Chapter 7

THE DEAL

Henry woke to the familiar sounds of Christmas music from Puerto Rico.

“Traigo esta trulla para que te levantes…” José Carlos sang in an obnoxious off-key melody. Henry slowly opened his eyes—realizing he was back inside the interrogation room.

“Morning! Or is it? Heck, I’m not even sure myself. You’ve been out for a while, my friend. But you see, we’re here to help you. We got you a doctor and now you’re all better, Mr. Henry Elias al-Velo.”

Henry looked with confusion at José Carlos.

“If you’re wondering how I got your name, don’t think too much. Your papá gave it to us along with all the other names of your pals and collaborators. It’s kinda funny, when you think about it. We got a hold of your FBI file, but that thing was a piece of crap. Your father’s notes, however, are a work of literary art,” José Carlos said as he picked up a document from the table and waved it around in the air.

“What did you do to my father?” Henry said.

“We did nothing. The question is: what has He done for us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on. You really don’t know?”

Henry started feeling the tingling of betrayal.

“Your father’s been helping us since the comandante contacted him,” José Carlos said.

“Bullshit. He’d never cooperate with a coup.”

“Well, my friend, this is the thing about coups: they happen from inside.”

“You’re telling me this thing was my father’s idea?”

“Oh, hell no. Your father’s a stupid humanist. He doesn’t know anything about this place. He’s only partially responsible, I guess, because he’s the friend of the comandante.”

“Who’s the comandante?”

“Where have you been, nene? Take a wild guess…”

Henry grunted. He had just woken up from a concussion caused by his interrogator’s beatings. He wasn’t feeling up for his games.

“Ok, ok. I’ll give you a hint: he’s the leader of the armed forces.”

Oh shit, Henry thought. How did I not figure this out?

It was Jamal’s father, El Comandante, who had concerted the entire take over with the help of the wealthy landowners who had lost their numerous properties on the island during the Property Reform enacted by the Shift government.

Jamal’s father evaded politics since his ideological downfall. But after the revolution triumphed, Henry’s father, who was in charge of the national workers front, needed a general commander to lead the newly formed Puerto Rican Revolutionary Armed Forces. Jamal’s father got the job due to his experience training the SWAP armed forces in the 70’s. Henry remembers Jamal’s disappointment when Augusto told them that Jamal’s dad was going to be leading the armed forces.

“That man’s gonna be the death of us!” Jamal said.

“He’s your father, bro. Augusto knows he’s a good person, and I trust my father’s word,” Henry said.

            “He’s an ideological traitor. He has no commitment. He shouldn’t be in any position of power!”

            “I wouldn’t worry too much. Revolutionary moments inspire people to lead revolutionary lives. He’s one of us. I’m sure he’s no longer a cynic.”

 “I hate telling you this, Henry. But you’re way too idealistic,” Jamal said.

“Whatever.”

“Money, greed, power, can override any revolutionary ideals, especially if there’s no discipline. Revolutionary moments are just that: moments. Strikes, uprisings, victories in the streets—they mean nothing for the long-term foundation of a new society. We’ve had too many moments in our history, Henry, too many moments that have given us hope and then taken us back to the same spot we were in when we started. It’s been that way, all over the World. So many revolutions betrayed, all over the World, Henry! But there have been revolutions that have truly triumphed. They were those led by people with ideals that transcended romantic revolutionary moments. Those people who pushed for change to keep moving forward—even at the most banal of moments when there were no gunshots fired, or explosions, or people out on the streets—those people were the ones who created the long-lasting shifts that have led us to this world we’ve inherited.  True revolutionaries are not guided by inspirational moments; they are led by their long-standing ideals, which they uphold at all times. That man that I call my father is not a revolutionary, and he will never be one. He prides himself on not having ideals! He only pledges allegiance to convenience. Being your father’s right hand is very convenient at this moment. Do you not see that?”

Jamal, almost hyperventilating, had to sit down.

“Calm down, man.”

“Nothing good can come out of this.”

Jamal’s words were chillingly foreboding as Henry remembered them in the interrogation room.

Henry sat silently in the middle of the room, thinking about the past and trying to make sense of the situation. José Carlos looked at him attentively and impatiently swung back and forth on the desk’s chair.

Dónde carajo is this kid’s mind? José Carlos thought. I should say something.

