Posts

PRAY FOR OUR INTENTIONS

Image
  As dusk fell around the edges of her father-in-law’s childhood home in a small Iowa farm town, the four of them sat in beach folding chairs having long degraded into woven tatters. The close evening air brought no relief from the ninety-degree temperatures of the day. The father and son drank Mexican beers and the wife and mother-in-law uncomfortably crossed and uncrossed their bare legs. The wife looked up nervously at the perfectly still tree boughs above. Father-in-law Mitchell was holding forth, as was his wont. Mitchell’s father assembled a Craftsman home all by himself in 1936, when a man ordered a kit from the Sears Roebuck Catalogue and built it beam by beam to accommodate his wife and children. Every morning she walked by the family burial plot sectioned off in a grassy cemetery just down the street from the house: grandmothers, grandfathers, babies born too early (or too late)--all the forefathers who begat Mitchell. His father descended from a 12-year-old boy who left ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Upon Encountering a Certain Young Lady (no. 1)

  MVT sits in the front seat of a green metallic 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger in a church parking lot in downtown DC. A light rain falls outside. He trains a steady gaze on the back door of the church. Several men and women amble out into the parking lot, laughing and chatting. As they slowly walk to their cars, MVT hunches down in the seat and pretends to pick up something he dropped on the floor of the passenger side to avoid being seen. He wears an arm cast supported by a sling, so this movement is quite awkward. When everyone is gone, he resumes staring at the backdoor. It opens, and an older woman wearing a colorful headscarf and long skirt accompanied by a younger woman in jeans and an embroidered peasant blouse emerge. The sounds of their conversation are barely audible. After a brief exchange, they embrace. The older woman re-enters the church and closes the door behind her, and the younger woman walks toward the sidewalk to leave on foot. MVT quickly slides out of the car and l...
Post a Comment
Read more

TOWNLEY'S TRIP, PART ONE

1975, on a LAN Air red-eye flight from Santiago de Chile to Washington, D.C. MICHAEL VERNON TOWNLEY, a Chilean-US dual citizen, is seated in first class. The cabin is dimly lit following dinner service. A muted bell tone rings to indicate the beverage cart will make one last round before the scheduled movie. MVT is reading a book under the light over his seat. A stewardess approaches slowly pushing the cart. She wears a snug-fitting two-piece dark navy uniform with bright red piping and oversized brass buttons. The skirt's hem hits mid-thigh. Her dark brown hair is tightly pulled back in a high bun. She stops and kneels beside his seat. He briefly looks up. Their conversation is solely in Spanish. S (stewardess): Sir, can I interest you in something to drink? Coffee or tea? Perhaps a refreshing cocktail? MVT: Tonic on the rocks, please. S: Tonic water? MVT: Yes, on ice. S: Only tonic water? [puzzled] MVT: Yes. S: Can I add lime juice? Maybe gin, or vodka? MVT: I don’t drink alcohol...
Post a Comment
Read more

DO YOU KNOW MICHAEL VERNON TOWNLEY?

Michael Vernon Townley (born December 5, 1942, in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American-born former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the secret police of Chile during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In 1957, Townley moved to Chile with his father, Vernon Townley, who became head of the Ford Motor Company in Chile. He married Mariana Ines Callejas Honores in 1961 at age 19 (she was 27) after meeting her at a party two years earlier. In 1967, he moved to Miami with his family and worked as a mechanic in Miami's Little Havana, where he befriended Cuban anti-Castro exiles. In 1970, Townley moved back to Chile with his family. He later testified that, before leaving the US, he contacted the CIA to offer his services in Chile; however, Townley later claimed he never worked for the CIA, His father, however, allegedly had ties to the agency. Back in Chile, he ran a clandestine anti-Allende radio station and worked with violent opposition groups. He fled Chile...
Post a Comment
Read more