America Libre

by Raul Ramos y Sanchez

  Rosa stirred slightly and Mano let his hand wander along her undulating body. She still had curves in all the right places—even after three children. He felt the warmth and smoothness of her skin and sighed. His decision involved many sacrifices. A very long time might pass before he and Rosa would share a bed again. He embraced his wife gently, savoring her nearness.

  Although not fully awake, Rosa turned toward Mano and began caressing him. It was not unusual for them to make love at dawn, before the children awoke. Mano was becoming aroused, his breath beginning to quicken, when a thought crossed his mind that instantly diminished his fervor.

  Lovemaking would not be a good preface to the news he was about to give Rosa.

  He took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it gently. “Rosita, we need to talk,” he whispered.

  “What is it, mi amor?” Rosa said, stretching languidly.

  “They’re saying the first Relocation Community in North Dakota will be ready next month.”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied without opening her eyes.

  “When the camp is ready, you and the children will have to go.”

  “Dios mio, Mano, what are you saying?” Rosa asked, suddenly wide awake.

  “You and the children will be safer in a Relocation Community.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can be more useful staying here.”

  “What are you saying, Mano? What kind of man would abandon his wife and children at a time like this?”

  “Los Angeles is already a dangerous place, Rosa. It’s going to get worse.”

  “But why can’t you go with us? What good can it do for you to stay here?”

  “I can fight,” Mano said simply.

  “Fight for what, Mano? What reason is there for you to risk your life?”

  “Look around you, Rosa. What’s the name of this city? What’s the name of this state? Our people named these places. This was our country once. And now we’re being penned up and carted away like criminals.” Even as he spoke, Mano was surprised at his own words. He had never said these things out loud before. It was like listening to someone else. “Marcha was right, Rosa. It’s time for us to take our country back.”

  “What’s gotten your head full of these ideas, Mano?” Rosa asked angrily. “It’s that woman, isn’t it? She’s the one who’s got you believing this nonsense.”

  “At first, I thought it was nonsense, too. And then I realized we have a duty to our people, Rosa. I wish I had the words…”

  “Mano, you’ve always looked out for this family. What about your children? Don’t you care what happens to them?”

  “It’s for our children that I’m doing this,” Mano said with an air of finality.

  Rosa stared at her husband, knowing more words were useless. From twelve years of marriage, she had come to know Mano as a man who made few demands, but once his mind was made up, no amount of arguing would change it.

  At that moment, Rosa realized she had lost Mano. Josefina was breaking up her family. She was rich and beautiful. But that was not enough. She wanted her husband, too. Now Josefina would have Mano to herself while she and the children rotted away in a camp. Without another word, Rosa put on her nightgown, walked quietly into the bathroom, and turned on the faucet to mask the sound of her weeping.

  Maria Prado read the letter again. There had to be some mistake.

  During a fourteen-year CIA career, she’d learned it was easy to misinterpret the tortured, arcane prose of government documents.

  After the second reading, the message of the certified letter from the Department of Homeland Security was still the same: her family had fourteen days to move out of their home in La Mirada and report to temporary quarters in Los Angeles Quarantine Zone B until assignment to a Relocation Community.

  Maria reached for the vu-phone.

  Professor Francisco Prado saw his wife’s face appear in the vu-phone on his desk. “Hello, dear,” he said.

  “Frank, we’re being relocated.”

  “What? How can they do that?” Francisco shouted, losing his typically calm demeanor. He switched off the vu-phone’s speaker and picked up the receiver. “You work for the CIA, for Chrissake,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “I don’t think that matters anymore, Frank. First they stripped away my security clearance, and now this.”

  “They can’t just take away our house and kick us out like that.”

  “We’re Class H, Frank. Our constitutional protections have been revoked. And they’re technically not taking away our house. The letter says we’ll be compensated under eminent domain laws. It’s hogwash, of course, but it’s all legal.”