“You know, Henry, we have nothing against the revolution. Puerto Rico could’ve never continued to survive as a nation under colonialism.” He postured himself as if he were going to give a speech. “Nuestra cultura, nuestro patrimonio, nuestra identidad.” José Carlos paused and neared his face to Henry’s. “Nuestro lenguaje, puñeta… It would’ve all been lost. And that’s not mentioning the horrible economic state in which we were under colonialism. Ha! Remember? It was better for a Puerto Rican to live in the United States than to live in his own homeland. Nobody could make anything of themselves on this island.”

He moved away from Henry and looked out the window-wall toward the people in the stadium.

“So you see, Mr. Enriquez, we’re not against the independence of our madre patria, we just don’t agree with the way things were being run. We are patriots, and we hate seeing this country go down the gutter as Cuba did.”

“What does Cuba have to do with anything?” Henry said.

“They made a lot of the same errors we’re trying to correct over here. They forgot to listen to Tío Sam.”

“Goddamn you, man, this is not the fucking Cold War.  The shift is an international revolution. It progresses and moves…”

“Ha,ha,ha!” José Carlos interrupted Henry. “You’re so idealistic, it’s funny,” he said.

Henry rolled his eyes and stared with rage at his interrogator.

“The shift has no car to run anymore, my friend.”

“What a horrible analogy,” Henry said.

“Ay, bendito. Look, I’m not here to ‘hablar mierda’ with you. Believe me, I have better things to do.”

Henry started seeing José’s weakness: his self-absorption. Henry would rather have a pointless frustrating discussion than be coerced into talking about the movement.

“When did you learn to speak English so well?” he said.

“Hehe. Bueno, mi pana, five years studying in Georgia will help anyone become fluent.”

“You still have a disgusting accent.”

“Fuck you!”

A knock on the door interrupted them.

“Cállate, cabrón” José Carlos ordered to Henry. He opened the door.

Two militiamen stood in front of him.

“What is it?” he said.

“The general instructed us to aid you in your interrogation,” one of the men said.

“I don’t need any help.”

“We had strict orders.”

 “¡Maldita sea!

He called the general on his cell phone.

“I can handle it myself, ¡por el amor de Dios!” he said.

“Have you made the deal yet, or what?” the general said.

“Well, not exactly. We’re working on it, sir.”

“Well, the other men stay there until he makes a decision. Don’t fuck this up José!”

José Carlos hung up and signaled the men to sit next to Henry.

“Okay Henry, these men and myself will help you make a couple of decisions very soon. Okay?” One of the men tightened his muscles as the other took out a black bag.

“What are their names?” Henry tried to keep the conversation under his control.

“Ha, bueno, este es…”

“That doesn’t matter.” One of the men interrupted José Carlos, and looked at him aggressively.

“Um, yeah,” José Carlos said.

The man punched Henry on the face. His nose bled.

“Was that necessary?” José Carlos said. He was mad that the situation was getting out of his control, but he stopped questioning his back up interrogators out of fear of being demoted by the general.

“Okay. This is what we want:  We need your full cooperation. We understand you have a lot of influence in the student movement and were their primary leader during the revolution.”

“Fuck you.”

“Your father said you’d be a tough one to convince.”

“You’re lying.”

“He told us how hard it was for him to convince you that organizing the workers in a giant union would work to push the revolution forward.”

“You’re never going to be able to control the students.”

“Look, we don’t have to convince anyone. This was your father’s request. If we just killed every one of them, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about, right?” José Carlos noticed Henry started sweating when he mentioned killing the students. He looked at the man with the bag of items and nodded. The man pulled out a sharp knife and slit the blunt edge of it against Henry’s cheek.

“But you don’t want your friends dead, do you? I can see it in your eyes. You care, huh?”

“I’m never going to cooperate. Torture me, kill me, do whatever you want. I’m not going to betray the movement.”

“Yeah, okay. I don’t think we’re going to be touching you much anymore.” He signaled the men sitting next to Henry to come meet with him outside the room. Henry sat in solitude for several minutes, wondering what they were going to do to him next.

They can beat me as much as they want; I’m not talking, he thought.

 When they came back into the room, he was prepared for the worst. The men pulled him up and made him walk out of the room.

“We’re gonna let you go. Rest a little, and think about things. See ya soon, neighbor!” José Carlos said.

Chapter 3

Henry’s Story

The cell phone rang, shaking Henry from a deep sleep. He couldn’t find it. He looked under his pillow, moving aside a book, a pair of mechanical pencils, and his 9mm Makarov pistol, he finally finds it hidden beneath the pillowcase. He liked big pillows.

“It’s three in the morning, what the hell do you want?” he answered.

“Soy yo, mijo,” the caller said.

“Perdóna papá. What happened?”

“Abuelo murió, you have to come back home right now”

“What?”

