The Rest of the President’s Men
The road from San Juan Miraflores, to downtown Lima, had a lot of potholes with its zigzagged traffic, on this dusty early morning. On our way to the Plaza de Arms, there, there were trees, and flowers and a beautiful fountain, and the Pacific Ocean was below its banks, a ways away, where a highway that curved along its coast lead to the airport, at high tide, the waters nearly reached the concrete thruway.
It was Monday, the summer of 2004, and the heat was rising and falling but always thick with salty moisture. Outside of the Government Palace there were military sentries. To the side of the building was a door, the stones of the building were pale white, and in the street there were venders selling everything under the sun from hats, to sunglasses, and candy bars, cokes and so forth. Against the wall of the building was the sign, “Palace Office,” square shape, it was the branch of the government that one had to go through to get an appointment with the president. Inside there were three government employees behind glass cubicles handing out paperwork to several people. Alejandro Toledo was president then. I wanted to see him, give him one of the first books I had wrote on the culture of Peru—in poetry, out of several I would have done by May of 2010.
This was the only place one could go to see if he or she could get a visit with the president, and that required paperwork, identification, waiting uncomfortable—only to be told, it isn’t possible by an assistant secretary of the president, saying “He was out of town.” Why I asked myself, couldn’t someone have told me two hours prior, but they were willing to take the book, but I had learned in Peru you never give anything to a second or third party, lest you want that person to keep it themselves.
Well, she shook my hand and gave me an office letter of apology explaining it was not possible to see the president. She handed it to me before I left. My wife waved goodbye, and off we went back home to Miraflores.
In 2006, I told my wife Rosa that we could start again, to see if we could see the president; it was Alan Garcia now, the new president. She said, “Alan’s secretary’s mother goes to our church.”
“Isn’t that nice,” I commented. Thinking a new road was opened for me to see the president, and now I had four books on cultural poetry published. So we invited the mother over for coffee, and asked if she could find a way to give her daughter one of my books to give to the President, or perhaps find a way for me to see if he’d see me.
My view out of this was that he never got the book, and the mother never brought the issue back up, and so who got the book? My guess is, the secretary—but it was a chance I took.
“Maybe,” I told my wife, “we should try to go back downtown and do all that paperwork again, and see if we can get in this time.”
“Okay,” she said, and we did it again, to no avail, that was in 2007.
The ambition was now gone, and it was 2010, and I had seven books written on Peruvian culture (had given 14,000-books out free to the inhabitants of Peru, from Lima to Huancayo, to Cerro de Pasco, Satipo and a few other places in Peru).
I told my wife one afternoon I wanted to go and give a letter of gratitude to one of the municipality people, for her assistance in making our neighbor close her window, that was facing our property, she took two-years to brick it up, and finally Katy Gomez, and Dr. Gina, both high profile people at the municipality, had put the pressure on the neighbor.
I told Kathy, “You can’t tell Mrs. Hinostroza anything, she flies off the handle, she just has no consideration for her neighbors,” she was building a rooming house of some sort next door to me, and we wanted the side windows bricked up, to get rid of the peeping toms.
Well, when I went down to visit her, to say ‘Thanks’ formally say thanks, a ‘thank you very much,’ thanks, she wasn’t available, so I left her a note.
We left her office and came into the Mayor’s office to say hello to him, he’s kind of a friend, I had met him twice before. The morning was still early, and he wasn’t available, but his secretary met us, Laura, and we three got to talking about the lady, as we sat in a meeting room—a big room with a long table and many chairs. She sat across from me, my wife sat to the side. There was no hurry. I gave her one of my chapbooks, a book with extracts of the fatter volume “A Leaf and a Rose.” She put it on the table and mentioned in passing, “The Mayor will be giving a speech tonight at Holy Cross Park, in San Juan de Miraflores, you might think about showing up; and tomorrow at 8:00 a.m., President Alan Garcia will be giving a speech at Villa Sur Park (in Villa Lagos).”
I sat there thinking. Sat further back in the chair just deliberating, a bell seemed to have gone off in my brain. I looked at Laura, and she was smartly dressed, and clean-cut looking. “Do you think I can meet him?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, hesitantly, “I’d like to meet him myself, who’s to say.”
Something told me in the back of my mind, this was a doorway, perhaps an opportunity. A curtain no longer hung in front of my face, with the sign “Sorry, he’s not available.”
“Well,” I said to Laura “Rosa and I may be meeting you at both locations.”
I told myself, what if I really get to meet the president; I mean this was too simple, not complicated at all, the way I like things. I was kind of mumbling this as Rosa and I walked out of the two metal doors of the Mayor’s office.
“What do you say?” asked my wife. “Are you thinking of going in the morning, it’s pretty early for you, you’ll have to get up before 7:00 a.m.
