Politics – On Second Thought

Snitch (Part 2)

The following narrative was written as my final submission for English 404, Creative NonFiction, during the Fall 2022 semester. Read Part 1 HERE.

“It’s always the ones with the dirty hands pointing the fingers.”
Sonya Teclai, musical artist.

Snitch — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

“Think of it as we’re building a pyramid; you would never start at the top,” the AUSA (Assistant U.S. Attorney) explained. “You begin with the foundation, then build upwards from there,” he droned on. The analogy didn’t make me feel any better. I pictured myself and my friends as bricks getting piled on each other, layer by layer, wondering how much pressure I could stand as they kept building their damn pyramid.

Washington, D.C. might be an International City and the capital of the free world, but trust me, it is, at heart, a small town. There are few secrets when it comes to elected officials and bureaucrats. I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole world got wind of my snitching.

My ex-girlfriend was someone I suspected would be another brick in the pyramid. Forget that we had been separated for nearly a year, my lawyer explained, “The feds would try to squeeze her for leverage over you. You must reach out to her.”

This was not going to be an easy conversation.

We met in one of those dive bars in a part of town that we would never have been caught dead in when we were dating. I guess it didn’t matter much now. Anonymity was the goal. I gave her the bad news, and she didn’t take it well. “What the hell does this have to do with me?” she exclaimed as her voice rose a few octaves to no effect on the few customers in the fine dive establishment. Then, any hope that I could trust her to keep the matter confidential evaporated quickly. “Are you wearing a wire? Are you trying to entrap me?” She leaned forward, speaking into my chest, “I knew nothing about your craziness back then. Do you hear me, whoever is listening to us?”

There was no wire, no one was listening to us, and I was not trying to entrap her. I thought it was fair to warn her that I was a bigger jerk than she knew me to be when we were a couple. But all I could tell her as I got up to leave was to Get a lawyer and that I was sorry.

The marble bench was still uncomfortable. The subpoena stated that I was to appear outside the Grand Jury room at an appointed hour, and someone would come to give me further instructions. Considerable time had passed, no one had come looking for me, and my lawyer hadn’t arrived. I considered looking for a pay phone to call his office, but I was afraid to move. All I could think about with every ticking second was how I would explain what I was doing outside a federal grand jury room if someone I knew stopped and asked me questions.

I suddenly recognized a woman walking down the corridor with a group of people heading toward another jury room. Our gazes locked for a second, and I turned, looked down at my cards, and pretended that I was intensely reading them. My stomach had passed into my throat and then collapsed like a rock back into place. When the group had passed, I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the back of her head. She never looked back.

The relief was short-lived. I thought about my parents and family in New York and how I would explain everything. My lawyer and the feds told me there was no guarantee my name wouldn’t be made public once the grand jury had completed its work and someone had been indicted. In fact, due to the high-profile nature of this investigation, it was a good chance that my name would be splattered across the front page of the Washington Post, the New York Times, and every local radio and television outlet in Washington. “You’ll be famous.” I don’t want to be famous.

Priests — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I was preparing to sign the immunity agreement when I suddenly realized I had a question or two. I hesitated for what must have been a second too long when someone, the AUSA or the DEA agent, slammed their hand down on the table. Hard. Addressing my lawyer, “Sir, you better speak to your client. He is either prepared to answer all questions before the grand jury, or this agreement will be torn up.” Both men suddenly got up and left the room, leaving my lawyer and me.

Shaking from the confrontation, I got up from my seat and walked to the sole tall narrow window overlooking the plaza in front of the courthouse. I pondered my fate as I watched the people below briskly moving about their business, oblivious to my panic and the world falling around me. How the hell did I get to this moment?

I knew the answer, of course. Greed. Recklessness. Now I was in a room in a courthouse, getting ready to sign an agreement that would make me a snitch. I didn’t want to go to prison. It was either them or me. I once spent four hours in a police station lock-up in 1968 and was close to losing it.  A federal penitentiary, I’m sure, would be worse. Sign the damn agreement.

