The Lonely Anarchist

By Ric Frain

Excerpt:
Passports in hand, an American Express credit card and about a thousand dollars in cash in their pocket they set off. Rick turned south on to the New Jersey Turnpike in the direction of the first of the many bridges they would traverse during the journey. It was early in the trip for white line fever but cruising down the monotonous highway, they were both uncharacteristically quiet. Rick had even forgotten to turn on the car stereo which he’d spent so much time installing. Hypnotized by the hum of the sand tires that rode soft and low on the Jeep, they both stared at the vanishing point of the straight unimpeded road ahead of them. Their heads turned in sync as the sign for the Delaware Memorial Bridge appeared, the symbolism not being lost on either. It was a Zen moment of sorts, the calm before a storm.
Already tuned-in and sensitive to his moods, Ana reached over to cover Rick’s hand which was gripping the steering so tight, his knuckles had turned white. “We’re gonna have so much fun, honey,” she said lightly, breaking the silence.
Rick relaxed his hold and smiled. “Guess I need to loosen up. Roll us a joint, will you, Ana!” He leaned forward to rummage in the glove compartment and pulled out ‘Caravanserai’, his favorite Santana tape then inserted it into the deck. The soothing jazzy, environmental tones of the album filled the cabin and he stretched his neck side to side to rid himself of the tension which had gripped him. It had all been fine until he had turned on to the Jersey Turnpike. It had hit him, then...the enormity of the undertaking. No longer was it just simple talk. They were actually doing it. It was real.
A few hits and some more Santana later, they were both chattering away about their future plans and the lucrative potential of every conceivable scenario. After all, anything and everything was possible at this exact moment in their lives. One would always encounter the existential doors on the path of life, every now and then, right? Some conjured, some imagined, some real. Well, this was not only manufactured, it was real. There was no other more desolate and singular a place to realize how profound this moment was than the New Jersey Turnpike. It was something out of Tolkien like a big fucking metaphorical door rearing its dark massiveness in the distance. Was it close? Was far away? Was it a mirage?
Ana peered at him through the dense cloud of pot smoke which had accumulated in the air and began to giggle. Not that she could read his mind or anything but she did have a sixth sense. Maybe it came from her native Indian ancestors, or maybe it was because she knew him so well but in that moment she instinctively recognized that they were thinking of the same thing. “Don’t worry, Rick, I’ve got the key,” she whispered mischievously.
Astonished, he turned to meet her eyes. “What key?”
“The key to your existential door, Rick.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ric Frain
• Release date: Mar 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311686985

Ric Frain

Richard Frain studied Architecture at Catholic University, Washington D.C. and has worked in the real estate/construction industry for about thirty years. He currently resides in New York City.

Book preview

THE LONELY ANARCHIST

By

Ric Frain

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by:

Richard Frain on SMASHWORDS

Copyright 2014 Richard Frain

ISBN: 9781311686985

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. This book is a copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by:

Richard Frain on SMASHWORDS

Copyright 2014 Richard Frain

Table of Contents

Map - USA

Map - Central America

Map - Nicaragua

Chapter One: Let’s Take a Drive

Chapter Two: The Long Road

Chapter Three: Home Is Where the Party Is

Chapter Four: Butch

Chapter Five: Nolli’s Palace

Chapter Six: Matagalpa

Chapter Seven: Jack Neally

Chapter Eight: Dusty Flowers

Chapter Nine: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Chapter Ten: NewOILeans

Chapter Eleven: Butch’s Run

Chapter Twelve: Maladies

Epilogue

About The Author

***

Map - USA

Chapter One

Let’s Take a Drive

It all came down to boredom.

They were bored shitless and did not suffer tedium and monotony well.

The young couple, after having given it a serious try, wanted out of the middle-class life that South Jersey had to offer.

Even if it meant driving all the way to Nicaragua.

Excited, they made plans for the journey. Other than it would be long one, they didn’t give it another thought. It was all so exciting. They were young and the future was ahead of them. They continued packing their belonging, unconcerned about the perils of a trip that would take them thousands of miles away from home.

That is until they were actually on their way.

As soon as they turned south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rick began to brood. He didn’t know why but he was suddenly in a funk. What the hell was he doing?

The only son of staunch Catholic parents he was the first born…at first. To his bewilderment Rick was soon surrounded by five younger sisters. A skinny, underfed lover boy who wore his heart on his sleeve. He had large blue eyes, a trait he shared with the rest of his siblings. But while his sisters were so very cute and cherubic, he looked like a 15-year old kid with a baby face. His earnest nature too may have been a bit naïve but it suited the climes of the times.

In 1969 he was seventeen. He had reached that crucial point where he would have done anything to break free of the restraints of his miserable existence in that overly congested house on 48th street in Pennsauken, NJ. Thanks to a timely scholarship to Catholic University of America in DC, he finally made his escape.

