Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  “And you’re not man enough to put up with some little things to learn your lessons?” asked Juan.

  Pedro was coming up the road. He was all wet and still rubbing his behind.

  “Well, yes, Uncle, but day after day?”

  “And you don’t think I get the same thing out here? Hell, just to find out where to get the sugar, I sweated blood!”

  “But Uncle, you got respect. No man even dreams of stepping on your shadow.”

  Juan took a big breath, watching Pedro come up. “That’s true,” he said, “in the barrio. But not with the Anglos. Hell, to rent the new house, I had to say I was a Greek. José, I was a boy, no bigger than you, when I went to prison and grown men tried to abuse me, but I fought ’em. Look!” he said, ripping his shirt open. “They cut my stomach open, left me for dead, but I never gave in! Because I’m a man, goddamnit! I don’t care what an old-fart teacher tells you; you pay attention and learn! Reading, education, that’s what’s going to get us ahead in the long run. Not this bootlegging. Think! Look around you! Use your head!”

  And Juan would’ve gone on talking, but they heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the grade behind them.

  “Quick,” said Juan, rushing to get his .38 out of the truck, “we got to get that car to stop and help us!”

  Opening the cylinder, Juan ejected the spent cartridge and slipped in a new one, then put the snub nose under his shirt in his pants.

  “You’re the lightest, Pedro. Quick, get up on the pile of manure and make sure that barrel I left on the truck is well-hidden. And José, you put your weight on the hood.”

  Both boys did as they were told.

  “All right,” said Juan, “I’ll do the talking. You two just stay by the truck and act hurt. Remember, we just had an accident and you boys are hurt and scared, got it?”

  “Yes,” said both boys.

  “And remember, if I spit and drool and act not too smart, you just keep still. This could get very dangerous if we’re not careful. Last week a car full of no-good bastards tried to rob me because they’re too lazy to make their own liquor, and I had to deal with them,” he said, getting his .45 from under the seat. “But we got no fight with the law. We just act stupid like this if it’s the law,” said Juan, twisting his face and drooling spit.

  Seeing his uncle twist his face and drool, José began to laugh. He just couldn’t help it. But this time, Juan said nothing. He just stepped in and hit José in the mouth with his fist. The boy went spilling backward into the truck. Blood burst from his lips.

  “Don’t wipe the blood!” shouted Juan. “Just stay down! Remember, you broke the windshield with your face!”

  José did as told, and Pedro didn’t need to be told anything. He dropped to the ground, terrified.

  “Very good,” said Juan, winking at both of them. “Now, not a word, remember.”

  Juan walked out into the middle of the road with a rope in his hands as a big black Buick came racing around the last curve. Quickly, Juan started waving his arms, pointing at the two boys. The man driving the Buick braked hard. Juan ran up to him.

  “We had an accident!” Juan yelled.

  The man stepped out of his Buick. He was a great big, tall Anglo with a long nose and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a full-length car coat and fine gloves. He looked educated and well-to-do.

  “How badly are the boys hurt?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Juan. “They bumped their faces hard. So we need a pull so I can get them to the doctor.”

  Juan was nervous. He’d never gotten help from a rich-looking gringo before, and he needed this pull. He was losing money every minute that he waited, plus he was taking an awful chance of the sheriff or some thieves coming by.

  The tall, well-dressed man looked Juan over and walked around him, going over to where the boys were lying alongside the Model-T. He saw the blood on José’s face and the fear in Pedro’s eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked José.

  But José didn’t answer him. He glanced at his uncle.

  “He’s not too bad,” said Juan, cutting in. “But still, I want to get him to this doctor I know on the coast. So tell me, mister, can you give us a pull?”

  “Maybe,” said the man, “I don’t know why not, if we can get rid of some of the manure to lighten the load.”

  The blood left Juan’s face. If they removed the shit, they’d expose the barrel. Oh, he should’ve thought of that. He’d been a fool not to think of that ahead of time.

  “Oh, no,” said Juan, shaking his head. “I need to get the manure in, too. No thanks. We’ll just wait, then.”