My lawyer finally arrived, insisting on last-minute instructions. “Tell the truth, but be very specific in your responses, and don’t go off on tangents.” I heard him, but my mind was somewhere else. At that moment, I steeled myself.

My vision narrowed, staring down a tunnel with no light at the other end—only darkness. Afraid I was being sucked into a vortex, there was nothing to hold onto as I free-fall, twisting and turning, rolling and spinning, my eyes wide open because I couldn’t close them. No, I think I will be forced to witness my fate, feel it, like a million shards of glass cutting into me. And I wonder if this is what hell would be like if it existed.

All I could think about was asking for forgiveness, a new beginning, and wishing I could quietly slink away in anonymity.

The mahogany-colored door to the jury room opened beside me, and a woman stepped out. “Mister Ruiz, we’re ready for you.”

Snitch (Part 1)

The following narrative was written as my final submission for English 404, Creative NonFiction, during the Fall 2022 semester.

“It’s always the ones with the dirty hands pointing the fingers.”
Sonya Teclai, musical artist.

So here is the truth, as close to the truth as I can recollect or want to. Strips of memories have been peeled away over time, so all I’m left with are hazy recollections, unremembered names, blurry sequences of events, and a desire not to smear the names of people I’ve hurt. Thirty-nine years later, it’s still difficult to admit I was a snitch. Not just any snitch. A snitch willing to bring down a friend, allegedly the mistress of the Mayor of Washington, D.C. I’m not proud of that decision, as I’m writing about it now, but I’d like to think of it as, while painful, therapy. To say that I have felt shame, regret, or embarrassment at any juncture in my journey would be an understatement. The pain in my conscience eases when I tell myself that most people would have done the same as I did. Testify before a federal grand jury against your friends, or else find yourself on a fast track to the hell of prison.

The Elijah Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on Constitution Avenue Northwest in Washington D.C. was a twenty-minute walk and a mile away from my East Capital Street studio apartment with an awe-inspiring view of the top of the U.S. Capitol building. It took me five years of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll to make it to that marble-decorated courthouse hallway and the hard-ass marble bench outside a federal grand jury room. I sat there, my ass and legs constantly shifting as I searched for comfort on that bench.

I shuffled the three-by-five index cards given to me by my lawyer, desperately trying to memorize their content. One card spelled precise instructions on pleading the fifth amendment if I thought an answer would incriminate me. How would I know that? “Use common sense,” my lawyer scolded me. “If they ask whether you have ever personally dealt drugs to the mayor, you should assume it’s a trick question and take the fifth.”

I wish you could be there. Grand Juries, I learned, don’t allow witnesses or potential defendants to have a lawyer present when questioned. “That’s why I gave you the second card,” he explained, “tell them you want to step outside the grand jury room and speak to me if you feel uneasy about a question.”

This is the point in the story when I try to poke my memory for what I felt back then. I was scared shitless about going to prison. I’d seen enough gangster and prison movies to know that only gang rapes and death by shivs awaited me. One wrong statement spits out of my mouth, and the Federal prosecutors would pounce on me, claiming, “Oops, you fucked up,” except in more legalese language.

When I received the first grand jury subpoena and figured out what the hell was going on, I called the target of the federal investigation. Are you fucking kidding me? I remember exclaiming when we met at a downtown Washington D.C. restaurant, one of those gentrified places that the next generation of movers and shakers frequented. During the day, I was the Executive Director of a government commission appointed by the same Mayor. Talk about irony. At night, I was snorting my way through ounces of cocaine and selling grams of the South American export with an abandonment, expecting that my two lives would never intersect. I was delusional. I’m living in the nation’s capital during the war on drugs. What would make me think that a semi-high profile bureaucrat would never attract the attention of every illegal drug-chasing federal agency while living less than two miles from the White House and FBI headquarters? That is the definition of recklessness.

Waiting for my lawyer, I thought about an earlier meeting with the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) and a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. That was when I agreed to become a snitch. To betray my friends, to sacrifice whatever moral high ground I lived on in exchange for not being charged with any federal crimes.