“Wake up, get dressed, and get to JFK. Your uncle bought you a ticket for the six AM flight to San Juan. Go to the American Airlines front desk.”

Henry got out of bed, still dazed from the sudden awakening. He zigzagged across his apartment-studio: grabbing the remote control and turning on the TV, stretching up to reach the cabinet with the grounded coffee and starting the coffeemaker. Once the coffee was brewed, he sipped it down quickly.

Now he could start his day.

He was packed in five minutes.

On the television there were visuals of the statue of liberty. On the top of the statue there was a man standing with his fist raised next to the Puerto Rican flag and the Vieques flag. The newsperson on the T.V. announced: “This attempt is considered one of many in a chain of civil disobedience acts intended to stop all military practices in the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Despite these continuous and ever-increasing acts of disobedience, the U.S. Congress’s position on the Navy’s presence remains the same.”

            “They just don’t get it do they? Those stupid gringos…” A voice came from the other side of the living room where Henry’s friend, Jamal, was seemingly sleeping on their couch near their entry door.

            “I thought you were asleep, sorry if I woke you up with the T.V.” said Henry.

            “Nah, man, I’ve been up all night trying to figure stuff out.”

            “So… you mean you’re planning the revolution again, huh? Where are your maps and little black notebooks?”

            “Shut up, man, this is a serious issue that requires some serious reflection.”

            “Yeah, and here I was thinking we left the island to escape all this type of useless thinking. You’re way too idealistic, you know that?”

            “I’m not idealistic. I’m just stubborn, and that’s a good thing! I’ve been reading other authors now and have come to the conclusion that Che’s guerrilla-focus strategy is faulty and requires a very different approach.”

            “You’re reading other authors? How many Marxist authors are there? Or are you reading the memoirs of Lenin’s wife’s dog?”

“Believe or not, there’s enough literature about revolution and Marxism out there that a single person couldn’t possibly read it in a lifetime.”

“So you’re questioning Guevara’s thought now huh? Sounds dangerous.”

            “I’m no blind follower of anyone. You know this. At least I’m doing something; I’m being a critical thinker. What are you doing?”

            “I gotta go home today. Abuelo died and my parents want me to be back in the island right away.”

            “Shit man, I’m sorry. How long you gonna be gone?”

            “I should be back within the week. I gotta go right away though. Take care, my little Fidel.”

            “Very funny, my little Trotsky. Take care of yourself, and don’t even think about blowing up any buildings without me.”

            Henry put on his jacket, grabbed some more coffee to go, a notebook, and his old Nikon camera and left for the airport.

            The same day Henry left, eleven protesters occupied the statue of Liberty. This was part of the first mass movement in Puerto Rico since the protests against the privatization of the telephone company. Back then, Henry and Jamal stood in the front lines, facing the beatings of the riot police, tasting the stingy taste of pepper spray and fighting them back with stones, fists, and protest chants. They skipped a good portion of high school fighting for worker’s rights. They didn’t care about missing classes and would still somehow manage to pull straight A’s throughout their entire academic career. They were too mature for high school culture and would only share true friendships among themselves and the older college students they met in the protests.

They became well known among the activists of the University of Puerto Rico and were promptly considered by many to be a part of “El Movimiento”: the not-yet-effective, but glorious, student movement for university autonomy and Puerto Rican independence, as Henry would call it. El Movimiento was the vanguard of the university’s left and would take on all the imaginable issues that were of concern to the students. Henry wasn’t that good of a public speaker, it was hard for him to describe what they were against and in favor of whenever journalists of the conservative press asked him what they were doing in the protests. He would struggle with terms such as the bourgeoisie, socialism, capitalism, and class struggle. Having come from a family of leftist intellectuals really didn’t help him express himself in a clear manner to the “uneducated masses.” For Jamal, however, the idea of the movement was clear: he would always say, “we are anti-capitalists! We stand against the injustices and repression of the system and advocate a different and more humane system of social welfare institutions. We stand against all profit-seeking institutions of man.”

It came as a surprise to many when Henry and Jamal decided to leave the island and go study in New York. Many complained about Jamal’s “abandonment” of the movement and others tried their best to convince Henry not to leave. The leader of the socialist organization to which Henry’s father belonged to argued with Henry on several occasions.

“You know you could do a lot more by studying in the university here. You could be close to your family and help the movement,” the leader said.

“I just don’t see myself truly contributing to anything,” Henry said.

“We need more young and thoughtful people like yourself, Henry. Losing you will be a great step back for the movement.”