In CU, he quickly learned the disadvantages of that baby face. He grew a full beard. It seemed to work at first, or so he thought for it did make him look a little older. To his intense mortification, it turned out that the beard gave him an air of the gentle Regency poet looking for profound meaning in the simpler things of life, as he was informed by one of the girls from class. It bothered him for a few days then he shrugged it off. Better a poet than a baby face. At least a poet could get laid.

He first signed up for speech and drama. His goal was to become an actor one day and maybe even direct films. Instead he discovered the gay world of song and dance. Chagrined, he immediately transferred into the ‘manly’ field of architecture.

In 1965 when was in eighth grade, he fell off a fence. His elbow popped out severely straining the nerves of his right hand. Shortly thereafter his dad took him to Sears and Roebucks and bought him his first guitar—a Silvertone known for its awesome sustain and superb action. Inspired by the Beatles and the ‘British Invasion’, he had taught himself to play guitar. The exercise acted as physical therapy and helped him regain the use of his injured fingers.

As he grew older, Rick began to view himself as a wandering minstrel, a Siddhartha with a guitar, searching for truth and meaning through his music, the last of the romantics wandering the soft arc of the planet. He considered himself to be a free spirit. Passionate to distraction about all of the arts, he imagined a path of life in pursuit of a creative destiny. He called himself ‘The Merry Realist’. A moniker he was proud of and which, according to him, succinctly summed up his philosophy of life.

Oh, the unselfconsciousness of youth!

As he saw it, you were an invited guest in God’s house aka Planet Earth, and were expected to show appreciation and decorum no matter how wild or out of hand, the party got. It was universally acknowledged that reality sucked but it was up to each individual to make the best of it. Refining ones sense of humor was a good way to go about it. He sincerely believed that humor was a weapon more powerful than any other in the battle of wits called Life.

Then he met Ana.

Ana was the youngest of three sisters, originally from Lima, Peru. Before they moved to Managua in Nicaragua the Chocano family had been major land owners in Peru. Then came the military coup of 1969 and everything was confiscated. Fortunately, Ana’s mother was a cousin of the Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza. Though Nicaragua had provided an escape from their troubles in Lima, their father, Carlos Chocano, was heart-broken at having to leave behind the lands which had been in his family for generations.

The girls were sent to boarding school in England. Ana was smart, very clever. So much so that she was able to skip two grades. She was fifteen years old when she began her undergraduate work in sociology at CU. By the time she met Rick she was a ripe old seventeen.

She was adorable. Skinny with a little round butt, a mop of curly black hair and sultry almond eyes that reflected her French and indigenous Indian heritage. Her skills in reading and writing the English language were superb. However, speaking was another story. Ana was naturally shy and while in school in U.K., she had spent all her free time with Lola and Linda, her sisters. Of course, they automatically reverted to Spanish when they were together.

Ana could only understand some of Rick’s gringo vernacular and so he was unable to seduce her with his rapier wit and clever repartee. Instead they made goo-goo eyes at each other while he did all the talking, because that was what Rick did, talk…a lot. They fell head over heels in love, speaking only the ‘international language’ of love. Desperately needed to communicate on some other level they soon discovered the inevitable one and proceeded to indulge in the activity often and at every available opportunity until Ana was fluent in…er…English.

Though Rick was in love the thinker in him continued to question. Cute and adorable as Ana was, it was not enough. He needed to get to the core of her being. Who was this woman really, whom he was holding in his arms? Was she ‘a cup half full’ kinda’ girl? Were they compatible, philosophically speaking? What made her laugh that sweet contagious laugh of hers? He wanted to know all her thoughts. But that was not to happen for a while.

There was an enchanting Franciscan monastery with hanging gardens in the neighborhood. There they strolled hand in hand on warm sunny afternoons. Two shy kids: Ana, a bit awkward in her short little jumper barely covering her white cotton panties and Rick equally so trying to muster up the courage to make the first move.

It was a romantic courtship. Their encounters went on for weeks before he finally summoned up enough nerve to kiss her. It was a gentle kiss and sweet. For when in doubt, take her in your arms and convince her that you are the one man for her. The simple power of the kiss. It was an innocent time. One that would never be found again. There was a sense of discovery and hope.

Ana projected a purity that had him treating her like a precious flower. When they finally did the deed, they were so relieved to have found a way of non-verbal communication that they embraced this newfound language of love to the exclusion of everyone else.

Over time Ana picked up a smattering of English much to Rick’s relief. They often indulged in silly conversation. Every bit of banter was another lesson for Ana and he found her to be a quick study.

On a brilliant spring morning, as the sun poured into his small bedroom they lay there grinning and squinting at each other. Rick was trying to be witty and Ana assuring him that he was not.

I’m hot, he announced.

How hot are you?

I am so hot that I will burn you!

Yeah, well?

That’s all I got for now…it comes in bursts.

