"Dear Linda.
I found Joel. I was beginning to think you didn't have a cousin.
Pandullo found him working on the frozen generators
behind our tent.
It rains hard at night and icicles freeze on the power
lines and watchtowers.
Pandullo and me throw rocks at them,
knocking the big ones down and busting the layer of ice
on top of the sand.
The ground looks like broken glass when we're done.
I started reading Che's diary again.
I work nights.
And afterward wait outside the comm-tent to call home.
Most of the time I can't get through.
But that's OK.
My familia has things to worry about besides me.
So I watched the sun rise over the burms
and listen in on phone calls home.
Country fights with his old lady, non-stop.
And Pandullo does a lot of baby talk.
I lose track of the days, each one passing
like the same brain-dead movie they show
over and over at the rec tent.
Your cousin, by the way, is an AGE troop.
I asked him for your address to make sure I have the right one.
But he didn't know it.
He told me he went to school in New Mexico.
And I felt better knowing you didn't lie.
But he said to watch out for you,
that you think you're all good, and wouldn't write back
no matter how many pages I sent to you.
I wanted to fuck him up for saying that.
Che wrote that during his trip to South America
he wanted to help all the poor people he met.
Maybe that's why I'm here.
I could be as good as that dude.
I told Joel how you'd wanted me at that bookstore.
I could tell.
Joel called you a snob.
I don't know why you want me to keep a lookout
on a guy like Joel, but I will.
Please write soon, Tomás.
Linda.
I talked to Ma on the phone.
She's not doing too good.
Tata is still in a coma.
And now she sees the ghosts.
They hang out in the backyard and around the porch and wait
for a train that never arrives.
Pancho Villa is with them.
And he's stolen all the corn from the house, all the cans
and frozen bags, even the tortillas.
He screamed at her, told her the soldiers wouldn't make it
past winter without supplies.
Ma made me promise to read my Bible and pray hard for things
to get right.
I went to the chapel tent after we talked.
I found the base chaplain.
And it turned out he had bibles to give away.
And I took two small ones.
I keep one under my pillow and the other in my pocket.
That way I can finish reading the whole thing.
I've started praying to San Judas and Santo Niño.
But I don't know if praying works.
It feels a lot like wishing, which I know doesn't.
I sometimes close my eyes and try
to remember what you look like.
Country thinks I'm sleeping on the job.
I remember your face, your wide nose, and chubby earlobes,
your black hair.
I don't know why I do this.
Why you stick in my head so bad.
I know I'm making too much of you.
But something forces me.
Like if I don't, I won't remember who I was or am
when this is over.
Ma told me Pops spends his day at the hospital crying
for Tata.
I've never seen him even sad, only pissed off.
I don't know who else to tell.
I don't want people to think I'm losing it or going soft.
Your cousin has been avoiding me around camp.
Now that I know him, I see him everywhere:
the Chow tent, the PO tent, the laundry trailer.
Have you told him something fucked up about me?
I want to go home.
Tomás.
Dear Tomás.
Please do not write me again.
You sound like a crazy person.
And have the wrong idea about us.
And your letters, the third one especially,
were completely inappropriate.
We had a nice talk at the bookstore, but that is all.
You seemed interested in Che.
And I thought you could use some background information
before you wasted your money on something
you would not understand.
I regret giving you my address.
I felt sorry for you.
You should forget about me and reconsider things with Ana.
The way you describe her, she sounds perfect for you.
Also what you and your friends are doing over there is wrong.
If I had known what you did specifically,
I would not have spoken with you in the first place.
At least my cousin only fixes heaters.
You need to wake up.
What you're doing there is nothing like what Che did.
He gave up all he had to protect the poor,
all of his family's wealth.
What have you given up?
Who are you protecting?
Linda.
Dear, Linda Guzmán.
You lied in your letter.
I can tell when a girl is into me, and you were.
You talked about revolutions and corporations
and then waited to see if I was impressed.
We had a dance going.
And I let you lead.
You can put whatever you want in your letters,
but I know what I know.
Che was a soldier, fighting and killing, everything
that could happen here.
If my parents had had money, who knows?
I could have been smart like him,
had the chance to act brave and abandon everything for a cause,
instead of hoping to make my own life better.
Still, I understand what Che writes and what he means.
'The stars drew light across the night sky
in that little mountain village.
And the silence and the cold make the darkness vanish away.
It was as if everything solid melted away into the ether,
eliminating all individuality and absorbing us rigid
into the immense darkness.'
After reading so much of these words, words
I can't put together myself.
I know this is the kind of vato you go for,
even when you want one like me.
We've been flying the shit out of our planes.
Country thinks the war could kick up any day.
He's still fighting with his wife.
She's missed some bills and his kid got expelled from school.
She wants a divorce.
I almost feel sorry for him.
Pandullo can't get a hold of his wife.
He thinks she moved back to New Jersey with her parents,
cleaned out their house, and turned off the phone,
took the kid.
He cries at night.
I've tried the Bible but the words are hard.
I feel stupid and I can't get a hold of anyone back home.
Tomás."