What Are We Doing in Latin America

by Robert Riche

  It is I now, who suddenly feel clubbed. I crumple down into a chair next to my wife, slowly, holding on to the edge of the table. This kid of mine is determined to destroy us all.

  My wife continues, her voice a dull monotone. “They’re holding him on a misdemeanor charge for drinking in public, and on a felony charge for possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.”

  “Oh, no!”

  And now, my wife, who up to this moment rather bravely, I think, has managed to hold herself together, suddenly is bent over, her head in her hands between her knees, sobbing. For this alone, I could wring that little bastard’s neck. The curve of my wife’s back shakes like a bucking horse.

  I place the palm of my hand between her shoulder blades. I should do more, but I don’t have the wherewithal at the moment. I am scared. Kids have gone to prison for possession of marijuana. Not as often as formerly, but it still does happen. And with the luck of this family, I know, that is exactly what will happen in this case. My son will go to jail, he will learn all kinds of jailhouse lore, he will be raped, sodomized, turned into a sadist, and will come out spiritually crippled, a resentful thug, and ready to do violence on the world. He will have transformed himself into a fucking little criminal wiseguy. Never again now will he have to play outlaw as a role. He will be one. An outlaw. He will go to prison, and when he gets out and finds he can’t get a job, even collecting garbage, he will take himself down to the railroad yards and skulk about with the other hoboes around their bonfires, and when he looks up suspiciously then from the can of cold baked beans he has managed to snitch from the shelf of some Mom & Pop grocery store, it won’t be a calculated pose that he strikes any more. It will be an authentic automatic response to a world that he hates, a world that, in turn, loathes him. And his mother and father will go to bed at night, never knowing but what a telephone call will come from the police saying that his body has been found floating in a river somewhere, they think it’s his body, but they need an identification, because the face has been eaten away by eels.

  Well, then, fuck him! We deserve better than this! We gave him his chance. And he blew it. Now there is ourselves to think of.

  “You have to go down to the police station to sign him out,” my wife says.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “The policeman said—”

  I interrupt her. “Did he say I would be arrested if I didn’t come down to get him?”

  There is a look of astonishment now in the smeared wet face of my wife. “They said they would hold him until you came down.”

  “Good. They can hold him.”

  “Bill! Your son is in jail!”

  “Which is where he belongs!”

  “He does not belong there, and you know it!”

  I whirl on her. “I do? He’s been arrested, Annie—for possession of a controlled substance, with intent to sell. That’s criminal behavior. Criminals belong in jail. Or don’t you believe that?”

  She is up out of the chair, the look of astonishment replaced now by anger. “My son is not a criminal!” she screams.

  “Nobody’s son is a criminal!” I bellow back at her. “The jails are filled with guys like him who are not criminals. They’re just no fucking good—either to themselves, or to anybody else. They’re bums. Everybody has tried to help them, to give them opportunities, to remove them from temptation, to reason with them, to go hunting in the middle of the night for them, looking under bushes, and being called an asshole because of them. And they go on thumbing their noses at us. People who can’t act like civilized human beings don’t get treated like civilized human beings.”

  My wife, though allowing me to finish, is clearly not impressed. “Are you going to leave him in jail?” she asks coldly. Her coldness, I find, is strangely menacing.

  “Yes,” I say, looking away.

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The expression on my wife’s face is one of disbelief, anger and, yes, even hatred. It is as if I am the beast now suddenly entered into the home, a threat to life itself, an obstacle to be overcome.

  Still, it is difficult to say which of us is more threatening to the other at this moment. Perhaps I am more frightened, because behind my anger there is also the sickening realization that in this struggle between us, if I win, I could easily lose her.

  I proceed in a more cautious low tone. Excitability, rising easily in me, has been known to raise hysteria in her. “Do you approve of what he’s doing?” I ask her.

