by John Nichols
Herbie hunkered, petrified, horrified, on his sleeping bag, watching them die like gas victims from the First World War, like Napoleonic soldiers on a Russian winter battlefield. They twitched and floundered, weaved and bumped into each other, staggered about and toppled over and dragged their half-paralyzed selves painfully along the floorboards, little damp smears of ant crap marking the floor behind them, describing the patterns of their death throes.
“Why,” Herbie wailed, “am I such a clumsy, gullible schmuck?”
Meanwhile, ant lines, unbroken, unswerving, undismayed, still poured steadily out of all those little holes up around the vigas.
If it weren’t for bad luck, thought Herbie Goldfarb, recalling a song made famous by Johnny Cash, I’d have no luck at all. And he wondered all the more intently if it might not be a good idea to transfer out of Milagro, forget about his high-falutin principles, and head for Vietnam.
* * *
Benny Maestas had already been to Vietnam. Most of the able-bodied sons of Milagro between eighteen and twenty-five were, or had been, in the army, because aside from the Doña Luz mine, the army was the only other “area” employer that issued relatively regular paychecks, allowed people to do something—namely, hunt living things—that was in their blood from birth, and had a life insurance plan if they happened to get offed.
Thumbtacked on the wall in his room, Benny Maestas had a yellowed cartoon depicting some G.I.s on a jungle patrol in which one G.I., a Chicano, was saying to another G.I., a black, “Yo soy el único en mi família que tiene empleo.” Which translates into: “I’m the only one in my family who’s got a job.”
In point of fact, the little town of Milagro had one of the highest death ratios in the United States of America. Of the fifteen boys sent from there so far to Vietnam, eight had already died: Tranquilino Apodaca, Meliton P. Trujillo, Chato Arguello, Johnny Mondragón, Elisardo and Juan Córdova, Joe P. Mondragón, and Onofre L. Martínez.
It is perhaps interesting to note that the previous year’s entire seven-man senior class, except for Rumaldo Ledoux (a cousin of the noted absentee santo carver and rabble-rouser, Snuffy Ledoux), who died in a car accident graduation night, joined the army and four were subsequently sent to Vietnam.
Now, as the Asian festivities were apparently drawing to a close, a national pictorial magazine decided to do a “sensitive” and “searching” feature on Milagro’s “anguish.” With this article in mind, a hip young reporter, Abigail Tedesky, flew out to the capital, rented a car, and drove up to Milagro, intending to complete some necessary background work before the paparazzi and tape-recording experts were trundled in.
Abby Tedesky had what would have to be described as a “very traumatic experience” in Milagro. In the first place, the minute her swish Cardinal crimson rent-a-car floated like a cruising shark into town eight days after the beheaded lunkers were mailed to Ladd Devine, the inhabitants pegged her for either a flimflam woman, a traveling puta, or Kyril Montana’s other half, a lady cop, and, beginning with a pebble pelting by Mercedes Rael, they acted more or less accordingly.
Abby first contacted the mayor, Sammy Cantú, who was excessively polite to her. As she explained who she was and why she had come to Milagro, he nodded his head, saying “Yes, yes, yes, uh-huh,” and he didn’t believe a word she said. Smiling ingratiatingly, though, he also eyed her intently, waiting to catch a high sign—a wink, a hand signal—that would indicate her real reasons for coming to Milagro and wanting to grill people. But to his chagrin, and subsequent terror, that sign was not forthcoming. After she left, toting a list of names that he had supplied, the mayor sat in a chair wringing his hands, certain Abby was in town on Kyril Montana’s, or perhaps even the FBI’s, behalf to keep a tight watch over people like himself.
Nick Rael nodded his head, saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” while Abby explained herself and her mission, and when she tried to probe more deeply into Milagro’s war dead, he asked, with a knowing, sardonic wink: “Uh, which war, exactly, would you be referring to?”
And Abby wondered: Why did this tight-lipped store owner chuckle like that when she answered, “The Vietnam war, of course.”
After Nick Rael, things grew steadily worse.