“I’m certainly thinking of it,” I said.
We arrived at 8:10 a.m., the following morning, President Garcia was getting ready to talk, and we, Rosa and I got our positions at the back of the crowd, about a thousand people were all around us, we were next to a road though and not many people there just guards and police and military, it faced the side of the grandstand, so when President Alan Garcia came down, he’d most likely look this way and wave. I brought four cultural books, with a slipcase holding them in, made by my friend Gary Buchner, a bookbinder from Minnesota.
“Listen,” my wife told the main security person of the president, “my husband is a journalist and writer, and is it possible for him to give these four books to the president?”
“Oh, no!” he said, “but I can get them to him.”
Well the books and case was worth hundred-dollars, and by experience, we knew who’d get the books, and it wouldn’t be the president.
“We have to give it to him ourselves,” my wife insisted.
“Listen,” the security man said after making a phone call, “I called and asked and they said it wasn’t possible to alter his schedule.” And that was that. And she was done talking to these two men (there was a man prior to this also she spoke with). But it told me: nothing lost, nothing gained. But I had said a little prayer on the side, concerning this matter, and felt I had to follow this hunch through.
A big black car was parked by the steps of the grandstand, and now the president was stepping down them, guards all about. And a light came on in my head, it said: “I opened the door; you have to grab the opportunity.”
A big back car door opened to the black sedan, I stepped up towards the guard behind the gate, he told me to back up, and I did, then the president was about to get into the car, and I stepped back up again, and the guard said okay, I was fine.
There was an automatic moment here, as the president moved back from the door as if to take a look—for some odd reason, and then saw me and made a step forward, I had spread out my hands, the four books in the slipcase in the air, and a smile on my face and I waved to him to come forward. It was as if he was being drawn to me, and then he walked those one hundred feet, bodyguards and all looking about not quite knowing what was up, one of those surprising moments, no bodyguard wants. I think all during that moment, the plainclothes police were holding their breaths, he walked directly up to me, he would look me straight in the eyes, shake my hands twice. When I gave him the books he looked amazed, especially at the one called “The Windmill,” the translated poetry of Juan Parra del Riego. It looked as if he was going to give the books back, and I said “No, they’re for you.” Perhaps no more than ten-words spoken within that thirty-eight second meeting, but it was as if we both of us came under a spell of providence (as Laura would imply to my wife Rosa, that afternoon).
No: 622 ((5-16-2010)(written for the sake of posterity))
The road from San Juan Miraflores, to downtown Lima, had a lot of potholes with its zigzagged traffic, on this dusty early morning. On our way to the Plaza de Arms, there, there were trees, and flowers and a beautiful fountain, and the Pacific Ocean was below its banks, a ways away, where a highway that curved along its coast lead to the airport, at high tide, the waters nearly reached the concrete thruway.
It was Monday, the summer of 2004, and the heat was rising and falling but always thick with salty moisture. Outside of the Government Palace there were military sentries. To the side of the building was a door, the stones of the building were pale white, and in the street there were venders selling everything under the sun from hats, to sunglasses, and candy bars, cokes and so forth. Against the wall of the building was the sign, “Palace Office,” square shape, it was the branch of the government that one had to go through to get an appointment with the president. Inside there were three government employees behind glass cubicles handing out paperwork to several people. Alejandro Toledo was president then. I wanted to see him, give him one of the first books I had wrote on the culture of Peru—in poetry, out of several I would have done by May of 2010.
This was the only place one could go to see if he or she could get a visit with the president, and that required paperwork, identification, waiting uncomfortable—only to be told, it isn’t possible by an assistant secretary of the president, saying “He was out of town.” Why I asked myself, couldn’t someone have told me two hours prior, but they were willing to take the book, but I had learned in Peru you never give anything to a second or third party, lest you want that person to keep it themselves.
Well, she shook my hand and gave me an office letter of apology explaining it was not possible to see the president. She handed it to me before I left. My wife waved goodbye, and off we went back home to Miraflores.
In 2006, I told my wife Rosa that we could start again, to see if we could see the president; it was Alan Garcia now, the new president. She said, “Alan’s secretary’s mother goes to our church.”
“Isn’t that nice,” I commented. Thinking a new road was opened for me to see the president, and now I had four books on cultural poetry published. So we invited the mother over for coffee, and asked if she could find a way to give her daughter one of my books to give to the President, or perhaps find a way for me to see if he’d see me.
My view out of this was that he never got the book, and the mother never brought the issue back up, and so who got the book? My guess is, the secretary—but it was a chance I took.
“Maybe,” I told my wife, “we should try to go back downtown and do all that paperwork again, and see if we can get in this time.”
“Okay,” she said, and we did it again, to no avail, that was in 2007.