  “Approve?” My low-key approach does not help. She snorts at me contemptuously. It amazes me always how she, for her part, feels no compunction whatsoever against expressing her own feelings in any manner that she wants to. Or is it possible that she is holding back, too, that if not for restraint on her own part, it could be much worse. It’s hard to believe. “He made a mistake!” she suddenly hisses at me. “Does he have a right?”

  If I say anything at all, I know it will only aggravate her further.

  “You did crazier things, and you were older!” she spits out at me.

  What specifically she is referring to I have no idea. “I was not a dope fiend! I was never arrested!”

  “You were hanging out in Paris with that bunch of creeps—”

  “They weren’t creeps!”

  “—Pritch Bates and the rest of them, threatening your parents with giving up your citizenship to become a Frenchman.” She snorts, actually spraying mucous from her nostrils. “You drove your parents crazy!”

  “It was youthful idealism!” I roar back at her. “I don’t have to apologize for that!”

  “Did your father see it that way?!”

  “What the hell did my father know?!”

  “Nothing!” she screams at me. There is a moment when I actually am concerned that she will assault me. There is a knife on the table. “No more nor less than you do.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to introduce some dignity in the midst of this maelstrom. “There is no comparison.” I catch her eye, and hold it as if in a grip. “My kid is a bum!”

  “Oh my God!” If she weren’t so angry, it would have come out as a laugh.

  Her contempt is infuriating, the fact even that she hardly takes me seriously. I level an accusatory finger at her. “Maybe you think I’m a fool. Peter does. But I’ve got news for you—and for him. If he wants to go up against me, he’ll find he’s met his match, babe! I’ll squash him like a cockroach, like the little fucking wimp he is!”

  “He’s not doing it to go against you!” she cries.

  “I don’t care why he’s doing it. He’s doing it, and I’ve had enough of it. I don’t go for that crap! It’s not right! I’m through with him!”

  And as I say this, I recognize that I have stepped over a fine line suddenly. It is the end, I have just declared it, there is no turning back, not without a total loss of all dignity, there isn’t. Otherwise, all of this thrashing about is nothing but bombast, hollow noise and shouting. It is a commitment I have made, finally, to my own sense of the rightness of things.

  And my wife knows this. Strangely, almost as if a burden has been lifted from her, recognizing that there is no point in continuing to fight, nor in shouting, nor in arguing further, she takes in a deep breath of air. She exhales. She shakes her head sadly, then compresses her lips.

  I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. I study her carefully a moment.

  “What?” I say, more quietly. It is difficult to feel comfortable when she turns enigmatic in this way.

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “Oh, yes, something,” I say.

  She shakes her head again, slowly.

  “What?” I repeat.

  She says, “You have become the mirror image of your father.” I can feel the astonishment leaping into my own face even before she adds, “Only you are worse.”

  “No! Absolutely not! No!”

  “
Your father, at his worst, never had the loathsome feelings that you have expressed now to me. As bad as he is, or was, he never, never totally lowered the boom on you, did not write you off—”

  “It was different!”

  She overrides me. “He felt it just as strongly! And he, nevertheless, held himself back! He did not write you off. He never dropped the bomb.” Her eyes are burning into me now, as mine did into her a moment or two ago. “And, moroever, you are doing it to everybody.” And she crooks a finger into her own breast, and jabs herself hard.

  And in that sudden gesture she has just included herself among those who are arrayed against me. It is like a hook in my side. I can’t find it within myself even to speak.

  “The worst part is,” she goes on, her voice growing soft suddenly and switching now from a tone of anger to one more of sorrow, “you are destroying yourself.”

  “No,” I say back to her.

  She nods. “You are turning yourself into a bitter, defeated old man, in the guise of some stupid principle, or something. Some notion you have. I wonder if you can imagine how sad it is to see.”

