The Battle for San Rafael

By John Cowart

Ralph Martin had such high ideals when he left his comfortable life as an assistant pastor in a well-to-do parish to work as a missionary to the poor in the war-torn Central American country of El Salvador. Caught up in the conflicting ideologies of the tyrannical government, the corrupt Church hierarchy, and the insurgents, he witnesses the deaths of those he holds dear and barely escapes with his life. Disillusioned, he abandons his faith and the priesthood to work in construction. His redemption comes through his deep love for Phyllis, a divorcee with three young children.
Explicit sex.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781329944640

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The Battle for San Rafael

The Battle for San Rafael

Copyright 2016 © by John Cowart

All rights reserved

ISBN:  978-1-329-94464-0

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this License, visit http:creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5

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All the situations and characters in this story are entirely fictional.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Dedication

Saint Oscar Romero

Archbishop of El Salvador

Martyred March 24, 1980

And

The Martyrs of El Salvador

Foreword

In the early 1980s terror gripped the land.  In El Salvador various circles in the armed forces and the private sector fought for control of the government, murdering hundreds and even thousands of people thought to be supporters of a growing guerrilla movement.

Although the death squads were not part of any State structure, they had the support of State institutions and some of the richest landowners and businessmen inside and outside the country.  Their clandestine activities made it possible for the State to conceal its responsibility and provided complete impunity for those who worked in the squads.

Under pressure from the United States, the ruling junta instituted some limited land reforms and appointed a moderate, Jose Napoleon Duarte, as president in December 1980.  Although a small land-reform program was begun, fighting continued, as did rightist executions of farmers, peasants, and workers.  The two main leftist groups, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation (FMLN) and the Revolutionary Democracy Front (FDR), received support from Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and the United States increased its military and economic aid to the Salvadorian government.

Despite various peace efforts, the civil war continued, and by 1990, the civil war had claimed more than 75,000 lives in a country of 5.34 million people.

Chapter 1

Ralph Martin turned the key in the lock and opened the door of his apartment.  Wearily he stepped inside and put his lunchbox on a table near the door, but before he could untie his dusty boots, his cat rubbed against his jeans.  He reached down and scratched behind her ears.

Socks, you have a good day?

Socks complained with a loud meow when Ralph stopped scratching her to untie his boots.  He kicked them off and tossed them onto a mat next to the door. Socks followed him into the kitchen, which was a small nook off the living room and dining area. He took a bag of cat food from a cabinet and poured some into her dish.  Her water dish was almost empty, so he filled it at the sink.  Then he went into the bedroom, stripped off his dirty work clothes, and stuffed them into a laundry basket that was on the floor of the closet.  The basket was almost full.

Socks had finished eating when he walked naked into the kitchen, took a beer out of the fridge and dropped into his favorite recliner in front of the TV and switched it on.  Socks jumped onto the arm of the chair and Ralph stroked her.  A woman’s anguished face filled the screen.

He was so filled with promise, she wailed.  A straight ‘A’ student.  He wanted to join the Air Force and be a fighter pilot.  Now he’s murdered .  What’s the point?

The woman hid her face in her hands.  The camera pulled back and showed the crying woman leaning her head against a female reporter’s shoulder.  Tears streamed down her cheeks.  The reporter, caught in a moment of confusion, shifted her microphone from one hand to the other and held the distressed mother in her arms.

Ralph took a long swig of beer, closed his eyes, and slept and fell into an uneasy dream.  A military jeep and a truck rumbled into the plaza in front of the church. Two soldiers got out, went to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate. They climbed onto bed of the truck and began tossing bodies onto the pavement.  When the last one landed on the pile, the soldiers climbed back into the truck and drove off.  School children gawked at the sight and mothers cried as they tried to shield the eyes of their children.