Conspiracy — Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

The nightmare always comes to me like a wave of cascading emotions. There’s the narrow high ceiling office with one lone window. My lawyer and me on one side of a small desk, the AUSA and the DEA agent opposite us. My lawyer tells me he’s hammered out the details of the immunity deal, and the meeting was a formality. “You can ask questions,” my lawyer told me, “Just remember, they hold all the cards.” That didn’t seem like a choice. More like blackmail. I knew there would be questions about the target of the investigation, but there was nothing to stop prosecutors from asking about other people. Suddenly, shockwaves of doubt and remorse throttled through my body. All I could think about was the long list of people, some with serious political and street creds, who bought drugs from me. But I visibly shuddered when I thought about the people who sold me the drugs. What would happen when they found out that I had snitched on them?

To Be Continued…

The Virus That Is Us

Writer Elisa Gabbert in her article “The Great Mortality,” wrote about the plagues that are coming for us even when we pretend we don’t want them. Ironically, the article was published less than two years before COVID. Gabbert wrote that one aspect of how we deal with pandemics was what she called “performative death wish,” a social media phenomenon. This is where humans now respond to threatening news as welcomed news.

Whenever a story on the threat of an “extinction-level event,” like an asteroid or comet headed for Earth, is making the rounds, people quote-tweet it to add, “Finally, some good news!”
The Great Mortality

That doomsday emotional response seems to have crept into a few other human interactions these days. I’m talking about the coming “civil war” in the United States. Yes, the second civil war will be brother and sister against brother and sister or, to be more exact old(er) Americans against young(er) Americans. Mostly rural Americans against those liberal leftist progressive communist so-called Americans who have sold out to communist China (an actual accusation in a political ad). There is some serious shit passing around as prognostication about the future of this country. Forget COVID, we may not be around for the next pandemic. Well, that’s one way to fight a virus.

I’m more worried about the virus that is us, Americans who carry some weird shit inside of them like racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and antisemitism, hell, it’s a long list, and the “performative death wish” we have like we deserve this and, worse, welcome it with open arms. The right-wing (there he goes, another liberal leftist progressive communist so-called American who sold out to communist China) in this country is working hard to make it all happen. They’re good at infecting the young and old(er) Americans with lunatic idiocy, fear factors that crawl into our souls and make us say and do cringy shit. And it doesn’t matter what race or ethnicity or religion you are. All you have to do is listen to Ye (Kanye West, in case you’re not keeping up) spouting his shit these days.

If we hadn’t elected that damn black guy (thanks, Obama), we’d have had another white guy in the White House reassuring Americans that everything was all right; we know who the real Americans are. If we just had voted for…Donald Trump.

You can now add a long list of anti-government militias to America’s boiling pot these days. It’s hot out here, yet every time I seek verification for this feeling of the state of the virus and its infection rate, I’m told that there’s nothing to worry about because, well, I should blame the mainstream media and social media for the hysteria. Calm down, I’m told. How many crazies do I know who are willing to rise and overthrow the government? Okay, you got me, not any, personally.

It may be a shooting war…at least in the beginning. No, that’s too hard and dangerous. Hell, no one wants to get shot. No, it’s a different kind of civil war that is happening. The GOP and the right-wing in this country have been planning this takeover since the 2010 census. It was a project called REDMAP for Redistricting Majority Project (Read more HERE).

The right wing seems to believe that all they need to do is control the levers of power on the local, state, and, yes, the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court, and they will have all they need to control those other people. If you look at their potential control of a majority of state houses and the Supreme Court and the predictions of what’s to come in the November election, then maybe we should be scared?

The bottom line: take over state houses and gerrymander to death the state so you not only control the legislatures and Governor’s offices but also stack the deck so you can control the Senate and House seats. That strategy, voter suppression tactics, and their willingness to burn the house down in their quest for power, along with the namby-pamby approach of the Democratic party (what a bunch of wussies), and you suddenly realize how easily they will be able to walk right in and take over. Why do you think they wanted and still want Donald Trump as President? Look up how many federal judges he nominated and confirmed. You can start HERE.

