NOT AN AMERICAN

by Stanley W Rogouski

  "Get three coffees ready," the Japanese Eastwood said to the Norwegian Eastwood, taking an order right after Mr. Said admonished the other Eastwoods they should be more like Avellanos. "I'm sick of how lucky that punk gets."

  Avellanos's problems started when the Hebrew Defense Association, the HDA, a militant revival of the Jewish Defense League, got wind of who owned the Eastwood Cafe, and began an ongoing picket. Soon, bearded men in yarmulkes were pacing back and forth in front of the restaurant with signs that said things like "Eastwood Cafe Owned by Terrorists" or "Don't Give Money to Hamas." The problem was that the HDA took photos, a lot of them, and kept a running video diary of their picket. Avellanos, who attempted to shield his face, only seemed to attract that many more photos and that much more video coverage. Soon, he noticed that he was appearing in viral videos on YouTube. When the story hit the Spanish language media, Avellanos knew it was time to leave.

  The next day, John Avellanos took the PATH out to the last stop, and started walking west on Route 22. After a few days, he found himself in the mountains near Poison Springs. It was a beautiful autumn day, and, as he walked along, he gloried in the thickly forested landscape, and the cool mountain air wafting through the red and gold foliage, then at its height. He also needed a shower. When a friendly middle-aged farmer offered him the opportunity to sleep on his couch for the night, he accepted. It was a mistake, the severity of which he realized when he woke up very early in the morning with the man on top of him, a kitchen knife in his hand, screaming incoherently, his breath stinking of alcohol, calling him by some female name he had never heard before. He managed to push the man off, kick him to the ground, get out of the house, escape from his property, and run, but he had also forgotten his knapsack, his spare clothes, and, most importantly, his money. All he had left was a plastic, waterproof envelope he always wore in a pouch around his chest.

  Avellanos clenched his jaw in anger and regret. The knapsack had been less than a foot away. If only he had reached over and grabbed it, he would have had 900 dollars and three changes of clothes instead of ten dollars, six one-dollar bills, a pocket full of change, and the clothes on his back. He continued to walk through the night until he felt the sun on his neck. It was a little before noon when he came to a Burger King at the top of a hill. Downtown Poison Springs was clearly visible in the distance.

  "I wonder what that city is."

  He got his answer when he noticed a sign on the road alongside of the Burger King.

  "Welcome to Poison Springs," it said, "America's First Second Amendment Sanctuary City."

  "Of course. Welcome home."

  John Avellanos walked into the Burger King, and ordered a Whopper and fries, taking the four dollars in change out of his pocket and ostentatiously holding it up in the air with two hands before dumping it onto the counter and counting it out. That he had come, quite by accident, to his mother's hometown, brightened his otherwise grim mood. For years, in Vermont and in Boston, when he had plenty of money and access to a car, he had avoided it. Now, somehow, someway he had walked over 100 miles right to the city limits. The fight with his father, the disastrous year in Mexico, being duped by the two drug traffickers, all made sense, designed by fate in order to force him to confront a side of his past that he had buried.

  Avellanos brought the whopper and fries back to a table in front, wolfing it all down while looking out the window. Poison Springs, with its small cluster of skyscrapers, its modest belt of suburban sprawl, and the scattered relics of its industrial past looked like an ugly scar in the lush Mid Atlantic forest. Would this be the place to hide out for a few years? It was certainly the last place anyone would think of looking for him. He listened to the voices around him. Yes, he thought, that was his mother's accent. That was his accent. He felt a strange sort of peace. He also found that his body was so full of nervous dread that he couldn't digest the greasy meal he had just consumed, that a mass of phlegm had worked its way up from his stomach into his gullet. He ran into the bathroom and puked. But that wasn't enough. He ran out into the parking lot, ducked into the bushes, and puked again, but the acids from his stomach were still churning away in the back of his throat. So he puked yet again.

