and stood perfectly still amid the windy command center, watching the young radio operator sprint into the distance, the phone receiver bouncing and twirling behind him in the dust. Despite being the most populated state in the Union with the largest National Guard force commanded by some of the most skilled military leaders ever to don a uniform, California would not be seizing the Colorado River today, he realized.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Saturday, April 02, 2005
When vengeance fails a parent
Over the Hogback
I regained consciousness to the sickening feeling one gets before falling from a great height. The next moments are unclear because things happened quite rapidly, and of course, the concussion might have played a part.
But this I know: we were in the car, my wife and I. She was at the wheel and she was screaming -- although I remember it sounding more like rage than fear.
Out the windshield, the entire Denver metropolitan area, or at least the western half of it -- mostly the stretches of Golden and Lakewood through which the infamously skanky Colfax Avenue slices like a trashy, glittering spike -- briefly dropped beneath the car's hood, then reappeared at an odd angle, then slipped very suddenly upward, to be replaced from below by the rapidly approaching dry brush and colored soil of the Hogback formation in the foothills west of Denver.
Of course, it all happened much more quickly than one run-on sentence can convey. The impact was quick -- thankfully so was the pain -- and conscious thoughts extremely truncated. Later recollections are scarce.
Speaking to a television reporter while pointing up at the precipice behind him, a young witness regaled the television-viewing community with his account of the 1995 Honda Accord's flight, dust and gravel trailing through the blue sky a la Dukes of Hazzard. He also recounted his thoughts at the time: "They're never gonna make it..."
Recovering in a hospital
But we did, which is why I'm lying in this bed, pondering everything leading up to that moment; pondering how that particular week, which held such promise, ended so badly.
The back story
After a harrowing couple of days, we had finally recovered our 9-year-old son from his Mexican captors. Although my Spanish is poor, I sensed they were as happy to be rid of him as we were to find him. Characteristic of many native Spanish speakers, the coyotes never precisely described their thoughts, preferring to communicate through beautiful colloquial expressions tainted with vulgar slang. For example, instead of "the boy," they addressed our son as "El Penetracion," which we found to be a cute, yet eloquent way of putting it.
For our part, Social Services had been breathing down our necks for a week -- ever since my wife reported him to the authorities. Evidently, the little bastard had done a little reporting of his own while he was on the road. My wife and I were surprised when we returned home with the boy, only to find the house ransacked by frumpy female social workers. Child pornography, child prostitution, undue hatred of a child, abuse and sexual assault on a child by a person of trust -- never in her life had my wife heard the government level such vicious accusations at a parent.
She didn't buy if for a moment.
That's about when the vengeance kicked in, and, if I recall accurately, about the time my wife's violent nature began to backfire. Our son has always had a preternatural ability to sense when the shit was about to hit the fan, and an equally unnerving willingness to take advantage of those situations. In what seemed like two seconds, he fled out the front door and stole my wife's old but cherished hunter-green Jaguar, smashing his way past the social workers' 1995 Honda Accord.
The ruckus in living room was unbearable, mostly for the social workers who didn't yet understand the gravity of my wife's emotions. To their credit, they backed off and relinquished the Honda's keys after only a few of my wife's notorious closed-hand blows to face and neck.
We chased the boy west on 6th Avenue, merged onto Interstate 70 and continued west until Morrison Road, where the boy veered off the highway and, with the sound of a million Coors-light cans stomped in concert, dislodged the Jaguar's right front fender on a large road sign and left its wadded carcass rocking on the asphalt. Stalled traffic forced the boy to slow down at the intersection. Sensing her moment, my wife mashed the accelerator to the floor and rammed the Jaguar's rear at a horrible speed. That's when I blacked out the first time.
Back in the hospital
The boy has disappeared again. I haven't seen my wife, either, although I haven't asked. This time, I can't go after him because I must endure months of recovery from the reconstructive surgery, but the waiting is no longer difficult, because I have forgotten the meaning of time.
On reflection, I've concluded that vengeance isn't as useful today as it might have been in the past. It's a lesson I should have learned sooner, and one I'm afraid my wife will never learn. Had I been a little wiser, I could have recognized the danger, and perhaps even avoided all of this. I could have chosen a better woman to accept my seed. When I do find my son, I hope to teach him this lesson before he makes the same mistake as his old man and entwines himself in a demonic terrorist like his mother.
