PURPLE HATBAND DAY

“Do we have to go? We’re helping to organize a protest. Isn’t that more important than bistec and sopa bouracha?” Sonia Abrego, thirty-seven minutes older than her twin, Daniel, took the lead in this domestic protest.

“Family is more important. Heritage is more important. One day a year we all get together and be Panamanian. Is that too much of a sacrifice for you,” Hilda, their abuela asked. “Nancy, don’t you instill any pride in your children? Our families were part of the most important construction project ever. That isn’t the only project our families had a role to play.”

“Hilda, my children know very well that our families helped build the Panama Canal. As for other projects, well…” Nancy ended the sentence with an eye twitching on top of a concerned look.

“Maximilien Abrego was responsible for the science program at Balboa High School; without science, there would have been no canal or anything else.” Nancy stopped twitching when she heard her mother-in-law’s answer.

The family was having breakfast around the kitchen island before heading out to Uncle David’s. Desiccated oranges  punctured by cloves hung by a window, drawings, pictures and homework assignments receiving A+’s clung to the sub-zero refrigerator with magnets. One wall was taken up by photos of political mural art. Without political power, eating could become problematical, Nancy told her husband Calvin when she began decorating the new house.

The women had spoken, and now it was Calvin’s turn.

“What is it we were going to be organizing a protest for, anyway? Maybe it is more important than getting some good almojbanos, which I haven’t had since last year.”

“Next week is Hiroshima Day, followed by Nagasaki day,” Daniel explained slowly. “We’re protesting that the spending of money to restock the nuclear arsenal when there are so many other pressing issues. We’re in the middle of a pandemic, you know. Among other problems.”

“How old did you say your children were, Nancy?”

Calvin cleared his throat. “We should get a move on. It’s a long way to Bogota, and I can’t stand New Jersey traffic. And Frick and Frackette, as for you, tomorrow I’ll take you to Village Hall and make sure you get your permit. If two kids show up to reserve Corregidor Square, they could get a run-around for a few days. I know people in the office. Now go get your hats and help your mother pack the car. Don’t drop the cocadas.” Desert and imbibable specialties were the responsibility of the visitors. Everyone would be counting on Hilda’s way-too-hoochy Sangria. The hats were stowed in the luggage bay of the Honda Odyssey; it would be impossible to see anything if anyone were to wear their big Panama hats.

Traffic over the George Washington Bridge was kind, and the New York branch of the Abrego family arrived in Bogota In time to get ready for the football match and for Hilda to complain about why the name of the city where her other son’s family lived was pronounced ‘BoGOta.’ Five years ago, an immigrant family, the Pindar’s, very much like the Abrego’s, but from Bermuda instead of Panama, moved in down the subdivision row. Whenever David and Florence hosted Purple Hatband Day, the two families would have a two soccer matches, 15 minutes for the kids, 30 minutes for the grownups. Team Panama, of course, couldn’t play in their Panama hats, but they tied their purple hatbands around their heads. Team Bermuda, thankfully, kept their Bermuda shorts on. Sonia, for the first time since she had gone to a Purple Hatband Day party, noticed that both her mother and grandmother looked nervous when she or her brother were near the ball. Panama won both games, so Bermuda had to shlepp their island fare up the road. Having worked up mighty appetites on both sides, the serious eating and drinking, along with the concomitant talking and storytelling, looser and goosier by the glass and by the hour.   Barbs were traded about each other’s countries, that Panama was just a big ditch, or that Bermuda could barely grow its own food. Then a string of ‘on the other hands’ would ensue, That Bermuda had the almost the world’s highest per capita GDP, or that the world would be screwed without the Canal.

“Did you know that the Panama Canal could power much of the Americas renewably?” Everyone was looking at Daniel, who was holding a chart. “The Earth spins toward the east. Sea Level is 2.6 meters higher on the Atlantic side of Panama than the Pacific side; the water bunches up while the land is turning towards it.” He tacked his chart to the nerf dartboard and traced the path of the locks. “If you embargo the water on the Atlantic side at high tide and then drop it into turbines on the Pacific side at low tide, you could get gigawatts of power if done correctly. Of course, it would make the moon move away from the Earth, but just ever so slightly.”

“Tell me again Nancy, how old did you say your kids were?”

