[Previous entry: "Obama's Plane Raises Ire"] [Next entry: "Mexico Used to Be Such a Conservative Country"]

11/22/2008: "An Interesting Cast of Characters"

An LA Kind of Neighborhood
Brian McNeece

Recently I had occasion to visit St. Vincent Medical Center in downtown LA, where I struck up conversations with an interesting pastiche of characters.

First was Agustin, the night security guard. He’s from Managua, Nicaragua , where I’ve visited twice. “During the revolution in 1979,” he told me, “the Sandinistas used our house as a command post. I was just 8 years old. The Guardia Nacional [the dictator Somoza’s security force] knew what we were doing, but they were cool. They knew the people were right and Somoza had to go.

“Later on the Sandinistas betrayed us. They were only out for themselves in the end.” It turned out that Napoleon is married to a gal from Mexicali. “See you at the Fiestas del Sol in October,” he told me. “Or in San Felipe.”

Marielena from Zacatecas drew my blood. “I haven’t been back in 18 years,” she told me. Why not? “Well I only make enough to pay the bills. I can’t afford to travel. Besides, I don’t even like Mexico. Here, at least if you’re poor, no one says nothing to you. They treat you the same. In Mexico, they treat you like an animal. In my next life, I’ll be an Americana. Tell you what, if you want to go to Zacatecas, invite me. You pay and I’ll be your guide.” Marielena smiled.

Lina is the nursing assistant on the night shift at St. Vincent Medical Center. Lina is from Nigeria. She’s missing a few teeth, and her face shows the ritual scarring from her native country, a low-tech tattoo, I suppose. I say to her, “ Nigeria is a country with a lot of oil wealth.” And she says, “That’s true, but the money’s not circulating. The rich people want to get rich quicker and the poor just stay poor. I came here to this country because at least if you work, they pay you. In my country, you work for six months and you don’t get paid. That’s why everyone is resorting to crime, just to put food on the table. If I go back to Nigeria, I’m going to bring the American way to them. You watch.”

Manuel attends a tiny fruit cart on the sidewalk near the hospital. He is a small, timid looking man from Guatemala. When I told him I had climbed Volcan de Agua just outside of Antigua, he had a blank look. I wonder how much Spanish he speaks, for he told me his native language is Quiché. How much for the fruit? Four or five dollars. Maybe that’s all the English he knows. He sits and sits next to his little metal and glass cart, on his crate, under the small umbrella. Just sits.

Dr. Richard Folkman came into my hospital room and saw the book on the tray “The Way of the World” by Ron Suskind. As he read the dust jacket, I told him, “The author is a Wall Street Journal writer. He despises George Bush.”

“Everybody hates George Bush.”

“Suskind says he’s been a bully all his life.”

“No he hasn’t,” said Dr. Fishman. “He’s a nice guy.”

“You know him well?”

“Sure. I used to play golf with him. A nice guy, but a lush in those days.”

“So you didn’t see him as a bully?”

“Not at all. Probably he gets intimidated by people around him who are smarter than he is. Protects himself that way. He was always a fun guy to be around. A big drinker. Then one day he showed up at the golf course with a couple of six packs of non- alcoholic beer. ‘I’m on the wagon,’ he said. We said, ‘Right, George.’ Later, when I found out he was governor, we all chuckled. Then when he was elected President, we howled.”

“What was he doing then?”

“Nothing. You know, first his dad was director of the CIA, then the Vice-President. He wasn’t doing anything. This was before he owned the Texas Rangers. He’d just had his first oil deal with some other Texas investors, but that went belly up. One time we were golfing at Pebble Beach and the Secret Service cleared the course for us. We were the only ones playing. And around us were guys with automatic weapons. It was a little strange.

“I was at the White House when US troops arrived in Baghdad. That was an exciting day. We had lunch with Bush last December. I took my daughter with us. She’s a college student, of course a Bush hater. He charmed her completely.”

“So do you think he was up to the job of President?”

“He was on 911,” said the doctor. “After that, I think he listened to the wrong people. The real Darth Vader of that bunch,” continued the doctor, “is Cheney. But George Bush, a nice guy.”