Who were those guys?
Maybe you have had some, “Wow, I’m still here, that was a close one” moments. This was one of mine.
I made it! After fifteen months of challenging training, I was a United States Air Force pilot, an officer and, officially, a gentleman. My mother flew all the way from Hagerstown, Maryland to Lubbock, Texas to pin my wings on. That was a big deal in 1955. Commercial airline flying was uncommon back then. Still, my father had flown out to San Antonio, Texas when I was in preflight. I learned later that he had a rough flight home and decided that flying was not for him. I would have liked to talk with him about that, but I learned it from my oldest sister years after Daddy had died.
Our next assignment was Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas. It would be our first as officers and full-fledged pilots. We would transition into the C-119 aircraft and qualify as troop carrier pilots. After we got good at flying that big bird, we would learn how to drop paratroopers, jeeps, artillery pieces, other heavy equipment, and supplies–hopefully, just where they wanted them to land. But first, we had two weeks off to do whatever. My buddy, Bob Shaw, had a crush on a sergeant’s daughter who was somewhere in Southern California and he wanted to see her before we reported for duty at Randolph Field. Since I had nothing better to do, when he asked, “Hey Mac, wanta go to California?” I said, “Sure.”
We would see some of the guys who we graduated with in a couple of weeks at Randolph, but we had some goodbyes to do with others who we would probably never see again. We had been through a lot together, so that was not always an easy thing to do. Still, the prospect of a new and exciting adventure always won the day. Both Bob and I had a car, so we packed them up with our meager belongings, looked at a roadmap and headed west in our little two-car caravan.
There was no GPS back then and no cell phones. We used maps and once we were on the road in separate cars, we couldn’t talk to each other until we stopped somewhere. That might sound primitive by today’s standards, but I had a sleek 1950 Buick convertible with a good radio and leather seats, and to be an Air Force pilot with a spiffy set of wheels at 20-years-old, was pretty damn cool. But the truth is, I didn’t think much about it because I was too busy living it to quantify or analyze it.
I don’t remember the exact route we took but after a long drive with a couple of quick pit stops our first overnight stop was El Paso, Texas. This was before the interstate highway system was finished and it was much more scenic than it is now. There were a lot of interesting and curious things to see as we traveled between towns. For example, on one of those roads, there was a huge ball of string maybe 20 feet high or more with a big sign saying “Stop and see the biggest ball of string in the world” or something like that. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it was a lot of fun back then to pull over and chat with the locals or other travelers for a while about the biggest ball of string in the world and then move on. These road trips weren’t just trips between one place and another; they were adventures and, often, memorable ones.
As we pulled into El Paso, we made some inquiries and got directions to the nearest YMCA. Their rooms were cheap, clean and safe. Well, if you kept your door shut. I’ll get to that later. We took a quick shower, headed out for a bite to eat and then back to the room. We were right next-door to Mexico, so I asked Bob if he was up for a trip over to Juarez and he passed.
I drove down to the border and parked my car in a small dirt parking lot on the American side. Since I had all of my worldly belongings in my car, I thought it better to park on the American side and walk over the border to Juarez. I didn’t have a passport back then and I guess they weren’t needed because I never had a problem getting through the American and Mexican customs people with my driver’s license and Air Force ID.
I was in Mexico–a foreign country! That was another big deal. People didn’t travel to other countries unless they were rich or had some business or career reason to do so. Our GIs were an exception. In the first and second world wars plenty of them went overseas. And far too many never came back. I grew up watching our young men and women go off to war knowing that some would never come back and seeing others come home without arms or legs or eyes or whatever else that changed their lives forever. But now we were at peace and I was in the military and I was the first one in my family to go to a foreign country. I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia and I don’t remember going into the city more than four or five times and two were school trips to see the Liberty Bell and other historical sites. New York city was only a two-hour car ride away, but I didn’t get there until I was in the Air Force. Things were a lot different back then—some better, some not so good.
