Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (41 page)

***

Ranya and her two comrades
linked up with the other Falcons after they walked beneath the railroad underpass, and emerged on the downtown side of Central Avenue.  Still hidden among the throngs of marchers, they removed and discarded their red, black and green temporary t-shirts.  Some of the Falcons had been wearing ordinary brown Milicia shirts underneath, these men now slipped on brown berets, but without their silver Falcon emblems.  Their M-16’s and web belts would be given to them behind the stage.

Other Falcons now showed a variety of civilian clothes, depending on their next assignment.  Some of them tied their black bandanas around their left upper arms, as recognition signs.  Ranya was now in her own plain black t-shirt and jeans, still anonymous.  The human river turned right and flowed up Third Street in front of the Convention Center, to the top of the Civic Plaza.  A few of the bigger Falcons set themselves at the point of a wedge formation, and the group shoved its way through the crowds. 

Seen from the plaza, the back of the main stage was a high brown wall.  Behind this backdrop, the ground-level backstage area was the rally point for the Falcons with operations around the plaza.  Other platoons and squads broke off and headed for their own missions elsewhere. The Falcons who were now wearing brown Milicia t-shirts and berets (including Ranya’s two escorts) were allowed through the temporary steel railings into the backstage area.   

She was briefly stopped here, until she produced her special pass card. Her two comrades told the ordinary Milicianos guarding the fence, “she’s with us,” and she was allowed inside with the others.  A sergeant was handing M-16 rifles to the Falcons who were now dressed as ordinary Milicianos (except for their distinguishing black armbands). After seeing her briefly detained at the fence, the Falcon non-com in charge of issuing the rifles found Ranya a spare brown beret.  He just told her, “Wear this, and nobody will bother you.”  And so she did.

While adjusting her beret, she saw the Jefe from the van’s ambush at Chulada.  She recognized him by his distinctive beard and mustache.  He was wearing a complete camouflage uniform, and seemed to be in charge of the Milicianos providing security around the stage area, outside of the steel railings.  Seeing him here, and seeing the black M-16’s, brought the memory of the firing squad flooding back into her mind. What was it he had he said? “In war, you either kill, or you are killed.”  Both of them were wearing dark sunglasses, and neither of them gave the other any hint of acknowledgment, but the Jefe had seen her, she had no doubt.

18
 

Luis Carvahal watched the plaza
fill with thousands of marchers, many carrying signs and banners.  There was a twelve-foot-tall mockup of Uncle Sam, with long white fangs dripping red blood.  On one side of Uncle Sam was a scar-faced puppet general, clutching rockets in each hand. The general’s nametag identified him as Jack D. Ripper.  On his chest were medals labeled Genocide, Rape and Torture.

On the other side of Uncle Sam was a gigantic hook-nosed (and stereotypically Jewish-looking) banker in a black top hat, clutching dollars in both fists.  Lest the point be missed, there were dollar signs, Stars of David, and Nazi Swastikas tattooed on the sneering banker’s face.  With these radical Aztlan socialists, it always came back to the Jews.  Carvahal didn’t consider himself Jewish, not really, but still he shrank into his seat, glad that his secret roots were unknown.

Hundreds of flags waved back and forth above the cheering throngs. They included the flags of Nuevo Mexico, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Palestine, the United Nations, the red hammer and sickle flag of communism, and the black anarchists’ flag.  He scanned the plaza, and finally he did see one American flag: it was flown upside-down, with the blue field of stars on the bottom.  A black Swastika was spray-painted across the red and white stripes.

Swastikas and Stars of David.  Luis Carvahal did not miss the irony of those two symbols being linked, even if the irony was lost on the gathered protestors.  The irony of course was that the Swastika was the symbol of Germany’s National Socialist Party, the Nazis, who were the authors of the Jewish Holocaust.  Carvahal sighed in resignation, having long since given up on today’s youth and their utter historical illiteracy, a product of their deliberate educational brainwashing.

