Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (23 page)

“I’m so sorry, Basilio.” 

“I was fifteen, when she died.”  Ramos took a deep breath, and looked across at Ranya, then up toward the mountains.  He wanted to tell her about his father, the Brazilian-Mexican fashion photographer, who had left them when he was only a small child.  He wanted to tell her about the sudden and unexpected end to the private schools, their Colorado skiing vacations, and the private plane flights after she lost her television job. About living with a series of distant relatives in South LA after she died, and discovering how the poorest of these undocumented immigrants lived in wretched hovels, hidden among California’s wealth.  How the long-forgotten accident of his Argentine birth made him a fugitive from
La Migra
, Immigration, despite his growing up in California as a son of privilege.

He wanted to tell Ranya about being beaten bloody by black, white, brown and yellow thugs on the pitiless streets, about learning to fight, and learning to love to fight.  Then about discovering the richness of his true Latino identity in the Los Angeles public high schools.  About dedicating himself to the Chicano people’s struggle against Anglo domination and imperialism, while he was a student at UC San Diego and a member of
FEChA
and
Nuestra Raza,
“Our Race.”  About his years of fighting for the people in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, first as a spy, and then as a guerrilla.  And about the Jews, always the Jews, who were the true capitalist puppet masters, and who had always been the enemy of his people…

However, he was hesitant to share his inner feelings, his deepest fears, and his darkest hatreds.  Even though she was an Arab, and thus a victim of the same Jewish and Anglo oppressors, he had just met her.  She was untamed and beautiful, and he felt she was a kindred spirit, but it was too soon for that.  After a while, after being lost in his thoughts, he just shrugged, and sighed.  “You’re really going to enjoy dinner, where we’re going.”

***

Ranya could easily believe
that his mother had been a fashion model, based on the looks and charm that she had bequeathed to her son.  Basilio Ramos could certainly pass for a television or movie actor.  Despite his being way out beyond the left field wall politically, she was grateful for the opportunity to ingratiate herself with him, instead of any of the other three members of the tribunal.  Perhaps it was a case of like being drawn to like. They were both outcasts and orphans, rejects and renegades, who had found one another despite the wildly different paths that had led them both to New Mexico.  She even had the thought that the two of them could pass as brother and sister, with their similar dark brown hair and hazel-green eyes, and both of them tall and lean… Basilio Ramos, the son of an Argentinian fashion model and television personality, was undeniably a handsome man, and Ranya had certainly heard over the years that she was not exactly unattractive herself…

Once again they drove north past Montgomery Boulevard, and she tried to look up each street, hoping to catch a glimpse of a five year old boy named Brian.

In ten more minutes, the three-vehicle convoy was at the northeast corner of Albuquerque, where Tramway Boulevard suddenly turned and veered to the west.  Here she found the reason for the name of the boulevard that wraps itself around the city on two sides.  Here at the leftward bend in Tramway Boulevard, the two-lane Tramway Road jutted off to the right, and wound its way up into the stony foothills.

***

A small sign by the road read
“Sandia Peak Tramway Straight Ahead.”

“I was wondering what the tramway was.  Is this where we’re going to have dinner?” asked Ranya.

“No, not down here.  Up top.”

“Up top?”

“Right.  Ten thousand feet up, at the top of the mountain.  You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, that’s a good thing then. We’re taking the tram to the top.”

After a mile on a winding road, they arrived at the lower station of the tramway, a stone and timber building the size of a football field, with an enormous chalet-style roof over one side.  Instead of stopping on the almost empty visitor’s lot, the three vehicles drove around the building past the employees parking area to the mountainside.  They pulled alongside the building in the fire lane, almost under the tram wires that led up toward the distant peak, and parked.  A dozen bodyguards spilled from the two black Suburbans and spread out, some going up the employees’ steps and into the building. One of the guards returned to the upper doorway and signaled to Ramos to come ahead, and Ranya followed him up the stairs and inside.  This employee entrance bypassed the ticket booths and nearly deserted waiting areas, and brought them directly to the boarding platforms beneath the high angled metal roof, over the tram docking area.  