  To hear her come out with this, and to feel the full force of its quiet conviction is like experiencing some kind of death sentence. Because to deny it simply is not enough. There is too much truth in it. I do feel nothing but bitterness, hatefulness. My life is bitter and hateful, and not appreciated. By anyone. Least of all by myself. There is a moment when I am tempted to mount some kind of argument in my defense. There are things that could be said. I could probably say things in my defense that would wound others. But to what point? To escalate the argument so as to win her everlasting enmity? “I don’t understand,” I say.

  And my wife, saying nothing, scrapes her chair over closer to mine, and facing me, puts a hand on my shoulder, then her other hand on my other shoulder. She just rests her hands there, like a mild restraint, waiting. For what? I am not sure, but I feel the urgency of it.

  I don’t look into her face immediately. I am looking down between us. But what I cannot avoid seeing, even there, staring at the floor, is an inescapable conclusion. “Do I have to give in on everything?” I say. I look up to face her.

  “It’s not giving in,” she says.

  And gazing now into this sad, red, swollen, pleading face, what I see is the elusive face of dignity that I have been looking for for I don’t know how long. I am holding it in my hands. I bring my face up to hers, feeling the wet cheek against my own.

  “All right,” I say.

  And as I slip my arms around her waist, we cling to each other, I to my salvation, gratefully, having been pulled back, mercifully, I think, from a terrible brink.

  We are both jarred in the next instant by the harsh ring of the telephone next to us. Quickly, breaking apart, composing myself, I brush my arm across my face.

  “Hello,” I say, giving much effort to having my voice come across strong.

  “Hello, Bill. How are you?” A friendly voice, but one that I do not immediately recognize.

  “Hello?” I say, not letting on immediately that I don’t know who it is.

  “I saw Tillie tonight.” It’s my father, calling at ten o’clock.

  “Oh? Dad! How are you? I didn’t recognize your voice at first. You sounded like some young guy.” Which is meant to compliment him, of course, but which is also true. His genes are stronger than all of ours put together. And then, “Is Tillie okay?”

  “Oh, yes. Fine,” he says. “I took her that George Burns book. She’s crazy about him, you know.”

  “Is she reading, and everything?” I am just beginning to breathe easier, relaxed a bit now that I know that the call was not more bad news.

  “Oh, yes. She asked for you—and the children. And Annie.”

  “Oh, good.” I’m wondering if this was his first trip to the hospital to see her. I assume it was. He finally got around to it.

  My wife taps me on the shoulder, and says in a husky whisper, “Tell him I sent her a card today.”

  “Annie sent her a card today,” I say.

  “Oh, that’s good. She’ll enjoy that.”

  “How long will she be in?”

  “Just a few more days.” A pause. “I’m switching apartments with her.”

  “What?”

  “When she comes home. Well, it’ll be easier if she doesn’t have to climb the stairs.”

  I am stunned, knowing how he likes things to remain as they are. “When did you decide on this?”

  “Yesterday. I talked with her. Her doctor seemed to think it was a good idea.”

  “It’s very thoughtful, Dad. I know you like your own apartment.”

  “Oh, the hell with it. It doesn’t make any difference to me. This moving is a pain in the ass, though.”

  “Have you got help?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve got two kids from across the street. They’re doing all the carrying.”

  There is a moment’s pause. “I could come up, if you want.”

  “No, no,” he puts in quickly. “You’re a busy guy. You shouldn’t take time off.” He pauses just long enough to shift gears. “How’s Old Pete?”

  “Oh, fine,” I say. I am tempted to add, Pete’s fine, languishing in jail, waiting to get out to lay ambush on us. No, of course, I won’t say it.

  “Do you think he’s on dope?” my father asks, suddenly out of the blue.

  “Dope?” I almost choke on the word. “Dope, no. Why?”

  “Oh, he just seemed kind of—sleepy, when he was up here.”

  “That’s the way teen-agers act these days, Dad. They’ve got their minds on themselves most of the time.”