You mean it just flares up periodically like a wildfire? You used to have a little more stamina.

Flared up like hemorrhoids, more likely.

You’ve never had hemorrhoids.

I know! I just like the sound of it. You know like ‘Hey man, I hear your hemorrhoids have flared up’. Kinda like ‘projectile vomiting’ or ‘sucking chest wound’. I’d like to coin a phrase like that. ‘So Rick, how have you changed the world? How have you had a positive effect on society?’ By the way did you know I coined the acronym, ‘Yo! Yo!’ that one hears often among large groups of festive youths. It means ‘you are on your own’ and implies a goodbye to your friends within earshot and that you have just met a beautiful woman and are now focusing your full attention on things at hand, Rick explained patiently.

Chu yoou expect me to believe this bullshit? I am choking here, she said in her guttural Spanish accent. No me jodes!

Would I lie to you? He begged the question.

Ana took a deep breath. So, now guys talk openly among themselves about hemorrhoids?

Time flies. Rick replied in a robot voice.

What is that supposed to mean?

Time flies like the wind; fruit flies like bananas.

Que estupido! she began then surprised him by switching to English. You are such a dork! Listenin’ to you makes me want to start smoking again.

Show off! Rick exclaimed fondly. Smoking huh? But you never smoked.

Ah! So, he listens as well as speaks.

We didn’t just meet, did we?

No stamina…and no memory. You are demaciado joven. I’m just a series of stale cigarettes in an old ashtray to you…sigh… Ana pouted.

Do I know you?

You’ll never know me but you do love me.

Do we even know what that word means?

Oh just shut up and love me! Show me that you love me! Where’d your penis go?

It’s…it’s between my legs…runnin’ across the bed, down along the floor to some warm, interested pussy.

Sometimes you’re not very funny at all.

They laughed together and rolled around in a mesh of flesh. ‘Show me that you love me!’, Rick repeated to himself in astonishment. He had to hang on to this woman.

Do you want me or my penis to show you howw I love you? he asked in a deep voice and a very poor Elvis impression.

I thought they were one in the same, she followed with her own bad Elvis impression.

A pithy and worldly couple is how they thought of themselves now. Ready for anything the figurative red carpet on the stage of life had to offer.

Immersed in their bliss, they ignored her sisters, and were resented a little for it. To them, Rick had basically kidnapped their little sister. The lovers eventually became sensitive to the issue and began spending time with the rest of the family. Nevertheless, the art of lovemaking was practiced tirelessly.

For a while though they just stayed in bed all day, playing around. Rick’s room was upstairs in the big house on the hill which he shared with his hippie, anti-intellectual undergraduate friends. It had a sun porch and was perched in a cluster of apple trees. With windows on three sides, sunlight filtered in through the small orchard to illuminate the room throughout the day. It was a cheery little nest even on rainy days. Rick would sing Ana a song or just spend hours strumming his guitar. Sometimes they would lie in bed listening to the songbirds and watch squirrels cavorting in the branches. They could reach out and pick the big red Mac apples right from the window, which they did often, and took turns feeding each other after polishing them on the bed sheets. It was the closest thing to the Garden of Eden. Rick was aware that he would never improve on those halcyon days.

How many times could they make love before other appetites took over? But sex could only forestall the tedium which was inescapable. There would be a time in their young lives when they get down to dealing with the more serious issues of their life.

The two graduated college in 1974 and moved to South Jersey where Rick had grown up. That’s where they got married and also where they also grew bored together. Even the ever-hopeful rock and roll band, for which Rick played lead guitar, could not prevent the inevitable.

Ana found work as a social worker in Camden while Rick worked for a management company that was supervising the final touches on Philadelphia’s bicentennial celebration preparations. It was rewarding, but it was still Camden, New Jersey.

Then Rick was laid off.

They were young, restless and crazy, and the whole world beckoned. One morning in May 1975 just as their disenchantment reached boiling point Ana came up with a brilliant solution.

They were eating breakfast. Ana had prepared Rick’s favorite Nicaraguan breakfast of gallo pinto with fried eggs.

She sipped a cup of café con leche and regarded him thoughtfully as he ate. Why don’t we go to Managua, Rick? The earthquake of ’72 practically destroyed the city. You could work for Tacho.

Tacho was President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the son of Somoza Garcia of Nicaragua and uncle to Ana.

Managua, the capital of Nicaragua lay along the Circle of Fire which was a string of volcanoes and fault lines that spread down the western coast of the Americas from Northern California. According to published reports, at twenty-five minutes past midnight on December 23, 1972, the lights of Managua went out. Nicaraguans were used to frequent seismic activity and this earthquake was not particularly severe—only 6.5 on the Richter scale. Unfortunately the epicenter of the quake was directly under the city. Within a few minutes five square miles in the heart of the city were totally destroyed. Although there were no accurate numbers it was estimated that around eight thousand people were killed, maybe even more. Described