Tankman in America

By Robert F. Merrill

Idealistic school teacher Ellen is bowled over by news that many of the survivors of the shipwrecked Golden Venture, run aground off the coast of New York in 1993, will be detained in her local York County Prison in York, PA.

Upon attending vigils on behalf of these INS detainees now seeking political asylum, she becomes enthralled with the group of humanitarians she meets as well as with the cause of justice and freedom for the world's oppressed and downtrodden.

On the other hand, her husband Dan is not the least enthralled with her involvement in this cause of "cutting illegals a break." Major problems develop on the home front, all the more so as their daughter Christi becomes drawn into the cause.

Little does Ellen or the INS realize until the very end, but the detainee to whom Ellen has been assigned as his "Guardian Angel" is none other than the 20th century's most famous freedom icon: Tankman, the man who stood up to the tanks at Tiananmen Square.

Tankman in America encapsulates the tragedies, both personal and national, that have been and are the result of America's often misguided treatment of people seeking asylum from this world's many oppressive regimes.

Tankman in America is a story of great heroism, nobility, anguish, tragedy and joy. It is a thought-provoking, heart-breaking, inspiring and powerful story about the course of freedom in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 20, 2008
• ISBN: 9781466977785

Robert F. Merrill

Tankman in America is a novel based upon Rod's involvement with an asylum seeker support group since 1993, at which time a group of INS detainees from the ship-wrecked Golden Venture illegally bearing said undocumented persons from China, was brought to York County Prison. His self-appointed role as part of the support group was to write freedom songs which he would sing at the weekly Sunday vigils. The detention and vigils went on more than four years. Though the detainees couldn't hear his music from inside York County Prison, Rod had the feeling his songs of freedom had a certain power and that he shouldn't give up on them. In 2001 he put out a CD of his favorite original freedom songs, Where is the Freedom? This CD can be obtained online at www.cdbaby.com/cd/robertmerrill His favorite activities are: playing with his grandchildren; playing his stringed instruments; playing his racquet sports; reading and enjoying literature primarily in various foreign languages; playing bridge or Scrabble; writing; pursuing spiritual insight; being together with his extended family; hanging out at hunting and fishing camp; doing puzzles; picking up litter, doing yard work or small house projects, and doing the dishes. He sings as a Hospice volunteer at nursing homes. He is against all forms of brainwashing, whether religious or jingoistic. He believes all people should live in freedom.

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© Copyright 2007 Robert F. Merrill.

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ISBN: 978-1-4251-0490-0

ISBN: 978-1-4669-7778-5 (ebk)

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to this planet’s seekers of freedom as they flee all manner of oppression in their homelands including threats to their lives

and to…

all those who support them in their efforts to find safe haven,

security…

opportunity…

and above all…

Freedom!

Acknowledgements

All of the folks of the People of the Golden Vision, the original name for our group of asylum seeker supporters, founded in 1993, unknowingly helped me develop my ideas for this novel through their activity and dedication to the causes of justice and freedom for asylum seekers. Every time I’d see one of these special people, I’d think, Lucky me, to know this person and to be a part of this freedom thing! I’d also often wonder at times, How the heck do these people do all the stuff they do, how do they stay with it?

Because even though our participation could be and often was exhilarating, it could also be tiring, daunting, and even depressing when the good results were slow to come, as they often were.

