“On the Doorstep of Eternity”

The Son of Adventure part 3 by T.R. Willey

Cuba, 1959.

Dawn broke over the horizon in the province of Pinar del Rio. Normally mornings were quiet in this pastoral and picturesque part of the island. This morning however, the sound of roosters crowing had been interrupted by another sound – the sharp crack of gunfire.

A young man in green fatigues slumped to the ground. Bound and blindfolded, his blood spilled out onto the fertile Cuban soil. The officer in charge of the firing squad walked up to the twitching body. He leaned over and administered the coup de grâce by firing a single .45 caliber slug into the man’s skull.

Next to the firing range stood a building with holding cells where the condemned men were held as they waited their turn to stand on the doorstep of Eternity.

Sitting inside one of the cells were two Americans. One was young, tall and slender; his shoulders were crooked from an injury sustained as a teenager. The other man was older, shorter, but still tall by Cuban standards. He had a broad, bear-like build, a moustache and wore a western style hat and riding boots. Though different in size and shape there was an unmistakable family resemblance between the two men.

The older man looked down at the small bundle in his hand. In a wrinkled, handmade handkerchief were a watch, a plain wedding band, and a simple leather wallet. Inside the wallet was a worn photograph of an attractive young mother with two young children. As he’d heard the shots there was a sharp lump in the older man’s throat as he realized the woman in the picture was now a widow – the two young children were fatherless. He tied up the bundle and pulled a card out of his pocket to check the address for where they would be heading. It was part of his duties to share the sad news with the dead man’s family. His jaw clenched as he stood and turned to his younger companion. "Alright Son, let’s go…"

The older man was known to the locals as "El Viejo," the Spanish term for "old man." His given name was Thomas H. Willey Sr., and along with his son Tom Jr. he was serving in Fidel Castro’s prison in Pinar del Rio as a minister for the men on Death Row.

Their days would begin at 4:30 a.m., spending the final hours of life with the men condemned to die. After the executions they would report to the main prison to have prayer services with other prisoners awaiting trial. They would then spend the remainder of the day delivering the dead men’s personal effects to the families, informing them that their husbands, fathers, brothers or sons would not be returning home. They held the widows and mothers as they wept and wiped the tears from the eyes of young children who would never see their daddies again. At 10pm they would return to the military base where the trials were being held to learn if there would be executions in the morning and who was to die. They would usually be home by 1:00a.m., and after a pitiful few hours of sleep they were up and the routine started over again.

As they stepped out of the dead soldier’s home, Tom Sr. put on his hat and steeled himself for the remainder of the long day ahead. He wondered if this job would ever get any easier – probably not. He had volunteered for this, so he had no one to blame but himself for the anguish he felt as one man after another was cut down by Castro’s bullets. He knew that pain is the risk every man takes when he chooses to love, and "El Viejo" had a deep love and compassion for the Cuban people.

It had been a rough seven years in Cuba. Contrary to what many may think today, Fidel Castro’s revolution was seen as a Godsend by most, including the evangelical Christians. At the time Castro had yet to show his true colors as a Communist, and enjoyed the support of many in the church.

The previous dictator, the General Fulgencio Batsita, was known as "the butcher" by many. He was an utterly corrupt man who allowed his soldiers and secret police to use Gestapo style tactics to enforce his rule. It was not unusual for opponents of the regime to go missing, only to turn up days later, dead and mutilated on their family’s doorstep. He had allowed the American mafia freedom to set up gambling dens and prostitution in the heart of Cuban cities. It eventually became unsafe for Tom Sr. and the workers from his school to travel at night for fear of being labeled as rebels and shot on site by the trigger happy secret police. As a preacher who by the very nature of his vocation stood against corruption he also knew that it was not beyond the realm of impossibility that his next sermon could be ended by the bullets of Batista’s out of control henchmen.

As the revolution raged on, danger and bloodshed had become so commonplace that bombs would go off in the streets outside churches without interrupting the singing of hymns. Eventually Tom Sr. forbade his wife Mabel to go into town as it was common to see dead bodies lying on the side of the road or on the front porches of homes. On one occasion when she did go into to town, she crossed a street only to have a bomb go off in the spot she had been standing moments earlier.

From the high spots on the seminary campus where the Willeys lived the fires of battle could seen as Batista’s soldiers held positions in the hills around them. Although Castro’s agents had identified the seminary as a safe haven sympathetic to the rebel cause, somehow word never got back to Batista’s secret police and the school was not disturbed.

Then on New Years Day 1959, Batista quietly slipped out of the country. His personal Santeria witchdoctor had told him that it was time to leave, so he fled with two hundred million dollars of the Cuban nation’s money.

People took to the streets. The gambling halls and brothels were raided, and the tables and gambling machines been thrown out and demolished by angry mobs. The gambling hall managers and pimps were rounded up along with many of Batista’s henchmen and thrown into prisons.

The month on death row had taken its toll on Tom Sr. A man who was rarely sick, he soon began to struggle with health issues. He was diagnosed with cancer, and as it was located in his throat he soon lost his ability to speak. Even so, he was constantly thinking of others and sharing his faith with all who were willing to listen, mostly scribbling notes to communicate. On his deathbed he wrote a note to his wife Mabel, "I have a new nurse now. I don’t think she’s a Christian. Can you talk to her?"

He died that evening.

Over 20 years later Tom Jr. stood in a terminal at Miami International Airport. It was 3 a.m. in the morning, and stepping off the plane was a man that looked old beyond his years. They shook hands and embraced as Tom welcomed the man to the United States and freedom. This man was the very prisoner who, unbeknownst to the Willeys at the time, had been granted the eleventh hour stay of execution. Tom Jr. eventually had a part in the man’s release, being part of a delegation in the late 1980’s who had met personally with Fidel Castro to negotiate for the release of ex-political prisoners.

He drove the man to his daughter’s home in Miami – the very daughter who at 3 yrs of age Tom Jr. and his father had comforted all those years ago. She was now married to an American citizen and was her father’s sponsor in the resettlement process. As he witnessed their tearful reunion, Tom Jr. couldn’t help but remember the month that he and his father had spent at the killing grounds of Cuba. In spite of all the pain and death they had experienced, Tom felt in a way that he was now seeing a preview to the reward he believed his father was already experiencing. He wondered if the souls of the men with whom they had ministered were waiting at the terminal in Heaven to welcome Dad as he had crossed over into a new home of freedom and peace.

As Tom Jr. made his way to his car for the drive home he couldn’t help but smile as dawn broke once again over the horizon…

The accused stand before the judges in the January 20^th trials

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