HEARTS

There’s a trick to playing Hearts…it involves paying attention.

In 1989 I spent 10 days as a guest at the Jefferson County Criminal Detention Facility. Saying it fancy makes it seem less like jail. The reason why the judge invited me to stay has no real importance right now, let’s just say I did something stupid and followed up with even more stupidity.

Anyway, in the common room of the module, at a table strategically situated near the bathroom, four men sat and played Hearts. The played everyday…all day long. When the time came for lockdown or lights out, they would place whatever they had in their hands face down and go to their private cells. As soon as the time came to resume activity in the common room, they would take their positions at the table and continue the game.

No one knew when the game had started.

The only way to get into the game was through an invitation from the group. The only time a spot came open was when one member of the table got his walking papers and left the facility. They allowed no substitutes or sit-ins.

Early during my stay I wondered what would happen if somebody switched the hands, or messed with the cards on their way to lockdown. During my first trip to the chamber of near-death (otherwise known as the basketball court on the roof) I saw what would happen to an individual who tried such a thing. The game deteriorated into a mosh pit with an orange ball bouncing around. The offender had to be helped off of the court. The guards had nothing to say about the rough game…it was just cell block politics.

On day eight, a member of the table went home just as I was coming out of the bathroom. A man that was not quite as large or tattooed as the average Maori warrior told me to sit and play. I measured my five feet eight inches up to his better than six foot frame…and decided that I could learn to play Hearts.

In the first round I learned that I had to avoid the Queen of Spades at all costs. I didn’t want to take any hearts in my hand, either. I had to keep my points down. Sometime during the second round I learned that if a guy could take all of the hearts and the Queen of Spades in one hand, he would get 0 points and the rest would have 26. For some reason the other players who lost that hand blamed me for not taking the Queen when I had a chance.

Stupid me…how selfish could I get?

The last hand of the night gave me the opportunity to take all of the point cards, and deal everyone else 26 points. The reaction was better when I had blown the same hand earlier in the day. The call came for lights out and the other three men grumbled that they shouldn’t have asked me to play.

Apparently no one could rescind or reject the invitation to play. So when we came out of cells in the morning I took my spot and no one said anything. For the next two days I paid close attention. I won some hands, sacrificed when I needed to sacrifice, and lost enough hands to maintain a status quo. Day 10 came quickly from there, and I soon received my walking papers. No one said “Good bye” or “Good luck” or “Have a good time out there.” They just called someone else over to play.

I see now that Hearts gave me a social education of corporate America that I refused to learn outside of jail. I’m sure that the game goes on to this day. I hope that everyone is paying attention.

MOTORCYCLE

“It’s getting dark.” I said to Fa as we exited Gloria’s house. “We don’t want to get caught in the jungle after dark. You know what happens after dark, don’t you?”

“What?” Vuna Fa sounded a little incredulous. What would a 300 pound Tongan have to fear?

“Bad things man…bad things...” He and Glover lived closer to the beach than Corry and I did. Our house backed up to the river, and beyond that jungle. “You don’t hear the drums at night?”

I started moving towards the road, which lie in the opposite direction of the shortcut that went through the jungle directly to the river behind Enriquillo.

“I’m not green, Justo, I don’t get scared by that crap.” Fa said…not moving towards the road.

“Haitian Voodoo magic goes on in the jungle at night. They beat the drums and don’t invite any intruders.” So far I had said nothing to convince him. “A year ago Gloria’s husband came home from town after dark using the river trail…they haven’t even found all of his pieces yet.”

Fa didn’t take too long in thinking about that last statement, and he caught up with me to use the longer route back to town. We worked as missionaries in and around a small town called Enriquillo on the southern peninsula the Dominican Republic. Our official attire made us stand out among the local gentry: white shirt, tie, dress shoes, and slacks. We wore black nametags with our names, and the church that we served…though not that many Dominicans could read them to see who we were and why we were there. Still, they served their purpose. Everyone in town knew the four of us as “Los Mormones.”

We got to the dirt road and started double-timing it down the mountain. We were barely out of sight of Buena Vista when we heard a motorcycle come up behind us. We stopped to let it go by us and watched the driver slow down to talk to us.

