What Are We Doing in Latin America

by Robert Riche

  “Mr. Brock! How ya doin’, Mr. Brock? Got a cigarette, Mr. Brock?”

  Without being able to say precisely why, I know that the repetition of the name somehow is assaultive, having about it a brazenness, arrogance.

  “I don’t smoke,” I say.

  “That’s okay, Mr. Brock. How about a dollar. Have you got any money?”

  “Have you seen my son? I’m looking for my son.” It occurs to me that I probably have never acted more dignified in my life, and without any phony British accent, either. Just straight dignity. I wonder how Frank would handle this one. Probably he wouldn’t be in such a position in the first place. A hurtful thought.

  “No. No way. Haven’t seen him, Mr. Brock. Not since you sent him away to that reform school.”

  “It’s not a reform school!” I snap at him, raising my voice. Rasky’s grin broadens, as he sees he has touched a sensitive nerve. Is this his main pleasure in life, discomfiting others? He’s good at it, no doubt of that. Well, he’s been practicing. He is a kid of about seventeen, missing a front tooth, with a four-day stubble of beard and blondish somewhat matted hair streaming out from under an Andean hat, down to his shoulders. His father, Peter has told me, has kicked him out of his own house, and it is said that he lives wherever he can find a place, in friends’ cars, in the park, on the sidewalk. His family has given up on him, and very likely he is close to being destroyed, on his way to spending a life of little more than harboring grudges against those who have more than he has. I hate him, mostly because I can see the conflict in our own home ending up in the same way.

  The worst part is, there is something physically attractive about these kids, I can’t help observing it. Well, they’re kids. It’s hard to find an ugly kid. Rasky could be attractive, if he would take care of himself. But, of course, that’s the point, he doesn’t. He never will. He has given up on the world in which people take care of themselves. For the rest of his life he will dedicate himself to bitterly wasting it, idling about, not believing that there are any opportunities open to him, until boredom itself will trick him into some new kind of assaultive escapade. He will do something criminal. But, like all criminals, he will underestimate the power of the establishment, which suddenly will swoop down on him, the way he swoops down on one of his squirrels, collaring him, putting him in a cage, and when they let him out, if they do let him out, he will know only that the world is truly his enemy, his only remaining ambition to ravage it, rape it, plunder it, terrorize it.

  “He tells me it’s like a reform school,” this creature says.

  “You just said you hadn’t seen him!” I pounce on the remark.

  “Oh.” His hand comes to his mouth, not even pretending to hide the impish grin behind it. The others around him all shuffle and look away and grin and hunch their shoulders. One of the younger ones, standing next to his bicycle, hops into the seat, lifts the fork in the air, and rides off on one wheel, rolling outward in a curve, then circling back across in front of us.

  “Just for a minute. He came by.”

  “When?”

  “I dunno.” He looks around at his confreres. “When was he by? A few minutes ago.”

  “Where was he headed?”

  “You tryin’ to catch him, or sumthin’, Mr. Brock?”

  They all think this is hilarious, and they look at one another, and run their tongues around in their cheeks, and peer off into the black red night glow over the Grand Union.

  “Yes, I am,” I say. “I want him home. I don’t want him hanging around here. I don’t want him to have anything to do with you guys.” And I look Rasky straight in the eye, wondering what he will say to that. Sometimes there is no other course than the absolute truth.

  For just an instant there is a look of pain in his face, I have succeeded in touching some still unprotected area within him, before he says, looking straight back at me, “What’ve you got against me, Mr. Brock? Did I do something to you?”

  “I don’t like the way you live, Rasky,” I blurt out at him. “I don’t want my son to be like you.”

  He looks back at me, his eyes in little slits now, and he manages to bring something of a harder look into his face. “He’s more like me than he is like you,” he says.

  “That’s a lie!” I almost scream at him, my face only a few inches from his dirty stubble now. I am wondering if he will take a poke at me. I would go for his throat if he did. I’d kill him. “Over my dead body, Rasky. Over my dead body!”

