The Troubles of Johnny Cannon (24 page)

“Hey, Johnny, it's the first of June now,” Willie said. “What's today's thing?”

I thought for a spell.

“Today's the day Benedict Arnold was court-martialed, back in 1779. Which reminds me.” I fished the tape out of my pocket and handed it to Short-Guy. “I reckon you need to listen to this.”

Short-Guy took it and stuck it in his pocket.

“I'll have to wait until I get back to the office,” he said. “Unless you have a tape player nearby.”

“Sure do,” Willie said. “It's the one I recorded the phone call on.”

“Wow,” Short-Guy said. “Tapping phone calls and crashing cars. You might just have a future with the CIA, kid.”

Willie's eyes got as big as baseballs.

“Seriously? Dadgum, that'd be cool!” He looked at his mama, and Mrs. Parkins was touching her chest with her hanky, her eyes looking like they was seeing the future ahead of her and knowed how many worries she was in for. But she smiled and nodded at him, and then he gave out a little hoot.

“Of course, you'll have to get that tape recorder set up first,” Short-Guy said.

Willie hopped up and went to get it. He hooked it up and Short-Guy put on the headphones to listen to the tape.

I sighed. Finally things was coming together.

“Now if only there was something I could do about our house,” I said. “The auction's supposed to be coming soon.”

Pa put his hand on my shoulder.

“We'll figure that out together. Maybe I can find a desk job somewhere.”

Willie cleared his throat.

“I heard the auction happened yesterday,” he said.

Well, that wasn't good.

“Did you hear who bought it?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I don't want to say.”

Me and Pa both looked at Mr. Thomassen. He shook his head.

“It wasn't me,” he said.

“It was Bob Gorman,” Willie said.

Nope, that sure wasn't good at all.

“I reckon we might as well pack up our bags and move,” I said. “That is, if them Gormans haven't already burned our things.”

“Well, maybe Bob will be reasonable,” Pa said.

Mr. Thomassen sighed and touched his briefcase that had all that money.

“He can be, if the price is right.”

Carlos saw the look of worry in my eyes. He came over and patted me on the arm.

“Fear not,
chico
. It's like my mama used to always say,
‘El hombre es como el oso, mientras más feo, más hermoso.'
”

We all was quiet, waiting for him to finish.

“That's real nice,” I said. “What does it mean?”

“It means, ‘Men are like bears, the uglier they are, the more handsome they become.' ” He patted me again.

We was all quiet one more time, processing that.

“Okay, but what does it mean?” I said.

He shrugged.

“I never asked her. It just always seemed to make everything better.”

Right then there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Parkins went to go answer it.

“Is Mr. Thomassen here?” I heard Eddie Gorman's voice say. I got up and followed Mr. Thomassen to the door.

“What do you want, Eddie?” Mr. Thomassen said.

“My pa sent me—”

“Where is your pa?” Mr. Thomassen said.

“He's still in the truck,” Eddie said. He cleared his throat and started again. “My pa sent me to—”

“Why didn't he come himself?” Mr. Thomassen said.

“He didn't reckon he was welcome.”

He was right.

“Go on.”

“My pa sent me to deliver this to you, Mr. Thomassen,” Eddie said, and he handed Mr. Thomassen an envelope. “He said he hopes you two are square now.”

Mr. Thomassen opened the envelope and pulled out what was inside.

It was the deed to our house.

“Yes,” Mr. Thomassen said with a grin. “Yes, I believe we are.”

Eddie turned and started to jump off the porch, but then he stopped.

“Hey, Johnny.”

“Yeah?”

He took a deep breath.

“I got something for you, too,” he said, and then he fished whatever it was out of his pocket. “From me.”

He handed me what I thought at first was a dead snake all wrapped up in twine. Then I held it and realized it was hair. To be more specific, it was a ponytail.

“Why—”

“It ain't right that I have that,” he said. “So I reckoned I'd give it to you.” He thought for a second. “Reckon it's my attempt at being human.”

I rolled up Martha's ponytail and stuck in my pocket. Eddie left without us saying another word, but I had a feeling things was about to start changing between him and me.

Me and Mr. Thomassen headed back into the living room. Mr. Thomassen handed the envelope to Pa.

“I think you can check ‘House Payments' off your list of worries,” he said.

Pa looked and saw the deed, and then he grabbed Mr. Thomassen's hand and shook it like a dog shakes a snake.

“I don't know how to thank you.”

“It wasn't me,” Mr. Thomassen said. “However, if you're still interested in a job, I might have some work for you. As thanks for everything else I've done for you two.” He said that last part with a twinkle in his eyes.

Pa looked about ready to pass out.

“But, we barely know each other. Why would you do that?”

Mr. Thomassen grinned at me.

“I know you good enough,” he said. “Besides, us Cuba transplants have to stick together.”

Willie shook his head.

