Maybe, Maybe Not

Dear Readers: For reasons that will become obvious if you bother to read what follows, I cannot state whether the piece is true, partly true, or all b.s. fiction. Let me add that if it happens to be true, and I am not saying that, some details and names have been altered. The three or four people out there--you know who you are--who know what is what, I ask to confine any comments to my private email. Anyhow, for the rest of you, I hope you enjoy it. Don't ask me if it is true; I won't say. Don't ask, don't tell. Just assume it is all fictional rubbish; I don't mind. This writing forms part of my therapy of weaning myself off the current political disaster for a bit.

A somewhat beat-up Fokker 50 had carried us from the national capital to the city of X, the capital of Y Department in a war-torn Central American country. I was with an Embassy Attache who happened to be a Marine officer. He, note, was not just any Attache or any Marine. We knew him as “Jerry the Marine,” or simply JTM. I can’t remember his real last name. Born for the Marines and for combat, he had done a couple of tours in Vietnam, and had loved them. He wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’8” or so, but built like a brick outhouse. Lean, wide shouldered, the bluest eyes ever seen, and a nearly completely shaved head. This was no ordinary head. It was big, and veins snaked around it, and they would throb. The head would get red and then purple when something displeased JTM--and almost everything did. He had a permanent scowl.

As the political-military affairs officer I had accompanied him because the Embassy leadership worried that JTM might get us into a war. He wanted to go into combat so much that his face and entire head would get red and then purple whenever he discussed it, “Makes no damn sense. These guys are fighting communist guerrillas, we should be, too!” JTM was none too happy to have a wimpy State guy as a babysitter. He wanted to talk to his contacts alone, and, I suspect, slip into the jungle on a combat patrol or two. Strictly forbidden. Not our war. He had to put up with me for two reasons: the Ambassador and the Defense Attache had told him he must, and, most frustrating for him, JTM spoke the most atrocious Spanish imaginable. Nobody could understand him. I, on the other hand, spoke about the best Spanish in the Embassy. JTM needed me to make himself understood. That displeased him, but a Marine adapts.

We had picked up a small Suzuki 4X4 from the rental agency at the airport, and went off to a motel that made the Bates Motel look inviting. Next morning, we drove to a town called something like La Bondad. We had an interest in guerrillas, cross-border drug trafficking, and the state of the national army in this remote area full of drug and guerrilla activity, rogue soldiers, corrupt cops, as well as run-of-the-mill highway bandits. The Embassy security officer had warned us to get off the roads before dark. To make a long story short, we, well, I, had spent too much time talking to contacts, and now we would have a hard time reaching Y before nightfall. Yes, all this because, in JTM's dulcet phrase, “The damn State Department guy can’t shut up!” Guilty as charged.

We sat in our little "Jeep" heading to Y at the Suzuki's paltry top speed. JTM, of course, had gone into purple face mode, “We have orders not to be on the road after dark! We won't make it to the motel by dark. What the hell were you talking about?”

“If you knew Spanish, you’d know.”

That shut him up for a while, but he continued grumbling and cursing under his breath as he gunned that flimsy Suzuki over some of the nastiest roads I have seen or felt. The man could drive. The primitive suspension and thin seat padding, however, did not provide much protection from the pounding on that dirt slash through the jungle. Our tiny, tinny car shook and shuddered with every pothole and stretch of washboard.

As we rounded a bend, ahead of us, not far, we spotted three, four, five men, I don’t remember the number, dragging a tree trunk onto the road. 

JTM uttered at the top of his lungs the most chilling word I ever heard, “Ambush!”

As he said it, a round smacked into the top of the windshield where it joined the roof. A long jagged crack appeared almost instantly in the glass. JTM drew his gun, aimed the Jeep at the men, and managed to swerve around the tree trunk which was not yet fully out in the road. We flew past them as they scrambled out of the way, and tried to swing their rifles around to follow us. With my left hand I clutched the dashboard, trying not to bounce out of my seat, and with my right managed to ease my Colt Commander .45 out of the shoulder holster. Just as I thought we had made it, wham! The car hit a rock, maybe a deep pothole, don't know, all too confused. We came to a violent stop. Engine off. The seatbelt leaving what would become a nasty red-blue bandana across my shoulder and chest. JTM, more purple than ever, furiously struggled with his own seatbelt, worked the gas pedal, the key, the clutch, the choke, and the shift lever, as he tried to start the car.