Tranquilino Apodaca’s mother kept her standing on the bienvenido mat, and when Abby finished her spiel, the bright-eyed woman replied, “What do you want to write about Tranky for; he was a good kid, but also a bum. It wasn’t bad enough he did time for burglary, assaulting a chota, and rape, he had to enlist in the government too; they gave him a free gun, free bullets, and free people to shoot at. When he came home defunct there was a smile on his face. There was a smile on my face too, because the government sent a check for ten thousand dollars. You want to write a story, why don’t you write it about José Mondragón’s beanfield? You want to write about a war, just keep paying your rent over in Pedo Hirsshorn’s Enchanted Land whorehouse for the tourists, and don’t walk around town without your eyes open.”
The other mothers did not react in quite such a vituperative manner, but they all more or less chorused similar sentiments: “What do you want to write about my boy for? Dead is dead, rest in peace. I don’t want to be reminded he was working for the government when he died, or that the meat he killed nobody was allowed to eat. You want to write about something, why don’t you write about José Mondragón’s beanfield over there on the west side? You want a war story, just keep paying your rent over in Pedro ‘The Pedo’ Hirsshorn’s Enchanted Land whorehouse for the tourists, wear a bulletproof vest, and keep your eyes open.”
Abby had never, not on any assignment, experienced such hostility, such suspicion. People muttered their standard replies, told her to write about Joe’s beanfield, and closed the door.
Eventually Abby decided that since she was making little progress with the Dead Vet–Town’s Anguish angle, she might as well humor the people a little by checking out Joe Mondragón’s beanfield. By chance, Benny Maestas led her there.
They stood on the bank, overlooking the tiny beanfield surrounded by desolate land, busted fences, rotting houses. Wind raged, the bean leaves were covered with dust; they looked bedraggled, unhealthy, dying. Abby squinted her eyes, peering at this pathetic little patch of vegetables through one-way Lolita sunglasses as Benny Maestas unfolded his arm in a magnificent sweeping gesture, intoning with awe, reverence, almost religious serenity: “There it is.”
“This is Joe Mondragón’s beanfield?”
“You better believe it.”
“But what’s so special about it—?”
Meanwhile, perturbed rumors had been scooting around in high places. As a result, Ladd Devine phoned the state engineer, named the national magazine Abigail Tedesky worked for, and said, “For God’s sake, Nelson, they’re going to write a story about Joe Mondragón’s beanfield!”
Bookman shit a brick. “Jesus, Ladd, have you talked to the governor?”
“That was going to be my next call.”
“Well, okay. Get back to me right away, will you? This is too much.”
The governor said, “Are you serious about this, Ladd? Is this woman for a fact up there right now?”
“I’m not making this up,” Devine said testily. “This isn’t my idea of a thing to joke about. She’s been in town three days now, talking with people down in the valley, asking them about the beanfield.”
“Okay,” the governor said quietly. “I’ll see what I can do.” Hanging up, he dialed state police headquarters: “Give me Xavier Trucho, please.…”
And the governor and Trucho talked.
After Ladd Devine hung up, he sat in his black Naugahide swivel chair with his hands clasped underneath his chin, his brow furrowed, thinking hard. For about five minutes he was deadly silent, then he called in Emerson Lapp, asking his secretary to send for Jerry Grindstaff. When Jerry G. arrived, Devine asked Lapp to leave and close the door behind him. They were alone in the closed office like that, Devine and Jerry G., for about eight minutes
, after which Jerry G. emerged, his face expressionless as usual. He walked downstairs and out front, slipped behind the wheel of a Dancing Trout station wagon, and drove out of the canyon and through town, turning left onto the highway, aiming south. A little past the Body Shop and Pipe Queen he turned right onto Strawberry Mesa, bouncing over a maze of rutted roads to the Evening Star hippie commune.
What Jerry G. planned to arrange was made all the more possible by the fact that recently—within the last three months, in fact—a methadone program for heroin addicts had been set up in Chamisaville. It was a program of good intentions, perhaps, and the people running it were trying to administer it fairly, but it was having at least one rather bad side effect: namely, the free methadone handouts were drawing a different kind of freak, notably smack addicts and pushers, into the area, most especially into the communes surrounding Chamisaville. This had caused a hitherto unknown tension to exist in the communes, a tension that had developed into a war between the peace-love-flower-child-grass-acid-mushroom-peyote hippies and the hard-stuff junkies moving in and ruthlessly taking over, trying to promote skag. To this new element, bean growing and gorgeous sunsets were so much crap in the spiritual can if the daily nickel bag or its equivalent did not arrive on time.