Conch fritters and jerk goat mingled with Ropa Vieja and tostones. Rum, beer, and Hilda’s hooch flowed like the water on Daniel’s chart. Tikki torches were lit, dance music was shuffled, and the jokes escalated from PG to R.

Cousin Alex, tired of being shy, had come prepared.

“So the Panamanian kid says, ‘Ever hear of the Panama Canal?’

“The Bermudan kid says ‘Sure, of course.’

“Well, my dad dug it.

“Oh yeah? Well, ever heard of the Dead Sea?

“Who hasn’t?

“My dad killed it.”

The eight-year-old got a round of applause from the party.

“My family’s been involved not only in the Canal but in something else really important,” Sonia felt the need to brag.

“Brother” Pindar put her to the test. “What is this very important thing, little girl?”

“Mom never said. It must be really important if she can’t tell me what it is.” It was a tossup as to who was more nervous, the people who knew what was going on or the people who didn’t. It was Hilda who made the decision to open the family closet and let the sun shine in. She faced the challenge with a grin.

“Calvin, Nancy. Your children are planning to stage and anti-nuclear protest.” Hilda was no stranger to rallies and demonstrations, but Sonia’s and Daniel’s was the first she would be related to.

The twins’ parents looked at each other, looked at Hilda, looked at the kids.

“You’re not going to be children anymore after this. Are you sure you want to know?”

The enthusiasm of youth demanded to be told, no matter how foolhardy the choice might be.

“You’re doing an anti-nuclear protest. I’m sure you’ve done your research,” their mother started off. Both kids nodded affirmatively.

“Did you watch Fat Man and Little Boy?

Affirmative again.

“Your grandfather Max and abuela Hilda emigrated to the United States. Max was a mathematician, a physicist, a teacher. He heard people were hiring in Los Alamos. He was hired. As a laborer. Do you remember the scene when the scientists went to work each morning and lined up to show their passes, but the laborers just walked through a hole in the fence?

A pair of yesses, from both would-be protesters.

“You know Abrego is not a common Spanish name, you two, don’t you? It means a very special kind of wind. Max would always stand in line and show his pass. One day he was behind Oppenheimer, waiting to go into the facility. Oppenheimer noticed the name from a theoretical field of math, Bottomology. Your grandfather wrote and published papers about it. Eventually Oppie took to having talks with Max, but without revealing anything classified, hopefully. Oppie, for the entire project, was torn between releasing horrific destruction and the elusive, triumphant joy of making a new thing that works. They knew they could create a massively powerful chain-reaction explosion under test conditions. Theoretically, anyway,” their Abuela said with a sardonic emphasis on theoretical. “At this point in the project, they thought would have to mount a field artillery piece inside a destroyer, off-load the crew, and use the big gun to ram half of the core into the other half.”

The Bermuda guests were starting to hover around the exposition. Brother was especially attentive, and his own brood was looking inspired by what kids not much older than them could do.

Calvin took over the discourse. “Do you remember the scene when the laborers were playing football during lunch? And Oppenheimer was looking at the ball? It was your Grandfather’s ball, but he left it with the other guys to keep playing. This next is from what Max told me, just before he died. Of leukemia.

“The youngish geometer and pick-ax swinger showed Oppie that they if they can’t use one big gun, use twelve smaller ones. ‘Look at the ball, Oppie. 12 pentagons, each surrounded by five hexagons. 12 shots simultaneously from the pentagons, with the hexagons absorbing the shock. It would implode the core and set off the reaction.’

“So, without Max, there would be no atomic bomb?”

“No, kids. They would have figured it out. But maybe they wouldn’t have figured it out before the war ended, and they didn’t have to use it.”

“So, Is our whole family sons of bitches now?”

“Maybe. But a few years up the timeline and you’d become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.  And good, I see you were paying attention to your sources.”

Liza Pindar came over with her kids.  “You see? We are from a slave family. They are Mestizo. And here we both are, living in nice houses, able to do important things. A lesson for you, kittens.”

“How does that affect your protest, apples of my eye,” Calvin asked

“Positively, Dad. I’m going to tell this story at the protest. With emphasis on the not wanting to release monstrous horror.”

As the sun set over the leafy streets of Bogota, New Jersey, the kids got together for the closing ceremony.

In perfect harmony, the five kids belted out “He wore tan shoes with pink shoelaces, a big Panama and a Purple Hatband”.