A blue tramcar was waiting in one of the docking ports; next to it was another U-shaped docking port that was empty.  The car was a rectangular glass and metal box, twenty feet long and ten feet wide, with sliding doors shut on either side.  It fit snugly into the docking port with boarding platforms flush against it on both sides. A massive twenty-foot tall aluminum A-frame was attached to the roof of the tram.  This lifting frame was topped with multiple sets of substantial pulley wheels, which in turn rested on a parallel pair of two-inch thick steel cables.  Other cables led from above the empty tram dock, running up toward the mountain, where they converged and vanished in the distance.

Ramos left two men to guard the vehicles, and the rest of his ten-man entourage accompanied them into the loading area, fanning out, their carbines at the ready.  The tramway staff seemed nervous, uncertain of what was expected of them.  None of the employees asked to see their tickets, and no tickets were offered.

In Spanish, Ramos said to one of his men, “Genizaro, stay down here with your squad, and make sure everything is secure at the bottom.”  Six of them spread out and took positions to dominate the area around the tram docks and the waiting areas.  Then he spoke in English to the young attendant operating the controls, and moved toward the waiting tram. “We’re ready to go.  Open it.”

“But sir, it’s only 7:20. We’ll be leaving at 7:30.”

“Well, not tonight.  Tonight we’re leaving at 7:20.  Now.  Let’s go.”

“I’ll have to ask my boss…”  The young man looked imploringly toward a door stenciled “tramway staff only.”  There was a large one-way observation mirror inset into the wall by the office door.  A middle-aged man peeked out of the door and nodded yes, then ducked back inside.

The attendant said, “We still have to call the top—both cars leave at the same time.  When one goes up, the other comes down.  That’s how it works.”

“I know how it works,” huffed the Comandante.  “Don’t you recognize me?”

“No sir, I’m new here.  We have to tell them to get ready, up on the mountain.  They need time to board their passengers.”

“Well, do it then!” snapped Ramos, annoyed.  Then he, Ranya and four of his bodyguards stepped into the empty tramcar after its doors slid open. Three tourists who had been milling about with their tickets in hand moved to board with them.  One of the Comandante’s men stood in the open door, blocking their entrance, holding his carbine across his chest.

“What the hell is this?” asked one of the visitors, a slim man about fifty years old.  He was wearing a black cowboy hat, a black Harley Davidson t-shirt, jeans and boots. 

The tattooed bodyguard in the tram’s opening stared impassively at him, then glanced over his shoulder at Ramos.

The impatient man said, “We’ve got tickets.  We paid, and we waited. We want to go up, or we’ll miss the sunset.  What’s going on here?”

“What’s going on is you wait for the next ride, cowboy,” said Ramos, in perfect English.  “You don’t run this state anymore.”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa there fellah!  That ain’t how it works in America! This is still America, right? We paid for our tickets, and we’re getting on!”

A middle-aged blond woman accompanying the man said, “Chuck, it’s not worth it.  Let’s just go home.  We can use the tickets some other time.”  She was tugging at his shirt, trying to pull him back.

“But Rhonda, I’m leaving tomorrow!  Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is we paid for these tickets, and now these Brown Berets are throwing us off! What the hell is up with that?”

“You don’t have to live here Chuck, you’re going back to Texas tomorrow, please don’t…”

“I’m sorry little sister, but that’s just not…”

“Chuck…please…please don’t make trouble for us.”  The woman was trembling, her voice quaking.  “We live here, and you don’t.  You don’t understand…”

The man in the cowboy hat was getting angrier.  “Yeah, well, I think I do understand!  New Mexico’s going to hell in a basket, when they’ve got brown shirts carrying machine guns, throwing people off of rides they already paid for! Hey, you,
Jefe
, where’s your damn ticket?  Or do only gringos have to pay in Nuevo Mexico?”  The man addressed the questions to Basilio Ramos, who was obviously the leader of the armed group.

“Okay, that’s enough you asshole,” responded Ramos, drawing his pistol and half raising it.  “Show me your ID!”

The irate Texan stood his ground.  “No, you show me your ID first! Who the hell are you to ask for my ID anyway? You’re not even real police!  So you show me
your
ID!  Hah!  If you even have one, I’ll bet it was printed in Mexico!  And how about your little goon squad, are they even Americans at all? Hey you,” he said, addressing the Miliciano blocking the tram door, “Who’s Babe Ruth? Who’s Neil Armstrong? You don’t even speak English, do you?”  He shook his head in disgust, his hands on his hips.