The dedication of these folks would inspire me to hang in there and keep writing my freedom songs for the weekly vigils—my self-appointed task—(a CD of some of which can be obtained by going to the website http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/robertmerrill)

So I give many thanks to our great group of asylum seeker supporters of York County, PA, first, as mentioned, called The People of the Golden Vision and now known as The Golden Vision Foundation: You had Byron Borger, a local activist from way back giving us his remarkable lay sermons at vigils and writing lengthy pieces to the local papers; you had Lee Ann Strine, always upbeat and always bubbly, always there and always willing to get deeply involved; you had Grace Lefever, and Lu Ann and Don Hunter always showing up with their high energy and caring contributions, doing whatever it took to keep up our momentum; you had Cindy and Jeff Lobach, both indefatigable, Jeff as an attorney in his pro bono activity on behalf of the detainees, Cindy in enabling and selling the detainees’ unique paper art, and in organizing and giving educational events to increase public awareness; you had Harriet and Ray Miller, with never a doubt as to their constant presence and huge involvement in all detainee matters; you had Sterling Showers, constantly, in his free time, visiting and encouraging the detainees throughout their years of incarceration in York County Prison; you had our translator, Zehao Zhou, who, oppressed, had come from China years before these people of the Golden Venture and who is a model citizen in my mind with his profound historical vision and fearless willingness to speak out; you had Attorney Craig Trebil-cock, boldly and resourcefully going to any and all lengths in his efforts to avoid unfair and premature deportation of the detainees and ensure fair hearings for them; and, finally, you had Reverend Joan Maruskin, organizing, directing, and orchestrating all this, and, most importantly, keeping up our sometimes flagging spirits with her incomparable optimism.

You had some of these people housing and even adopting detainees.

You had famous Chinese dissidents, such as Harry Wu and Zheng Yi, appearing at a vigil.

I also, in a way, thank even those, who shall remain nameless, who (to me, at first seemingly small-mindedly) mocked and disparaged the cause and our efforts. I’ll grudgingly grant that at times they had their valid points, or seemed to, despite their not being on our side of this freedom issue. It is, after all, a complex issue.

Still their negativity only served in the long run to keep me stubbornly connected to our group and cause and ultimately to theidea of writing this book. So, to all: thanks, y’all!

Many thanks to York County artist and friend Gretchen Bier-man, illustrator of the cover of this book as well as the cover of my CD.

Finally, as I was writing this book, I often thought of my friend the late Farouk Abdel Muhti, a Palestinian activist detained by the INS for almost two years without evidence as to wrong-doing, whom I visited a number of times while he was in York County Prison. Farouk, gracias y Dios te bendiga. (Our common languages were English and Spanish, but we usually went to Spanish for my sake: that is, for the practice.) Sadly, Farouk died five months after his unjustifiable incarceration.

Preface

On June 6, 1993, the freighter Golden Venture, carrying 286 smuggled Chinese women and men, ran aground off the coast of New York, with ten persons dying in the struggle to reach shore, six disappearing, and the INS capturing the remainder. This was front page news in the national papers.

The issue of undocumented immigrants had reared its ugly head again…big time.

Shortly thereafter 154 of these detainees were sent to York County Prison in York, PA. A local pastor, Reverend Joan Maruskin, began organizing Sunday vigils across from the prison in support of fair hearings for the asylum seekers. She called and invited me to participate, .and don’t forget your guitar!

As if I’d go anywhere without it!

I thought, Well, I’m not an activist, and I’m not about to start now. But I’ll go this once, just to check it out.

Actually I had already seen news of this happening in the national and local papers, results of which, for me, were astonishment that these freedom seekers were coming to our little town and dismay that they were being imprisoned as if they were criminals.

Thus began my life as a supporter of asylum seekers, as each vigil lured me to the next. We had weekly vigils for who knows how long, maybe five or six years. Then we went to monthly vigils. We quickly evolved from being just supporters of our Chinese friends, some of whom spent nearly four years in jail, to supporters of asylum seekers in general, with many of them coming right here to York County, as it became a major hub for INS detention, with lovely economic benefits redounding to the county government until some years later the federal government put the kibosh to some questionable financial maneuvering.

We had concerned folks of all religions or non-religions contributing their energy, efforts, and talents in many ways. The International Friendship House, located in York, has been a major result of their caring. This is a home—the first of its kind, we understand—whose purpose is to provide interim support to asylum seekers just released from the local prison.

