When he reached the grounds of the Bandshell, his eyes began darting about, looking for Senator Smathers. Even though Juan made a point to arrive early, the amphitheater was already filling up with news reporters and Democratic Party supporters, many of them carrying signs and posters, or hoisting placards and banners. Many wore pins and buttons, admirers of all ages waiting for Kennedy’s two o’clock appearance and address. Walking around to the rear of the outdoor theater, Juan watched as a convoy of cars and vans pulled up to the back entrance. When he saw Kennedy emerge from the backseat of a navy blue Lincoln, his heart inflated with admiration. The Democratic candidate looked cool and patient despite the heat. He had taken off his suit jacket, and he had the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. He let his sage-green tie dangle with a loose knot at his neck. He was smiling with his pearly whites while he shook hands and spoke with people. Juan could hear his Boston lilt, and he was tempted to rush towards him and announce himself as an acquaintance of Smathers. But his haste was unnecessary the second he spotted the Florida Senator get out of a maroon Coupe opposite the blue Lincoln. Smathers, too, had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, but only to his mid forearms. He chose to keep his carotene-orange tie knotted tight at his throat. Kennedy’s handlers and security staff made Juan feel nervous about approaching, but he neared the group on the periphery and from five yards out hollered to Senator Smathers.
The senator looked askance in detection of the person calling his name until his eyes fell upon Juan. He adjusted the knot of his tie.
“Hey, young man, Juan, yes, Juan, come on over here,” said Smathers, waving to Juan while also indicating to the security officers that the young man was safe to allow entrance with Kennedy’s entourage.
Juan followed the senator through the steel door at the back entrance of the theater and they proceeded to a green room. They entered to a coterie of Kennedy’s close advisors who were preparing to go over notes and a speech draft to coach the candidate for his upcoming address, less than an hour off.
Smathers approached his friend and tapped him on the shoulder. “Jack, pardon the interruption. I have a young man here. His name is Juan Ramos. He has been working around the clock on the campaign here in Miami. He wants to meet you. In fact, you might remember him. He works at the gift shop downtown at the DuPont Plaza. You were with me last year when we went there.”
Jack squinted for a second in recollection as he looked over at Juan. He then smiled with his pearly whites and walked over to him and gave him his full attention. “Yes, of course, the shop downstairs. So Juan, you were the boy who rang up the bill for the snacks me and George were picking up that day. If I recall, you were reading a book on the Supreme Court?”
Juan stared into the green eyes of the presidential candidate and asked excitedly, “You remember that?”
He thought it strange that Smathers would make reference to the incident after the way he wanted it hushed up in the store. He was also surprised Kennedy showed no alarm with talking about the episode, although he excluded mention of the women. Juan felt as if he was an insider learning how tricks worked in the realm of politics: how one went about remembering the truth of certain details while conveniently forgetting others.
“I try my best to remember something about everyone I meet,” said Jack. He smiled and patted Juan on the shoulder as if to indicate that no further details about the store incident were necessary—the facts were closed. He then offered a handshake. “Well, Juan, we have the same name, Juan and John. It’s an honor to know such a bright young man who understands a sense of duty to sacrifice for a greater cause. My sincerest gratitude for your support of the campaign.”
Juan beamed with a smile as he shook Kennedy’s firm grip, much like he remembered Fidel’s hand on the day he met El Comandante at la Universidad de Havana.
“Oh, no, sir, it’s my honor,” he said to Kennedy.
“I’m glad you’re finding purpose in the Democratic Party’s message. That’s what the New Frontier is all about.”
“Oh, yes, sir. I want very much, sir, for you to be the next president.”
“I’m doing my best,” Jack chuckled.
Juan continued to stare into Kennedy’s emerald eyes, their translucence reminiscent of the waters off the beach in Guardalavaca, the sands where he had first seen Fidel eight years ago. Suddenly, as he thought of Fidel and Cuba, Juan’s father flashed into his mind.
“You must make peace with Cuba when you become President,” he blurted out.
Jack’s disarming smile spanned from cheek to cheek as he let out another chuckle. “Indeed, peace is important with every nation, with every leader.”
“It’s about my father . . .” Juan was hardly aware of how he was letting his words gush out. “He’s still in Cuba. Without peace, I fear I may never see him again . . .”
Having said what was in his heart, Juan continued to study Kennedy’s face: his crystal green eyes, pudgy cheeks, prominent jawbones, his ruddy complexion, his russet hair. Reflective of myself, thought Juan. As he continued to examine Kennedy’s features, he witnessed the candidate’s complexion go pale and his eyes stare off into space as though a memory were surfacing in his mind, a reverie of something Juan could tell that he was triggering.
After a few seconds, Jack blinked and his eyes refocused. He returned his attention to Juan from whatever lapse from the past he had momentarily relived. He again engaged Juan’s stare and said, “I apologize. I had a flashback to my war days. Those experiences always remind me why I make promises towards peace,” Jack said. Then he began to ramble on. “This, however, is a dangerous era we live in. We need a breakthrough. It calls for a new approach to leadership and perseverance and the fight for freedom. I will do whatever I can, but America must be strong and never waver in our negotiations with other nations . . .”