  After he dry puked, vainly trying to expel the digestive fluids, finally succeeding in puking out some more after a few more tries and a lot of pacing around, he heard cursing in Spanish then in English. He looked down to see that he had thrown up over two men. One was a short stocky Latino who had a gray t-shirt and a baseball cap. He had been sharing a cigarette at the bottom of a small ditch behind the dumpsters with a tall, gaunt, middle aged white man. The Latino man had a sleeping bag and a backpack. The white man looked much less well prepared, having nothing but a blanket tied to a battered khaki duffel bag that he had temporarily converted into a backpack by threading his arms through the soft green handles. He appeared fascinated by Avellanos, staring at him from the bottom of the ditch with such intensity it made Avellanos look down to avoid his gaze.

  "What's the matter Martin?" the man said. "Getting your hair cut make you sick?"

  "I don't understand?"

  "It is an improvement. I guess you're going to get a job now and leave me with this wetback."

  "That sad looking motherfucker isn't Martin," Avellanos heard the Latino man say in Spanish. "Let's rob him and leave him here," he added, laughing.

  Avellanos jumped down into the ditch and explained very loudly in Spanish that robbing him was almost certainly more trouble than it was worth since he had all of three dollars and 25 cents. He took out all the money he had and threw it at his feet. Then he turned to the tall white man.

  "Who's Martin?"

  "You are. What's the matter? Are you on drugs?"

  "Martin is not my name," Avellanos said.

  "OK, Mr. Martin James Ruiz. I give in. I'll call you Jim."

  "Listen to him," the Latino man, who appeared to understand if not speak English, said.

  "Shut the fuck up you fucking wetback," the skinny white man said. "I wasn't talking to you, you fucking grease ball."

  "That's not very nice," Avellanos said.

  He turned to the Latino man, and introduced himself in Spanish.

  "My name is John Avellanos."

  "Jorge," the Latino man said, not extending his hand.

  "Don't ask me to tell you my name," the tall, white man said. "If you can't remember old Andy Jackson by now you're not worth traveling with."

  "Your name's really Andy Jackson?" Avellanos said, laughing.

  "You know my name. Stop pretending you don't know me."

  "He thinks I'm someone else," Avellanos said to Jorge in Spanish. "What should I do?"

  "Just tell him you're going to give him the shot."

  "Give him the shot? Why?"

  "Just say it. It usually snaps him back to his senses."

  Avellanos looked back to see that Jorge had his hand over his mouth, trying to suppress a laugh.

  "He told me I should say I'm going to give you the shot," Avellanos said, walking back up to Andy Jackson. "But I think he's playing a joke on me."

  Avellanos stood in place waiting for an answer, but instead of explaining what Jorge had meant by "the shot," Andy Jackson sprung forward and grabbed him around the neck, throwing him to the ground and howling in anguish. Avellanos struggled to remove Andy Jackson's hands from his throat, finally succeeding in flipping him to the side and getting up. He noticed that Jorge had almost doubled over with laughter.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" he said to the Jorge in Spanish. "You did that deliberately. Give him the shot?" he said, trying to make himself heard above the laughter. "Give him the shot?"

  Avellanos had turned his back to Andy Jackson to argue with Jorge. He was once again unprepared, therefore, when Jackson, who apparently knew enough Spanish to have picked up "give him the shot," jumped on him from behind and threw him to the ground. This time Avellanos couldn't get enough leverage to free himself, but another man came
up from behind.

  "That's OK Andy," he said, pulling him off Avellanos. "They ran out of Anthrax vaccine yesterday."

  "Well why didn't you tell me? And why do you have your hair and your beard back?"

  The man, who was tall, thin, and in his late 20s or early 30s, walked up to Avellanos and helped him to his feet. Then he just stared. Avellanos stared back. It was like looking in a mirror. Avellanos was a few years younger and a bit taller, but, apart from that, and the haircut, they looked like identical twins. Even minor details, like the shape of their ears, were similar.

  "I must be hallucinating," Avellanos said to the other man, who was wearing a yellow knit hat decorated with green ducks. "That old guy must have beaten me silly."

  "You're not hallucinating," the other man said, extending his hand. "My name's Martin, Martin J. Ruiz, but call me Jim. The J stands for James. I don't answer to Martin."

  "So you're the Martin they were looking for," Avellanos said, not, for the moment, giving his own last name. "What's the matter with that guy?"