Jarred awake by the increased volume of a commercial break, Ralph opened his eyes.  Socks was still resting on the arm of the chair.  Must have fallen asleep, old girl.  He mumbled as he stroked her.  He finished the beer and went into the bathroom to shower.  Socks waited on the bed and watched him while he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He looked closely at his face in the mirror as he shaved his neck.  It seemed that his beard had a few more white hairs and his temples were a little grayer.

I’ve got to do laundry tonight, he said to Socks.  Or I won’t have any clean clothes for tomorrow. 

He scratched the cat under the chin.  Then he picked up the laundry basket and took a box of detergent from the shelf in the closet.  As he passed his bookshelf, a title caught his eye, so he grabbed it and tossed it into the basket.

See you in couple of hours.

Socks watched him go out the door.

Ralph drove his ‘09 Chevy Silverado to a nearby laundromat.  He had bought the truck recently during a dealer sale.  The crew cab came at good price, and it even had a toolbox in the bed.  The previous owner had taken decent care of the vehicle and Ralph planned to do the same.  There were few patrons at the laundromat, so he had no trouble finding an empty washer.  He put his clothes and a cup of detergent into the machine and pushed some quarters into the slide.   The room was hot so he dragged a chair to the open back door.  The evening breeze was cool and the sunlight was bright enough to read by.  He sat in the chair and opened the book.  The story was familiar and he read rapidly.

He had just finished the first chapter when he heard a car door slam and a noise at the front of the store.  He looked up and watched a young woman with three children, two boys and a girl, struggle through the door with her laundry.  The two older boys also carried a basket.  She was much younger than he, perhaps as young as a daughter, if he had had one, and her children could have been his grandchildren.  He had seen her before.  She lived in the same apartment complex and often the eldest, a boy about fourteen or so, played ball with his friends on the community playground nearby.

She took a blanket out of one of the laundry baskets and spread it on the floor.

Okay you guys, settle down, said the woman.  The children sat on the blanket and she took a large box from the laundry basket and gave each child a McDonald’s bag and a coke.  Now don’t make a mess.  With the children busy, she loaded three washers with clothes, added detergent, and put quarters into the slide.  Then she returned to the children and helped herself to a hamburger.

Ralph noticed how attractive she was, with long brown hair, dimpled cheeks and a long graceful neck.  Her blouse was unbuttoned at the top to expose her cleavage, and her shorts revealed her shapely legs.  When she sat with her children, she kicked off her sandals and seemed unaware that Ralph was watching them.

After the children had finished their meals, they took their toys from the bottom of a laundry basket.  The oldest one got his IPad and played a game, while the middle boy used an IPod to listen to music.  The little girl kept changing her Barbie dolls clothes.  Ralph marked his place in the book with his finger and watched them.  He was reading again when the little girl ran into him.  She looked up at him with an expression of surprise on her face.

Well, hello, he said.  What’s your name?

She did not answer, but hurried back to her mother who looked up and smiled at him, then turned to her daughter.  What do you say when you run into somebody.

I’m sorry, said the girl.

No harm done, said Ralph as he watched her.

Then he noticed the red lights on his washer had gone out.  He put his laundry into a dryer, fed it enough quarters, and returned to his book.  The sun was setting and the light had become too dim to read, so he moved to the front of the store and sat two chairs away from the woman who was playing with her daughter and the doll.  Ralph continued to read.  After a while, she looked at Ralph again and smiled, and he smiled back at her.

What are you reading? she asked.

Ralph turned the book so that she could see the cover.  "The Stranger," he answered.

I never heard of that one.  Who wrote it? she asked in an effort to make small talk.

It was written a long time ago by a Frenchman named Albert Camus.

Who’s he?

He’s dead now; died in a single car crash.  He was a philosopher who lived in Algeria.

Do you like to read philosophy?

Ralph nodded.

Why?

I like to think about the big questions in life.

Like who we are, and where do we come from?

Something like that.

I had to read that kind of stuff when I was in college.

Did you finish?

No.  I dropped out.  What’s it about?

This book?