We couldn’t allow the INS, with its trademark hospitality, to unceremoniously dump released asylum seekers on the streets.

We had countless marches, educational events, and sales of the unique paper art developed by some of the detainees, which art even lead to the release of a few detainees based upon their artistic and creative talent.

We had local lawyers selflessly and even heroically providing this nation’s largest display of pro bono support for these asylum seekers as the attorneys desperately—and successfully as it turns out—sought to thwart the government’s efforts to quickly deport the detainees without their having had fair hearings.

We had folks literally adopting and sponsoring detainees.

We had visits from illustrious Chinese dissidents such as Zheng Yi and Harry Wu.

It was out of all this and much more that thoughts regarding a novel began to germinate in my mind.

I apologize that my book does not fully reflect the fantastic efforts of all the great folk involved. I just had to get started with and focused on my initial story line and see where the writing lead me.

This book is from the perspective of one who was kind of in the background in all this, writing freedom songs and trying to be helpful without becoming overwhelmed.

Most of the characters in this book, though the names have been changed, are loosely based upon the actual folks involved, with their permission—I didn’t even have to promise to be nice! (How could I be otherwise?) Ellen and her family, however, are all fictional.

Contents

Chapter 1 Arriving

Chapter 2 National Headlines

Chapter 3 Mulling Over Freedom

Chapter 4 They’re Coming—Here?

Chapter 5 The Invitation

Chapter 6 Initial Arguments

Chapter 7 First Vigil

Chapter 8 Flying High

Chapter 9 Found Out!

Chapter 10 The Letters

Chapter 11 Sunday Matinee

Chapter 12 First Fruit

Chapter 13 The Romance is Over

Chapter 14 Turmoil at School

Chapter 15 Guardian Angel

Chapter 16 What to do with the Rest of Her Life

Chapter 17 Pondering One’s Options

Chapter 18 Regarding Tiananmen Squares

Chapter 19 Evolving

Chapter 20 The Power of the Music

Chapter 21 Hearing Through Walls

Chapter 22 On the Rocks

Chapter 23 Recalling the Good Times

Chapter 24 Time to Go

Chapter 25 Rendezvous

Chapter 26 Breaking the Law

Chapter 27 Noises in the Night

Chapter 28 Repercussions

Chapter 29 Anguished Brooding

Chapter 30 Let Freedom Ring!

Chapter 1

Arriving

SEPTEMBER, 1993

Rain slashed at panic-stricken figures crying for non-existent life vests on the Golden Venture’s suddenly listing deck. The captain’s wind-torn shrieks hysterically demanding all hands jump now (lest he be nabbed by the INS for smuggling human cargo) flashed through the confusion like shrapnel, but no one was listening.

Nonetheless, glimpsing twinkles of light through the storm, Tankman experienced an involuntary quiver of exultation: Could this be his first sight of America? New York City lights, perhaps? Land of his dreams!

An exhilarating thought, even when having to escape a ship suddenly grounded and about to be pounded into nothingness through the captain’s carelessness and nature’s overwhelming might.

Jump! Get the hell going, you bastards! The lunatic was waving a pistol madly.

Tankman kept close to his wasted pal Pin. After all they’d been through on this trip, the friendship had become strong. Tankman had looked out for his weaker friend at all times, always ready to stand up to bullying crewman.

He had an I-dare-you aspect to his personality, Tankman did, that tended to make even armed thugs of the kind that made up this ship’s crew back off. They weren’t about to lightly bump off someone whose safe passage to the US meant thirty thousand dollars to their coffers, anyway; Tankman knew that when at times he’d called their bluff. He was no dummy.

Before they’d met on a Thai jungle trail, both he and Pin had put up with lifetimes of petty village tyrants and righteous governmental bureaucrats, they’d both had countless freedom dreams and both had finally decided, after much clandestine conferring with their families, that America was the place to go—if they had the guts to do it.