  "He was in the first Gulf War. They made him take an anthrax vaccine. It had a bad effect on some people.

  Avellanos continued to stare at Martin Ruiz, not only because of his fascination with the man's appearance, but also because there wasn't much else he could do. He had no money, no plans, no place to go. He was living in the moment because there was nothing beyond the moment. He had come to the end of the line, and found his own reflection, physically at least. How could he turn away? Jorge put his backpack up on his shoulders and joined Avellanos and Ruiz, along with Andy Jackson, who now seemed thoroughly sedate. Ruiz continued to examine Avellanos, manifesting, at that instance, the one unmistakable difference between the two. While Avellanos had a manner that marked him off as a youth, barely, it seemed, out of his teens, Ruiz stood in a relaxed, confident way that marked him off as a fully mature man.

  "So me," Ruiz said to Avellanos. "You look like a lost little kitten."

  "Kitten?" Avellanos said. "That's not the way I'd describe myself."

  "That's the way I'd describe you. You don't look like you have a friend in the world."

  "I have a lot of friends."

  "Why don't you come with us? I don't know what your story is but you wouldn't be standing here talking to these two losers if you had any place to go."

  Ruiz turned to Jorge and in very slow, labored Spanish asked him if they'd be OK with Avellanos joining them. He seemed a bit puzzled until Avellanos rephrased Ruiz's words in his own, very fluent Spanish. He started to laugh.

  "He seems OK with it," Ruiz said. "You'll certainly be of use," he added. "I had 4 years of Spanish in high school and I can't understand a word Jorge says sometimes."

  "Your Spanish is OK," Avellanos said, "but it's not his first language."

  "What's his first language?" Ruiz said. "He's Mexican right?"

  "Chinanteco maybe?" Avellanos said. "Tzeltal? I'll ask him later."

  "Bad enough when you don't speak someone's language. But it's even worse when you've never heard of his language."

  "I don't speak either of them either. But I'll translate for you in Spanish."

  "Just like Afghanistan. Imagine my surprise when I found out there was no language called Afghan."

  "Well there's Pashtun, and there's Tajik."

  "So you're coming with us? Or are you going to impress me with your Wikipedia knowledge of places you've never been?"

  "I have to admit I don't have any place to go.”

  "Do you need money? Are you hungry? Your breath stinks like shit. You do know that, right? Do you have a toothbrush?"

  “I did, but I lost everything."

  "Come on," Ruiz said. "I'll take you to WillyMart."

  The four men got on a bus across the street from the Burger King and road it down to WillyMart on Route 1081. Along the way, Avellanos gestured excitedly at the explosion of color spreading out in waves all around them. It was early fall, but the foliage was already approaching its peak. Ruiz explained to Avellanos that all of the pretty leaves were currently the trio's source of income. There was a lot of money to be made raking leaves, and, since it allowed you to work at a number of small jobs, to stay mobile, and to avoid extensive contact with the people you would be working for, it was still relatively safe to do for Jorge, even in Poison Springs. Nevertheless, there were few, if any, job opportunities in Poison Springs, and since it grew bitterly cold in the winter, they were planning on leaving town the next month.

  "I have family connections here," Avellanos said. "Why did you come here?"

  Ruiz explained that he had been living on the road since leaving the military. He had originally moved back in with his mother in Ohio, but there were no jobs at all in their town, so he went on the road, planning to follow the work until he was able to find a permanent job and settle down. That never happened. Most of the work he could find was off the books anyway. He had been traveling with Jorge and Andy Jackson for the past two years and together they had been up and down the west coast, through North Dakota and Minnesota, and finally back to Ohio, where they stayed for three months and where Ruiz's mother Maria, who was gravely ill, died. Then they went east, where they had been planning to go to New York then find a ride on Craigslist back to southern California, but, for reasons Ruiz did not immediately specify, they decided to stay.

  After the four men got off at WillyMart on Route 1081, Ruiz sent Jorge and Andy Jackson ahead to what he referred to as their "base camp," and took Avellanos inside, where he bought him a pair of boots, two changes of clothes, a sleeping bag, and a cheap knapsack. The cashier, a plain faced, chunky blond of about 19 or 20, kept looking at Avellanos, then Ruiz, then down at the floor while trying to figure out what to say. Finally, she put her hand out and touched Avellanos's sleeve.