  “We can fight this, Maria,” Francisco said with a sudden burst of conviction. “We’ve got powerful friends. They can’t do this to us.”

  Sixteen days later, three new names were added to the roll call of Temporary Housing Unit 11 in Quarantine Zone B, a crowded tent city erected on the grounds of Evergreen Cemetery—Francisco Prado, Maria Prado, and their daughter, Andrea.

  THE QUARANTINE AND

  RELOCATION ACT:

  Month 9, Day 2

  Mano entered his apartment and saw a row of mismatched suitcases lined up neatly near the door. Rosa and the children were ready to leave.

  Looking around the empty living room, he realized it was probably the last time he’d ever see the place—not that he would miss it much once he went into hiding. But this dark and cramped apartment was the only home his children had ever known. Leaving it would not be easy for them. God only knew what kind of place Rosa and the kids would find at the Relocation Community. Mano’s sole hope was that it would be safer than staying here.

  “Papi, you’re home!” Elena yelled as she and Pedro ran out of the bedroom, dressed in their church clothes. Mano knelt and embraced the children, feeling their fragile arms around his neck. It was a moment he wished would last forever.

  He had never imagined it would come to this; he was about to part with the core of his life. Holding Elena and Pedro, he wanted to tell them how much they meant to him, how their absence would leave him hollow, but he held back—it would only make parting more difficult for the children.

  He gently stroked Elena’s hair. “All ready for your trip?”

  “Yes, Papi,” she said eagerly. “Mami bought me a new doll. Her name is Sonya.”

  Mano was grateful that Rosa was doing all she could to make this easier for the children. They would need her strength more than ever.

  He turned to his son. “What about you, m’hijo?”

  An older Pedro was not so easily distracted. “Why aren’t you coming with us, Papi?”

  “There are important things I have to do here, Pedro. I can’t explain them right now. We’ll be together again when I’m done. You have to trust me.”

  The boy lowered his eyes. “I wish Julio could have come with us. I won’t have anyone to play with on the trip… I miss him, Papi.”

  Mano lifted the boy’s chin. “Be strong, m’hijo.”

  The boy looked silently at his father, fighting back tears. Mano knew there was nothing more he could say; Julio’s loss was a pain they would have to endure.

  “Your mother and I have some things to talk about,” Mano said after a moment. “Why don’t you two go out in the courtyard and play?”

  Once the children were outside, Mano pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Rosa. As she looked, her eyes widened in astonishment. The envelope was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills—more money than she had ever seen. “It’s twenty thousand dollars,” he said.

  Rosa’s face hardened. “I don’t want this money,” she said coldly.

  “Why not, querida? What’s the matter?”

  “It came from her. She thinks she can buy you with it.”

  “You’re wrong, Rosa. This money is an advance on my pay.”

  “I don’t want it. I don’t want it,” she said, throwing the envelope to the ground and bursting into te
ars.

  Mano retrieved the envelope and held it out to her again. “Rosa, please take the money. The children are going to need it.”

  Rosa stared at the envelope for a long time before finally stuffing it into her purse.

  Mano encircled her in his arms. “I don’t know how long it will be before I see you again, querida. But once this is over, nothing will keep me away.”

  Rosa said nothing, weeping softly, head bowed against his broad chest. After a time, she broke their embrace and started for the door. “I shouldn’t leave the children outside alone too long,” she said, drying her eyes.

  Thirty-five minutes later, Rosa and the children were on a bus headed for North Dakota.

  A hard rain drummed on the roof of the former Greyhound coach, pelting the windows and blurring the view outside. With the air brakes hissing in protest, the driver brought the aging bus to a stop and turned off the engine. In a protective cage at the front of the bus, an armed guard beside the driver stared warily toward the locked passenger compartment holding forty-six detainees—including Rosa Suarez and her children.

