Ricky Ricardo LaFontaine

Wrote this in 2009 while Bush was exiting office and Obama was coming in and the Iraq war was still raging. Offering it up now because militarism is still a problem and heartbreak is still real. Never published before. Now it is.

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You read the papers. You have opinions. Maybe your opinions are strong enough that you write your congressperson about some crappy policy or take to the streets against some rotten war happening half-way round the world. Whatever it is, it’s usually happening “over there” somewhere, it’s usually happening to someone else. Until, out of the blue, that someone else staggers right into you.

I live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Two or three mornings a week I go for a run. Past old tenements, hipster cafes, and block after block of brick public housing. Till I get to a ribbon of park along the East River. There I run another two miles around an athletic field. Then I stretch. Then I run home.

The other morning as I'm stretching I notice a fellow on the field who seems out of place. Instead of gym shorts or sweats, he's in a black shirt, dark blue jeans, and lace up black boots. He's moving oddly. At first I think he too is stretching, but no, he's huddling to himself, rocking back and forth, maybe praying, maybe keening. He's clearly very upset. Maybe a half-crazy street person. He stands up, meanders a bit, then abruptly changes direction and starts in on these off-kilter kung fu moves into the air. His shoulders and torso are tautly muscled and there's a lot of concentrated force with each of his kicks and punches. But there's something sloppy about it, too, like maybe he's drunk. Yes, I think he's drunk. And he's slowly making his way towards me. 

Be cool, I tell myself. Don't let yourself get punched by an angry drunk half-crazy man with ripped arms. 

"Was this soccer goal here?" he asks, his speech slurring.

"Uh, yes, actually,” I say as nonchalantly as I can.”It's been here for a while."

"Unh," he says, confused.

He's in his late-30's, a world of hurt on his pock-marked face. But he isn't angry at me.

He takes off his shirt, tucks it into the waist band of his jeans. His back is badly scarred. "I don't want to go back to Iraq," he says, mostly to himself.

There's a dragon tattoo on his left arm, Disney's magic castle on his right. Around his neck, an elastic key strap, with the words, "There's strong and then there's army strong." 

He jumps up to the crossbeam, one hand catches, then the other. He hangs there for a bit. Soon he's doing chin-ups. I can see, sticking out over the belt loops of his jeans, that he's wearing not one, but two pairs of boxer briefs.

I shrug, and go back to my stretching.

He jumps down, almost losing his balance. "I'm under the influence of alcohol," he says. 

I nod. 

"My best friend was killed yesterday." He looks at me hard. "He was only 22. 22 years old." His eyes are both fierce and unsteady. "I have to drink. I've been up all night."

I'm not sure what to say. 

"I swam across the East River two days ago," he says.

I almost believe him.

"That's my mama's house," he says, pointing to one of the nearby housing projects. "Right over there. 725 FDR Drive. This whole place,” he makes an unsteady sweep of his arm around the park, "was my living room."

I smile, trying to imagine him 25 years ago, a scrappy kid, roaming the place in a pack of cousins and pals.

"I have three houses," he says. And I'm only 40. One in Puerto Rico, one in Toronto, one in the mountains of Puerto Rico.

I'm not sure I believe him.

"I'm under the influence of alcohol," he says again, almost apologetically. He never says 'drunk.' It's always 'under the influence of alcohol.'

"The root of all evil is money," he goes on, now starting to ramble. "There's so much money under the sand in Iraq. There's so much sand in Iraq. I love seeing that bridge, being here talking to you, the water. I could swim across right now. I could swim to that boat right now!" He suddenly jabs out his hand pointing at a boat speeding past on the river. It's going fast, way too fast for even the best swimmer in the world to possibly catch. "I wouldn't do it now, because I'm under the influence of alcohol, but..." he trails off.

I ask him his name. He says Ricky. 

"Ricky Ricardo," he says. And he says this several times, as if he’s trying to get me to remember his name by linking it to the famous Ricky who played opposite Lucille Ball on TV. “Ricky Ricardo LaFontaine,” he finally says. “Oh,” I say. “So, your middle name actually is 'Ricardo'." And now he’s looking at me as if I'm the one under the influence of alcohol.

"Have you ever been in the military?” he asks me.

"Nope."

"Good. Don't go to Iraq. The war should end. This Obama president, I hope he gets it, I hope he understands."

"I hope so, too," I say.

"I killed people," he says.

I nod. His statement hangs there.

"You know 14th street? Union Square, Fifth Avenue, the huge pig there?" 

I do not know any huge pig on Fifth Avenue. 

"It's like Iraq. That pig. I've never seen so much flesh. Toes over here, pinkies, an arm, eyeball over here, brains over there. There was a stack this high." He makes a waist-level gesture with his hand. "Or this high." Another gesture, chest high this time. "Doesn't matter how high. It was flesh. Bodies. It had pinkies, veins. Like, ripped out veins." He picks a little black plastic thread up off of the astroturf. "I ripped this guys veins out. He was already dead. You know, you cut up." His arm slices upwards as if his hand holds a large knife. "Not across. Up. And I just pulled out the flesh, the veins, lots of veins. Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist."

"Maybe," I say, "you should—"

"Don't go in there!” he cuts me off. “Booby trap booby trap!" He's not really talking to me anymore. "Booby trap booby trap booby trap!" He’s taken his shirt out of his waistband and he’s slapping the ground with it. "You go in there, you're dead! Dead. Your body ripped up. And I got to put the pieces of you in a bag." He picks up a little astroturf pebble. "Hear that, Joey?" He's talking to the pebble.

I'm really worried about the guy now.

"You don't have your equilibrium under the influence,” he says, talking to me again. "I lift my own weight. You can lift your own weight, huh? 

"Uh, I don't know."

He reaches out, one hand ether side of me, and grabs my love handles. I'm a small guy and very lean so there’s not much to grab, but he found what was there and grabbed it. It was weird. I didn't know what else to do, so I awkwardly returned the favor. There was very little to grab hold of on his body.

"I'm fit. I'm in good shape. I just don't want to go back."

"You don't have to go back," I finally say. We still have hold of each other's love handles.

"I've lost weight. I'm all muscle."

"There're some guys you could talk to, guys who've been to Iraq, who are against the war. They can tell you what your options are." 

It's not clear whether he's really listening.

"Iraq Veterans Against the War,” I repeat. “Tell me your cell number. I'll make sure someone calls you."

He doesn't want to give me his number. He lets go of me, and I let go of him. "Tell me your number," he says.

So, I do. But he's drunk. He isn't going to remember it. And even if he does, I don't think he'll call me when he sobers up. I ask him to repeat it back to me. He gets the number right. As I'm finally leaving to jog back home, I ask him again, and he gets it right again. 

I never hear from him, of course. And I never see him again. But whenever I see the headlines he’s on my mind.

Ricky Ricardo LaFontaine of 725 FDR Drive, New York City — and maybe Toronto and Puerto Rico as well — Where are you? How are you? Here's the number for Iraq Veterans Against the War: (646) 723-0989. They’ve been there and back, just like you. Give 'em a call. You are not alone.