Yes.

It’s about a man who was condemned to death because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral.

Are you serious?  Really?  That’s awful.

Actually, he killed a man, but that he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral was the evidence that condemned him.

What a strange story.

Well, life is strange.  Many people are killed for less important reasons.

Like that kid this afternoon, she said.  So tragic.

Ralph nodded.

He was just walking home from school and someone shot him.  Why?

It may have been a vendetta or just a gang initiation said Ralph.  You know.  You have to kill someone in order to be a member of the gang.

It’s just not right.  It’s not fair.

Life’s not fair.  Ralph looked at the dryers.  My dryer’s stopped.

He got up, took his clothes out and took them to a table to fold them.  He put them into his laundry basket and carried them to the front of the store.  The woman was reading the book.  She put the book down and looked up at him.

I hope you didn’t mind, she said.

No.  Not at all.  Take it home and read it if you wish.

I shouldn’t.

Go ahead.  You can give it back to me the next time we meet.  I’m sure I’ll see you or your kids around the apartment complex.

Okay.  Are you sure you won’t mind?

Go ahead.  I’ve read it before.

Thanks.  I’ll take good care of it.

Ralph started to leave, but turned back to her.  I forgot to ask, what’s your name?

Phyllis, Phyllis Carter.

Glad to meet you Phyllis.  I’m Ralph Martin.  I’ll see you around.

See you.

Ralph returned to his apartment and put his clothes on the bed.  Socks was curled up on a pillow.  He scratched her behind the ears and she purred loudly.  She followed him into the kitchen and watched Ralph take a plastic container of leftover spaghetti from the refrigerator and put it into the microwave.  She mewed and Ralph checked her food dish.

You still have food.  Eat it.   Socks looked up at him.  Go on.  Eat it.

Socks began to munch her cat food.  When the bell on the microwave sounded, Ralph took the container out and on his way to the table took a beer from the fridge.  When he finished the spaghetti, he took his beer to the easy chair, and switched on the TV.  Socks stretched out on the arm of the chair and purred as Ralph stroked her.  The Texas Rangers were ahead of the Angels five to three in the bottom of the fourth.  Darren Oliver struck out Bobby Abreu for the second out and Mike Napoli came to the plate.  Oliver threw a pitch high and outside.

Come on, shouted Ralph, pounding his fist on the arm of the chair.

The next pitch was low.  Oliver managed to take the count to three and two, and Napoli kept the inning alive by fouling off three consecutive pitches, then he grounded out to the short stop.

Ralph watched the next two innings and finished the beer.  Socks had gone to the bedroom door and looked out at him.  When he noticed her, she gave a loud meow.

Alright, I’m coming.

He chucked the beer bottle in the trash, went to the bedroom and undressed.  Socks sat on the bed and waited for him to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.

The alarm went off entirely too early, and Ralph struggled to open his eyes.  He made breakfast and got ready for work.  Socks watched him from the window as he went down the stairs to his truck and drive out of the parking lot.  He listened to the radio as he maneuvered through the gathering rush-hour traffic to a new development northwest of Dallas.  He pulled onto a dusty lot and parked near the construction shack.  The disc jockey broke for the news report.  The drug cartel had made another attack on a police station in San Salvador, and the death squads had taken more victims in another round of attack and reprisal forcing refugees to flee northward in an effort to escape the violence.

The news program ended, and Ralph switched the radio off.  He got his tools from the truck tool box and walked to the partially completed building.  Jim and Pete sat on a stack of sheetrock.

Hey, Ralph, said Jim.  You should have come with me last night.

Yeah?  Where did you go?

To a tittie bar.  I stuck around until closing time and took one of the girls to a motel.  Ralph shook his head.  She could have gotten you a date, too.

How much? Ralph asked.

Shoot, she only wanted a hamburger and a beer.

Com’on!

Well, she took all my money.

And probably gave you a case of the claps or AIDS, said Ralph.

