Sunday, January 25, 2015

Red Flags

At 5:00 in the morning a sharp rap pierced the air of Ángel’s apartment, echoing through the rooms like gunfire.  Ángel slowly got up and answered the door.  A group of four police officers stood outside.

The police chief produced a warrant, and stated, “Sir, we have evidence that you are involved in a local narcotics ring.  Please stand aside as we search your house.”  The officers filed in and began systematically overturning every cabinet, cupboard, and drawer in Ángel’s house.

As one of the officers searched Ángel’s room, he pulled a small package out of Ángel’s dresser.  He shook it and it exploded in a flash of crimson and searing white.  Fabric streamed out in the wind, unfolding to a blood red rectangle.  The three-pointed star of the Spanish Popular Front hung menacingly in the center.

As the fabric of the flag blew in the breeze, there was a metallic clinking.  A Ruby 7.65 mm semi-automatic pistol fell out onto the bed, clinking against a dud Granatwerfer 81 mm mortar shell.  The traje de luces hanging on Ángel's wall glowed in the harsh light of the flag.  The acrid odor of blood and gunpowder and tears filled the room.

When he was fifteen, Ángel had found the dud mortar shell as the dust settled on the rubble of his abuelita’s house in the countryside of Granada.  The other other shells that hit the house were not duds.  That was just a month after Franco took over the Spanish government.  The dust from the house still filled the grooves in the mortar’s surface.

Before the attack, Ángel had planned to be a bullfighter, following in the footsteps of his papa.  He finished his first bullfight a week before the attack, and was training for another.  He had a life planned with María, one of the girls from his hometown.  They would get married and move to Barcelona, by the sea.  The day after the attack, Ángel joined the Spanish Popular Front.  He never saw his papa or María again.

A week after Ángel joined the Front, his hometown turned against itself.  In a single blood soaked day, the Republicans systematically purged the town of anybody of any power.  Fascist regulars passing through three days later annihilated the remaining Republicans.  When Ángel returned the next year, all that remained was the tattered Fascist flag that the regulars had planted when they left.  Vinieron, vieron, vencieron.

Ángel fought for three years with the Popular Front, three years in which his life depended upon his Ruby semi-automatic pistol.  He razed countless villages himself, leaving behind his own tattered Popular Front flags.  In 1939, Ángel found a bridge and tried to fly away.  He fell one hundred meters into a shallow river and broke most of the bones in his body.  Local villagers found him floating face down in the water and took him to a local hospital where he spent nearly a year recovering. When he was released from the hospital, Ángel swore against war, against violence, against love, and against Spain.  He packed his belongings and headed to the United States.

When the contents of the flag fell onto the bed in Dreamwood Terrace, Ángel fell to his knees.  There was a deafening silence.  It was broken by one of the officers.

“Fucking Red.  I’m watching you.”

Just then, a young woman paused by the door.  She muttered to herself as she took in the pitiful scene inside.  Ángel looked up and caught her gaze.  She quickly turned and went on her way.  Ángel was mortified.

Ángel was not a member of a local narcotics ring, so the police officers found no evidence to substantiate their accusations.  They filed out of Ángel’s apartment.  One of the officers spit on Ángel’s doorstep as he left.

Ángel did not go to work at the New Hope Children’s Home that day.

9 comments:

  1. Nice job incorporating your history from Spain and reasoning for moving to the US (and Dreamwood). Your history makes the town much more interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When he was released from the hospital, Angel swore against war, against violence, against love, and against Spain.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am going to initiate our interaction. I really need this actually. You will like it hopefully, and I need to initiate it because your character is going to prompt my own to seek real meaning in life. I will keep it at that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to meet at a bar by coincidence and get drunk. You are going to reveal a lot of things about addressing problems and finding meaning in life and it is going to give lane new direction. Is that okay? So I guess our fire would be the bar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That sounds great. Please try to keep me in character though -- the bar would not be the most comfortable place for my character. If you have to go into why I went to the bar, you can reference my last post and talk about how the incident unearthed uncomfortable memories. You could also leave the explaining to me, if you don't feel comfortable writing too much of my character.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey so I am extremely busy the rest of the day, would you want to initiate our interaction? I am going to write my blog but I wont be able to until later tonight and I dont want to incovenience you. So if you would like to write an interaction first, go ahead. Just make sure you include stuff to tell lane that he needs to seek what his heart desires, aka true life meaning. Its not cocaine he actually wants, its fulfillment and meaning in life. He needs to get off of cocaine and other stuff. Thats all that I wanted to accomplish.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sure. I think it might work better if we built off each other though -- I still need to find meaning in my own life too. You could look at me as an example of what happens if you separate yourself from the world with cocaine. I've separated myself from the world emotionally.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sure. I think it might work better if we built off each other though -- I still need to find meaning in my own life too. You could look at me as an example of what happens if you separate yourself from the world with cocaine. I've separated myself from the world emotionally.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey just finished my blog go check it out. I hope I did your character a little justice. I think I may have made him speak a little to much but our interaction was somewhat brief. I hope you find it decent. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete