The Summary

In last week’s exciting episode, I was doing my morning KCBQ show when a sinister sounding Mexican called threatening newsman Ben Shirley’s life. Ben fled the studio in panic right then and there. In the prior “Happy Hare Mad as Hell,” I described Ben. Picture The Hulk, only without muscles, but when he became mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it any more, he turned bright crimson.. That was Ben. Who was this Mexican who was bent on popping Ben? Obviously, the wrong guy to  dis on the radio..

Ben was gone. Was he dead? Hiding? Where? I had instituted a frantic public search for him, climaxed by an anonymous phone call from a woman who whispered to me that Ben was in Matamoros. She did not say where in Matamoros, so I hopped a plane and went there. It would help that I speak fluent  Spanish.

Ben was a red haired Americano. He would stand out in Mexico. I figured that if I went to the Plaza, the traditional Mexican gathering place, and asked around, that someone there might have spotted him.

At the Plaza, I met a distinguished looking Mexican who told me, speaking in perfect Midwestern English, that Ben was being held in a suburban jail. I grabbed a cab, and sped to the jail where I found, not Ben, but a young red haired American in a cell,  lying half dead in his own waste.. I was flooded with pity for this wretched young man  and momentarily forgot about Ben. I had to get him out of there..

After using what I thought was my Spanish speaking eloquence on the Sheriff, he released the young American whom I then carried to the Plaza where the mysterious Man awaited…..surprise!….with Ben Shirley.

It finally hit me.

I had been played. The Man had known all along where Ben was, and I had been the patsy in an elaborate scam to spring the kid. But why? I had mixed feelings: relief at seeing Ben safe and okay, and the realization that it had not been my eloquence in Spanish that had sprung the kid. It was a phone call from The Man to the Sheriff ordering his release in my care. All timed to perfection and seamless. But why? If The Man had that much juice,  why use me at all?  

       Fast forward to where we pick up the story at The Plaza.  

Ben Shirley laid a big Mexican embrace, an abrazo, on me, and The Man was gripping the kid’s arm to keep him upright. He led him to a nearby bench and I followed, brimming with determination to untangle this web of intrigue in which I had been wiggling. Ben tagged along with a silly grin on his face. He knew I was going to explode and wanted to watch.

To Ben’s disappointment, and out of consideration for the kid, I spoke to The Man in Spanish. I said that he knew that the prisoner was not Ben, and that he had put me in danger of being thrown in that stinking jail, or even killed. He smiled disarmingly and said, “You were never in danger, amigo. I am deeply grateful,” He pointed to the kid,  “and you helped save this young man’s life. It would have been inappropriate for me to go in person to do it. It had to be someone who was unknown. Ben doesn’t speak Spanish and you do,” he explained patiently “The Sheriff speaks no English. You came along at the right time. You are right, you were set up but it was for a good cause.”

I glared at Ben, who smiled back. The Man was right. I had helped save the kid’s life. Ben’s smile was contagious. I caught his spirit, and despite myself,  smiled.

The kid, by now, was stirring, and looked up at me. “Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have stood it in there for another day.” Probably for the first time in a year, he smiled, but then his smile collapsed and cascaded into a flood of tears. The Man sat down with him and wrapped an arm around his heaving shoulders.

“What now?” I asked no one in particular. Just then, an ambulance pulled up on the edga of the Plaza.  Two white coated men emerged and walked briskly toward us when The Man beckoned to them. I watched them ease the limp youngster onto a gurney and roll him back toward the ambulance.

“Who are you?” I asked with an  involuntary  beg in my voice.

“Ben will fill you in,” he replied curtly ”I have to go take care of his papers so he can leave the country after he is checked out at the hospital..” He wheeled around, trotted to the ambulance without looking back, and stepped up into the rear door after they rolled the gurney into place. Then, almost impishly, he looked out of the rear door, smiled and waved to me as they shut the door. 

Ben and I were on the plane headed back to San Diego. He had slumped into a nap when we boarded, leaving me impatient to grill him on everything that had befallen me in Matamoros. Finally, he sat up and looked at me like why are you here? Ben had not lost his edge. “Harry,” he said in a stentorian voice. “You have been in on an adventure that you may not understand. First, I am still in mortal danger, although the fellow back there said he would fix everything for me by the time I land in San Diego.”

“But who is he?”  I insisted  “What is he?”

Ben thought for a minute. “The nearest thing I can figure is that he is a government big shot.. All I know is that he couldn’t compromise himself by going to the jail, but had the power to order the sheriff to let the boy go.”

But, why did you  involve me? I asked angrily.

He thought for a moment, “I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but he approached me in the Plaza because he was looking for a Spanish speaking American to get the boy released like it was the most important thing in his life. That’s all I know,” said Ben with finality. But, then he went on. “I was phoned by the woman who called you at KCBQ that she heard you say on the air that you were going “to find Ben Shirley” and I figured you would go to the Plaza. When I saw you today, I told our friend that you speak Spanish and that was when he approached you to go to the jail.”

He ordered a margarita from the attendant, then adroitly changed the subject. “ How did you learn  Spanish,?” he asked

I figured that this was all I was going to get out of Ben, so I went along with his heavy handed diversion. It was time, anyway, to loosen things up with a little Happy Hare shtick.

“I learned Spanish through immersion,”  I began in a serious tone, “I was inner-tubing on the Rio Grande River some years back when four guys from Juarez rowed up to me and one said, ‘We are going to immerse you till you learn Spanish.’ They grabbed my head and ducked me under. I learned the entire Spanish language by immersion in a minute forty four seconds.

Ben was shaking his head sincerely during my discourse…yes… yes….then broke out laughing when the punch line hit him in a delayed reaction. Exhaustion had slowed him down….me too. I gave away to a wave of fatigue, and jerked awake only when the plane wheels yipped on the tarmac at Tijuana airport. .

                                            Fast forward

Life got back to what passed for normal for me. The Man had apparently done his work. Ben didn’t get snuffed.

As imposing as The Man was, my great Mexican friend Victor Rubio, left him in the dust.. For some reason, Victor was a fan

Victor was huge.  Get this!

A couple of dozen Americans were busted for gambling at a casino in Rosarito Beach, west of Tijuana. The operator must have forgotten to pay his mordita to the law, as gambling  though illegal, was winked at.

A cattle truck was dispatched to the plush casino, where the policia loaded up the formally attired American gamblers in the flat bed, and transported them some 25 miles in the near freezing night to the Tijuana jail. The next morning I was called at KCBQ by frantic relatives on the American side to do what I  could to get them released.

 The first thing to do on the air was to ask for food and blankets. I knew it was frosty in the Tijuana jail. I’d heard that there were no mattresses on many of the steel bunks, and prisoners died under the loving care of the guards.

My air campaign to get food and blankets for them was a hit, and I drove down to Tijuana that night to deliver them. Helped by my 40% of the audience, I talked my way into the cell area to try to comfort the frightened Americans, and assure them that help was on the way.

It was Dante’s inferno. One poor Mexican prisoner had been given an ice cold shower in the already bone chilling prison, and carried back to his cell, his body a deep purple, and as  stiff as a board

The next morning. I went on the air describing the plight of the Americans and had just finished the show when the phone rang. It was Victor Rubio. “Harry,” he said, “You can relax. The Americans have been released.” No bail. No charges filed, just let go.  He had done that  with one phone call. And now for his next act.

In the latter 50’s,. before I went to New York for Bartell, I went to see the horse- back riding matador, Carlos Arruza, at the Bullring by the Sea on a dusty two lane  road some five miles west of Tijuana That drive was like going the wrong way at Daytona. Cab drivers would race to the arena, deposit their load, then turn around and speed back on both sides of the road toward TJ and more fares. It was chaos and perilous for law abiding drivers such as myself and thousands of others driving on the right lane.