  “Mami, I think we’re stopping for gas again,” Pedro said, his forehead pressed against the window. Rosa leaned forward, looking for her daughter and found her playing dolls with another girl two rows ahead. “Elena, come back to your seat, m’hijita. We’ll be getting off the bus in a while.” After seven days on the road, the routine at fuel stops was a familiar ritual for everyone aboard the bus.

  Rosa’s bus was part of a motley convoy of six civilian buses led by an Army truck carrying a squad of soldiers and a Humvee bringing up the rear. Each time the column stopped for gas, the Army truck would discharge its soldiers to form a containment perimeter around the detainees getting off the bus for rest breaks. Fearing the nearly three hundred detainees being transported by the six buses might overwhelm the eighteen soldiers escorting them, each bus was unloaded separately as it took on fuel.

  Assigned to bus number five, Rosa knew their chance to use a real restroom and wash up was still nearly an hour away. Nonetheless, she rose and dug through the suitcases on the rack above their seats for the children’s rain gear. She wanted to have the kids ready. Once the gas tank was full, everyone would be ordered back on the bus, whether they’d used the facilities or not.

  After a week in the squalid interior, Rosa no longer noticed the foul smell of the broken restroom at the rear of the bus. But each time they stepped outside and the soldiers turned away from them in disgust, she was reminded that the stench had permeated everyone aboard. Adding to the humiliation, some of the soldiers wore surgical masks; whether to shield them from the smell or to protect them from disease, Rosa wasn’t sure.

  As bad as it was, Rosa was grateful she’d been assigned to one of the many Greyhound buses commandeered by the government for the relocations. The unfortunate detainees assigned to former school buses were forced to use a chemical toilet at the rear of the bus without any privacy at all. Rosa had heard the government’s huge new fleet of buses was at work constantly, transporting Class H citizens to the camps or heading south with the millions being deported.

  The sound of the rain let up slightly and Rosa glanced outside. From what she could see through the downpour, the landscape had not changed. For the last day, the countryside had been the same: a flat, featureless grassland stretching to the horizon. Except for a lonely cluster of trees every few miles, nothing broke the monotony. “It’s a green desert,” Rosa had overheard someone say. “Nobody can survive out there alone.” The only human signs they’d passed were the gray, splintered remains of two abandoned farms.

  Pedro pointed to a series of dark shapes on the other side of the bus. “What’s that, Mami?”

  Rosa squinted, trying to make out the semicircular objects in the heavy rain. “I think they’re some kind of buildings, m’hijo.”

  “Listen up, people,” said the guard over the bus’s scratchy speakers. “Collect all your belongings. This is Relocation Community Number Eight.”

  Emerging from the bus in the downpour, Rosa was surprised to find the camp had no fences. Carrying her suitcases with the children in tow, she followed the other detainees as they were herded into a line before a pair of military clerks seated under a tent. For two hours, they waited in the rain to be processed. Rosa was grateful the children had ponchos, but they were still shivering in the cold April air. Unable to hold their suitcases aloft any longer, they were forced to place them on the ground, which the crowd had churned into mud.

  While they waited, Rosa got a better look at the odd-shaped buildings they’d seen from the bus. They looked like giant half-buried soup cans lying on their sides. A man near her said they were called Quonset huts.

  “I’m hungry,” Elena said, tugging on Rosa’s skirt.

  Glancing at her watch, Rosa saw it was after five. There was not much chance they’d get fed anytime soon. “Here,” she said, handing Elena and Pedro the packages of peanut butter crackers she’d been saving in her travel bag. “This is an emergency. Don’t expect food like this every day.”

  The rain was down to a drizzle when Rosa and the children finally reached one of the clerks. After wordlessly shuffling through her documents, the soldier pecked at his laptop and said, “You’re assigned to Dormitory 171.”

  “Can you tell me where that is, please?”

  “Just follow the line and ask somebody,” he answered without looking up, then called out, “Next!”