Well, you gotta take your chances,

Yeah, and take it home to your wife, said Ralph.  Jim did not answer.  What did your wife say to your coming in late? Ralph asked.

She doesn’t say too much.  Anyway, she has been staying with her mother the last couple of weeks.

So you think she’s playing around? asked Pete.

I think so.  She hardly ever wants to fuck anymore.  She’s just like all the rest.  They really come on hot and heavy until they get you tied around their finger, then they cut you off, and you are lucky if they’ll even kiss you.  I’m just as likely to get AIDS from her as she is from me.

Ralph shook his head.  That’s one chance I’m not willing to take.  I’m not going to jump into bed with every woman I meet, especially at a bar.

You’re smart, said Pete.  It’s not safe to play around.

How are you going to meet any women? asked Jim.

Certainly not that way, said Ralph.  I figure the right one will come along someday.

If you want a good woman, you gotta go to church, said Pete.  That’s where I found mine.

I’m not much of a church-goer, said Ralph.

Why not? asked Pete.

Can’t say God’s ever done much for me.

Have you given him a chance?

I don’t think church is such a good bet either, said Jim.  My first wife was a church woman.  She was a real bitch.

I can imagine, said Ralph.

Yeah, she wouldn’t let me go out drinking with the boys and things like that.

That’s just your trouble, said Pete.  You aren’t ready to settle down.  Marriage is a commitment.  You can’t be screwing around whenever you feel like it.

Yeah, you have to be home every night, tied to your old lady’s apron strings, said Jim.

What’s so wrong with that?  When I get home, my supper’s waiting.  When I get up, my clothes are all clean and laid out for me.  I get a nice hot breakfast, and when I drive away, I know there’s someone waiting for me when I come home.  My wife and I love each other.  Why would I want it any other way?

I prefer the freedom of being my own man, said Jim.  What do you think, Ralph?

I don’t know.  The last time I had anyone waiting at home for me was my mother.  Since I left home, I’ve always lived by myself.

Haven’t you been lonely? asked Pete.

Sometimes, I’ve felt lonely, but it is something I’ve learned to live with.  I think all of us are lonely in some way.  We are trapped inside our bodies.  It’s impossible to completely merge with anybody else.  Even when we are close to those we love, we are separate.  I think all of our life, we try to overcome our separateness, to merge with someone, but in the end we die alone.

Oh no, insisted Pete.  We are not alone.  We have God.

I don’t believe in God, said Ralph.  Just look at what some of his followers have done in his name, and what is worse, if he does exist, look at what he allows to happen.  No, I don’t see much use for God.

But God is good and loving, said Pete.

If you had seen the atrocities I’ve seen, you would doubt that, said Ralph.  If you were to say that to some of those people, they would laugh, if they weren’t in such pain.

The whistle blew to signal the start of the workday, and Ralph and the others climbed onto the scaffold.  He dug his trowels out of his tool bag and scraped off the dried mortar from the previous day.  The laborers had put fresh mortar on each of the mortarboards, and Ralph and Pete stretched a line between the two leads at each corner.  Then they went to work to extend the leads and Jim laid the bricks between them.  Ralph finished his lead and began to help Jim to fill in between the two leads.  While he worked, he thought about what Jim and Pete had said.  Laying brick is often lonely work.  For hours on end, each bricklayer is separated by the space assigned to them along the wall, and they seldom have the opportunity to speak except when the scaffold boards are raised.  Sometimes, if one is lucky, the job site is in a quiet location, and the only noise would be the rumble of the mixer and the occasional shriek of the masonry saw.  On such a job, one could talk and work at the same time, but on this job, the machinery raised the noise level close to the level of pain, and one could hardly hear another speak, even while standing next to him.  Only at lunch and quitting time was the job site quiet.