What to do now? The only agenda I had was to not have an agenda. If you’re alive, things happen. I wandered around for a while to get a sense of the place, it’s personality. There was still an Old West feeling about it. On the edges, I would not have been surprised to see John Wayne ride into town on his favorite mount. People had less on the Mexican side. That was obvious the moment you stepped across the border. I headed for a little bar and restaurant that looked welcoming and took a seat at the near end of the bar. Behind me to the left, the room was full of people at tables drinking and eating and being. As I turned back to my right, I found myself looking into the eyes of a very pretty girl. She could have been Audrey Hepburn’s Mexican sister. I smiled and she smiled, and we quickly realized that neither one of us could speak the other’s language. Even though I had suffered through two years of high school Spanish, I couldn’t put a coherent sentence together. I ordered a beer.
I don’t know how we did it but we somehow managed to communicate that she was the cashier. Well, that was obvious because she was sitting in front of the cash register and she rang up checks for the waiters and the bartender. Anyway, I hung around until she got off work and she said I could walk her home. That took an exchange of a few disjointed single words and some comically creative sign language. We walked through narrow dirt paths between unpainted small wooden houses to where she lived. She didn’t invite me in, and I didn’t ask to go in. She said she wasn’t married and didn’t have a boyfriend and that she lived with her family.
I figured she was a nice, pretty girl next-door type who a steady young guy might, someday, take home to meet mother. That kind of thinking sent a signal to my testosterone to behave itself. So, I was being the gentleman that I had most recently officially become. It’s easy to understand it all now but back then I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about any of this much, if at all. And, as time would tell, I really had no intention of taking anyone home to mother at that time or for a long while after. Still, it was all very nice in the moment. I said good night.
I had kept track of where we were going and how to get back to the border and after a brisk 15-minute walk through the dark, narrow dirt pathways then past the Mexican and American checkpoints I made it to my car without any problems. But in a few minutes all hell would break loose.
All these years later there are some details about this story of which I can’t be perfectly sure. But other details are forever burned into my memory and when you hear the story, I think you will understand why.
To remind you, my car was a convertible. It had metal bars inside along the top to support the canvas roof. I had hangars with my uniforms and some of my civilian clothes hanging on one of those support bars. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, it meant the only things I could see in the rearview mirror were my clothes. Fortunately, I still had a sideview mirror. I’m telling you about this because not having use of the rearview mirror could have had something to do with what happened next. I’m still not sure.
I remember that the street was empty. When I walked through the checkpoints across the border to the American side, there was no traffic. By then it was about 2 AM. What I don’t remember is whether I pulled out of the parking lot nose first or I backed out onto the street. That’s important because the moment I got on the main street and pulled away, all hell broke loose. A car horn started blaring repeatedly behind me and I heard what sounded like a gang of very angry men shouting something in Spanish. I don’t recall seeing a car when I pulled out and that would make sense if I had backed out because I would have been unable to see anyone behind me in my rearview mirror. When I heard the horn and the screaming, I looked in my side view mirror and saw a car with arms and angry faces sticking out of both sides with fists shaking and people yelling. And they were yelling at me. The car pulled up on my right side and I floored the gas pedal. I had no idea what this was all about, but I knew it was bad. Whoever these guys were, they wanted to do me serious harm. I had to get rid of them somehow and fast. As I picked up speed, I pushed the door lock button down on my side and glanced over to make sure the passenger side door lock was also down. It was.
If I knew how to get back to the YMCA when I pulled out of the parking lot, within seconds of hearing and seeing that wild bunch of crazies, I was completely lost. Even if I had remembered where it was, I would not have gone there. I knew that if I parked my car and got out, anywhere, they would have been on me in seconds. I needed to either get them off my tail somehow or find some cops. I started making one screeching turn after another down dark streets not having any idea of where I was or where I was going. They stayed with me at every turn. There was no space in my being for any kind of lengthy speculation as to who they were and why they were chasing me. Things get remarkably and unequivocally pure when one’s life is suddenly under a sustained attack by an outside force. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, “Nothing focuses the mind like an impending hanging.” It didn’t matter who they were or why they were after me. I just wanted them gone.