Jerry G. chugged up to the Evening Star commune, parked his car, said hello to a spacey-eyed woman traipsing along behind a herd of mangy goats, and headed briskly toward a nearby hoganlike structure in which a recent commune arrival known as Lord Elephant holed out. Jerry G. knocked on the door, the door opened, he disappeared inside.
While Jerry G. talked to Lord Elephant, some five miles away another important confab was taking place.
“She’s got gall,” Nancy Mondragón said. “Just sitting around in the Pedo’s whorehouse for tourists and driving all over in full view of everybody and grilling people about everything from soup to hay, pretending it really isn’t their opinions about José’s beanfield that she’s interested in. I’d like to kick her ass from here to Chamisa V.!”
Ruby Archuleta chuckled, lit a cigarette and dragged deeply, let the smoke out pensively. “She must think we’re pretty stupid,” the Body Shop and Pipe Queen operator said. “She really doesn’t give us credit for much brains at all.”
“We can’t let her keep parading around like this, asking everybody questions, can we?” Onofre Martínez asked, rolling a cigarette as only he could, without even using his missing arm.
Juan F. Mondragón groaned, “What are you going to do, you’re gonna break the law some more? Then there’s gonna be even worse trouble. You’ll get caught, and then you’ll be sorry. They’ll pull out your fingernails with little pliers—”
Ray Gusdorf said, “Maybe there’s some way we could make her leave.”
“Maybe,” Ruby said. “Maybe there is—”
As Ruby Archuleta, Marvin LaBlue, Claudio García, Onofre Martínez, Juan F. Mondragón, Amarante Córdova, and Jimmy Ortega left Joe Mondragón’s house by his kitchen door, so also did the governor of the state walk out of a meeting with Xavier Trucho and Kyril Montana. And at the same time Jerry Grindstaff stepped up out of Lord Elephant’s hogan at the Evening Star commune, slipping his wallet into his left back pocket as he shook hands with the hulking baby-faced doper. And on the west side, having run down the Joe’s beanfield saga for Abby Tedesky, Benny Maestas chucked a pebble into the Roybal ditch and turned to leave.
The next day, when Abby Tedesky emerged—fresh from a shower and dressed to beat the band—to start her day, there was no air in the rented car’s tires. Irately, she informed Peter Hirsshorn of this fact, and he immediately rushed over to Rael’s for some canned air, with which he obsequiously inflated the flat tires, begging Abby’s forgiveness for the locals’ crude sense of humor as he did so.
Abby then steered out of the Enchanted Land parking lot, only to be pulled over by a wailing, flashing state police car.
“You got a license?” Bruno Martínez asked brusquely. “Lemme see your license, lady. One of your taillights is out.”
“This is a rented car,” Abby said tightly, hunting in her purse for the license. “It’s a brand new car, how could the taillight be out?”
“Rented or not, it’s still out,” Bruno said, carefully studying the license. “Hey, where’s the registration of this car?”
“In the glove compartment—” Abby said, leaning across to open it. But the papers she had absentmindedly thrust in there three days before had disappeared. In point of fact, they were right now peacefully simmering in Peter Hirsshorn’s office safe at the Enchanted Land Motel.
“Oh for crissakes!” Abby exclaimed, and started trying to explain.
“Don’t gimme that line,” Bruno said curtly. “You just follow me on down the road, Missus Teshkadilly, we’re gonna straighten this out at headquarters.”
By the time she stalked out of Doña Luz headquarters two hours later, having been badgered unmercifully and then vindicated at least partially by rent-a-car records in the capital, Abby was fuming. She hit the gas pedal going back up to Milagro … and immediately Granny Smith pulled her over for speeding.
“My radar clocked you going seventy-five miles an hour in a sixty-mile zone,” he said laconically.
“Bullshit!” Abby exploded. She had hit the pedal, but not that hard.
“I’d watch that type of language in front of a cop if I was you, baby,” Granny said, flinching internally at the “baby,” but carrying out orders anyway like a good boy.