  "You and your brother are so good looking, but you haven't taught him how to shave and he hasn't taught you how to keep from spilling food on your shirt."

  She reached under the counter, and came up with a moist rag with which she wiped a few crusts of vomit off his sleeve, and replaced it.

  "There you go. Now you look halfway presentable."

  "Thank you," Avellanos said, looking into her eyes and smiling. "I didn't even see that."

  "What's up with your brother," she said, looking at Ruiz. "Is he having a bad day?"

  "I'm OK," Ruiz said brusquely. "Can you hurry it up a bit?"

  "$87.83," the young woman said to Avellanos.

  Ruiz gave her four twenty-dollar bills and a ten. Her flirtatious manner gone, she rang their purchase up in an efficient, equally brusque manner, handed him his change, and quickly moved onto the next customer. As they walked out of the store past the bus shelter, Avellanos kept talking about random events he had read about in the newspapers, avoiding the subject of the cashier, not wanting to offend his benefactor, but Ruiz addressed it directly.

  "You don't know this town very well," he said. "Stay away from the local women."

  Avellanos was about to speak, but Ruiz raised his hand to stop him, and quickly changed the subject, the observation apparently having been presented as nothing but a casual observation while, at the same time, not up for debate. He led Avellanos across the parking lot, then down to Route 1081. They crossed the highway, walked past a block of two family houses covered with graffiti and set for demolition, crossed a bridge over a small tributary of the Scahentoarrhonon River, and continued for another half mile to the "base camp."

  The base camp was the abandoned eastern wing of the construction site at Winterborn II.

  John Avellanos followed Martin Ruiz through a gap in what was then a small, distinctively non-intimidating fence, over part of the big, unfinished parking lot, then down a circuitous walkway to what Ruiz referred to as their "inner base camp, where he, Jorge, and Andy Jackson had transformed the back room of an abandoned Abercrombie and Fitch store into a clean, comfortable, if Spartan living arrangement. Even in his darkest childhood memories, Avellanos had n
ever imagined himself as a transient living in an unfinished shopping mall, but, after three days on the road, something about the "inner base camp" radiated privacy and stability. He laid his sleeping bag out in the circle, and sat down with Ruiz, who was already spreading peanut butter on wheat bread and passing out the slices along with pieces of fruit, and Andy Jackson and Jorge, who sat next to each other in spite of their ostentatiously displayed animosity.

  "It's even got a shower," Ruiz said. "There's a pipe with a faucet out back, if you don't mind cold water."

  “Make sure you don't start stinking the place up like this wetback," Andy Jackson said, pointing to Jorge.

  Jorge, who gave Andy Jackson the middle finger remarked in Spanish that he had never seen him shower.

  "Aren't you afraid those two are going to kill each other one day?" Avellanos said to Ruiz.

  "Not as long as I'm here. You've got one cracker, one wetback and one half-breed. That's me. They provide the conflict. I provide the balance."

  "Was your father Mexican?"

  "Mother was Puerto Rican, but my father's family came over on the Mayflower."

  "There weren't too many people named Ruiz on the Mayflower," Avellanos said, taking a bite of his sandwich, "although there was a Jose Francisco Ruiz who fought with Sam Houston."

  "Again with the Wikipedia," Ruiz said, laughing, then taking a bite of an apple. "My father's name is Nicholas Felton. He never married my mother."

  He reached over, picked up a copy of the Winterborn Daily Post, and gave it to Avellanos. He pointed to a small article in the lower left hand corner.

  "There's my half-sister. Elizabeth Felton."

  Avellanos looked up at Ruiz.

  "I got into town the day after she announced her run for Mayor," Ruiz said. "I was going to introduce myself to my father the day after my 30th birthday, just sort of walk up to him and say hey dad. I bet you never thought you'd ever see me.”

  He threw the paper down.

  "But I just couldn't I never met my sister but she never did anything to me."

  He laughed bitterly.