Okay, I may be overreacting. The November elections haven’t happened yet, and maybe all those election deniers running for elected offices, including those controlling how elections are supervised in 2024, will lose. Or not. All I can tell you is that there has been a rise in the virus I mentioned earlier (not since the mid-sixties have I seen this much BS), and there are enough people, even if they are a small minority, who believe they are so aggrieved that all it will take is a spark, an incident like January 6, to set these people off.

The worst-case scenario is that they all win in 2022 and blow Democrats out of the water until 2024, and we sane people will be doing much bootlicking on January 20, 2025. The best case is that we, the rational people, refuse to accept that scenario. We not only out-vote them but use all the peaceful tools at our disposal to keep them on the defensive until the coming generations outlive them and they are relegated to the dustbins of history. Hey, I can dream.

Of course, I’m sure none of this will be necessary because scientists will develop a vaccine for the virus that is us, and we’ll all do our civic and social duty and line up to get that vaccine as we all did for COVID. Because when it comes to being patriotic, Americans are willing to sacrifice for our fellow Americans; no duty is too steep or heavy. No problemo.

ReThinking Public Safety At the Ballot Box

June 7 Primary — Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

With the June 7th primary ahead of us in California, I’ve become particularly troubled by the hysteria over the issue of crime and the same tired proposed solutions. In Long Beach, California, a rather ugly smear campaign is being conducted by a group against one of the candidates, Vice Mayor Rex Richardson. Apparently, according to the print and video ads, Mr. Richardson favors “Defunding the Police.” As evidence, the critics offer a less than two-second video of the candidate saying as much.

I’m not here to argue whether that excerpt is a true reflection of candidate Rex Richardson’s opinion (It’s not. Read his plan HERE) nor what I believe to be the racist undertones of that campaign (Just because there are some Black people on the committee doesn’t mean it isn’t a racist strategy). No, as usual in political campaigns, instead of offering voters honest policy discussions and solutions, it always comes down to smears and jeers from both sides.

I’m not the only one who believes that simply putting more police on the streets will not solve whatever problem we believe exists. Life and politics are more complicated, and we deserve to rethink what we want from law enforcement and our entire legal system. I’ll have more thoughts on the issue over time. Still, I thought the issue was immediately relevant in light of the upcoming primary. The following following program from NPR’s Code Switch program offers interesting insight into the issue of law enforcement. You should take the time to listen.

The following is the June 1, 2022, episode of the program.

“In the wake of violence and tragedies, people are often left in search of ways to feel safe again. That almost inevitably to conversations about the role of police. On today’s episode, we’re talking to the author and sociologist Alex Vitale, who argues that many spaces in U.S. society over-rely on the police to prevent problems that are better addressed through other means. Doing so, he says, can prevent us from properly investing in resources and programs that could make the country safer in the long run.”
CODE SWITCH Rethinking ‘safety’ in the wake of Uvalde

For more information on the June 7, 2022 primary, please visit the following sites for information:

What the Hell Happened, Joe?

It’s Finals Week, so there is no time to come up with something original. Here’s a recent favorite from last Fall. Tragically, not much has changed.

The news doesn’t look good from down here, Joe. Can I call you Joe? The polls look bad. We were so optimistic eleven months ago. Now, they say you’ve lost contact with reality. That you said that inflation is just a nuisance, and it will be soon under control. That the courts are just messin’ with you about vaccine mandates and that it will just be a matter of time before they all come to their senses. All these people screaming about vaccine mandates are just looney tunes, and we shouldn’t worry about them. And what the hell happened with Build Back Better (who came up with that name?). The moderates and the progressives are making fools of you at our expense. What the hell happened, Joe?

Then, I’m reading about Kamala, you know your vice-president. She is either the most incompetent or just the most ignored Vice-President in the nation’s history (okay, so I’m exaggerating). You made a big deal about the first person of color, and then it looks like you threw her under the bus. WTH is happening there?