Ralph did feel lonely and envied Pete who had a stable home life and a wife to care for him.  The decisions he had made when he was young precluded the possibility of home and marriage.  Now, he had the opportunity again, but the ups and downs in the construction market kept him on the move, following work.  He met very few women, and in the cheap apartment houses and hotels where he lived, the women he did meet were hardly what he would consider prime candidates for wife and family.

Jim might like them though, these women who had been picked up, used, and thrown away by first one man and then another.  Most had that hard worn out look by the age of thirty five.  Their children, if they had any, were street smart punks, well down the road to the penitentiary.

Jim could enjoy his one-night stands with dancers and whores, but in the morning, he would be as lonely as before.  The thrill of quick sex was over too soon, and the bed and the heart would still be as empty.  Jim was right about one thing.  He was not tied to a wife.  That life had its advantages, but the price was loneliness and if he was unlucky, the chance of contracting a livelong disease.  Ralph wondered if he would die unloved and unremembered in some flea-infested hotel after a lifetime of buttering head joints on seven million or so bricks.  He shuddered at the thought.

Pete said the right girl could be found at church.  Perhaps, he was right.  They at least wore nice dresses and smelled clean.  Clean on the outside and little hypocrites on the inside.  He had discovered one could get a church girl in bed as fast as any other.  They were fruit ripe for the picking.  No, playing at church was not for him on the chance of meeting Miss Right.

Pete topped out his lead and spread mortar along the wall toward Ralph.  Ralph worked in Jim’s direction and spread mud for about sixteen bricks.  Then he took a brick from a pile with his left hand, buttered its end with mortar, and pressed it into the mortar.  Brick by brick, and course after course, the wall grew higher.

Let’s raise the walk boards, called Jim.

Ralph was happy to rest.  He put down his trowel and climbed from the walk boards to the level where the laborers worked.  None of the laborers seemed to notice that the bricklayers were waiting on them.

"Arriba el scaffold," yelled Jim.

One of the laborers put down his shovel and walked over to another.  They mumbled something and began the arduous task of raising the foot boards.  These boards rested on special steel brackets that extended between the scaffold and the wall.  The bricklayers walked along them while they laid the brick.  Periodically, the boards had to be raised as the wall grew in height.

Ralph propped his foot on a stack of bricks, leaned his elbow on his knee, and rested his chin on the palm of his hand while he watched the two laborers struggle with the heavy boards.  Jim came over to him.

I don’t think they’ll ever get it right, he said to Ralph.  The laborers lifted two of the boards and put the brackets another notch higher on the scaffold.  Look, they’re still doing it backward.  Dumb Mexicans.

They aren’t Mexicans, said Ralph.  They’re Salvadorians.

How do you know?

It’s a long story.

Anyway, Mexicans, Salvadorians, they’re all the same.

Let me show them again, said Ralph.

Ralph began in Spanish to explain to the men how to raise the scaffold boards.  This time, they got it right, and soon the bricklayers were back to work.

Brick by brick, and course by course, the wall grew higher.

The whistle sounded for quitting time, and Ralph cleaned his tools and put everything away.

How about a few beers tonight? asked Jim.

Not tonight, I have too many things to do at home, said Ralph.

He threw the tools into the toolbox and got into his truck.  He wanted to go with Jim and did not look forward to another night alone.  Yet, going to bars every night was not the escape from loneliness that it appeared to be.  Behind the attractive glitter lay a hidden trap.  Jim seemed to be completely unaware of it.  Indeed, he seemed to have fallen into the trap already.  When he became aware of it, it would be too late and escape would be difficult, if not impossible.  Often Ralph found himself intrigued with the trap and played around its edges while he tempted fate.  Yet, he knew the trap was there and avoided the trigger that could spring it.  He knew the trigger was easiest to spring when a person was lonely or depressed.  At the moment, Ralph felt both while he contemplated his past and the steps that had brought him to his present state in life.

What do you have to look forward to at home except TV dinners and a ballgame? chided Jim.

Maybe some other time, said Ralph.  Tonight isn’t good for me.