  The tall Anglo looked at Juan, his blue eyes blazing like a hawk’s. Then he turned away from Juan and walked to the Model-T, inspecting the situation. He saw that both boys looked very frightened. But then, getting around behind the truck and glancing over the ledge down into the steep canyon, he decided that these poor bastards had almost gone over the cliff’s edge and were still in shock.

  His furious, blue eyes turned gentle, and he smiled. “All right,” he said, taking off his right glove. “Fred Noon, attorney-at-law,” he said, extending his hand to Juan.

  Hearing the words, “attorney-at-law,” Juan froze, but then he put his hand out, too.

  “Juan Villaseñor,” he said, “respect the law!”

  “Respect the law?” repeated Fred Noon, not understanding.

  “Well, yes, you say, ‘attorney-at-law’,” said Juan.

  “Oh, I see,” said Noon, laughing. Then he helped Juan tie the big Buick to the Model-T and dig out in front of the truck’s tires. They got the truck back on the road, and they were off.

  By the time they got to Carlsbad, twenty-some miles toward the west, Juan and Fred Noon were pretty good friends. Fred Noon spoke Spanish fluently. He practiced law in San Diego. He also knew Archie Freeman and had worked with him a few times.

  Getting into Carlsbad, Juan had Noon pull him to the old woman’s house who sold liquor for him. Her name was Consuelo and she was a tough old woman who moved a lot of liquor for Juan when the crops were in.

  “Thank you,” said Juan to Fred Noon. “How much do I owe you?” he asked.

  “Nothing, Juan,” said Noon. “You just take good care of the boys.”

  “All right,” said Juan, “but, well, are you a drinking man?” he asked.

  Juan knew that he was taking an awfully big chance by asking this question if, indeed, Noon didn’t drink. But he looked rugged enough to be a drinker, and he did know Archie, who was always drinking like a fish.

  “Well, just exactly what do you mean by ‘drinking’?” asked Noon, getting a twinkle in his eyes as he took another look at the pile of chicken manure on the truck.

  Seeing him glance at the Model-T, Juan was sorry he’d brought up the question. But he couldn’t back off now.

  “Whiskey,” said Juan. “Do you like good Canadian whiskey?”

  “Canadian whiskey!” said the tall, hawk-eyed man, licking his lips. “Hell, I don’t know a lawyer who doesn’t! Do you have some?” he asked anxiously.

  Juan was glad he’d asked. The man was biting at the bit, he was so excited. “Well, not exactly,” said Juan. “But I got a friend who might have some. So why don’t you drive on up to the Montana Cafe, just across the street from the Twin Inns, and I’ll meet you up there in fifteen minutes. But don’t order more than you can eat.”

  “All right,” said Noon. He got in his Buick and drove off.

  Juan took Pedro and José inside Consuelo’s house to have their cuts and bruises attended to.

  Lupe was outside saying goodbye to Mark when Carlota and two of her girlfriends came rushing out of the house.

  “I hate you!” said Carlota to Lupe, going down the street with her friends. “You didn’t even enter, and he comes to the house for you!”

  Lupe had no idea what her sister was talking about. But after Mark was gone, she went inside and she saw that her mother and father were in
the tiny front room with an elderly man dressed in a dark suit. Lupe felt her heart leap, thinking that it had something to do with Mark walking her home.

  “Lupe,” her mother said, “this is Señor Gonzales, and he’s come to see you.”

  Lupe said nothing.

  “Please sit down, my dear,” said Señor Gonzales.

  Lupe sat down. But she didn’t like it.

  “Well,” said the polite-looking man, smiling at her, “you see, my dear, I’m one of the officials for the Cinco de Mayo. And this year, for the first time, we want to have a big celebration with a parade and extend it past the barrio into the americano part of town so we can include the gringos in our celebration.

  “You see, many of our people who came here during the Revolution, as did your own family, are beginning to think that maybe this country is going to be our permanent home. So that’s why we want to include the gringos and teach them of our Mexican traditions so we don’t lose our culture.”

  He coughed, clearing his throat. Lupe could see that he was getting nervous, but she still had no idea what any of this had to do with her.

