“Sofia told me what you’ve been doing, Dad,” Juan’s son, Carlos, was furious.
It was early on a chilly December morning. Juan was supposed to be picking Carlos up at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport. He was scheduled to go on leave for the Christmas holiday. But Carlos wasn’t coming this year.
“What did she say I was doing?” Juan regretted asking that question immediately. He knew the answer, and he didn’t feel he could accept the accusations he knew were coming.
“All that stuff with Tio Pablo!” Carlos screamed into the phone.
Juan pulled the cell phone away from his ear.
“Have you really been manufacturing and delivering fake ballots?” Carlos’ voice carried as though he were on speakerphone. “You’ve betrayed the country! The country we both swore to protect.”
Juan made a soft sound he hoped Carlos would find soothing, “C’mon mijo. It’s not like that…”
“Then what’s it like?” Carlos had stopped shouting, but his words had grown cold. “Do you know what that imposter is doing to the military now? We’ve got real enemies out there, and he’s assigning us all DEI scores and trying to make all our tanks and aircraft run on green energy. He’s going to lead America into defeat.”
Juan wasn’t going to allow his son to disrespect him like this, “Quit whining! Some people win, others lose. It’s the way of the world. I did this for us, mijo. It’s a family business. When you get done playing soldado, you can come home, and we can work together…”
But Juan never finished his sentence.
“I’m a Marine, not a soldier!” Carlos screamed again. “And you’re a damned traitor!” Then Carlos hung up.
“What’s going on?” Maria came into the garage where Juan had been talking. She looked terrified. “What was all that yelling? Is mijo all right?”
“Ah,” Juan groaned, “He’s not coming.”
Maria began to cry.
“Look at the news!” Maria called urgently, “They’ve got helicopters taking pictures of the airport.”
Juan did his best to calm her down, but his efforts were in vain. “What’s going on?” he asked. Juan couldn’t make out everything Maria said, but she was clearly upset. “Let me listen!”
The network of roadways that ran into and out of the Sky Harbor airport was comprised of twisting ribbons of one-way and two-way streets, access roads, and highways with onramps and offramps. As they watched in horror, an enormous flatbed truck pulling a long trailer loaded with pallets of bricks was crashing across the median headlong into oncoming traffic.
“What’s that guy doing?” Juan asked. The road on the other side of the median was straight, and the traffic speed was supposed to be slow there. There was no reason for the driver to crash like this.
“I think he’s doing it on purpose,” Maria breathed, “Look!”
Although the desert landscaping was flat gravel with only a few small, scattered cacti, there was also a long row of low wire-screen gabion fencing filled with decorative rock. From the angle of the oncoming truck, it looked as though the driver was intentionally aiming for the fence.
“He’s trying to flip his trailer!” Juan said, astonished. They watched vehicles trying to back up, but they were piled up too close. There was nowhere to go.
What Are They Protesting?
Choose Option 1: Trump Rotting in Jail
Choose Option 2: Packing the Supreme Court