Juan’s eyes glowed as he watched Kennedy’s face and listened to his accented voice full of vigor and confidence. “Mr. Kennedy,” said Juan, “you may not believe this, but my grandfather survived a shipwreck in the Solomon Islands just like you did.”
“Really?” inquired Jack, his eyes widening, wanting to hear more. He was about to say something when he received a tap on his shoulder from an advisor telling him that he needed to bring his attention back to the notes for his address, less than forty-five minutes away. “Excuse me, Juan. Maybe another time we can talk more. Other duties are calling for me at this minute.”
That evening when Juan got home, he flipped open his “I Trust JFK” notebook and started to write. He imagined what details Jack might have remembered of his improbable survival in the Solomon Islands during the war. His guilt and regret still linger after all those years, Juan wrote. As lieutenant commander of PT 109, he had mistakenly left the boat’s engines idling, and so when the Japanese Amagiri appeared like a mythical beast out of the darkness of the night, Jack panicked and forgot about the buildup of exhaust that would choke the motor dead if he tried to speed away. He throttled full power forward with the gears, hoping the motor would respond. Instead, the engines sputtered out in a loud rev of churning water before stalling completely. His PT 109 patrol boat was now helpless as a calf left for slaughter. The Japanese vessel leveled ahead at forty knots and plowed through the hull of his boat, splintering the wooden frame of the deck in half like a giant plank, the crack and explosion sending the boat’s latter half with the engines to the bottom of the ocean while the bow bobbed violently and stayed afloat at a steep angle. Six men clung to the wreckage as seven others were thrown into the water, two dead upon collision.
Jack then remembered how fire exploded from the ruptured gas tanks of PT 109, and the night sky over the desolate sea lit up in spirals of flames. The high octane gasoline had skimmed across the water and caught fire, giving two crewmen terrible burns. After the Amagiri had passed, all Jack remembered was peeling himself off the steel hulk of the bow and wondering if the vastness of the sky was a summons from death. His
spine had felt snapped like a toothpick, his body immobile as a corpse. Once he regained his consciousness, his mind engaged only the instinct of survival, for both himself and his crewmates . . .
Juan nodded off as he ran out of energy to keep writing, but he knew the rest of the story as he had read the details from the newspapers. Jack had carved a message into the outer flesh of a coconut and two native islanders delivered the message to their chief, which led to the rescue mission that saved the lives of Jack and his crewmates.
Juan fell asleep that night dreaming of his Abuelo Gabriel, how he had nearly died at sea before being saved by natives in the Solomon Islands. His heart was flooded with love for the natives, with love for his grandfather, and with love for Kennedy. So over the next three weeks before the election, he and Alberto pushed themselves harder than they ever had before to fulfill a purpose, and on that second Tuesday of November, the final vote brought tears to Juan’s eyes and a smile of relief to Alberto’s face.
* * *
Chapter 31
Americans elected Kennedy by the narrowest of margins—only 120,000 popular votes—an aftermath that left the country with a feeling of indecisiveness about who they had really wanted as their next Commander in Chief. But for Juan and Alberto, the outcome of the election electrified their hope that relations would soon improve between the U.S. and Cuba. The media, however, reported that the new JFK administration would take office with every intention of maintaining Eisenhower’s hard-line policy against Castro and his regime.
Regardless of what the news claimed, Juan had his own secret insider knowledge that he felt confident in extrapolating from. He had spoken to Kennedy and looked into the calm, balmy green of his eyes and seen every reason to believe truthfully in the peace Kennedy proclaimed. He had heard the President’s voice firsthand—his soft consonants of understanding, a reconciliatory tone of vowels—that promised to negotiate with other countries. He had felt the passionate tolerance of Jack’s humility that conveyed he didn’t want to make Castro a pariah and Cuba a devil’s island. For what purpose was the world with enemies? What is the purpose of living if we cannot embrace peace? Juan believed he understood the depth and substance of these matters better than most people because of his direct encounters with the two men at the heart of the matter—Castro and Kennedy.
Their father’s first letter after Kennedy’s victory reflected that same hopeful sentiment of how the days ahead should play out with peace:
My Dearest Sons,
I’m optimistic that the Nuevo Año will bring good tidings with Kennedy taking office, but for now I have been informed that there will be no release granted to me this holiday season. However, I have spoken more frequently to the camp commander here at my central. He is a good man, a trusted individual. He is aware of my situation, how long I have been separated from you two, and he has told me he is in contact with higher authorities in the Social Affairs division. They are taking a hard look at my case, the commander has reported in earnest to me. He believes next year I will finally be granted permission to leave. So please stay positive and do not lose hope. Do not forget me as I think of you both every second of every day. Mi corazón is yours, always. Take care of your mother and grandparents and Cuca too. Tell them I will see you all soon.
Love,
Tu Padre
The brothers took their father’s correspondence in stride. In the nearly two years of separation from him, they learned a lot about his unbreakable perseverance and his positive outlook of the world—how his optimism, similar to Kennedy’s, made every obstacle in life seem impossible to despair.