Although a bit dazed, I still had the big Colt in my right hand. I must have been staring at JTM with a somewhat stupid look on my face. That, of course, did not please him, “Don’t look at me, you idiot, look at him!” He shot his right hand and arm past my face, “Him! Him! Shoot him, you goddamn idiot!”

I turned my head, and got startled by a face, under a baseball cap, filling the window opening. The glass was down, and I swear I could smell the guy’s sweat and breath. He had come running to our stalled car. I stared into his face, his cap brim almost hitting me in the forehead. I could hear JTM shouting, “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

He had a rifle, either a Belgian FN FAL or an Israeli Galil, dangling off his right shoulder. He suddenly tried to raise it, but stood too close to our car; the long rifle hit the door. Mr. Baseball Cap took a step back: unfortunately for him, not a big enough step. I had my gun in my right hand hanging down between my body and the door; I leaned left as far as the shoulder belt would allow, almost into JTM, and raised the Colt. Then things happened very fast. I am not sure in what order. JTM restarted the car and I killed the guy; or maybe, I killed the guy and JTM started the car. I don’t know. I do know that I  raised the pistol, leaned right again, my head partly out the window, and pushed the gun to about two inches from Mr. Baseball Cap's chest. He glanced down at the pistol, then looked up at me, his eyes wide open, his mouth agape. He froze. I fired three times. A pinkish arterial mist blew back into my face, covering my sunglasses, as well as my hand, gun, and shirt. The guy lurched a bit, but stayed upright. He then seemed to take a step, more of a stumble, towards us just as the Suzuki popped into reverse, its outside rear view mirror clipping him with a thud. JTM later said that the mirror hit him before I fired. Given the confusion, JTM might be right; I just remember it the other way. Either way, I definitely don’t remember seeing him after that but assume he went down.

We took off in a spray of dirt and rocks, the Suzuki rattling and banging worse than ever. We had no headlights. The blood seemed everywhere. I had it in my nose, mouth, and eyes. I tossed my smeared expensive prescription Ray-Bans out the window, and became frantic trying to get blood out of my mouth and my nostrils. My right hand bled from where the Colt’s slide had bitten into the web between my thumb and index finger. The gunshots had set my ears aringing, but I could hear JTM yelling, “Goddamn civilian almost got us killed! What were you thinking? Always keep your eye on the enemy," that sort of thing. I think I said, “Just drive!”

As we swayed along, I wondered why JTM hadn’t shot the guy.

“Where the hell was your gun? You had it in your hand.”

“I was trying to start the car.”

Glancing down, I saw his Beretta clattering on the floorboard near his right foot, around the accelerator pedal. In the crash JTM had lost control of his weapon, and his seat belt had locked up. He couldn't reach the gun: one brief moment of combat “glory” offered up by the Fates, stolen by a jammed safety belt and a State Department weenie. Life is not fair.

Just before Y, we stopped at a small police station to report the incident--we had to cut the seatbelt to let JTM out of the car. The cops looked at the car, the bullet hole, the blood inside and out. The head cop asked in a bored voice, “So these men, who you say attacked you, were communists, drug traffickers, or just bandits?”

“They did attack us, and I don’t know who they were. All I know is I think I killed one. You might want to go look.”

“It’s dark. If he is dead, he will be still be dead in the morning.” He made a few notes on a piece of paper.

That was it.

We got to the motel. I managed a call to the Ambassador, a savvy political appointee. He said, "OK, thanks. Just shut up about it. You told me and that's enough for now. We will take care of this when you get back. Glad you're both alive."

The next day we returned the car. The agent at the little airport said absolutely nothing about the bullet hole, cracked windshield, cut seatbelt, smashed headlights, dangling mirror, and, of course, the blood. The insurance would take care of it, and we were armed gringos in a hurry. He was not going to ask silly questions, not in that part of the world.

Real or Memorex? Ain't telling . . . .