The Candidate by Paul Harris

him good to be praised like this, called a hero. Just like Zaragoza did during the war when he was a mere private and Carillo was a colonel.
    “You remember that time, in 1985, I think, near Chiquimula?” Zaragoza asked. “When the Reds thought they could just come into town at night and we waited for them. You remember their faces? The look of shock on those Indians. It was something you could never forget. They thought they were prisoners, huh?”
    The General smiled. Of course, he remembered. He closed his eyes and savored the thought. The strength he had felt. The divine will of serving his country. The power he once wielded to make the right decisions to defend the nation.
    “But we showed them, right?” Zaragosa said. “We don’t take prisoners we know are guilty. Judge, jury and executioner. That’s what you said. Take them out into the jungle where they came from. They were savages and we treated them like they deserved to be treated.”
    “Those were hard times and we had to be hard men,” said Carillo.
    The policeman thumped his fist loudly on the table again, sending their glasses into the air like jumping beans. He ignored the fierce look Carillo shot him.
    “Exactly, my friend! Exactly! You deserve better reward then this! Hidden here by a government who should be grateful, not ashamed.”
    The General looked at his companion and decided that was enough. He got up from the table and rested a hand on the policeman’s shoulder.
    “Your words are true, Antonio,” he said. “But perhaps the night is done now.”
    The policeman looked disappointed at his sudden downward turn of fortune. In truth, he had hoped for another bottle of wine. He himself could only afford beer or the moonshine that the Garifuna brewed, and that was no drink for a gentleman and a former officer of the armed forces of the Republic. But he recognized when he must cut his losses and the look on Carillo’s face certainly suggested this night was at a close. He got up, banged into the table, thanked his host profusely and was led to the door.
    When Zaragosa left, stumbling back down the road that led to town, the General walked back to the table. He picked up his own glass of wine and took a swig. Disgusting stuff, he thought. He walked into the kitchen and poured it down a sink, watching the bloody red liquid disappear down the plughole as the night’s conversation came back to him. Had that night in Chiquimula really been more than 20 years ago? He looked in the sink at the wine splashes staining the white porcelain red. Images swam in his mind. Images he did not want to think about. Then anger rose in him again. The drunk policeman was right, he thought. He should be rewarded for his sacrifices, not condemned.
    He washed his hands, which caused the last traces of wine to disappear, and then he stomped into the living room. He picked up the phone and dialed. It was a number he had not dared think about for a long time. At least not like this. The sound of the ringing sounded distant. Obscure. Calling across oceans of time as well as water. Then a male voice answered. Carillo introduced himself with a hello and his rank and name. The voice waited a second in silence, just breathing down the line. But the General already knew. The man remembered. Oh yes, he remembered.
     
    * * *
     
    MIKE DROVE down Huntsville Street in Altoona, just a few miles from Des Moines, and looked at the trailer park that Ernesto Benitez called home. It was typical of such places, just like many he had seen in Florida, trying to help the tens of thousands of immigrants who worked in the fruit plantations. It was half-hidden behind a junkyard, massed with towering skyscrapers of squashed cars, and consisted of a seemingly random scattering of trailer homes and shacks.
    Mike parked the car and spied a group of Hispanic-looking men on the corner of the road. They stood huddled together against the cold like a group of Antarctic penguins, stamping their feet