  “The point,” he said, “is that we want to put our best foot forward, as the americanos say, and even though we realize that you didn’t enter our beauty contest, we all still know that you’re the most beautiful young lady in all the barrio, so we’d like you to please give us the honor of being the queen of our festivities.”

  Lupe was stunned. She glanced at her parents. Now she knew why her sister and her friends were so mad at her. They’d made dresses and worked on their hair for weeks, preparing for the contest. She hadn’t even entered. Oh, there was just no way she could do this.

  “Lupe,” said her mother, seeing her daughter’s hesitation, “we explained to Señor Gonzales that you’re not the type of girl who even likes to go to dances. But, well, he’s assured us that you won’t have to do anything that will embarrass you.”

  “Yes,” added the man, “all you’ll have to do is sit in the open car with your princesses. We’ll take care of the rest,” he said, smiling.

  Still, Lupe said nothing. She was just too shocked.

  Señor Gonzales glanced at her parents. “Also,” he said to Lupe, “if you like, we can let you pick your own princesses so that way you can choose your sister and your friends so that there won’t be any hard feelings.”

  “Thank you,” said Doña Guadalupe, “I’m sure that will make it easier for Lupe.”

  But they could all see that Lupe was still not responding.

  “Well, at least think about it,” said Señor Gonzales. “And I’ll stop by for your answer in a few days. But we don’t have much time. We want to invite the mayor of Santa Ana and the City Council.”

  He got up and got his hat. “One more thing,” he said, “if it’s the money for the dress that you’re worried about, well, then, I think we can supply the material for your mother to make you your dress so that it wouldn’t burden your family.”

  “Thank you,” said Lupe. “I was thinking of that, Señor.”

  He took her hand, kissing it. “I thought so,” he said. “My, they are right, you are beautiful. Please, talk things over with your mother and father, and do accept. We really do want to make the best possible showing we can for this Cinco de Mayo.”

  Lupe saw him to the door.

  That night, when Carlota found out that Lupe had the power to pick her own princesses if she accepted, she went crazy.

  “Oh, you’ve got to say yes, Lupe,” she begged. “You’ve got to! Or I’ll hate you, I swear! You didn’t even enter the contest and they came to you!”

  After taking care of business in Carlsbad, Juan drove three hours up the coast to Los Angeles with his two nephews. He thought of Lupe and of the hotel deal and of that big, hairy-armed man who’d smelled of a Mexican-hating, Tom Mixcop. He fully realized that he would have to go very carefully and not let himself get caught. The more he found out about Lupe and her family, the more he could see that they were God-fearing, law-abiding people. It would kill his courtship with her if they ever found out about his business.

  By the time they got to the warehouse in Los Angeles, Juan was feeling very cautious. His nephews were fast asleep. Juan woke the two boys up and put them to work, loading the truck with the sugar and yeast.

  It was dark by the time they got to their big house south of Los Angeles. José and Pedro were so tired, they were ready to cry. They’d been at it for over fourteen hours. But Juan was determined to show them that bootlegging was no game. He yanked them out of the truck and had them wash their faces with cold water and get to work unloading the supplies. He and Julio went to work, preparing the metal drums in the backroom.

  “We’re going to need more drums,” said Juan to Julio, scraping out a drum, “so once we start the distilling, we can work around the clock.”

  “Ah, come on, Juan,” said Julio, washing out another drum, “we’ll never get fifty ten-gallon barrels of whiskey made in time. Hell, it took us almost a month to just make up those fifteen barrels last time.”

  “Yes, but we got more experience and we’ll work day and night, taking naps and never stop,” said Juan, putting saliva on Pedro’s eyelids as he came walking by with a sack. “Wake up,” he said to the boy, “and keep working.”

  “But Juan, my wife and I can’t be locked up here for a straight month,” said Julio.

  “Why not?” asked Juan. “In a month, we’ll be rich!”

  “Well, yes, that’s true,” said Julio. “But Juan, we need time off to visit our friends in the barrio.”