The band on the other side of the stage now belted out a fast
corrida
, competing with the chanting crowds for maximum decibel supremacy. Finally, coming toward the plaza from across Marquette and heralded by blasting air horns, was a convoy of trucks.  These were open stake-side flatbed farm trucks, which Carvahal knew were symbolically delivering the downtrodden Hispanics to the positions of ultimate power in New Mexico. The fronts, cabs and sides of the trucks were festooned with more banners, ribbons, and posters.  The truck convoy came to a stop on Marquette, along the north side of the Civic Plaza behind the stage.  The first truck was loaded with brown-bereted Milicianos, holding black M-16 rifles. The second and third trucks brought the VIPs, and more soldiers.

The crowd cheered madly as Gobernador Deleon, Vicegobernador Magón, and the other state leaders climbed down, and made their way through a lane formed by outward-facing parallel lines of Milicianos. They walked through an opening in the railings to the side of the stage, and up the wide rows of steps.  The new state leaders were all wearing guayabera shirts in various hues, symbolically throwing off the Yanquis’ detested suits and ties for uniquely Hispanic formal attire.  The crowd roared approval at their appearance.  The ovation continued for several long minutes, as the Gobernador and Vicegobernador and their staff’s stood shoulder to shoulder across the front of the stage, pumping their fists toward the sky, beaming with the full expression of total victory.

***

When the dignitaries arrived,
Ranya was standing with the other Falcons just inside of the railings, by the side of the stage. These state officials filed in between rows of Milicianos and ascended the steps to the stage, to the roar of the crowd.  Comandante Ramos was about the fifteenth person back in the line, and when he passed by he greeted her with a broad smile and pulled her along with him, nodding in approval at her brown beret.  He led her to a front row seat on the right side of the stage.

Higher ranking state officials and other VIPs were seated in the center directly behind the podium.  The Jefe from the roadblock attack on the van came up on the stage with the other leaders, but sat on the far side of the stage, away from Ramos. Ranya also recognized the stern-faced female comrade from the drumhead tribunal at the mini-storage detention facility, the one who had taken her Glock pistol.  The governor and the other leaders lined up across the stage, their hands raised high, basking in the crowd’s adulation.

***

Alex Garabanda adjusted his video camera
on its tripod, bracketing the center of the stage area around the podium. Once the state leaders had settled into their seats, an Albuquerque Spanish-language TV news anchor served as Master of Ceremonies.  Taking his cue from the state political leaders, who were all wearing Latin-style guayabera shirts, Francisco Chavero had taken off his jacket and tie and left them on the back of his chair.  He had his own portable microphone, and moved around the stage like the professional he was. “
¡Bienvenidos!
Welcome, people of Nuevo Mexico, to our Rally for Social Justice!  Can you believe it?  Just look at us today! ¡Sí se puede, Albuquerque!”  This “impartial newsman” gushed on in typical crowd-pumping emcee fashion for a minute before finally introducing the first speaker.  His muffled voice was understandable through the tinted double-pane window, even with the inevitable echoes bouncing off the buildings surrounding the Civic Plaza.  

“Now, let’s begin the Rally with a special benediction by Albuquerque’s own ‘first padre,’ Father… Antonio… José… Mar—tínez!”

A plump middle-aged man with slicked-back hair bounded up from a front row chair and strode to the podium.  The only hints that this obviously well fed man was (or had ever been) a priest were his black short-sleeve button-down shirt and matching black slacks.  There was no Roman collar under the shirt, which was open at the neck.  The TV emcee Francisco Chavero stepped back and took his seat, when Martínez approached the array of microphones atop the podium.

“Thank you Francisco, thank you esteemed guests, thank you people of Nuevo Mexico, and especially, thank you Gobernador Deleon.” Martínez paused, while the crowd erupted again.  After a minute of basking in the reflected adoration, he used his hands to settle the spectators down, so that his amplified voice could again be heard.

“It’s hard to believe that it was thirty years ago, that I was attending the trial of a so-called ‘Chicano radical’ named Agustín Deleon in that courthouse, right over there.”  Martínez pointed to the Bernalillo County Courthouse to his right front, and the crowd roared.  “And wasn’t he a prisoner in the jail a few blocks behind us for a time as well?”  Martínez quipped, “In fact, was there a prison in Nuevo Mexico that did not count Agustín Deleon among its guests, at one time or another?” and the crowd roared again.