  The sky was dark when Rosa finally found Dormitory 171, a newly built Quonset hut at the far edge of the mile-wide camp. Opening the door, she saw scores of women and children milling lifelessly amid two rows of bunk beds in a long, dimly lit room. Apparently she had been assigned to the single mothers’ quarters.

  She found three empty beds near the fire exit. Not surprisingly, they were quite far from the bathrooms. While she unpacked her mud-caked suitcases, a woman approached her.

  “You better get your kids ready for bed, chica,” she said. “The lights go out at eight on the dot.”

  Rosa looked at her watch, suddenly alarmed. She had ten minutes. “Would you watch my suitcases while I take my children to the bathroom?”

  “Sure. You go right ahead.”

  When Rosa returned, she hurriedly got out pajamas for the children and dressed them for bed. She put Pedro in the bunk above her and Elena on the bed beside her. As she was tucking in her daughter, an alarm bell sounded. Seconds later, the lights went out.

  “I don’t like this place, Mami,” Elena whimpered in the darkness. “When are we going home?”

  Rosa stroked her daughter’s hair, trying to hide her own despair. They no longer had a home—but there was no reason to burden her child with the truth. “We’ll be home soon, m’hijita,” she whispered soothingly. “We’ll be home soon.”

  THE QUARANTINE AND

  RELOCATION ACT:

  Month 13

  A government is an illusion, a collective idea that resides primarily in the public imagination. Few realize how quickly this fragile fantasy can evaporate.

  —José Antonio Marcha, 1981

  Translated by J. M. Herrera

  Crouching low to avoid being seen, Nesto led Mano to the crest of the hill. “There it is, ese,” the mero said, pointing toward the military facility on the other side of the slope.

  The garrison in the scrubby valley below looked like a miniature diorama. Except for an irregular cluster of buildings at its center, the facility was laid out with the military’s fondness for symmetry—rectangular wire fencing, tidy rows of Quonset huts, and neatly parked military vehicles, all laid out in textbook precision.

  “So this is Outpost Bravo,” Mano said, studying the camp. “What are the buildings in the middle? They don’t look military.”

  “I think it used to be some kind of school. That’s what Tony said, anyway.”

  Mano’s eyebrow rose in suspicion. Nesto’s story of how he’d learned about the location of the garrison had s
ounded doubtful from the beginning. “This is pretty far outside Zone B for your boys to wander.”

  “Hey, ese. I was just doing like you said. Sending out my vatos to scout the area.”

  “All right,” Mano said, unconvinced. “I’m grateful you brought me here.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Mano said, rubbing his chin. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. “We should head back. I’m sure they patrol this area.”

  As they retreated through the deserted neighborhoods, Mano weighed what he had seen. The site for the garrison was a smart choice, he had to admit. It stood between Zone B and the mountains to the north, an ideal place to wage a guerrilla war. Just the same, Outpost Bravo was a sign of the precarious situation the government now faced in Southern California—a change that had come faster than anyone could have imagined.

  Just over two years after the Rio Grande Incident, a transformation of unprecedented proportions was under way in Southern California. Triggered by the Blackout Sunday bombings that had rocked downtown Los Angeles four months earlier, a massive exodus was vacating what had once been the sixth most populous area on the planet.

  It began in the beach communities west of the L.A. Quarantine Zones.

  Fearful of the insurgents’ continuing forays outside the walls, homeowners began a wave of panic selling. Property values plummeted, but sellers found few takers. The desperation spiraled.

  Neighborhoods dwindled daily, creating a shortage of moving vans and rental trucks. Those left behind became frantic. Eventually they simply abandoned their homes, hauling away all the belongings their vehicles could hold and joining thousands of others jamming the freeways heading north. Left without customers, area merchants and businesses pulled up stakes.

  The pattern of flight in the beach communities quickly spread to other affluent areas. The mass departures in suburbia also uprooted working-class enclaves around the Quarantine Zones.