  Hearing this, Juan couldn’t believe his ears. “Goddamnit, what’s wrong with you?” he bellowed. “You were broke when I took you in, Julio! Now you got your own truck! A big house! All the food you want! What the hell is thirty days? I could do them hanging by my thumbs! Has a little money made you soft in the head, hombre?”

  “Hey, you can’t talk to me like this!” said Julio, seeing his kids crouching down in the corner in fear.

  José and Pedro were finally wide awake. Their uncle looked ready to fight, he was so mad.

  “Damn it, Julio!” shouted Juan, “then how the hell am I supposed to talk to you? When you talk such ridiculousness!”

  “With respect, Juan!” he yelled, glancing at his family. “With respect, goddamnit!”

  “All right, then with respect,” said Juan, trying to calm down, “pull yourself together and realize that this is a chance of a lifetime!”

  Juan Salvador tried to back off, but he couldn’t. He was boiling inside his chest. He felt like ripping the clothes off his body just so he could breathe. He felt he was exploding like a volcano, as if all his ancestry was raging up inside him, wanting to breathe, wanting to live.

  “Julio, goddamnit!” he said. “I respect you! I do! But damn it, my mother begged so we could eat! I went to prison to get money so we could live! This is nothing!” he bellowed, the cords of his neck coming up. “Do you hear me? ¡Nada! ¡Nada! I’d work ten years, twenty-four hours a day, to never kiss no man’s ass again!”

  “All right, all right!” said Julio. “But still, it’s hard on my family, Juan! They got no one to visit here, with all these gringos hating us!”

  “That’s why we moved here!” yelled Juan. “So people won’t visit!”

  “Yes, I know, I know, but, well, damn it, we were doing so well already, Juan. Why do we need to get bigger?”

  Hearing this, Juan just knew that he’d kill Julio if he kept talking. So he went out of the room, raging, crazy inside, wild-eyed, insane, furious. There was just nothing he could say to this man.

  It wasn’t just the money; it was the way people had looked at him when he’d tried to rent a house. It was how the gringos looked at his old mother when she crossed the American side of town to go to church. Tears came to his eyes. Why, they looked at his beloved mother as if she were dog shit. He had to get big. Big! Rich! So he could court Lupe and build a house on a hill with a red-tile roo
f, and he’d never have people look at his family with disgust again.

  It was three o’clock the next morning when Juan pulled up to their two houses in Corona with his nephews. And it was five that same morning when he woke them up. “Come on!” he said. “We got to get those barrels we hid by Temecula right now!”

  “But I just got to sleep,” said Pedro, tears coming to his eyes.

  “Bull shit!” said Juan. “You don’t go to school, you work!” He got both boys out of the house and into the chicken coop for breakfast once again.

  For the next three days, Juan worked his nephews fifteen to sixteen hours a day, scrubbing floors, washing out drums and moving fertilizer. By the fourth day, Pedro was begging to go back to school.

  “Please, Uncle,” he said, “we want to go back to school.”

  “You, too, José?” asked Juan.

  José nodded. “Yes.”

  “All right,” said Juan, “you two can go back to school. But understand, you’re going to have to face that teacher you pantsed. You did it, you pay. I gamble, I pay. Look at my throat; see that scar? And remember the scar across my belly? We all pay, believe me. Your mother and my mother, those great women, they paid in blood more than once to get us here alive, and so you two are going to work and get educated or you answer to me! Understand?”

  They both nodded, taking their uncle very seriously.

  “No nodding to me,” said Juan. “You answer in words! mejicanos are tough roosters! Every prison I been to, they run the place! Not the negroes or blancos! But us, la raza!”

  “Yes, Uncle,” they both said.

  “Yes, what?”

  They glanced at each other nervously.

  “Yes, we’re good Mejicanos,” said Pedro.

  “And?” said Juan.

  “And killing isn’t fun,” added Pedro, “because we’re responsible when we kill the pig. We think, we plan, we sweat and work.”

  “Very good,” said Juan, “very good. And you, José?”

  “Well, we figure the odds,” said José, “so maybe we don’t even kill the pig or rob the bank because we’re prevenidos in everything we do and don’t want to put ourselves in a position to kill just for money.”