“I refuse to believe Kennedy wants war,” Juan told his grandfather one Saturday afternoon in early December.
“He’s Catholic. No true Catholic wants war.”
“However, Fidel is no man of religion, though I believe he also wants peace.”
“Ah,” said his grandfather. “Fidel is fearless, which makes him vulnerable. Anyone with that type of vulnerability worn on his sleeve can be talked to, can be understood. Fidel is a very smart man, but also very proud and ambitious. Kennedy, too, is ambitious, but also charming. He’s an optimist at heart. He has a way of catching people’s attention, of bringing people together. Fidel is watching and waiting. I only pray to God that I will see your father again.”
“You will, Abuelo. I promise. Papá’s letters believe he will be here soon. Alberto and I believe it too.”
“I hope you’re right,” sighed Huberto, his goatee looking whiter and whiter each day, his receding hairline representative of the aging he’d gone through while missing his son these past years. “Well, that’s enough talk of politics for a Saturday afternoon. What’s going on with you lately? You’re either at school, working, or in your room studying. You and Alberto, your grandma and I hardly ever see you boys. The house is so quiet these days. Even Cuca is working more.”
“I’m sorry Abuelo. We have our own lives. I have my dream to go to law school someday.”
“If you believe it, it will happen.”
“Yes, I’m working hard and doing well.”
“I’m sure you are,” his grandfather said. “What about your friend, Arturo? I haven’t seen him around in a long time.”
“We’ve split up,” said Juan, his eyes a little shifty with embarrassment. “I hope to remain friends.”
“Well, then I’ll ask no more about it. What about Alberto?”
“I think he’s fine, but you’ll have to ask him for yourself.”
“That pretty young thing of his, Guadalupe. I guess I wouldn’t be spending much time at home either if I was young again and had a muchacha like that.”
As the holidays arrived, Alberto reached the home stretch of his senior year. He was nervous over being undecided about what he wanted to do after graduation. He had been working two weekday afternoons at the store at the DuPont Plaza and the other three days at a mortgage company down the street. He and Sharkey had both gotten jobs at the office of Florida Home Loans in the afternoons, two hours a day. Sharkey’s father was still working on securing extradition papers for Jiménez, and so Sharkey had again enrolled at LaSalle to finish his last year of high school in the states. With Juan too busy to join them, Alberto and Sharkey hung out when they could, and now they worked together at Florida Home Loans for fifteen bucks a week.
One of their tasks was to go down the office’s log book of loans and see which borrowers had not made their payments. When they found one, they checked the date status of the overdue bill and picked out the corresponding, pre-written letter to send out to the borrower’s address. The different letters, depending on how late the payment, described in legally threatening terms what would happen if the problem went unresolved: additional late fees assessed, permanent citation on one’s credit report, and the worst case action, eventual foreclosure of property. One afternoon as they finished with sealing their last envelopes for the day, Alberto came upon the name Eduardo Vasquez.
“Hey, I remember hearing that name in Cuba. He was associated with Batista’s secret police,” said Alberto. “He was notorious for supposedly torturing people.”
“No way, man,” said Sharkey. “Let me see his file.”
They opened up the manila folder with the man’s loan information and checked the birthday.
“See,” said Alberto. “Born in 1915 in Cuba. He’s forty-five, almost forty-six. He would have been in his prime about the time Batista was controlling the island.”
“Well, if this isn’t our good fortune,” said Sharkey, slapping his hands together. “What’s he on the default list for?”
“Looks like some petty late fee a few months back. His payment came in a few days after the due date. Looks like he refuses to pay it.”
“A fucking hard ass. It figures. He’ll probably come in here with a baseball bat and a goon squad once we send out the letter.”
Alberto laughed. “Look. His address is right around the block from here.”
“
Are you serious?” said Sharkey, reading the contact information in the folder. “This is perfect. Go on and seal the envelope. We’ll go deliver it personally to the son-of-bitch’s house.”
“We can’t do that?” contended Alberto.
“Sure we can. No one will know. We just put it in the mailbox. I just want to get a look at this asshole.”
They finished licking, sealing, and appending stamps to all the other envelopes. Then they took the one addressed to Vasquez and headed through the neighborhood. They took a left and then a right onto an upscale residential street not a half-mile from the mortgage office.
All the houses were constructed as sprawling, single-story floor plans. They had carports and large front yards, many with palm trees, dense shrubbery, and Bermuda grass. As they got closer to the address they were looking for, they saw two young boys, each with an enormous set of ears, playing in the yard. They kicked around a soccer ball as Alberto and Sharkey approached.
“I remember people used to say that Vasquez was easy to recognize because he had ears that stood out like saucers,” said Alberto.
“Well, take a look at those little bastards,” said Sharkey about the boys. “They could sweep the streets with those ears.”
Alberto tried to contain his laughter because his nerves began to spike.
When they reached the front of the house, they stood on the sidewalk for a second and then Sharkey asked the boys in the yard, “Is this the Vasquez residence?”
The boys stopped playing and looked at Sharkey and Alberto.
The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy Page 24
