Just thinking of Kennedy’s amazing story activated Juan’s memories of his Abuelo Gabriel: how his grandfather had clung to his ship’s wreckage as gale winds drove him and his crew miraculously to shore, where natives also helped to save his life. With the stories of Kennedy and his grandfather to buoy his spirits, Juan felt as though the presence of both men held out a hand to guide him.
Even as the day’s temperature rose and the sun beamed down on them, Juan and Alberto were driven by a willingness to support Kennedy, for when he became president, they believed they would have worked to make that presidency possible. And then as President Kennedy, he would work to make peace with Fidel, which would inevitably allow their papá to join them in America. With their goal set, their work began.
They developed a strategy to hand out the campaign memorabilia. Alberto would stay at the table giving out the “High Hopes” records and the page-size posters while Juan would traverse back and forth through the walkways and courtyards of the outdoor layout of the Lincoln Road mall and distribute handfuls of buttons, pins, and pamphlets. Even though Juan remembered his directions from the campaign manager not to engage in political debates with voters, his heart was too full of purpose not to lend his voice when necessary. So he politely began approaching people and asking if they wanted a button or pin, asking if they were voting for the peace-minded Kennedy. If they said they were JFK supporters, he praised them as though they were relatives standing together for a common cause. He gave them a button or pin of their choice and encouraged them to wear it and spread the “word of Kennedy.” For those who said they stood by the Republican Party and their candidate was Nixon, Juan was unable to hold back with respectful argument, what he called “dutiful debate.”
“Don’t you want a candidate who will stand tough while also working to bridge the gap in world conflicts by ensuring peace?” asked Juan.
“With some nations and people, we can’t ignore their threats just because we want to be nice and compassionate,” a Republican voter rebuffed him.
“That’s too dismissive,” replied Juan. “A man with Kennedy’s vision and toughness can break through the stalemate. Please take a pin and let it be a reminder to reconsider your vote.”
Some were adamant or even downright hostile in their refusal to accept the items. Others took both a pin and button, maybe trashing them, maybe keeping them for reconsideration. Either way Juan’s heart pulsed with a confidence and drive to succeed. He was making a difference in the world. With momentum on his side, he tried to engage everyone: mothers with kids in strollers, fathers carrying children on their hips, couples with no children, the elderly, and the young. Regardless of their pledge, he strove to make an impact. Every vote counts, he whispered to himself, papá needs us.
By late afternoon, he and his brother had distributed nearly all the memorabilia, but Juan was determined to give out the remaining half box of posters. As he labored to give them away, an elderly man caught him off guard.
“How would you know who to vote for, you’re not even old enough to cast a ballot?”
“Uh . . . That doesn’t mean I don’t know who the best candidate is.”
“Let me tell you somethin’, young man, I’m a veteran like your candidate Kennedy there, and he might have saved his buddies, but he shouldn’t’ve never had’em in such danger as that. No PT ever got rammed by the Japs. He must have flooded those motors into chokin’ up and stallin’. He risked his men’s lives, that’s bad judgment, not good leadership, in my estimation.”
“Sir, Kennedy’s a courageous and honest man, a man of his word. Regardless of how things happened, he did what was right to save his men.”
“Don’t matter to me. Nixon’s my man.”
“Take a pin anyway.”
“No thank you.”
As Juan and Alberto continued to work on the campaign over the upcoming months, they were not discouraged when running into Republican voters because by their estimation, they encountered more supporters of Kennedy than Nixon on a daily basis.
* * *
Chapter 28
Over the upcoming weeks, Juan got Amanda to join as a volunteer, and Alberto brought Guadalupe aboard as a supporter of the campaign. Even Sharkey and Josephine helped out one weekend afternoon. The young crew of friends ran into a range of opinions while they distributed fliers, buttons, and pins. There were those who had the same admiration and confidence as they did in Kennedy’s peace initiatives and those who questioned Kennedy’s grit and toughness to confront the danger of communism.
For Juan, volunteering on weekends for the campaign expanded to weekday evenings. He didn’t start classes for his sophomore year at the University of Miami until late August, so every night he went door-to-door in his neighborhood and neighborhoods beyond to hand out posters and pamphlets. At the end of each night, even though exhaustion had overtaken him, he felt fulfilled with his belief that the end result would be a Kennedy victory, a road towards peace with Cuba and, subsequently, a release for his father. After showering and wolfing down a dinner, he scoured newspaper and magazine articles late into the night looking for quotes from JFK that he could jot down in his notebook. As he searched and wrote, he thought of peace, of seeing his father again, of embracing him someday soon.
One night after he and Alberto arrived home after going door-to-door distributing campaign literature, their grandfather handed them a letter from their father. Ecstatic, Alberto read it aloud:
Dear Hijos,
I am sorry that I am given so little time to write, but I have learned that it will now take a total of two years of servicio before I can join you. No matter what, I will never give up hope. I want both of you to think only about el futuro. With nearly eighteen months of labor completed, I will be there with you in another six months or so. After Kennedy is elected, things will calm down. He is a man of peace. He and Fidel will come to an understanding. Look after your mother and Cuca and your abuelos for me.