The ambition was now gone, and it was 2010, and I had seven books written on Peruvian culture (had given 14,000-books out free to the inhabitants of Peru, from Lima to Huancayo, to Cerro de Pasco, Satipo and a few other places in Peru).
I told my wife one afternoon I wanted to go and give a letter of gratitude to one of the municipality people, for her assistance in making our neighbor close her window, that was facing our property, she took two-years to brick it up, and finally Katy Gomez, and Dr. Gina, both high profile people at the municipality, had put the pressure on the neighbor.
I told Kathy, “You can’t tell Mrs. Hinostroza anything, she flies off the handle, she just has no consideration for her neighbors,” she was building a rooming house of some sort next door to me, and we wanted the side windows bricked up, to get rid of the peeping toms.
Well, when I went down to visit her, to say ‘Thanks’ formally say thanks, a ‘thank you very much,’ thanks, she wasn’t available, so I left her a note.
We left her office and came into the Mayor’s office to say hello to him, he’s kind of a friend, I had met him twice before. The morning was still early, and he wasn’t available, but his secretary met us, Laura, and we three got to talking about the lady, as we sat in a meeting room—a big room with a long table and many chairs. She sat across from me, my wife sat to the side. There was no hurry. I gave her one of my chapbooks, a book with extracts of the fatter volume “A Leaf and a Rose.” She put it on the table and mentioned in passing, “The Mayor will be giving a speech tonight at Holy Cross Park, in San Juan de Miraflores, you might think about showing up; and tomorrow at 8:00 a.m., President Alan Garcia will be giving a speech at Villa Sur Park (in Villa Lagos).”
I sat there thinking. Sat further back in the chair just deliberating, a bell seemed to have gone off in my brain. I looked at Laura, and she was smartly dressed, and clean-cut looking. “Do you think I can meet him?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, hesitantly, “I’d like to meet him myself, who’s to say.”
Something told me in the back of my mind, this was a doorway, perhaps an opportunity. A curtain no longer hung in front of my face, with the sign “Sorry, he’s not available.”
“Well,” I said to Laura “Rosa and I may be meeting you at both locations.”
I told myself, what if I really get to meet the president; I mean this was too simple, not complicated at all, the way I like things. I was kind of mumbling this as Rosa and I walked out of the two metal doors of the Mayor’s office.
“What do you say?” asked my wife. “Are you thinking of going in the morning, it’s pretty early for you, you’ll have to get up before 7:00 a.m.
“I’m certainly thinking of it,” I said.
We arrived at 8:10 a.m., the following morning, President Garcia was getting ready to talk, and we, Rosa and I got our positions at the back of the crowd, about a thousand people were all around us, we were next to a road though and not many people there just guards and police and military, it faced the side of the grandstand, so when President Alan Garcia came down, he’d most likely look this way and wave. I brought four cultural books, with a slipcase holding them in, made by my friend Gary Buchner, a bookbinder from Minnesota.
“Listen,” my wife told the main security person of the president, “my husband is a journalist and writer, and is it possible for him to give these four books to the president?”
“Oh, no!” he said, “but I can get them to him.”
Well the books and case was worth hundred-dollars, and by experience, we knew who’d get the books, and it wouldn’t be the president.
“We have to give it to him ourselves,” my wife insisted.
“Listen,” the security man said after making a phone call, “I called and asked and they said it wasn’t possible to alter his schedule.” And that was that. And she was done talking to these two men (there was a man prior to this also she spoke with). But it told me: nothing lost, nothing gained. But I had said a little prayer on the side, concerning this matter, and felt I had to follow this hunch through.
A big black car was parked by the steps of the grandstand, and now the president was stepping down them, guards all about. And a light came on in my head, it said: “I opened the door; you have to grab the opportunity.”
A big back car door opened to the black sedan, I stepped up towards the guard behind the gate, he told me to back up, and I did, then the president was about to get into the car, and I stepped back up again, and the guard said okay, I was fine.
There was an automatic moment here, as the president moved back from the door as if to take a look—for some odd reason, and then saw me and made a step forward, I had spread out my hands, the four books in the slipcase in the air, and a smile on my face and I waved to him to come forward. It was as if he was being drawn to me, and then he walked those one hundred feet, bodyguards and all looking about not quite knowing what was up, one of those surprising moments, no bodyguard wants. I think all during that moment, the plainclothes police were holding their breaths, he walked directly up to me, he would look me straight in the eyes, shake my hands twice. When I gave him the books he looked amazed, especially at the one called “The Windmill,” the translated poetry of Juan Parra del Riego. It looked as if he was going to give the books back, and I said “No, they’re for you.” Perhaps no more than ten-words spoken within that thirty-eight second meeting, but it was as if we both of us came under a spell of providence (as Laura would imply to my wife Rosa, that afternoon).
No: 622 ((5-16-2010)(written for the sake of posterity))
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