At every turn, I was looking for a lighted area with people or cops. Yet I kept turning from one empty, dark street onto another. Until, after what seemed a very long time, I saw lights up ahead. It was a gas station and there was a guy holding a clipboard and it looked like he was writing down information from the gas pumps. There was no one else in sight; no cars moving and no people. In fact, I had not seen another moving car or another person anywhere until the gas station guy showed up. It was like everyone had left town. Of course, they were all asleep and little did they know that they were missing a really exciting car chase going on right in their neighborhood.
The gas station was on the near-left corner of an intersection with a four-lane city street that had a shallow divider in the middle. I was moving fast and when I made an abrupt left turn into the gas station, the screaming banshees behind me missed the turn, went into the intersection and made a quick left on the other side of the divider. The gas station attendant was on the other side of the pumps when I rolled down my window and asked him where I could find a cop. The crazy guys had stopped on the other side of the divider and were getting out of their car. The attendant asked if they were after me and when I said yes, he said good luck and ran toward the gas station office. Obviously, these guys meant to harm me, and now, maybe him. I’m guessing that within the next 15 seconds he locked himself inside and called the cops.
I counted five of them as they headed for the gas station and me. Two of them were already crossing over the street divider and the others were close behind. I took a quick look at my door locks; they were still down and locked. Then I stepped on the accelerator and aimed right at them. I had to get the speed just right so I could get over the street divider without getting hung up on it. I didn’t want to actually hit any of them, but I did want them to know I meant business, that I would run over them if I had to to save my life. As I crossed over the divider, they scattered but one of them managed to get his hands between the top of the driver-side window and the convertible roof. He was hanging on to my car door inches away from me! OK sucker, that’s it; you just jacked things up a notch too high. This has to end. Now, I’m going to hurt you. I reached up with my left hand to try to unhook his fingers from the window top or to break them if that didn’t work. I crossed over the divider and onto the street heading away from their car. I stepped on the gas and began rocking the car back-and-forth to get rid of the guy hanging onto my car. He fell off and as I sped away, I looked in the side view mirror and saw him hit the street and roll a few times. On a second look, I saw some of them running toward him. I put some distance between me and them.
I made a right hand turn and stepped on the gas only to see within a couple of blocks that it was a bad choice. I was fast approaching what looked like a dead end into a big dark parking lot for some kind of a large city municipal building. At the same time, I noticed headlights in the distance behind me and since there had been no other cars on the road this whole time, I had a hunch it was the mysterious bad guys. As I shot into the pitch-black darkness of the parking lot, the only lights were my headlights. I did a fast, wide circle to the left searching for another way out. I didn’t see one. I kept circling to the left and headed for the only way out—the same way I had just come in. And there they were, headed right for the entrance, maybe 100 yards away and coming fast. My stomach tightened as I floored the accelerator. They wouldn’t dare to block my escape at this speed. Would they? No, it would be suicide for them. Anyway, they’re cowards. We passed each other! I quickly made a couple of turns back into the dark emptiness of El Paso’s 2 AM streets.
I don’t know if they ever came out of the parking lot because I never saw them again. I also don’t know how I found my way back to the YMCA, but I did, and I was very glad to be there. Still, as fate would have it, there’s still more to tell. It was a very unusual night.
The door to our room was cracked open when I arrived. That was because it was a hot El Paso summer night and there was no air-conditioning. The room was barely large enough for two metal frame single beds—one on each long wall, which was about 8 feet. Besides the beds, there was one lamp at the foot of my bed and a small table at the foot of Bob’s bed. There was also one screened window, which was open in case a breeze happened to find it and come our way.
Bob was fast asleep, so I grabbed my tooth brush and headed for the communal men’s room. When I got back, I stripped down to my shorts and laid down on top of the sheets. Even though I wanted to tell Bob about my bizarre night, I didn’t want to wake him up and, anyway, I was pretty tired. I remember closing my eyes and thinking how lucky I was to have made it back to the room alive. I told myself that, tomorrow, I would try to figure out what that wild car chase had been all about. But for now, I just wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes and began to drift off. It felt good. I made it. I’m safe and sound. Tomorrow is another day. And someone touched me!