“Dang,” he said. “I think I've about heard enough about Cuba for one year. When did that darn island even become such a big deal?”

Everybody looked at me. I almost started blushing.

“Thought you only cared about science,” I said.

He shrugged.

It only took me a couple of seconds to remember the right page from my book.

“October 12, 1492. That's the day that Christopher Columbus, after going sailing west to find a passage to the Indies, landed on that darn island of Cuba.”

“So, what's your lesson?” Mr. Thomassen said.

And that's when it hit me. The best thing that happened that night.

As I thought about the lesson, I looked around that room. Looked at all them folks I wasn't blood related to, from Pa to Willie and all them skin shades in between, but who was as close to family for me as anyone. Then I realized that I had something in common with old Columbus.

“The lesson is that you don't always get what you're hunting for. Sometimes you wind up with something better instead.”

Everybody got real quiet, letting that lesson sink into their heads. Short-Guy took the headphones off and handed them back to Willie.

“Good job, kid,” he said. “That tape makes my job a heck of a lot easier. Now, I'll probably still need a testimony from you, Johnny, but we can get that tomorrow.”

I nodded, all of a sudden realizing just how tired I was. That nap I'd took in Mr. Thomassen's car seemed like a million years ago.

“I wouldn't count on that,” Willie said. “His rain checks for interviews ain't worth the paper he writes them on.”

“Is that so?” Short-Guy said.

I nodded again. There wasn't no arguing.

“Well then, I suppose we could go ahead and record your testimony now. On this junior agent's tape recorder.”

I nodded a third time and Willie got the microphone all set up for me. Mrs. Parkins gave me another cup of tea and I woke up a little. Maybe I still had one more story in me.

Willie started recording, I cleared my throat, and I began.

“There ain't much difference between a deer and a dog when you're shooting, but there's a world between them when one lands on your plate.”

Johnny Cannon

June 16, 1961

The Bay of Pigs Invasion:

The
W
orst Sooey-cide

Mission There Ever
W
as

Mrs. Buttke, this here's the report you asked me for. I just want to say how downright unfair it is that you made me do this report right in the middle of the dadgum summer. Claiming you're doing it so I don't got to
b
e held
b
ack a grade doesn't change the fact that it's ungodly to make a kid do school in June.
D
o you know how many fish I could have caught in the time I was writing this thing? Anyway.

Cu
b
a is an island a
b
out ninety miles south of Florida, which I reckon is just a
b
out spitting distance.
W
ell, for a world champion spitter, that is. If the seeds are right. And he's got a good wind
b
ehind him. May
b
e it ain't. But I'm going to say it is 'cause it works real good in this report.

W
hen Christopher Colum
b
us landed on the island in 1492, he claimed it for the likes of Spain. I reckon it was a good thing to do,
b
ringing civilization to the natives and such. Of course, he
b
rought smallpox, too,
b
ut no
b
ody's perfect.

Four hundred years after Colum
b
us did that, the folks on the island started getting tired of
b
eing ruled
b
y the Spanish. A fella
b
y the name of José Martí, who I reckon was an ancestor of my
b
uddy Carlos Martí, started a group in 1892 that was looking to get Cu
b
a's independence from Spain. Of course, Spain wasn't too happy a
b
out that, and that started a war. And, since the war was happening just ninety miles south of us, and since some
b
ody went and
b
lew up an American ship in the Havana har
b
or, the US got involved. That was the Spanish-American
W
ar, which went on until 1898, and it eventually wound up with Cu
b
a getting freed from them Spanish folk.

After all that mess, it was real good for the Cu
b
ans to
b
e their own nation and such. They was so thankful for all that America had done that they went ahead and let America have quite a
b
it of control in their country.
W
e
b
ought up a lot of land, put a whole mess of our
b
usiness down there, and even started heading down there for vacations. There was casinos and resorts
b
uilt up, and it turned into a real nice place to visit. Even
W
alt
D
isney spent some time down there. Mickey Mouse, too, so you know it was nice.

W
ell, I reckon it was nice for us. And nice for the wealthy folks in Cu
b
a. But there was a whole mess of folks in Cu
b
a that didn't take too kindly to what was going on in their country. Those were the folks that was seeing all the poor people who couldn't get jo
b
s, and seeing all the
b
ad junk the American mafia was
b
ringing down from the States, like drugs and prostitution and stuff. They also was seeing their own president, a fella
b
y the name of Batista, who wasn't concerned with nothing more than making and keeping money. He even had a solid gold telephone, which sounds real neat until you think of all them folks that didn't have no
b
read.

Then, in 1953, there was a fella that started listening to all them folks that didn't have no
b
read. His name was Fidel Castro, and he started preaching that the way to fix Cu
b
a was to get rid of the government they had, get rid of all them Americans, and turn their country into one where every
b
ody got to
b
e equal.
W
hich sounded real good on paper, I guess,
b
ut it turned out to
b
e a real
b
loody revolution that didn't get done until 1959.