“Who the fuck are you calling ‘baby’?” Abby exploded.
“Okay, that’s enough, sister, I’m taking you in,” Granny said.
“The hell you say!”
Granny dropped his hand onto his gun. “You just get out of that car, miss, really quiet like, understand? And you walk back to my car, is that very clear?”
Suddenly Abby’s anger was replaced by a feeling of being scared stiff. Things like this just didn’t happen. At least they couldn’t happen to her. “W-what are you doing?” she stammered. “What are you talking about? I just spent half the day with you cops, and now you’re threatening to pull a gun on me because you claim I was doing seventy-five when I was hardly going sixty—”
Granny lifted his hand off the gun. “Look, baby, I don’t know what your problem is, I don’t even know who you are. It’s just when my radar says you’re going seventy-five, who am I supposed to believe, my radar? Or you?”
In her panic Abby realized she had better be conciliatory, she had better lick boots, even asses if necessary, turn a trick for this redneck son of a bitch if she had to, just to get out of this place alive.
“Oh, listen, officer,” she murmured contritely. “I’m sorry, oh brother, am I ever sorry. I’ve just had a rough day, that’s all, I really apologize. Listen, I can pay the ticket, how much is the ticket—?”
Granny wrote her out a ticket for a hundred dollars.
“A HUNDRED DOLLARS? FOR SPEEDING?”
“I don’t make the rules, ma’am, I just enforce ’em.”
“A hundred dollars for a lousy speeding ticket? Mister, who do you think you’re trying to hold up, some kind of backwoods chippie? I’ll get a lawyer; I’ll sue you bastards until you’re blue in the face! What the hell is going on around here?”
“I think we better head on down to the station,” Granny said.
“You bet your sweep bippie,” she hissed. “And you better not forget I’ve got one phone call coming to me!”
At the Doña Luz headquarters, though, a compromise was worked out between Bill Koontz, Bruno Martínez, Granny Smith, and Abby Tedesky. They decided in the end not to fine her at all, if she would just drive that rent-a-car back to the capital in the next twenty-four hours and have the taillight attended to, and stay within the speed limit during the rest of her time in the state. Trembling, Abby agreed to the terms and departed, expecting those redneck, greaseball, tanktown fuzz to shoot her in the back on her way out.
But she made it to the car
, drove it very sedately away from Doña Luz headquarters, and headed north at forty miles an hour, intending to pick up her clothes and get away as fast as the speed limit allowed.
About halfway home, though, Abby noticed she was being followed. By a grubby-looking, mud-splashed van of some sort. But she was afraid to accelerate for fear of running into a speed trap. The other vehicle, almost tailgating her spiffy new car, followed that way for about two miles, then it pulled out to pass, but started to steer back in too soon. Abby braked, the van braked too; she wrenched her wheel and braked hard, coming to a stop half off the shoulder as a tall thin man with a moustache jumped out of the van’s passenger door, and a big heavyset man with cherubic features, wearing a motorcycle outfit, circled hastily around the front, and a third man exited through the van’s side doors.
“Oh Jesus—” Abby reached to lock her door, but too late. The lanky man pulled it open and in the same motion grabbed her arm, jerking her from the car—her forehead struck the upper doorjamb a hard blow, and she cried out sharply, then the lanky man slapped her once and threw her to the big cherubic-looking guy, who in turn shoved her roughly into the arms of the third man, who struck her hard alongside the head, shouting as she fell down: “You better get the fuck out of here lady, dig?” She landed on the pavement in the shadow of, almost striking her head against, the flaming rent-a-car. One of them kicked her shoulder, then there followed a brief scramble as they jumped into their vehicle and peeled out—like that, it was over.
What could she do—go to the cops? Who was kidding who? Abby pulled herself up and into the car and drove north in a daze, not even crying. Minutes later she coasted across the Enchanted Land parking lot, stumbled into her room, jammed clothes into a suitcase, ran outside and dove into her automobile and departed without stopping by the office that did not care whether she paid her bill or not, and as soon as she reached the highway, she floored it. Passing the Doña Luz state police headquarters at eighty-five miles an hour, she did not think it odd that although two police cars were parked in front, neither of them made a move to chase her.