  We are staring into each other’s eyeballs now, neither willing to back down. I have the feeling his stare must be like that of criminals I have read about, who look at you until you turn away either in fear or embarrassment. But it is he who backs down from the criminal gleam in my own eyes. The cruel slit of his mouth seems to spread out into a concessionary smirk, the look of bravado not quite concealing the fact that I have hurt him as much as he has hurt me. It is a standoff.

  Without another word, I step around him, and with a certain dignified presence, I think, push through the group standing about, moving toward the blackness of the nearby town park. Let one of them touch me. If Peter’s in the park, crouching under a bush, hiding, having seen the Pontiac come into the parking lot and having fled, I’ll find him. I’ll drag him out, by the ears. He will not be more like Rasky and his crowd than he is like me. I will not stand for it. Over my dead body, will it ever be so. A meaningless cliché phrase, but it sticks in my mind, as I find myself scrambling along the park paths now, veering off and peering under bushes crazily, then coming back on to the paths, panting for breath, but not giving up, exhaustion feeding my frenzy. Over my dead body, will he turn out like those others. My dead body, and his.

  It is then that the little kid with the bicycle who rode away a moment ago comes along the path behind me, coasting fast, just barely missing me, and hisses in my ear as he passes. “Asshole,” he says.

  This little thirteen-year-old, who doesn’t even know me, just rode by, almost hitting me, and calls me an asshole. Is this what life has come to in our time, kids gratuitously hurling obscene insults at their elders, their betters?

  “Fuck you! You little shit!” I shout after him. And suddenly, I am running, trying to catch him. Though he is on wheels, nevertheless, I think I can catch the little bastard. What I will do if I catch him I have no idea, but I will catch him, and I will grab him by the throat and scare the shit out of him!

  At this hour, the gates to the park are all locked, except one, the one we both entered through. Therefore, though I know I cannot catch him on the paths, I can cut across grass once he commits himself to a particular path. He probably is surprised, also a little frightened, I hope, that this old fart is, indeed, coming after him, he not having thought out the consequences of his action in advance, any more than I am thinking out now in advance what I am doing, or why I am doing it.

  I simply know that my strategy is to corral him back toward that sole gate that is open to the park, which I intend to hang back from until he commits to it, and then I will race across grass and maybe, just maybe, catch him as he tries to get out. The old-timers sitting on their benches cringe as I lurch past them, seeing something threatening perhaps in my effort. Let them worry, I feel exhilarated in a way, that I can do this, just the kind of thing I did when I was the kid’s age that I am chasing. It is behavior long gone that comes back to me as naturally as if I had been in training for it ever since. Fight! Fight! It’s as though a fight is shaping up in the schoolyard, and I’m ready!

  And then he commits to the gate, and I take off across grass after him. It is going to be close. He is coming down a path along the far fence, and I am going directly at the gate, running in my good shoes, and feeling my damaged instep warm and wet, but not hurting. My only concern is not to stumble now. My momentum is truly surprising, and I am leaning into the run, and the danger is, I know I could easily over-run my own feet, and fall. But I am keeping up with my own legs. It is going to be very close, whether I catch hi
m or not. Though I think I will, and the possibility of success fuels a new burst of speed. I am going to carry this one off.

  Then, just when it looks as though I will have him, one of the old couples, oblivious to all except possibly the chill of the evening and their aching bones, stands directly in front of me, I see this old man with a cane and the bent old lady holding onto his arm, and the terror in their eyes as I bear down on them. He starts to the left, to avoid me, but because the old lady’s arm inhibits his movement, it is more of a feint than a movement, fortunately, because I, too, have opted for the left, and just miss ploughing into him, even so executing another brilliant Baryshnykov maneuver to avoid knocking them both over. My own agility is a miracle in itself, powered by my pumping muscles. But, meanwhile, the kid on the bike does a park skid at the gate, then accelerates and goes on out through. I scoot around the old couple, but the kid is out now, on hard parking lot pavement, moving away, as I come back through the gate, running through the gang who have parted to let their friend through and stand now, and cheer as I puff by, exhausted.