W
hile that revolution was going on, there was a
b
unch of Cu
b
ans who had a feeling that things wasn't going to
b
e too good under Castro. They left the country and moved up the ninety miles to Florida, mainly to Miami. They started new lives there, making new
b
usinesses, caring for their families if they was a
b
le to
b
ring them, and all the while really missing home.

Meanwhile, Castro took over and the revolution that looked so good on paper really started to stink. For one thing, all that property that was owned
b
y Americans, he took it and said they didn't own it no more.
D
idn't pay them for it or nothing. He also didn't take too kindly to any
b
ody in Cu
b
a
b
eing
b
etter off than any
b
ody else. So Cu
b
an folks who'd made money or owned property saw theirs get taken away too. And if they spoke up against it, they'd find themselves staring down the
b
usiness end of a rifle.

W
ell, all this stuff reached the ears of President Eisenhower, and he told his
b
uddies that worked with him that they needed to come up with a plan. But he didn't want no plans that involved US troops invading and taking over the country. He wanted a plan that would
b
e the Cu
b
ans overthrowing their own government, 'cause he reckoned that would look
b
etter in the papers.

Eventually his
b
uddies put a plan together. They'd recruit all them Cu
b
an exiles that was living in Miami, them
b
akers and doctors and musicians, to
b
and together and invade Cu
b
a on their own.
W
e'd provide them air and naval support,
b
ut the invasion would
b
e theirs and we'd just
b
e assisting our allies. I imagine they all high-fived and patted each other on the
b
ack 'cause they liked that plan so much. And President Eisenhower signed off on it, so you know they all started dreaming of
b
ig raises.

And that's just what they did, they went to Miami and recruited a
b
unch of Cu
b
ans who was now American immigrants and told them all a
b
out the plan. And I'll
b
e a monkey's uncle if that plan didn't look real good on paper, and so a whole mess of them Cu
b
ans signed up for it. They all started training there at the Orange Bowl for a while
b
efore they got transported down to Narnia, I mean Nicaragua, and really got trained. The
b
akers was learning how to shoot a man, the musicians how to sneak around land mines. It was a real strange time for them.

But then President Kennedy took office.
W
hen he heard a
b
out the invasion, nicknamed at that time Operation Pluto, he didn't like it nearly as much as Eisenhower did. So they asked him what he wanted to do a
b
out it. But he just hemmed and hawed and didn't make no decisions, and the time for the invasion kept getting closer.

It was finally the week
b
efore the invasion and all them Cu
b
an-Americans was ready with their American-American friends to pull off the invasion of the century. The leaders,
b
ack in
W
ashington, went to Kennedy to get his final approval. I imagine they handed him a slip of paper that said, “
D
o you want to invade Cu
b
a, circle YES or NO.” And then Kennedy pulled out his presidential pen and circled
b
oth of them. 'Cause that's
b
asically what happened.

The invasion went forward,
b
ut the American support didn't. All them Cu
b
an exiles went and attacked a
b
each and they was confronted
b
y all of Castro's forces. But they wasn't scared, 'cause they reckoned them airplanes with
b
om
b
s would
b
e there any minute. But them airplanes didn't come. Them Cu
b
an-American exiles got left like sitting ducks. Or pigs, I reckon. 'Cause they was in the Bay of Pigs.

The end result of the Bay of Pigs invasion wasn't what they'd
b
een told would happen on paper. Instead, all them exiles we sent on the mission got captured
b
y Castro and was held inside his prisons. Castro used the aftermath of the invasion to show the world how powerful and strong he was, and how stupid people was to attack him. Kennedy eventually told the world that he'd messed up, and on paper that should have ruined his presidency.

But,
b
ecause he was honest with folks, it actually made him look
b
etter. Even though there was over a thousand Cu
b
an exiles who was sitting in Castro's dungeon
b
ecause President Kennedy had
b
ailed on them, America decided he was still a pretty cool president. And the world decided that Castro was a pretty powerful fella. And a whole mess of people forgot a
b
out them fellas in them dungeons that had just wanted to go home.

But, who knows, may
b
e they won't
b
e forgotten forever. May
b
e putting them down on paper like this is a start.

W
ell, I reckon that takes me to the lesson that can
b
e learned from the Bay of Pigs invasion:

There's lots of people or plans that look one way on paper,
b
ut when you put them in the real world, things turn out differently.

Oh, there's also a lesson I learned from Eddie:

If you want to get your
b
utt whooped
b
y a
b
unch of girls, put a sign on their restroom door that says BAY OF PIGS.

So, there you go, Mrs. Buttke, that's my report. I sure hope you decide to put me through to seventh grade.
W
hen you make your decision, let me know. I'll pro
b
a
b
ly
b
e out hunting.