THE JUKEBOX – Episode 3: Slot 001 (Continued)
“Fortunate Son” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bobby Ames looked like he’d been carved from the same stock as Coltrane, only meaner. Eighty-one years old, ramrod straight, wearing a faded SF ball cap and a look that suggested he’d fought in every war America ever had and won most of them personally.
Marcus set the bottle of Jameson on the table. Top shelf, because something told him Bobby Ames would know the difference.
“You’re late,” Ames said.
“It’s 7:58.”
“Like I said.” He poured three fingers into a rocks glass Coltrane had already set out, drank half of it, and studied Marcus with the thousand-yard stare of a man who’d been evaluating threats since before Marcus’s parents were born. “You look like a cop.”
“I am a cop.”
“Figures. Your brother looked like a Marine. Carried himself accordingly.” Ames finished the whiskey and poured another. “Coltrane says you want to hear about Jackie Ramos.”
“If you’re willing.”
“Willing and able are two different things, but I’m drinkin’ enough for both.” Ames gestured at the jukebox. “You know the basics. Jackie died in Laos in ’71. We added the song. Started the whole damn tradition. What you don’t know is why that song, and why it matters.”
Marcus pulled out the notebook. Ames waved it away.
“You can write after. Right now, you listen.”
The bar was quiet for a Friday. A handful of guys at the other end, Cordova nursing his usual whiskey, and a few cats sucking at darts. The jukebox sat silent in the corner like it was waiting for permission.
“Jackie Ramos was born in DC,” Ames began. “His old man was some connected lawyer, worked for the State Department, had the kind of juice that could make problems disappear. Jackie went to Georgetown, studied political science… had the whole golden boy thing going. Then he enlisted.”
“Why?”
“Because he read a lot of Hemingway and thought war was romantic, probably. Or because his old man was a bastard. Maybe both.” Ames swirled his whiskey. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is Jackie volunteered for SF, made it through selection, and by 1969, he was running recon in Vietnam with my A-team.”
Marcus waited. You didn’t rush men like Bobby Ames.
“Jackie was good,” Ames continued. “Not the best shooter, not the best at land nav, but good at the thing that matters most: keeping his head when everything goes sideways. And he had this thing about music. Always had a tape player, always had Creedence. ‘Fortunate Son‘ was his favorite. He’d blast it before we went out, and it drove the brass insane.”
“Because of the lyrics.”
“Because of what the lyrics meant.” Ames leaned forward. “See, Jackie knew he was exactly what that song was calling out. Rich kid, connected family, could’ve dodged the whole thing easy. His old man offered to get him a desk job in Saigon. Jackie told him to go fuck himself and requested assignment to SOG.”
“Special Operations Group,” Marcus said. “The guys who went into Laos and Cambodia.”
“The guys who died in places that didn’t officially exist.” Ames poured again, this time more slowly. “We ran missions across the border, interdiction operations, recon, the kind of shit that would’ve caused an international incident if anyone admitted we were there. Jackie loved it. He’d listen to ‘Fortunate Son’ and laugh because he was the fortunate son, only he chose different.”
“What happened?”
Ames was quiet for a long moment. The bar sounds filled the space, glass on wood, low conversation, tapping pool balls.
“May 1971. We were running recon along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, eight of us, deep in Indian country. We got compromised. NVA patrol, twice our size, and they had us pinned down on this ridgeline with nowhere to go but down. Jackie was our RTO (radio operator). He called in extraction, but the birds couldn’t get to us…too hot.”
Marcus didn’t write. He just listened.
“Jackie made a decision. He told me to take the team and move to a secondary LZ half a click north. He’d stay behind, keep the NVA busy, give us time to get clear.” Ames’s voice went flat. “I told him fuck off. He pulled rank. Lieutenant outranks sergeant… even when the sergeant knows better.”
“He stayed.”
“He stayed. Gave us fifteen minutes. We heard the firefight the whole way to the LZ…Jackie’s M16, the AKs, then quiet.” Ames finished his whiskey in one swallow. “Birds came in, pulled us out. We went back three days later with a whole company. Found Jackie right where we left him. He’d killed seven of them before they got him. Took two rounds to the chest, one to the head. They left his body as a message.”
The bar felt smaller suddenly. Marcus realized he’d been holding his breath.
“We brought him home,” Ames said. “Had a service at Arlington. Full honors. His old man was crying and talking about sacrifice like he understood a goddamn thing about it. Then we came here. This bar wasn’t called McGarvey’s yet, but it was the same place, and we tried to figure out how to remember him the right way.”
“So, you added the song.”
“Mickey Chen, no relation to you, was our demo guy. He had Jackie’s tape player. We listened to ‘Fortunate Son’ about a hundred times that night, drunk as hell, and somebody said we should make it permanent. Put it on the jukebox so every time someone plays it, they’re playing it for Jackie.” Ames looked at the Wurlitzer. “Coltrane was just a buck sergeant then, tending bar between deployments. He made it happen. Slot 001. The first one.”
Marcus finally wrote it down. The pen felt inadequate.
“Your brother asked me the same questions,” Ames said. “Sat right where you’re sitting, bought me the same whiskey, listened to the same story. You know what he said after?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘I had a guy like that. Made the same choice. I’m still here and he’s not.’“ Ames poured one more drink. “Never told me the name. Never told me where. But I knew what he meant. Survivor’s guilt. The worst kind of weight.”
Marcus thought about Jake in Helmand, about the stories he never told, about the Thursdays spent in this bar listening to other people’s ghosts because his own were too loud.
“Did it help him?” Marcus asked. “Coming here, hearing the stories?”
“I don’t know. He kept coming back, so maybe. Or maybe he just needed to be around people who understood that carrying the dead is part of the job.” Ames stood… steadier than he had any right to be after half a bottle of Jameson. “You writing these for your brother or for yourself?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Good answer.” Ames put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder, brief and heavy. “Jackie Ramos chose to die for seven guys he loved more than his own life. Your brother probably did something similar, even if it was just trying to carry the weight so someone else didn’t have to. Maybe that’s enough.”
Ames walked to the jukebox, fed it quarters, and punched in Slot 001.
The opening guitar riff of “Fortunate Son” cut through McGarvey’s, raw and defiant, exactly the way Jackie Ramos would’ve wanted it.
Marcus wrote it all down. Every word. Because Bobby Ames was right. These men deserved better than fading away.
And maybe, just maybe, so did Jake.
Tegan Broadwater is an entrepreneur, author, musician, former undercover officer, podcast host, and positive change-maker.
If you liked this story (and I know you did), please check out T’s popular book, “Life in the Fishbowl.” In it, he documents his time as a deep undercover cop in Houston, where he took down 51 of the nation’s most notorious Crips.
He donates all profits to charities that mentor children of incarcerated parents.
Learn more about his latest projects at TeganBroadwater.com
Tegan’s Music (Artist name: Tee Cad)
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5LSl3h5TWN1n4ER7b7lYTn?si=o7XaRWEeTPabfddLEZRonA
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@teecad/releases
** Editor’s Note: You can catch T’s recent appearance on our podcast here. To check out the first two episodes of the Jukebox series, click here and here. – GDM