“You don’t want to be out here at night.” He said in Spanish.

“We know,” I replied, “we didn’t pay close enough attention to the sun, so we are running back to down.”

“Hop on; I will take you both into town.” He said, scooting up to sit on the gas tank.

This was not the usual Honda Cub 50 bikes that we usually see around here. This was a Yamaha 300 series: practically a mini-van by Dominican standards. Still, with Fa at 300 pounds and me at over 200…conventional wisdom would scream “DON’T GET ON THE BIKE!”

Not much conventional wisdom makes it to the Dominican Republic.

I climbed on behind the driver, and Fa held on to me at the back end of the bike. We started down the winding road, gaining speed as the driver gained confidence in his ability to carry the load. As we dipped down and then back up in the hilly terrain, the sometimes paved road gave way completely to dirt. Then, as we topped a small rise to go straight down the mountain, the power to the motorbike cut out completely. No lights, no power brakes, and no control over the speed…as Jim Lovell said: we put Sir Isaac Newton in the pilot’s seat.

Initially the ride proved scary, but manageable. As long as Fa and I combined for over 500 pounds of weight, we wouldn’t lose too much control. But soon the road went from smooth dirt to washboard. Then it went from washboard to insane erosion. Despite the efforts of our weight, we bounced around quite a bit.

Fa fell off of the back.

With the driver sitting practically on top of the handlebars, what control we would have had
diminished almost completely. He did all he could to keep the wheel straight and not send us end over appetite down the hill. With me riding on top of the driver…well I wasn’t much help at all.

We started taking serious air. Every rut we hit sent us flying with no control over direction or speed. Every rock I saw seemed to have my name on it. I saw a lot of big rocks. What seemed like forever to me ended abruptly when the driver’s best efforts failed and we flew over the handlebars.

I rode the driver down the hill for a while, and then I fell off of him.

I rolled to a stop, and lay on the ground to wait for angels or something to come along and lead me to my final destination.

“Justo!” The only angels I heard sounded like Fa. “Justo, are you all right?”

Until that point I had felt no pain. Death has no pain, and if I had survived a 200 hundred yard fall down a mountain…then I should feel pain. Therefore, I must have died. At least those thoughts percolated through my mind as I lie in the rocky and rutted dirt.

Then the pain came. My leg hurt a little, a bit of throbbing just above the knee. Yeah…that was it. No pain beyond what felt like a soon-to-be bruise on my leg. I sat up as Fa reached me. He had some dirt on his white shirt…no blood, no guts, no bones sticking out where they should not.

“Yeah Fa, I’m alright.” I said as he helped me up. “I lost my watch, and the sole of my shoe is
holding on by a thread…literally. How are you?”

“I’m ok, just a fall ya know.”

Yeah…I knew.

“Where’s the driver?” I asked as I surveyed the wreckage.

Bits and pieces of the motorbike littered the road. We had nearly passed all of the way through dusk, and we couldn’t even find all of the pieces. In the middle of it all, face down in the dirt and unmoving, lay our driver.

“Fa…I think I killed him.” I said as we ran to his aid.

I learned from countless first aid classes from Cub Scout to Boy Scout that you never move an injured person for fear of turning a minor fracture in the head or spinal cord into a major (even deadly) break. Fa came from the school of Tongan first aid: slap him until he comes around.
It must be an island thing, because it worked. Fa had the Dominican on his feet in no time at all.

We moved around the road picking up pieces of bike and gave them to the driver who tried to put it back together like some motorized Lego toy. The whole time the driver mumbled about how the bike was his brother’s…and his brother would kill him.

Finally, night upon us, the driver kick-started the bike and it roared to life. He revved the engine and turned on the lights. The bike worked like before the accident.

“Do you want a ride?” The driver turned to us and asked with a smile.

CRISTO REY

Take a walk with me down a street that has seen me ambling down it so many times in the past. The people here call this barrio, or neighborhood, Cristo Rey. My shirt sticks to my back too…it’s the enfeebling combination of heat and humidity. You’ll get used to it. Let’s get moving.