Love Always,
Tu Papá
Starting with their father’s first letter, the brothers saved every one of them by folding it neatly and putting it in a shoe box, which they stored on the top shelf in their closet. Out of respect for their father’s optimism, they adopted his hope, a reality they believed Kennedy would make come true.
“Don’t listen to him,” Lucretia told her sons at the dinner table later that night after they told her about their father’s letter. “He doesn’t know when Castro will let him leave. Now you boys don’t have a father.”
“We’ve never had a mother either,” said Juan in a low, firm voice, his anger stoked immediately by her comment.
He tried to harness his indignation under the reigns of his own self-control. It had been a long time since he had challenged her, but after all he and Alberto were doing to support Kennedy’s campaign and the idea of peace with Cuba, Juan didn’t care if his response led to a donnybrook with his mother.
“Juan, there’s no reason to say that,” said Alberto, glaring at his brother.
Their grandparents and Cuca had stopped eating and sat their silverware on the sides of their plates, the soft clinks the only sounds piercing the silence.
“Your brother’s right, Juan. You must not say such things. Please, apologize to su madre,” said his grandmother, Evelina.
“Abuela, I am sorry to you, but I will not apologize to her,” said Juan, averting eye contact with his mother as he spoke to his grandmother.
“Huberto, tell him that in this house, he will not disrespect his mother.”
Instead of reprimanding Juan, Abuelo Huberto picked up his fork and started chewing a piece of his chicken tamale. He finished his bite and then finally said, “El muchacho is a man. I cannot tell a man what to do. Even if I disagree, I have to let him sort out what he thinks and make his own judgments.”
“Huberto, por favor,” pleaded Evelina, the birthmark on her neck darkening like a fresh bruise.
“Que? Our grandsons are fine y
oung men. I have watched them this past year, and I have watched Lucretia also. I don’t know what to think. I have given her the business, but not once has she shown gratitude.”
“I’ve heard enough,” said Lucretia, standing up and pushing away from her chair. She threw down her napkin on her half-finished plate of tamales. “I will not be treated like an ingrate, whether in another’s house or not. I’ll leave if I’m not welcome.”
“No one’s stopping you from leaving.”
“Juan!” said Alberto.
“What?” his brother yelled back.
“If I’m not wanted here, I will leave. And let me tell you all something. I could have lived in Havana forever. I had everything—a school and a salon—until Castro destroyed it. Still, no one in this house wants to see what I see. Fidel está loco because he is godless.”
“Oh, don’t start with your God Almighty nonsense,” Juan addressed her. “You are no holier than anyone else. God does not hold you in higher esteem.”
Abuela Evelina stood up and tried to put an end to the argument, but she was unprepared for how to stop the rancor fueled between her grandson and daughter-in-law.
“Maybe that is why we have always fought, Juan,” said his mother. “You do not believe. I have tried to show you the path of Jesus Christ, our savior. Still, you reject him. Tu corázon esta frío.”
“What do you know about love? You’ve never loved anybody!”
“Dammit Juan, stop it!” exclaimed Alberto, pounding his palm on the table.
“No! I won’t stop. We’re going to tear the cross off her back right now! I’ve lived this way for too long. I will not have her talk about our father like he has ruined her life.”
“I’m not blaming him, Juan!” yelled his mother. “It is Castro. And for the life of me, I will never understand your connection to him. Why you can’t see him for a tyrant, I don’t know?”
“You judge too much,” Juan told her.
“I judge only what I know for certain.”
“No, you judge anybody who does not believe exactly as you believe. We’re going to have a Catholic president who wants peace with Fidel, yet he’s not good enough for you,” declared Juan. “You still find fault.”
“I don’t care what this Kennedy fellow is,” said Lucretia, near tears. “He is not strong enough to rid Cuba of all its evil. If you want to trust Castro and Kennedy, you go right on ahead. That’s fine with me. I will not tolerate being insulted and disrespected like I’m stupid.”
Abuelo Huberto had gotten up to leave the table as Lucretia finished with her last comment. Juan followed him out, and then Evelina got up and left the dining room, calling after them both.
When Alberto and his mother were alone together, he looked up at her face. It was reddened with fought-back tears in her eyes, sunken as though drowned in their sockets. He waited to see what she might say.
“Qué?” she asked, tears starting to pour out.
“Nada,” he said and rose from the table and walked away. He felt an emptiness rake through him as though a vacuum sucked all sense of feeling out of his soul. He thought that no song he could write or sing could ever capture the melancholy and confusion that dizzied him at that second.
Even after things calmed down, the tension between everyone did not dissolve. A house full of people, and yet no one was speaking. The next week Lucretia found a two-bedroom, one-bath duplex with carpeted floors and a carport several blocks away on West 29th Avenue. On Saturday morning, after she loaded up the last of her belongings in the Lincoln Comet she had bought with the money she put aside from her salary at the hotel store, she knocked on her sons’ bedroom door. Alberto slowly opened and waited for his mother to speak.
“I’m leaving now. Cuca is staying, aquí,” she paused. She had the same duffel bag slung over her neck that she’d hauled with her from Cuba when they took the ferry. “If you and your brother want to visit me . . . you’re welcome to.” After another long pause, she said, “Lo siento.”