Someone touched my privates. OK, by now you should be saying to yourself, “This guy is making all this stuff up.” Really. But I am not. So, someone touched my privates and it startled me and I opened my eyes and saw a guy bending over me and I yelled, “What the hell” as I swung at him and missed as he quickly pulled away. He ran out the door and down the hallway. I bolted out behind him. All he was wearing was a towel, which he held onto with his right hand as he ran. He disappeared around the first corner he came to and I gave up the chase. I had had enough for one night and, anyway, what was I going to do if I actually caught up with him?
When I got back to the room, the light was on and Bob was sitting on the edge of his bed. He looked still half asleep when he asked, “What’s going on, Mac?” I said, “Some guy just grabbed my pecker while I was trying to get to sleep and I chased him down the hall until he disappeared around a corner. I might have just learned what an open door really means at the YMCA. Anyway, I’m tired so I’m gonna close the door and lock it, turn out the light and go to sleep and I’ll tell you the rest of the story, which is a really good one, tomorrow.” Bob said, “Sounds good to me.” I shut the door, locked it, turned off the light and we went to sleep.
I had lot of questions. I still do. Who were those guys? There was the girl in Mexico I walked home who might’ve been someone’s girlfriend. Maybe when I pulled out of the parking lot, I didn’t see them, and they got angry at me for cutting them off. If I had to bet, my money would be on that one. Yet all these years later, I still don’t know anything for certain. Still, I don’t think it had to do with the girl because of what happened the next couple of days.
As expected, Bob agreed that it was a good story, in fact, a great story. Or should I say, two stories? Holy whatever! Bob was anxious to see the sergeant’s daughter in California and I said, “Maybe I’ll stick around here for a couple of days.” And Bob said something like, “Really, Mac? You mean here, right here in El Paso or maybe you mean Juarez. What do you mean by here because either ‘here’ does not seem to be a good place to be.” And I said something like, “Yeah, I get your point, but I think it’ll be all right. That girl is really nice, and I want to check her out a little more. Hey, I’ve always had a thing for Audrey Hepburn.” I got a phone number where I could reach Bob in California so I could catch up with him if I changed my mind. I never used it and the next time I saw him was at Randolph Field in San Antonio.
The rest of this is really just a footnote to the car chase story. After Bob left, I waffled back and forth about sticking around and even headed west into the desert for a while toward California. Even that was exciting because I ran into the worst storm I had ever experienced. I was on a two-lane highway and could not see a foot in front of me because of the heavy rain. What really got my attention, though, was the wind and rain combination. It was vicious. I thought it might rip the top off my convertible or even pick up my car and deposit it wherever. Was it a tornado? Needless to say, all traffic stopped for a good 10 or 15 minutes before it subsided. I don’t know whether that’s what made up my mind or if it was my interest in Audrey Hepburn, but I turned around and headed back to El Paso.
I checked back into the YMCA and headed across the border to see Audrey that night. The rest was pretty routine. I walked her home again and told her I’d see her the next night. She told me she had the next night off but would meet me in front of the restaurant. When I got there, she asked if I would like to go to a real Mexican restaurant— one where the tourists never went. The food was good, and we were entertained by four guys with guitars and other instruments. It was all very authentic and wonderfully “foreign” to a very unworldly young man. It was fun. I drove my car across the border the next night and we stayed at a nice motel outside of Juarez. I continued to behave myself during my entire time with Audrey. I would like to expand on that, but time and life and crowded memory banks have left no further clues.
The mystery of the El Paso car chase is still unsolved. I can only report that those desperadoes never showed up again. I did tell Audrey all about it and she assured me that she did not have a boyfriend and had no idea who they could have been.
I decided to not go to California. Instead, I headed for Randolph Field the next day. I don’t remember why I cut my time with Audrey short, but it was probably because I couldn’t afford it. Uncle Sam took care of all our basic needs and of course we got a salary, but not enough for many restaurant dinners and motel nights.
And Audrey? Well, we wrote to each other once or twice, each having to get a translator to understand what was said. And that was it. Life moved on and was—I can happily say—never dull.