  “How to go, Mr. Brock!”

  “Go get ’im, man!”

  “Who is that kid?!” I bawl at them, half stopping, but still moving forward. “I want his name!”

  “I didn’t even see him, Mr. Brock. Did any you guys see anybody?”

  The kid is at the far end of the parking lot now, and has stopped, and with one leg slung over the bar of his bike, he looks back, catching his breath.

  “Ass-h-o-o-o-o-le!” he croons into the night. And I am aware now only of my pumping heart, a wet shirt, a rising sense of foolishness, the gasping for air, and in the near distance, the head of a little girl rising from behind the dashboard of my Pontiac to see what is going on, then just as quickly slithering back down the seat again out of sight.

  “I’ll get you! You little shit!” I cry back into the night. “I’ll get you!”

  Even more than a few moments ago, I feel like I remember feeling once back in sixth grade—even before I went into junior high school—the time another kid and I stood in the playground yard, and hurled insults at one another as a crowd gathered around, urging us to fight, and because we didn’t know what else to do, one or the other pushed the heel of his palm against the other’s shoulder, which caused a response in kind, and then another response, harder now, and suddenly a push was a punch, and in the next instant we were rolling on the ground, and punching and tearing our clothes, until Miss Keegan, and I remember her well, and remember her name, grabbed both of us, by the ears, and led us off to the principal’s office. Both ready to cry, and feeling we had somehow done something terribly demeaning, unworthy and foolish.

  And as I drag myself back to the Pontiac, gasping now, wondering if the end result of all this will be a heart attack here in the parking lot, where the only people who could rescue me are standing 75 feet away, with sneers on their faces, I open the car door, and plop myself into the seat.

  “God, Dad!” my daughter growls at me from her recumbent position under the dashboard, “What are you doing?”

  “Wait a minute!” I gasp at her. “Don’t start in!”

  “Right!” she says. “Are you through playing with the kids?”

  “Do you think it’s right that a little thirteen-year-old kid should come up to me in the dark on his bicycle, and practically run over me, and call me an asshole?” I have never used the word asshole in front of my daughter before, I don’t believe.

  “That’s not the point,” she says, still staying down. “Are you on the same level he is?”

  “What was I supposed to do?!” I bellow at her.

  “I don’t know!” she practically screams at me. “But I’d think you could handle it better than that.”

  “Sit up in that seat!” I say to her, and I turn the key in the ignition.

  My daughter is frightened of my tone, I think. She never has been frightened of me before. My ally. Are we becoming adversaries? Is she turning on me? “Just drive out of the parking lot,” she manages to say in an icy tone.

  “I said sit up!”

  “I don’t want anyone to know you’re my father,” she says.

  I could almost belt her. It is my first reaction, to hit my own little daughter, as it recently crossed my mind to strike out at my wife when we were in the car going up to see my father. What is happening to me? I spin the wheels, turn the steering wheel hard, and head out of the parking lot. I am not sure, but above the noise of the vehicle, I think I hear a chorus from behind me, “Ass-h-o-o-o-le!”

  I could spin around, and drive directly at them. I’d get one or two of them before they could all scatter to safety. Maybe that kid on the bike, I could catch him.

  “Sit up,” I say to my daughter again.

  She brings her head up to window level, peeks out, and then allows her body to rise to a semi-sitting position.

  “I would like to know—” I begin, but I am not to finish. She reaches to the radio, and turns on her I-95 at incredible volume.

  “This is my car!” I say. I reach to the radio, and snap it off, then immediately have a better idea, punching it back on, and to 1010 WINS, “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.” And turn the volume as loud as it will go. She wants volume, she’ll get volume, my volume.