I regained consciousness to the sickening feeling one gets before falling from a great height. The next moments are unclear because things happened quite rapidly, and of course, the concussion might have played a part.
But this I know: we were in the car, my wife and I. She was at the wheel and she was screaming -- although I remember it sounding more like rage than fear.
Out the windshield, the entire Denver metropolitan area, or at least the western half of it -- mostly the stretches of Golden and Lakewood through which the infamously skanky Colfax Avenue slices like a trashy, glittering spike -- briefly dropped beneath the car's hood, then reappeared at an odd angle, then slipped very suddenly upward, to be replaced from below by the rapidly approaching dry brush and colored soil of the Hogback formation in the foothills west of Denver.
Of course, it all happened much more quickly than one run-on sentence can convey. The impact was quick -- thankfully so was the pain -- and conscious thoughts extremely truncated. Later recollections are scarce.
Speaking to a television reporter while pointing up at the precipice behind him, a young witness regaled the television-viewing community with his account of the 1995 Honda Accord's flight, dust and gravel trailing through the blue sky a la Dukes of Hazzard. He also recounted his thoughts at the time: "They're never gonna make it..."
Recovering in a hospital
But we did, which is why I'm lying in this bed, pondering everything leading up to that moment; pondering how that particular week, which held such promise, ended so badly.
The back story
After a harrowing couple of days, we had finally recovered our 9-year-old son from his Mexican captors. Although my Spanish is poor, I sensed they were as happy to be rid of him as we were to find him. Characteristic of many native Spanish speakers, the coyotes never precisely described their thoughts, preferring to communicate through beautiful colloquial expressions tainted with vulgar slang. For example, instead of "the boy," they addressed our son as "El Penetracion," which we found to be a cute, yet eloquent way of putting it.
For our part, Social Services had been breathing down our necks for a week -- ever since my wife reported him to the authorities. Evidently, the little bastard had done a little reporting of his own while he was on the road. My wife and I were surprised when we returned home with the boy, only to find the house ransacked by frumpy female social workers. Child pornography, child prostitution, undue hatred of a child, abuse and sexual assault on a child by a person of trust -- never in her life had my wife heard the government level such vicious accusations at a parent.
She didn't buy if for a moment.
That's about when the vengeance kicked in, and, if I recall accurately, about the time my wife's violent nature began to backfire. Our son has always had a preternatural ability to sense when the shit was about to hit the fan, and an equally unnerving willingness to take advantage of those situations. In what seemed like two seconds, he fled out the front door and stole my wife's old but cherished hunter-green Jaguar, smashing his way past the social workers' 1995 Honda Accord.
The ruckus in living room was unbearable, mostly for the social workers who didn't yet understand the gravity of my wife's emotions. To their credit, they backed off and relinquished the Honda's keys after only a few of my wife's notorious closed-hand blows to face and neck.
We chased the boy west on 6th Avenue, merged onto Interstate 70 and continued west until Morrison Road, where the boy veered off the highway and, with the sound of a million Coors-light cans stomped in concert, dislodged the Jaguar's right front fender on a large road sign and left its wadded carcass rocking on the asphalt. Stalled traffic forced the boy to slow down at the intersection. Sensing her moment, my wife mashed the accelerator to the floor and rammed the Jaguar's rear at a horrible speed. That's when I blacked out the first time.
Back in the hospital
The boy has disappeared again. I haven't seen my wife, either, although I haven't asked. This time, I can't go after him because I must endure months of recovery from the reconstructive surgery, but the waiting is no longer difficult, because I have forgotten the meaning of time.
On reflection, I've concluded that vengeance isn't as useful today as it might have been in the past. It's a lesson I should have learned sooner, and one I'm afraid my wife will never learn. Had I been a little wiser, I could have recognized the danger, and perhaps even avoided all of this. I could have chosen a better woman to accept my seed. When I do find my son, I hope to teach him this lesson before he makes the same mistake as his old man and entwines himself in a demonic terrorist like his mother.
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