  “Yeah. That’s true. I wasn’t really worried. Like you say, he’s at that age.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Hey, Dad, what are you becoming, a philosopher in your old age? Middle age, I mean?”

  He bangs out a laugh. “Old age, is right. I guess so. Well, you were the same way,” he says offhandedly.

  “Really?” Did you think I was on dope? That’s a new one.”

  “You were off with the poets there, going to become a Frenchman.”

  I feel embarrassed. Everybody keeps bringing it up. Do I have to be ashamed of that? It was my revolt, I had to go through it, I shouldn’t have to apologize. “Oh, well,” I say, dismissing it.

  “You had us crazy here for awhile.”

  I smile. I suppose it is true.

  “Pete’s just like you,” he says.

  “Well,” I say. And just saying that is enough to let him know I am not really so sure about that.

  “Yes,” he says. “We’re all alike. I was the same way. Sowing wild oats.”

  “I’m not crazy about the brand of oats they’re sowing these days,” I say.

  “Well, it’s true. Everything’s crazy. I’m glad I don’t have to go through it again. But things straighten out.” He coughs out that laugh of his again. “If we don’t all kill ourselves first.”

  Since I don’t say anything, he adds, “Don’t be too tough on him.”

  Where is this new mellowness coming from? “How come you didn’t take the same attitude toward me?” I put in, the old resentment always gnawing.

  “I took it easier on you than you know, kid,” he says, with some emphasis.

  I don’t know why, but it surprises me that he should say such a thing. It is a kind of admission that he once backed down on something. This confession is astonishing to me. More surprising, he seems willing to pursue it further.

  “Your mother was pretty good about these things,” he says.

  I know he’s right on that. “Mom was great,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says in a tired voice. “But don’t forget, I listened to what she had to say.”

  It’s true, he did. She was the one person perhaps he did occasionally allow to tell him something. She probably saved him from himself at least once a week during his life. It’s easy to forget how important she was to him, how much he must miss her now. Quick
to react, slow to understand, nevertheless there was something in him that allowed him to listen, sometimes. Generosity perhaps, as with his giving up his apartment to Tillie. I’m impressed. Perhaps this often undignified gentleman has depths of dignity that he can reach down to and bring up when it’s necessary that I have not often appreciated.

  “You make a good point, Dad,” I say to him, at last.

  “I’m a survivor,” he says.

  “You are,” I put in.

  “Some of the boys are coming over tomorrow night for pigs’ hocks and sauerkraut,” he says. “I’m cooking.”

  “Lucky guys,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll have some fun.”

  “Listen,” I say, “if you need any help with Tillie, or anything at all—”

  “No, no,” he interrupts. “Thank you. I appreciate it. But it’ll be all right.”

  “Well, let me know.”

  “Okay, boy. Just wanted you to know everything’s okay.”

  “Okay, thanks, Dad. Same here.”

  I hang up, putting the receiver in the cradle lightly, and slowly, and looking over at Annie.

  “He’s giving Tillie his apartment and taking hers,” I say.

  “I got that,” she says, smiling.

  “I’ll never understand him,” I say. “One minute he can be so totally self-absorbed and insensitive, and the next he can be the most generous and giving guy in the world.”

  “Like father, like son,” she says.

  “Get outta here,” I say. And after a pause, “Maybe like Pete. What do you think?”

  She compresses her lips, vigorously shaking her head no and stomping her foot. She smiles. “That little bastard,” she says.

  CHAPTER XVII

  The police station in our town was moved recently from the basement of Town Hall to more spacious, if somewhat less congruent, quarters in a renovated Victorian mansion on a rise of land overlooking the nearby junior high school. Despite the new exterior of aluminum siding and the paved parking lot filled with black and white police vehicles, from a distance the building retains a look of Victorian elegance, with a three story turret in one corner and gabled windows looking out on an expansive stone veranda. A couple of venerable old maple trees stand on the front lawn that sweeps down the slope below the front of the building.