“Well, that’s exactly one of the things that makes me think I would have no more to contribute if I stayed. We depend too much on individual leaders and we put too much hope in the coming of the next Che Guevara.”

“Oh, please. You know we have more than that going for us. We’ve organized the workers. We have their support.”

“So what? I’m sure any Puerto Rican, even those who want statehood, would rather live in an independent republic than be like Hawaii. The problem is not in how much they support us, it’s in how lazy they are,” Henry said.

***

He boarded the plane. Still tired and slightly dazed, he found his seat. He attempted to catch some missed sleep while everybody else streamed onto the plane. A thin, curly-haired, brown-skinned man who wore a shirt that read, “I’m Puerto Rican: 100% Boricua de pura cepa pa' que tú lo sepas” sat on the seat next to him. The thin man looked around the cabin as if he were inspecting for all available exits, he then looked into the seat pocket in front of him and started reading the handout out loud with a strong Puerto Rican accent. “Pleese fa-low all instructions geeben bai dí air-plain estaff.” He looked at the pictures in the handout and exclaimed, “Ave María, más vale que este avión no se caiga.” He turned his head to Henry, “I hope this airplane don’t fall, you know?” Henry glanced at him, nodded, and turned his head back toward the window.

“Tú eres Boricua, verdad?” the thin man asked.

Henry turned his head toward him and nodded. “Yes, I’m from Old San Juan”

“Un muchacho de La Loza ah? I’m from La Isla—Cayey, para ser específico,” the thin man responded. He kept on talking mostly in Spanish. He knew Henry understood.

“Well I’m not exactly from the city. I just lived there for a couple of years. My family is really from Aibonito,” Henry said.

“¡Ah! Entonces somos vecinos. Me llamo José Carlos, a su servicio.”

Henry hesitated mostly because he was tired and the man didn’t seem to be that interesting. “I guess we are neighbors… in a sense.” He paused for a second and thought about whether it was worth it to keep talking. “My name is Henry,” he finally said.

“Oye, brother, if you don’t mind me asking… Este… ¿Por qué tu solo hablas English?”

“I don’t see any reason in speaking Spanish.” Henry said, turning away. But José Carlos was undeterred.

“Why not? It’s our native tongue, bro, and we must give it some cariño and respect.”

“There’s nothing native that is Spanish in Puerto Rico.”

“Nuestra herencia es Española”

“The Spaniards were colonizers, not natives. Don’t tell me I have to respect the tongue of an invader.” Henry was getting annoyed. He took out one of the in-flight magazines and pretended to read it.

“Oh… you’re one of those, ah? Ay mi-hijo, don’t give me that kind of crap. You’re whiter than me. You’re probably more Spanish than I am.”

“My grandfather was black. Half of my family is black. I just got the shit end of the French in my family to dominate my genes, but I’m really mostly Arab –from northern Africa.”

“Why don’t you speak Arabic then?” José Carlos laughed.

“Kuss mm-ak ya'arku shar mouteh” Henry responded in Arabic. Carlos, stopped cold and stuttered.

“Bueno, erm…” José Carlos stuttered, “parece que va a ser un viaje largo pa’ los dos”

The flight attendants did their typical ceremonial dance of safety and prepared for liftoff. Eventually, the plane’s wheels started rolling. Henry felt the pressure against his body as it picked up speed. The plane ascended into the sky. He felt the floor tremble as the wheels retreated into the plane’s belly. Invariably, he imagined what would happen if something went wrong: If the wheels were tucked away too soon, or, if on landing, they weren’t lowered at all.

Despite his worst fears, the trip wasn’t too long. José Carlos allowed Henry to sleep for the rest of the flight and minded his own business. Henry slept fitfully and had a couple of nightmares in the three-hour flight. He dreamed about his father dying, and him being forced to cut a deal with the devil to save his father’s soul. He also dreamed about a circus full of people, where his closest friends were being displayed and paraded around like animals for the entertainment of the crowd. Finally, he dreamt about his greatest fear: Jamal was dying in his hands and Henry wasn’t capable of letting go of him to get help. He had dreamt about Jamal’s death many times. In the dream, nobody’s around. They were alone in the middle of a great white windowless room, light by an ardent white-fluorescent light. When he awoke from the nightmare, he couldn’t go back to sleep. So be it. José Carlos was asleep. The sun was rising ahead of them, as the island slowly came into view in between the clouds.