Again, Alberto sensed her tears coming.
“Mamá, please, don’t cry,” he said and moved out from behind the partially-opened door and closed it behind him.
When he attempted to give her a hug, she reached towards his shoulders with her arms open before choosing otherwise and pulling away.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, repositioning the bag on her hip. “I’m fine. I must leave now. I’ll see you two around the store.”
After she exited the house, Alberto went out to the living room window and watched her put the duffel bag in the passenger seat of her white two-door Lincoln-Mercury Comet with black trim on the car’s tail fins. She started the car, backed out, and then pulled away. Everything seemed as though sadness was prevailing: the quiet of the worn furniture, the trampled carpet, the scratched-up walls, the dry grass of the front yard, the pot-holed street outside. Yet it was a serene and sunny Saturday morning. A light breeze rustled the leaves, if one listened well enough. Alberto stood in the module of silence and stared out the window at the light and the shadows the rays casted. Everything was changing as the sun traveled its arc through the day. He didn’t feel much of anything. The only person on his mind at that instant was Juan, who had left the house an hour earlier to hand out more Kennedy pins, posters, and pamphlets.
* * *
Chapter 29
The last week of August, Juan started his second year as a pre-law student at the University of Miami. To give himself time to study, he had to cut back his weekday campaign schedule, but he never lapsed in keeping up his notebook with new quotes that Kennedy delivered each day on the campaign trail.
On a Sunday evening in mid September, after he had gone out to distribute a few buttons and flyers, he lay stretched out on his bed trying to study notes from one of his classes. He was committing the information to memory in preparation for an exam the next day when he heard a series of knocks echoing from the front door. He did not think to get up immediately because his grandparents were watching television in the living room. Having been over at Guadalupe’s an hour earlier, Alberto was now in the backyard under the mango tree working out some new choruses on his guitar.
At the sound of the rapping, Huberto rose from his recliner and went to the door. Evelina stopped her knitting and turned her head in her husband’s direction. The television screen glowed with the 60 Minutes special about the families of the presidential candidates.
“Who is it?” asked Huberto, loudly enough for the knocker to hear him through the door.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m a relative of Cuca Rivera. I was told she was still living here with the Ramos family. Is this the residence?” the voice inquired.
“Como se llama, señor?”
“My name is Victor Mendez.”
“Just a moment,” said Huberto.
He had not unlocked the doorknob or the deadbolt because he was about to summon Cuca when she appeared in the hall, listening as though she expected a visitor.
“Do you know a Victor Mendez?” Huberto asked.
“Dios mío, yes, he is my cousin,” said Cuca, putting her hand to her chest to settle her increased heart rate. “I haven’t seen or heard from him in years.”
“Can he be trusted?” asked Huberto.
“Of course,” said Cuca. “The boys met him so many years ago. It was during a trip I took home to Guardalavaca. They had just recovered from scarlet fever. Florencio wanted them to go with me and spend time on the beach.”
“Well, then we need to invite el hombre into our home,” suggested Huberto.
Cuca rushed to the door, unlocked the locks, and swung the door open wide. The cousins embraced one another, and their excitement brought Juan out of his room.
“Victor, you must remember Juan Ramos,” said Cuca, reintroducing Juan to her cousin. “He was just a boy when you saw him last.”
“Of course, yo recuerdo,” he said and offered his palm.
Juan shook his hand and said, “Sí, I rem
ember you too. You told us stories about Fidel while we cooked over a campfire on the beach.”
“Oh, that does seem like a long time ago. So much has changed,” said Victor, his complexion dark with a deep, solid tan, his hair slightly lightened, as though he had been out in the sun unprotected for too many consecutive days. He looked famished like a stray dog, much thinner than both Cuca and Juan remembered him to have been.
“Señor Mendez, why don’t you come in and have a seat,” offered Huberto.
“Gracias, I really appreciate it.”
As he took a seat on the couch, Juan went out to the backyard to tell Alberto. When the brothers came in the sliding glass door to the kitchen, their grandmother had taken out the leftover roasted garlic chicken in the fridge from the night before and was warming it in the oven. She also made a pot of tea.
“Tell Señor Mendez that his meal will be ready in diez minutos,” she told the boys.
They entered the living room and told Victor that his meal was on its way. Victor stood up from the couch and also acknowledged Alberto with a handshake. He said that he remembered meeting him as though the day was yesterday.
“Señor Mendez was just telling me and Cuca that he’s been battling the waves in the Caribbean to make it here to Miami,” Huberto stated.
“Sí, there were hours when I thought me and my comrades might drown,” said Victor. “But we had no other way out of Cuba. We had to risk the trip. Thank the Lord, we made it safe.”
“How did you get permission to leave?” asked Juan.
“I didn’t. I just left. On a rickety raft with friends who were brave enough to try the dangerous passage. We rowed and rowed for days, yet the winds kept pushing us east. We ran out of comida y agua. Luckily it rained, and we filled up our jugs. Otherwise we may have withered away with thirst.”
“We’re still waiting for our father,” said Alberto.
The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy Page 22