The Texas man’s sister and brother-in-law were shrinking back in horror at their belligerent relative’s outburst.  Ramos’s men had raised the barrels of their rifles, waiting for a sign from their leader on what to do next.  They were visibly angry, but staying in control.  The other six bodyguards moved behind the small group of tourists.

Only yesterday, Ranya had been on the receiving end of an unintended volley of rifle fire.  Now she feared that this situation was again on the verge of spinning out of control.  The guards’ fingers were literally on their triggers, the same as they had been at Chulada.  She tugged at Ramos’s arm, and whispered to him, “Don’t let this happen Basilio…put your pistol away.  Think—the parking lot here is already almost empty as it is. This will only ruin their business, and then the tramway will probably close down.  Don’t let this happen, it’s not worth it.  There’s plenty of room here for all of us.  Please Basilio, don’t let this happen.”

Comandante Ramos drew a deep breath, glaring daggers at the Texan, who was glaring right back at him with ice-blue lasers from beneath the brim of his hat.  The cowboy was completely ignoring the closest guard’s rifle, aimed at his chest from only a foot away.  In Spanish, Ramos told his men, “It’s okay boys—let them pass.  We don’t want to deprive the restaurant of customers.”  He holstered his pistol, and then he did an about-face to turn his back on the Texan, while clenching and unclenching his fists.

The bodyguards backed up, lowering their weapons, standing in a line across the middle of the tramcar.  The tourists looked behind themselves, looked at each other, and hesitantly stepped aboard, following the Texan. The doors were slid shut on both sides by attendants, and the tram lurched, and then with a rumble of machine clatter it rose swiftly into the air.

***

Basilio Ramos had been up the tramway many times,
and had no fear of the experience.  He was also a qualified small plane pilot, and the sensation was not entirely different from being a passenger in an ungainly transport aircraft, albeit one without seats, or wings. 

He knew that the experience was especially exhilarating for people making their first ascent to the top of Sandia Crest.  He had taken many pretty university students and bright-eyed young “
Voluntarias
” on this ride, and invariably the reaction was the same: raw physical excitement. The tram took 15 minutes to rise 4,000 vertical feet, up to the mountaintop at 10,400 feet, over a horizontal distance of 2.7 miles.  It was said to be the longest tramway in the world, and he believed it.

Ramos had taken position in the front of the car, facing through the windows up at the mountain, pointedly ignoring the troublesome gringo tourists.  His guards were behind him, watching them for him.  As the tram swayed in the wind, dangling from the suspended wires, he found himself shoulder to shoulder with Ranya, and then felt her lean against him for support. The tram was more than a thousand feet above the granite cliffs where the Sandia Mountains soared up in pinnacles and spires, and in a few minutes they approached the midpoint, a hundred foot tall steel frame tower perched on a protruding shoulder of mountainside cliff.

The tram rumbled as its trolley wheels passed over the tower’s arm, and he slid his arm around Ranya’s waist to steady her.  Then the tram wire actually dipped down as it shot out across the final mile-wide canyon, and the passengers all felt the momentary stomach flutter of weightlessness. A few hundred yards out into the dizzying space they passed the other tramcar coming down on the other wires fifty feet away, then it was quickly out of sight, beyond the mid-point tower and running almost straight down toward the lower station.

Quietly he said to her, “Thank you for what you did down there.  You were right, of course.”

“I just didn’t want to see our dinner ruined.”

“No, of course not.  And you have a point, tourism is already suffering badly.  We don’t want to see the tramway go out of business.” Especially, he thought, because he enjoyed bringing his new girlfriends up the mountain for their first romantic dinner together.  

***

Soon the tram had crossed the halfway point of Baca Canyon,
and the cable wire began its final steep ascent to the upper tram station.  The sides of the mountains that were not sheer granite were now covered in pines; they had risen from a high desert climate to an alpine zone in only minutes. Looking upward through the front windows, the mountain top station looked industrial and ugly, like a giant mining operation.  The tram slowed as it approached its dock, and smoothly nested between two boarding platforms, finally coming to a stop with the platform deck level with the floor of the tramcar.  The doors opened, and Ranya and Basilio were the first two off.