Don’t let the noise alarm you, here in Santo Domingo drivers lean on the horn. They honk when they speed up, they toot when they slow down, and they beep when they turn corners. Small engine motorcycles, just a step above mopeds, zip in between cars on the jammed street. On the street level, soot and dirt cake the buildings, only allowing a smidgen of the once bright colors to bleed through the filth. Lift your eyes to the second level of the buildings and they reveal their intended colors: sky blue, hot pink, bright yellow, any color that both attracts and repels the eyes at the same time.

This street, Calle Trujillo, cuts through the city drawing a line between the various barrios of Santo Domingo. Most corners house music stores. Of course in this part of the world a man with a dual cassette tape recorder and a pile of pirated audio tapes constitutes a music store. They lounge on empty crates with audio tapes mounted on a piece of plywood behind them. Music down here plays from every doorway. Different music but the same sound: meringue. Horns play in staccato unison, and the voices of everyone’s favorite merenguitos (that would be people who sing meringue) battle for sound wave supremacy.

Let’s head down the street. The pharmacy to the left smells if lilac powder and a scent that Elizabeth Arden calls “Sunflowers”. The owner doesn’t sell the perfume; he just employs it to pull people in off of the street. How Elizabeth Arden managed to jam sunshine in a diffuser, I will never know. Pharmacies down here carry more than aspirin, toiletries, and Alka-Seltzer. Here pharmacies also offer bolts of bright cloth, machetes, books, 5 gallon bottles of water, Malta India, and anything else that you will ever need to buy.

What’s Malta India you ask? Ah…Malta, the magical (non-alcoholic) elixir brewed by beer companies for the discriminating South American palate. Malta gives a thick taste, like a very dark beer, then follows up that heavy flavor with a sweet molasses aftertaste. Put down 8 chilled ounces on a 95 degree day, and the magic comes to life.

Ahhh…Malta…

Grab a Malta and cruise towards the limpia botas: a group of young boys with shoe shine boxes. Put a foot on the box and let the boy apply dark polish to the shoe. The rich smell of the polish intoxicates, and the feel of the rub removes the walking sores. If it’s an older boy he may work so vigorously that you get a foot massage along with a shoe shine.

Go past some of the street vendors and see what fries in their vats today. Most likely you will find smashed green plantains, fried like thick potato chips. Or you may find empañadas with some sort of mystery meat tucked inside (have you seen your favorite stray dog today?) On a good day you can smell the mondongo: a much better application of tripe. The tube meat fries in fat, writhing around with the heat and popping with the oil. Find a vendor that you trust and pick up a little something to eat. Will you try the salted plantain, roll the dice on the empanada, or go for the big prize. I promise that mondongo’s soft texture will treat you right, just watch out for the bitter aftertaste. If you don’t like liver, then I don’t recommend it.

At the end of the street we reach our destination: Helados Bon. Come on in from the furnace of the street and get some ice cream. Here you choose from both flavors: vanilla and chocolate. The appeal of this spot does not necessarily include a wafer cone. No, stand here for just a second and wait for the shiver. It takes a concentration of frigid air to keep the ice from turning into soup in the Caribbean. Choose whatever flavor you like…I’m buying.

The Ballad of Wallace Thaddeus Linkletter

Wallace Thaddeus Linkletter
dreamed a brilliant little plan:
he would slay himself a dragon
and become a famous man.

He reflected on what he’d buy
with the dragon’s golden hoard:
a gazillion room mansion
and the title of Sir or Lord.

He would keep the finest stables
of the purest breed of stallions
and wear a snappy uniform
adorned with gold medallions.

His servants would all dress
in livery of the finest style.
His floors and walls would gleam
in designer mosaic tile.

Wallace Thaddeus Linkletter
could see his future clearly:
the world would know his deeds
women and children would love him dearly

Men would sit in bars and pubs
and regale his fell exploit.
Songs would praise his mighty glory
from Istanbul to Detriot.

The Queen from her mighty throne
would grant a holiday for his feat.
They’d march a parade in his honor.
down the city’s broadest street.

Of course the grandest mark of fame
a sign that there can be no one bigger
is when the stores stock their shelves
with the Linkletter action figure.

Wallace Thaddeus Linkletter
is still dreaming of his fame,
and that is why ‘til this day
you have never heard his name.