Tankman had the guts to do anything.

But…! Pin was bent over not only from the cold but also from an energy-sapping abject fear of what awaited in the tumultuous waters below. He knew he couldn’t handle this next challenge. His now withered body was a brittle and wizened branch to the resilient tree it once had been. I can’t! he pleaded.

Tankman first implored, then insisted, You’ve got to! We’ve come so far! Almost there!

I can’t jump. I can’t swim, I can’t risk it all. We could lose everything!

Tankman screamed into the wind, Those are the very reasons we must jump! Now! Look, it’s only a little way, we can see the shore! We can’t give up, not now! And we can’t get caught! We must get to the shore and get away before somebody comes. See how close it is! Think of your wife, your parents and of all the loved ones depending on you! I can swim, I’ll help. Anyway, that filthy dog of a captain’s going to shoot if.

The roar of a weapon discharging point blank next to his head was excruciating beyond words or thought. Wincing involuntarily, Tankman buckled, holding his ears against the acute pain. A split second later, though, it dawned on him, by God he’d not been hit! Either the captain had been trying to scare him, or his aim was pathetic. His short-lived relief quickly turned liquid-like into white-hot anger. He spun as he rose, kicking the firearm out of the captain’s hand and breaking the man’s arm all in one move. On the verge of tossing the detestable little bastard overboard, Tankman was suddenly stayed by Pin’s hanging on his arm: Hey! No sense in starting off on the wrong foot in this new country of our dreams!

Now it was definitely time to go.

Pin groaned despairingly as his friend tugged his rigidly resisting body to the rail; and knowing further argument to be useless because he could see the weaker was now too paralyzed from fright to think clearly, Tankman bent, hoisted, and heaved his friend into the unruly waters.

Then, refusing to think about it, with the ship seemingly on the verge of toppling further or coming apart, he too jumped.

Forget the fright, the emaciation, and the exhaustion brought on by this five months ordeal through hell and back, spent for the most part in the stinking bowels of a godforsaken putrid ship that deserved to be wrecked anyway. Forget it all. Just go, just get on with it. Just jump!

Just do it, just as he had done with the tanks in Tiananmen Square when it had come to them.

Every cell in his body recoiled, anticipating the frigidity even before he hit the water. When it smacked and swallowed him, sucking him down, he had the frightening thought of being somehow swept by currents under the hull, even though the ship was dead in the water. Goddamn! he wanted to shout in astonishment over the sudden impact with the cold but couldn’t. Yet even underwater, he realized after a split second, Hey! I can still feel my head, I can still feel my ear drums—Oh, God, how they hurt!—and my wrists and ankles, I can still feel them, too, so, by God, I’m not dead yet! I just have to make it to the surface… and swim! His thrashing arms fought against the downward motion of his jump and gravity. He fought off the panic of needing to breathe now as it seized his chest ever more forcefully second by second. Come on, come on, take me to the top, he insisted. To the top! His foot’s miraculously meeting the shallow ocean floor at his last instant’s consciousness enabled him to thrust upwards.

He burst free of the water just as he thought he could hold out no longer, at last able to breathe in wracked gulps and heaves. Splashing and turning desperately for orientation, he discerned lights and headed for what he hoped was shore. He had told himself before jumping, You come up, head for the beach, son of a bitch, that’s all, just head for the beach. He had said that to Pin, too, before they jumped and had even pointed out the lights ashore.

So that must be where his friend was now since he saw him nowhere nearby. He must now be heading for the beach. Still, as he stroked furiously but largely ineffectually at that, Tankman found himself fearing for his friend. After all, he had promised to help Pin swim. But the waves were coming so fast and the visibility was so poor that he was unable to make out anything clearly such as a friend’s black head bobbing towards shore. One could only hope! Better to swim and save himself then, better to just go for it now before it was too late.

And now, after his first few hugely labored strokes he felt his panic subsiding slightly. He was somehow moving in