As the plane descended, Henry started seeing the rolling beaches, the karstic hills, and gentle green mountains of the west side of the island appear through the cloud-filled skies of the Caribbean. Though they were traveling in opposite direction from Henry, many of these clouds had traveled a long way, just as Henry was doing, from the tropical waters of western Africa.   Henry connected with these clouds. For him, they were brought by the same winds that bring the Sahara desert sands that help make the island’s soil fertile and provided him and his family with just enough food to eat when he was a child.

Henry’s father, Augusto, was raised as a farmer in the mountain town of Aibonito before the family was forced to move to New York to work in the factories. Augusto learned everything he needed to know about farming from his grandfather, who would often entrust him with the care of his entire “diez cuerdas” (about 9.7 acres) farm. By the time Henry was born, this farm had been lost and sold to a man who turned it into a Walgreens. Henry’s father’s love for farming compelled him to buy another “diez cuerdas” of land in the higher mountains of Aibonito where he raised Henry and taught him all that he had learned from his grandfather.

Augusto loved stories, especially those that were centered on him. He would tell these stories to Henry at night until the boy fell asleep, and he would continue telling stories in the morning over breakfast.  Many of them were melodramatic and very real for Henry, who would often tell them to his friends.

As the plane flew over the island, the mountains rolled by--scarred by hundreds of rivers and ravines flowing through them. Henry remembered one of his father’s stories. In it, he had single-handedly saved Henry’s aunt Gloria from drowning in a rapidly flowing river. Henry memorized the story as a child and had even drawn a cartoon book depicting it. He attempted to sell it to all his friends but stopped because drawing all the scenes over and over again was very tiring for him. In his head, he could still hear his father’s voice telling the story.

“I used to love body surfing on this brook near my childhood home whenever it turned into a heavy-flowing river after a good rain.” Augusto would always tell his stories to Henry in a very distant and melancholic past tense.

“I never do things like that anymore, and there’s a good reason for it.” Henry never fully understood why his father both romanticized and tried to forget his past. Whatever the reason, Henry’s love of these stories made them true and powerful.

“The water flowed rapidly and dragged you down to a small set of falls that rapidly dropped in levels and were full of rocks and boulders. I always had fun throwing myself into the river and letting the water take me down, but would always remember to grab on to a tree’s branch that extended out to the river just before the small falls started and much before all the boulders and dangerous rocks hit me.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun, papá,” Henry said as he attentively heard his father’s story and visualized the entire situation.

“It was fun, but it was very dangerous. It was okay for me to do it because I was always in control. But your auntie, Gloria, was a little child back then. You know what little sisters do when they see their big brothers do really dangerous and exciting things? They try to imitate them! So she saw me one day jumping into the river and decided she wanted to jump too. When I got out of the water, I noticed she was flowing down stream to the area were the falls and rocks and boulders were. I screamed out to her and tried to tell her to grab on to any branch she could reach. But the current was too strong, and her arms were too short, so she passed the branch that I grabbed on to and continued on downstream. I ran as fast as I could down to the area were the falls were and tried to position myself near them so I could grab a hold of her when she fell down. I saw her little head trying to stay afloat on top of the streaming water and heading toward me faster and faster. Her body jumped out and started falling down the waterfall as I extended my arms and was able to narrowly snatch her by her dress. I threw her on the riverbed next to me and made sure she was still alive. She was okay and didn’t have a single scratch on her. But she could have died, had she continued down.”

“Then what happened?”

“She told me she wanted to do it again!”

Henry laughed and drifted away in thought—imagining the story—they remained silent for several minutes.

“Papá, why don’t I have a sister or a brother like you did?”

Augusto tensed up and rolled his eyes. This was not the first time Henry had asked him this. He didn’t want to deal with his son’s incessant questioning of his parent’s relationship.

“Ask your mother.”

Henry hadn’t seen his father in the several years he’d been away studying in New York. Neither of them ever went to visit the other. Henry made it very clear to his father that he was leaving Puerto Rico to gain perspective on life and his own goals. He didn’t want to live the life his father had planned for him. His father, on the other side, was upset with Henry because he symbolized his failure as a father and revolutionary. What did it look like to his comrades that he wasn’t able to convince his own blood of staying in the movement? He would often struggle with this question.

They were finally going to see each other.

Henry was unsure of what to expect once he arrived at the airport. After all, his father didn’t tell him much over the phone. When he walked outside, he saw his mother waiting for him in her Jeep.

“¡Ay Dios santo, mi nene a vuelto!” She jumped out of the car and ran toward him to hug him and kiss him. Henry pushed her back a little.

“Mom, I’m happy to see you too. Please, let’s go to the car, I’ve had a long trip.”

They drove off and headed to Henry’s father’s place in Aibonito, where the funeral procession was going to happen the next day.