            When the fight was over, I went to Victor’s restaurant  for the best carne asada in the world. He was a young ambitious man at that time, years before he blossomed into a major financier of hemispheric stature, and owner of thousands of acres outside of Ensenada where he worked a ranch, estancia, dedicated to breeding and training a  herd of world class  thoroughbred horses.

That night, Victor sat beside me and could see that I was worked up. “I am going on the air tomorrow and raise hell about the traffic going to the bull ring, Victor. Someone is going to get killed.” Victor was a low key guy who spoke a good Midwestern American accent if he wasn’t quite sure of you, but if he liked you, more softly like Marlon Brando in Viva  Zapata.” He said, “Harry, why don’t you give me a chance to straighten it out before you say anything?” Of course, I said yes to my friend.

            The next week, I received two passes that seated me next to the Governor of Baja. When I went to the fight that Sunday, traffic was downright sedate. There were Mexican soldiers stationed every 100 yards for the entire five miles to the arena. Men with rifles. Everyone behaved. Victor had made a phone call that resulted in the callout of the Mexican Army, hundreds of  troops.

He ate lunch every day at Victor’s, his namesake restaurant in Tijuana. I would go there occasionally and see high ranking army officers, judges, police brass, the Mayor and often, the Governor of Baja eating lunch.. I watched Victor treat them with respect as he made the rounds at their tables. The respect cut both ways. They treasured his coming over to sit with them, often steering them gratis toward a lucrative investment. It was easy to see why he could ask them for a favor and get it done. Here in the U.S, he was renowned as a visionary money man who made a lot of yanquis rich lecturing on Mexican investments in major American markets.

He was a man of many parts. He read American classic writers: Hemingway, and  Maugham in English. Picture this: a San Diego rock and roll radio jock associating with this  powerful cultured  amigo in Mexico..

Soon afterward I went to New York for more adventures, but my friendship with Victor was sustained by phone visits  while I was in New York, Cleveland, and Detroit.

Last year, he died of a rapidly spreading lung cancer, and I happened to call him just as he was breathing his last. I was told that he couldn’t talk, but he heard that it was me and I heard him say, “ I will talk to him.”

He didn’t tell me how close he was to the end when he said to me, “Harry, was I a good friend?” Without realizing the profound significance of his question, I said,  “Victor I can’t imagine a finer man than you. Si. You are a great and true friend.” 

My large Anglo audience forgave me when I spoke a little Spanish to my San Diego Latino listeners.. I liked to kid them on the square like, “Lose that name “Chicano.“ If you want a catchy name with a salsa flavor, call yourself an “Americano.” If you want to make it even catchier, call yourself a ‘Cano.’ Better yet, call yourself what I always call you… an American.”

Although I have been off the air for some time, I was the guest of honor at a major Chicano dance last year. I got up and spoke to a thousand Chicanos-Latinos-Americans- just as lovingly and irreverently as ever and they loved it. On stage, I said “As you guys know, I never liked that word, “Chicano.” It sounds like something you order at a Mexican drive-through “Give me three tacos, an enchilada, and four Chicanos, please, and make those Chicanos  picante- hot-“ They roared.

I made a lot of Mexican friends in Tijuana and Latinos in San Diego, not because I was politically correct. In fact, Political Correctness is a wall we have erected between ourselves and those with whom we sincerely wish to communicate.  It is no bueno.              

              If people know you love them, you can get away with most anything.  

                             On the other hand,  Never poke fun at Mohammad. 

In Mexico, if you get into trouble,. You fall into the black hole of a justice system based on what they call  “the inquisitional system.” Not our “adversarial system” where you get a lawyer who will argue your case. In Mexico, you may have a lawyer but he will be there to hand your plea to the judge and maybe  say a few words in your defense. But, in Mexico, the judge and the prosecutor huddle together and discuss your case and then the judge most often will throw you in jail. Then, you are forgotten unless you have a lot of money to buy yourself out.