Near Love Stories
by J. B. Hogan

Up from Matagalpa

If Anna Lee Dunn hadn't caught hepatitis in the jungles of Nicaragua I would have never had the opportunity to get to know her. I had seen her around town many times before she went to Central America and she was at every demonstration I ever went to. And I had even once taken a Care package from her folks to her on my first trip to Managua and before I came back that time we accidentally ran into one another on a street beside the pyramid-shaped Hotel Intercontinental. But till she came back to Tucson to recuperate I never really got to know her.

It was some kind of picnic/rally attended by a fair representation of all the local progressive groups. The U.S. Out of Central America group with which I was peripherally involved was there, as were some members of the local CP (always a very small group) and, of course, there was a contingent of local religious folk - good people but more moderately progressive, certainly, than the leftists. I had come that day to pass out a crazed newsletter I had produced called Con Plomo, which was nothing more than eight to ten pages of screed and built up bile from a large well of frustrated, unexpressed political anger. When you have been angry for years at a political system and you have no satisfactory outlet for that anger, then you do silly things like create your own newsletter. Luckily for me, no one, including Anna Lee, seemed to hold my stupidity against me.

In fact, Anna Lee - and everybody else probably - didn't even notice Con Plomo, which was fine but she and I did visit briefly. I was in line beside her under an open air ramada in the park waiting to fill my plate with whatever edibles I could find on the well laden tables before us. It must have looked like a feast to her after being in Nicaragua so long. Nicaragua was the poorest country I'd personally ever been in and even food and drink, which I had to come to associate with the essence of all Latin-based cultures, was really hard to come by. I thought these things but didn't say so to Anna Lee; I just said hello.

"Hello," she replied, glancing briefly at me.

Up close she was even taller than I remembered and definitely thinner - courtesy of the hepatitis. She had shoulder length brown hair that she clearly didn't feel like worrying about. It was sort of tousled and covered the sides of her plain, unadorned face. When she looked right at you, you could see that her left eye was slightly lazy and her features, while still showing some of their natural ruddiness, were not what you would describe as traditionally pretty. She was pleasant to talk to and there was a certain sparkle in her eyes and a slight curl to her lips that made her seem intelligent, alert, and rather ironically bemused by life in general. Overall, she was a very appealing woman.

"I'm sorry you had to come back this way," I groped for some way of keeping her attention aimed at me. The sparkle and the curl were clearly there when she answered.

"I'm just glad to get some good food to tell you the truth. It's hard to get a lot of stuff down there. But you know that. You've been down twice, right?"

"Right," I said, actually knowing what she meant but feeling like the worst kind of political dilettante compared to her natural, deep commitment. I had been to Nicaragua twice, for three weeks each time, and although I learned quite a bit, I had accomplished nothing of use to anyone. We were quiet for a moment, and then I blurted out: "Remember that time I saw you on the road by the Hotel Intercontinental in Managua?"

"Of course," she said evenly, her eyes crinkling at the corners. I looked down at my feet. "Are you going to the Calero demo next Saturday?" she asked, letting me off the hook onto which I had been trying to impale myself.