Chapter 6
Unexpected Developments While in Puerto Rico, I met and befriended many fellow students at Inter American University whose friendships I would come to treasure. One girl really caught my attention as she livened up every conversation with her animated and bubbly personality. She could make anyone laugh within five minutes of meeting them. Despite coming from a town once labeled as “the most racist in Ohio” I could not resist the humor and charm of this dark skinned Puerto Rican girl who I will call Nancy for reasons you will understand later. She was popular and after graduation she became a well-liked teacher in the Aguadilla community. She had an infectious personality and I cannot think of anyone who did not like her. Her family lived in the neighboring city of Moca which grows sugar cane and other crops. Needless to say, the more time we spent together, the more fun and distraction I had. She met all of my Coast Guard friends and eventually we fell in love with one another and she moved in with me. Her friends were more than double of my own and they all helped me learn Spanish quickly. Most of them also became my good friends as well as hers. A few months later we discovered Nancy was pregnant and this sort of accelerated our wedding plans in a very conservative Puerto Rico where abortions are taboo.
My business was growing and although I had not planned to marry so early in my life, we got along well and I was convinced it would be a good marriage. I did my best to make it work. I was glad my father had already passed away because if he learned I married a girl of any color other than white, he’d have a heart attack and not before killing me. In truth, I never thought it possible that I could ever marry a black or brown girl. But then again, I never thought I’d be living in Puerto Rico or speaking Spanish either. In Puerto Rico there is no 83
black or white. Everyone seems to be various shades of brown. Puerto Rico was once a Spanish colony that had introduced slaves to the island as agricultural workers and over its long history, the people and cultures integrated quite well. Whatever racism that may still exist is very difficult to find. Caucasians in Puerto Rico are the minority.
Nancy would eventually travel with me to my home in Ohio where my mom was horrified to learn of our marriage and only my closest friends accepted my wife. I’m sure the gossip in our neighborhood continued for months even after we returned to Puerto Rico. Surely there was no way we could live a normal life in a 1976 Ohio as a bi-racial couple. My mom pressured me to seek an annulment but we now had a very beautiful daughter who was our bond. We actually grew closer and all but one of o ur 20 neighbors on E Street in PR were good friends. We had a pretty good life in paradise and I thought I would remain in Puerto Rico forever.
But my new wife, after visiting America started developing “Island Fever” and wanted to move to the States. I was not the least bit interested as I was working hard to expand my business in Puerto Rico. I didn’t know that my wife was looking for teaching jobs in New York where she had some cousins. Being fluently bi-lingual and quite intelligent with a degree in Education, she would be a prized teacher in New York City for sure.
One day I came home from a long day at the beach (my office) and she was abnormally happy and bouncing around with joy and huge smile on her face. Our daughter had just turned three years o ld and I thought maybe she had spoken her first words. But she quickly solved the mystery of her elation by handing me a letter from the City School District of Rochester, New York. It was an offer to come work as a teacher in Rochester and I learned that Nancy had already had a phone interview with them. I was both happy and angry. I 84
was happy to see my wife so happy getting something she had wanted so badly, but I was angry that she never really discussed any family planning with me, nor stopped me from i nvesting money into my business in Puerto Rico. I was not really prepared to abandon three years of growing my business nor was I interested in moving to any Northern city where people basically hibernate during the frigid winters. But she was determined to be a teacher in America and we agreed on a compromise. She would go teach in Rochester for a year and then look for a teaching job in Florida which also had a big demand for bi-lingual certified teachers, and where I could easily find work as a Scuba instructor. That was our plan and for a year I would become a single father with assistance from my mother-in-law who would baby sit while I had to work. She accepted the position which paid triple her salary in Puerto Rico and we sent her off hoping the year would pass quickly.
This i s the old Ramey Air Force Base and the arrow points to my old home.
Back then there was no Skype so our phone calls were short and limited to maybe three per week for about five minutes each.
She was having a blast in
Rochester and doing well in her job. We missed each other quite a bit but accepted the sacrifice as one that would give us a better life in the long term. I 85
started looking for a buyer for my business and started looking for dive shops in Florida that could use another PADI OWSI instructor.
I also sent out some
SF-171 employment application forms and spoke with Jimmy Gaskins the HR guy at U.S. Customs in Miami. Because I was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard and had all the patrol and investigative experience I would be short-listed for a job as a Customs Patrol Officer. I had also sent and application to the FBI in Miami as well. At this time in my life I had no clue as to how much corruption was growing inside the FBI. Eventually they would send me a letter to come in for an interview but as you will see later, the timing could not have been worse.