Every day, I click open a news website, and it just seems like there’s nothing but bad news coming out of Washington and New York and Florida and Texas and pretty much most of the Midwest, South, and the West. All I hear and read about is how you don’t have a consistent message. Honestly, I just want to listen to a message, any positive message. I don’t want to hear about 3 trillion or 1.5 trillion. I want to know about the specific programs and policies that are going to help everyday Americans. About how you’ve united your political party so you can get something done before you get thrown to the GOP wolves who are already circling your body, and you’re not even dead. Yet. They’re sitting back doing nothing but throwing hand grenades with the assistance of that maniac in Florida and Fox News and every GOP member of Congress, and you seem to not realize the seriousness of the next two elections, 2022 and 2024.

Americans may not know their ass from their elbow about science and COVID and economic policy and inflation and that the GOP stands for Totalitarianism. Still, they know when someone ain’t shooting straight with them. They want reassurance that someone really cares about them and the issues that affect them. And the list is long: jobs with good pay and benefits, affordable housing, the price of gas (holy crap, what’s up with that), and making sure that we’re going to have Christmas gifts and food for the holidays. People are just trying to get their pre—COVID life back even if they are still doing their darndest to extend it by not getting vaccinated, hanging out without masks, and ignoring simple protocols. It doesn’t matter because, in the end, they will blame you because, well, they must blame someone in the White House. They say they want Leadership, Sanity, Calmness. Something that we didn’t get for four years from the maniac who was there before you.

Look, Joe, I can’t even imagine what life is like for you, and I’ve known you long enough to see that you do have a good heart, but a good heart is just not good enough these days. This country is splitting up. Breaking apart in all kinds of ways. We need some healing. We’re just trying to heal as a nation without getting jammed in the heart by the crazies out there. We need your help to unite us while at the same time protecting us and our democracy from millions of nut jobs out there.

I keep wondering what the hell happened to this country, and then I realize that as long as I’ve been alive, all seventy-three years, there have been nut cases out there, both right and left, who just can’t help themselves. That it’s always about them and screw the other person. My Way or the Highway kind of BS. I know from personal experience how easy it is to fall into that hole. We love to talk about how we are in this together and waving the flag and sacrifice and America the beautiful, but I know they don’t mean it. What they really mean is what’s good for them, and everyone else can eat dirt. Or is it cake?

Americans. If the GOP wins this year, you and we are screwed. I will never understand how a political party that has pledged allegiance to an idiot can win against a person who can think like a human being and dish out so much humanity. I just can never understand them. That political party is not the friend of People of Color, the working class, young people, or older Americans. They only want to screw us so they can help the rich. No debate about it.

But the Democrats have their own problems. Some of them are also out of touch and think that figuring out a way to allow most Americans to succeed with some help from our government is making them into a dependent group. I’m talking about you, Senator Manchin and Sinema. Look, I’m not looking for a handout. I’m just looking for some breathing room. An economic policy that doesn’t benefit just the rich. Talk about a dependent group. Dependent on a tax system that maintains them. Come on, we weren’t born yesterday.

Here’s my advice, Joe, talk to us every day. Go on national television and use your bully pulpit. Talk to the middle straight about what you’re doing to solve our problems. Press Conferences, Oval office speeches, one-on-one interviews, visit family homes, town halls in Des Moines and Bakersfield, not on CNN. Come on out and see us like you did on the campaign trail. Talk to us straight. We’re ready to listen. And bring Kamala along with you.

Dear Joe

On the eve of the one year anniversary of the inauguration of President Joe Biden, I repost this open letter to him that I wrote on Medium.com on January 16. 2021.

Whatever happens on January 20, 2021, or after, you will need to begin your administration with a clear vision, the vigor of spirit, and a powerful determination to take on the greatest challenge of this young century and possibly of our modern age. No, not the MAGA insurrection (I’ll address them later). Our nation cannot move forward until we work together to cure ourselves of the Pandemic. With millions of people worldwide affected by COVID-19, deaths and hospitalizations mounting daily, we cannot return to normalcy until we find the leadership necessary to show us a path forward. This crisis needs its own Marshall Plan.

The United States of America needs — no demands — a leader who commands respect, believes in science and medicine, makes reasoned decisions, and is willing to tap and trust the best minds to solve problems. You will need to call upon the best experts and leaders in politics, business, nonprofits, and education in the United States of America and the world. As President, you must harness the best resources available like no other time in our history. This effort cannot be some long-term (of say, ten years or more) project where studies are first prepared and submitted for consideration to the appropriate authorities for consent. We demand action by our government today.