  “All the news all the time.” Here’s an update. It has been reported unauthoritatively that a detachment of Cuban troops has been sighted setting up anti-aircraft gun emplacements in the locale of the terrorist kidnappers. Meanwhile, the terrorists are hanging tough, threatening to cut the throats of the American advisors the minute they hear the sound of approaching planes. Our government is meeting with the families of the hostages, explaining that the sacrifice of these men may be necessary so as to set an example to terrorists world-wide, to let them know that we will not tolerate under any circumstances interference with the rights of U.S. citizens abroad.

  “Let me out,” my daughter says.

  “Do you want to go to the movies, or don’t you?” I bellow at her over the news.

  “I can walk from here.”

  “You can go home, too.” To strengthen the threat, I look over at her, slowing down and pulling over to the side of the street. I don’t want to force her to return home, but she is pushing me. “Is that what you want?” I ask. We are stopped now at the curb, the radio still blaring. “You decide.”

  My daughter suddenly opens the car door, springs out, and dashes over to a grassy bank nearby, and starts clambering up it.

  Again, that adrenalin feeling rushes through me. There is a second when I open my own door, with the idea of going after her.

  “Where are you going?” I call after her.

  “To the movies!” she shouts back.

  I can’t go after her. I doubt if I could catch her, anyway. And what would I do, if I caught her. Spank her? Wrestle her back into the car? She’d probably jump out while it was moving. What am I doing? She can’t bear to be in the same car with me. I sit there a minute, and watch her frail body disappear over the crest of the bank. I have no choice but to let her go. I have never felt so defeated, so crushed, so hurt, in my entire life. I don’t know what to do about it.

  I snap the radio off. “Bastards!” I mutter.

  I have no choice but to take myself home. Maybe my son will be there, after all this. What keeps coming to mind is the matter of dignity.

  I come in the front door at home. I don’t see my son lurking about anywhere. At least, he is not in the kitchen in front of the open door of the refrigerator, where I would expect him to be. My wife is on the phone. Why, on the phone? She never talks to anyone on the phone at this hour. I don’t catch any of the conversation. She is at the end, saying good-bye, but from the tone of her voice alone, I know her well enough to know that this is a serious call.

  She hangs up the receiver, and turns and looks at me.

  “Peter’s been arrested,” she says.

  CHAPTER XVI

  My li
fe is falling apart.

  “What happened?” I am standing over my wife who is seated, her hand still resting on the phone on the kitchen dining table. She looks up at me, as if she has been clubbed, raped.

  “He was in the park—”

  “I know.”

  “—and apparently one of the other boys—one of the older ones—went into the Grand Union and bought a six-pack of beer.”

  “Did Pete tell you this, or the cops? Did you talk to Pete?”

  “Yes. Peter told me.”

  “Did you talk to the cops?”

  “Yes.” She gives me a look of annoyance, an indication she would like me to understand she is capable of relating what happened without interrogation and interruption. “Pete took a beer, and was drinking, and two detectives were observing them in the bushes.”

  “Those shits!”

  “Did you know they passed a law just last week against drinking alcoholic beverages in public places?”

  “They did? Last week?”

  “At the town council.”

  And a good law, too, probably, designed to remove this very kind of scum from our local park. “And they were just looking to catch somebody tonight defying the law.”

  “Yes. Probably.”

  “And my stupid kid, who doesn’t even know there is such a law—”

  She looks at me, again with annoyance. “You didn’t know there was such a law.”

  “I don’t have to know. I don’t do my drinking in the park!”

  “They put handcuffs on him, marched him and the other boy to a police car, and then searched them.”

  “They can’t do that! They have no right!”

  “Pete had in his pocket a small pipe—”

  There is a sudden drain of blood from my head, I reach out to the kitchen table top for steadiness. My wife nods. “With marijuana in it.”