Our house at 125 E street sat atop a cliff overlooking Borinquen Beach
Then one night I got a call at 2:00 am in the morning from Nancy and she was crying. I did not know what to think because all she did was cry. At first I thought maybe she was mugged or raped or maybe even fired from her job. I asked her if she was okay and she said “yes” but she could not speak. I asked her if I needed to come to Rochester and she said no, and that she would call me back “later” and then hung up. This cryptic call drove me nuts but when I attempted to call her back for the next two days she did not answer. Finally 86
she called me back, I suppose after collecting her thoughts to tell me she had gotten extremely lonely in Rochester and after being invited to a holiday party, she had too much to drink and was befriended by an executive from Xerox. Long story short, she had a short affair with the man who apparently then abandoned her after a few romps. She wanted to come home but I was not sure I how I felt any more about her. Inside I wanted to forgive and forget and I kept rationalizing this desire by telling myself that at least she was honest enough to tell me.
In reality, if she didn’t tell me I would never know. More
importantly we had a daughter to raise who was absolutely beautiful and delightful. Her name was Christian and we were just beginning to bond.
Nancy had already been in Rochester for seven months and I thought she should finish her one year contract and get a letter of recommendation. But now I guess she was feeling homesick and just wanted to come home . I told her to do what she wanted but to calm down and think about it for a few days so she would have no regrets. She opted to come home and I still have no idea what she told her family. They were just glad to see her back home in Puerto Rico and Christi jumped up and down with joy when Mama walked through the door. I suppose it was the right decision after all.
But now I realized personally that forgiving was a whole lot easier than forgetting, and I was finding it impossible to be intimate with Nancy no matter how hard I tried. Although we physically slept in the same bed I had no desire to hold her and Our sex life basically died. We tried talking things out but when I asked her, if she would ever betray me again, she took more than a minute to answer and finally gave me an answer I never expected “I don’t know – I hope not”. Again, at least she was being honest with me.
We stayed together for another month trying to let time help us heal but it wasn’t working and we finally separated. I was very depressed and although 87
my daughter was still able to make me smile and laugh, the good times were gone forever. I would not date anyone again for more than a year and our divorce was inevitable. My mother was directly overjoyed with the news even though she would still ask for photos of Christi and forever ask about her. I had a hard time coming to grips with this obvious contradiction.
Then I received a call from a woman in Miami named Marjorie. She worked for the Department of Justice and she said she wanted to interview me for a position with the Justice Department and she would tell me about the job only if I passed the interview. I agreed. We talked for about 30 minutes and she said she’d get back with me in a few days, and she did. I had passed the interview. Now came the sales job… She told me she had an immediate position for me in Miami with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and if agreed to take it, she would recommend me to the FBI after one year. As she explained, getting into the FBI was competitive but I would have 4 years federal law enforcement experience under my belt in a year and being bi-lingual and a military veteran would make me a preferred candidate. I bought into her pitch because I certainly was not interested in working for the Immigration Agency which has a thankless and much maligned mission – keeping people out of America. But Marjorie sounded very sincere and told me directly that I only had to “endure” one year and she’d move me up and over to the FBI. I agreed to the deal since both agencies belonged to the Department of Justice and frankly, I had no reason not to believe Marjorie. She said I would be an “IDO” at the GS-5 pay level and after one year be eligible for an FBI entry level at GS-7 of GS-9 pay grade.
It wasn’t until after I moved to Miami that I learned what an IDO was. Looking back it would be quite ironic and I suppose poetic justice. But for right now I was really depressed with my failed marriage in Puerto Rico and since 80% of my friends were Nancy’s friends first, I began to feel awkward and even 88
ashamed that we failed as a couple. As much as I loved Puerto Rico and my daughter, I had to get away. Was I running away from my problem or just seeking a new start?
I still don’t know, but as time would tell, the decision
would have a monumental impact on my life as it would begin a chain of events that lead to my current predicament.
My sudden departure would take all my
friends by surprise including the Mayor of Aguadilla who was trying to talk me into running as a candidate for the Puerto Rico Senate or House of Representatives at the time since I had accumulated some influence in the Aguadilla community after the Dow Chemical fiasco and my newspaper editorials. Today Puerto is a bittersweet memory for me – but much more sweet that bitter and I long to see Christi again. The last I heard she married a soldier and by now I could be a grandfather!
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