No solution is possible unless you get everyone on board, and yes, that includes the opposing political parties. The goal of this current President and his allies is to delegitimize you and your administration. He and his sycophants want to cripple your ability to save this country so that they can cynically claim in two and four years that they must clean up your mess. We face a critical question, how do you break through the fog of misinformation and subservience to conspiracy theories? It will take a certain amount of courage to reach out to America’s moderate voices for help. I want to believe that political, business, and nonprofit leaders recognize that this will not end well if we continue to fall down the rabbit hole of evil accusations and retribution. For the past four years, only the most vitriolic voices have been the loudest. We must call upon all Americans who believe in this country’s ideal to raise their voices together to break through the toxic atmosphere enveloping our nation.

We must task the influencers in media, the arts, culture, advertising, and marketing to help create inspiring and proactive messages to revitalize our vision of shared social responsibility and dedication to a shared future. All of us must work together to fill with new hope and vision, the chasm created by dark forces over the past four years. Somehow, we must convince a large swath of Americans that, as a past President has described, “There are no red states or blue states, just the United States.”

I am too life experienced to believe that we will all join hands and sing Kumbaya by changing the messaging or legislative solutions. You only need to study American history to see that truth. However, we cannot forever be prisoners of our history. We must be ready to make our new future; one where every resident of this country receives the promises of our Constitution, “…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” In 2021, after all that has gone on over the past four years, I believe it is time for all of us to step back from this precipice we find ourselves and stop and think about the challenges that are ahead for us as a country. We cannot survive if we only live in past conflicts and do not forge a better future.

Now, we must spare no effort to hold those responsible for the MAGA insurrection. I’m not just talking about those who invaded the people’s house. You can trace the roots of that insurrection to the Tea Party’s birth and the lie of Birtherism. Unfortunately, too many in politics and the media didn’t take this seriously enough. We called it fringe. It was dismissed as racist and not deserving of our time and attention. The current President and his enabling elected officials, religious leaders, right-wing groups, and media pushed that fringe, the white supremacy monster, out of the darkness into the White House and the halls of Congress. We must protect ourselves from their desperation, mindful that they will continuously attempt to disrupt a return to constitutional government.

I believe that this last dying gasp of an America cannot survive the cataclysmic demographic changes underway. I have an older son who is two-thirds Puerto Rican and one-third Dominican (Yes, there is a difference). His daughter, my granddaughter, is a four-year-old who is half-Puerto Rican and half-Anglo. My youngest son is twenty-eight years old and is one-quarter Puerto Rican, one-quarter Dominican, one-quarter Black, and one-quarter Japanese. They are all members of that demographic wave. The new United States of America frightens many. It is not only race and ethnicity that scares them; it is also urban versus rural, old versus young, progressive versus some forgotten or non-existent past of what America was. The America that is shrouded in flags and myths hides what we have been and who we are today. When we accept the whole truth of our history, we can then immerse ourselves in the glory of the great moments we all shared and move forward as the United States of America.

Mister President-elect, I know the burden on your shoulders, and that of the Vice President-elect is great. But you will not be carrying the load alone. All of us who care for the future will be here with both of you. Reach across the chasm to those who did not vote for you. Those who did are ready to do the hard work. Create new ways for all of us to see and hear each other so that we can rise together and defeat the Pandemic and build the America that we need for the twenty-first century. As another American leader, Abraham Lincoln said during the last great war between Americans on a bloodied battlefield at Gettysburg, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure — It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

We must soar above the worst in us to new heights and a new America. Don’t f*ck this up, Joe. We got your back.

What the hell happened, Joe?

Americans. If the GOP wins next year, you Joe and we are screwed. I will never understand how a political party that has pledged allegiance to an idiot can win against a person who can think like a human being and dish out so much humanity. I just can never understand them. That political party is not the friend of People of Color, the working class, young people, or older Americans. They only want to screw us so they can help the rich. No debate about it.

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To Be Continued…

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