“But seriously, like Jesus and the apostles, Agustín Deleon has spent his entire life struggling to reclaim the lost dignity and the stolen rights of the poor and oppressed of our state.  All his life, the governor has fought to bring dignity and honor to all of God’s children in Nuevo Mexico, by fighting the rapacious forces of Yanqui imperialism and neo-colonial exploitation, which have been imposed from outside upon our native peoples for over a century and a half.  

“But instead of simply mouthing worn-out platitudes, Agustín Deleon has spent his entire life actually living the gospels, in a way few humans ever find the courage to do.  In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus warned that eternal condemnation awaits those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners.  Well, who can deny that Agustín Deleon has lived according to these commands of Jesus himself?”

“Father Tony” went on for several more minutes, but Alex Garabanda tuned him out.  He had no time for the defrocked ex-priest’s liberation theology, which wrapped the traditional terminology of Christianity around Marxist dogma, in order to resell it to a gullible population long steeped in Catholicism.

***

Luis Carvahal endured the convoluted preaching
of the excommunicated priest, Tony Martinez.  He smelled the same old socialist snake oil, and he wondered how many in the audience would buy it with the new Jesus Christ label slapped on the bottle.  Martinez had been officially defrocked years before, but this had not stopped him from serving as the new state government’s semi-official “chaplain.”  His off-brand of “base community” Catholicism might not have been popular with the Pope in Rome, but he seemed to retain currency with New Mexican leftists who fancied themselves as religious—when it suited them.

Carvahal, bored by the stale liberation theology rhetoric, looked around him. He knew many of the others now filling all of the rows of folding metal chairs on the stage behind the podium.  He saw Basilio Ramos, the smooth-shaven Hollywood version of Che Guevara, looking quite dashing with his brown beret sporting a silver falcon.  Ramos, sitting in the first row and several chairs to Carvahal’s left, was accompanied by an attractive young woman who was wearing a brown beret, but not a Milicia t-shirt.  Ramos, perhaps feeling Carvahal’s gaze upon him, turned and held direct eye contact with him, causing a shudder to pass through the old reporter.  Carvahal didn’t notice the end of the benediction, or when Father Tony took his seat.

***

Ranya half-listened
while the priest without a collar gave a brief sermon: it was Karl Marx, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. When the so-called priest finished, he introduced Vicegobernador Félix Magón, who stood and walked briskly to the podium.  His black pompadour was combed back; he was wearing black pants and a white guayabera.  She was close enough to see his acne–pitted face in fetid detail.  Ranya noticed from her position behind him that Magón was standing on a small wooden crate for a step.  This step was hidden from the crowd’s view behind the podium.  Magón launched into a fiery speech, full of rage and invective against Yanqui imperialist domination, neo-colonial exploitation, wars of genocide and oppression, and numerous other Anglo-Zionist sins.

Magón whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and at the crescendo of his oratory, he pulled out what amounted to a theatrical prop from within the open-backed podium: a machete which had been chromed to a brilliant silver.  He waved it around above his head like a pirate’s cutlass, declaring that the era of the Yanqui oppressor was over at last!  Today the Anglo exploiters had been given their first “Spanish lesson,” and more hard lessons were coming!  The workers and peasants of Nuevo Mexico were going to cut the chains of domination, which unjustly bound them to Washington!  The Vicegobernador didn’t come out explicitly for formal secession; he left just enough room not to force the federal government’s hand.  Even so, his intentions were clear to the massed crowd in front of and around the stage, and they went wild with excitement as his amplified voice boomed and echoed off the surrounding buildings, and his machete flashed in the sun.

After several more violent machete thrusts at the sky, Magón replaced the blade in the open back of the podium.  He calmed himself with visible effort while holding both sides of the podium, and in a reverential tone he introduced the next speaker, the old Mountain Lion himself, the founding father of the new state of Nuevo Mexico, his most excellent and esteemed Gobernador…Agustín Deleon!

The governor rose from his chair to thunderous applause, and was greeted by his vice governor at the podium with a hearty and prolonged
abrazo
or embrace, complete with mutual back thumping.  The assembled thousands again thundered out their approval, as a sea of flags and banners waved with renewed fury.  Félix Magón then returned to his front row seat, several yards to the left of the speaker’s platform.