Doug Ramspeck

Memoir

I was there for the thirteen days
while Santa Anna’s men blared
Èl Degüello on their trumpets,
and I knew that soon the cazadores
would storm the fort’s walls
and impale us with their bayonets.
At night we watched American Idol
to distract ourselves, and once we tried
phoning out to order from Domino’s
but were told it was against company policy
to deliver through 6,100 soldiers
and twenty cannons. Later on everyone
would describe us as heroes, but that’s not how
it felt at the time. Travis and Bowie
were always bickering, and Crockett
kept spouting inanely, “Be always sure
you’re right, then go ahead!”
Someone had the bright idea
to record the siege on our cell phone cameras
and get it up on You Tube,
but for the most part we simply sent
e-mails or text messages to our loved ones:
4EAE, 143, H&K, SIG2R.
The night before the final assault
we grew drunk on sangria
and despaired that we would never grow old
enough to be Wal-Mart greeters.
There was a clarity, then, we’d never felt before.
We were Texians. We were going to be famous.
Our lives and our loss would live forever.