Alright, suit yourself.  I’ll see you in the morning.

Be careful, Jim.

Don’t kill yourself from boredom, Jim said as he got into his truck.

Ralph shook his head and brushed the dust off his clothes and boots before climbed into his truck.  He turned the ignition and pulled out into the traffic.

He parked near his apartment and went to the mailbox.  Three days’ mail had collected, but after he had sorted the junk and tossed it into the trash, he only had a few bills and the bank statement.  As he walked to his apartment, he saw Phyllis sitting on a bench reading his book while she kept an eye on her children.

Hi she said as he started to climb the stairs. How are you?

He turned toward her.  Tired, it’s been a hard day, he said and continued up the stairs.

For the next few days the wall continued to take shape, but when he got home Phyllis was not on the bench reading.  Then on Friday night after he had bought some groceries he pulled into his parking spot just as Phyllis drove into the yard.  She parked her car, got out and opened the trunk.  Ralph saw it was full of grocery bags.

Hi, how’s it going? he said.  Need any help with that?

No, thank you, I’m good.  Davy will help me carry them in.

Okay, see you later. said Ralph and continued up the stairs to his apartment.

The next morning was beautiful.  Blue sky, a slight breeze, a perfect day to go for a walk.  After a light breakfast he put on shorts, a loose shirt and his sandals.  When he got downstairs he noticed Phyllis on the bench, reading his book.

Good morning they both said at the same time and laughed.

I see you are still at it, said Ralph.

If you don’t mind my keeping it a little longer, it’s interesting and not at all what I usually read.

Do you mind if I sit down for a while, I was planning to go for a walk but that can wait for later.

Please, be my guest.  She smiled.

He sat down with a resounding moan.  It is so good to take the weight off my feet.

Are you on your feet a lot?

Almost all day.

What do you do?

I’m a bricklayer.

You read awfully strange books for a bricklayer.  You know; books about men who are condemned because they didn’t cry at their mothers’ funeral.

What should I read?

I don’t know.  Paperback westerns, books by Louis L’amour.

"Actually, I’ve read a couple of his; Haunted Mesa, and another about a fighter pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union.  I can’t remember the name."

I’ve been reading your book during my lunch break.  I really like it.  Camus writes well.

Remember it has a downer for an ending.  I wouldn’t recommend it if you tend to get depressed.

If I do, you’ll just have to come sit with me while I finish it and cheer me up.

Well you’d certainly be welcome.  It will be like reading to the granddaughter I never had.

Granddaughter, granddaughter, she exclaimed.  Just how old do you think I am?

Twenty-two, maybe.

Hardly.  I’m thirty-four.

I’d never guessed it.  You look awfully young to me.

How old are you?

I’ll be fifty in January.

That’s not old; certainly not old enough to be my father, and definitely not old enough to be my grandfather.

Tell me, why didn’t you finish college?

Phyllis gestured toward her children.  You’re looking at ‘em.

But your oldest is about fourteen, isn’t he?

Phyllis nodded.

You had plenty of time before he was born.

It was the result of a bunch of bad choices.

Yeah, tell me about it.  How do you get by?

I work in the operations department at a local bank.  I’m a bookkeeper.

Aren’t you afraid you job will be sent to India?

I worry about it.  I guess I ought to train for another career, but I don’t have time.

Ralph nodded. I’m kind of in the same boat, but I like what I do.  At the end of the day, I can step back and see what I have accomplished.  Some of the things I’ve built will be here years after I’m gone.  He smiled.  And they certainly can’t send my job to India.

But you’re smart and ought to do something more. . . . she hesitated.

More important?

Yeah.  Look at me; I just push paper.  Others get rich off what I do, but I’m stuck here and can hardly get by.

Ralph watched the boys play ball and Lucy and her friends riding on the Merry-Go-Round. I bet they are a handful.

Phyllis nodded.

Do you ever get away?

"You mean, get away from the