He sneaked up on the outhouse under the avocado tree. He could hear his old mother singing quietly. The early morning sunlight was coming down through the tree branches in sheets of gold and silver, illuminating the slender building like a tall, upright altar.
“Mama,” he said, “hurry! I have to talk to you.”
“But, why should I hurry?” she asked, “this is one of my most enjoyable moments of my entire day.”
“But, Mama, I talked to Lupe about marriage last night.”
“So,” she said, “come back when you have something a little more definite, like grandkids or something.”
She laughed, truly enjoying herself, and she pushed the door open. There she sat covered with her serape so the morning breeze wouldn’t chill her. She had the Bible open on her lap, a cigarette hanging from her lips and a glass of whiskey in her left hand. She took the cigarette out of her mouth, sipped her whiskey and then handed Salvador her empty glass.
“Go and get me a little more whiskito,” she said, putting the Lucky back to her lips, “while the Virgin and I finish our visit.”
“But, Mama,” said Salvador, “all my life I’ve waited to come to tell you this news, and now you just sit there, preferring to do caca?”
“Of course,” she said, “to start off each morning praying for God, smoking and drinking for myself and crapping for the devil is one of my greatest pleasures. Now go on, please, and get me a little more whiskito and then start the fire and put on the coffee and heat me a sweet roll. Then, when I’m all done here and feeling good and clean inside, I’ll come into the house and listen. But, now, go on, the Virgin and I are in the middle of some very juicy gossip!”
Shaking his head, Salvador did as told, leaving his mother to talk to the Virgin Mary. He went inside and got her a whiskey and then started a fire in the wood burning stove and put on the coffee.
His mother came in, carrying her Bible, just as he was heating up her sweet bread.
“You know,” she said, “this toilet paper that Luisa got me is extraordinary. It’s far better than the avocado leaves. The leaves slip too much when they’re green and break up too easy when they’re dry.”
“Mama!” said Salvador, cutting her off. “Enough about all that! Didn’t you hear me? I talked to Lupe about marriage! And, well, she sort of said yes.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, it wasn’t really an official proposal, Mama,” he said. “You see, Lupe was driving the Moon around the open field and then her little niece asked if we were going to get married.”
“Her niece?”
“Yes,” said Salvador, and he told his mother the whole story as they drank their coffee and ate their sweet breads. It was wonderful, sitting there, talking with his mother. There was no one in all the world that Salvador loved to talk to more than his own mother. She truly listened and made him feel so special.
“Oh, mi hijito,” said his mother once he was done with his story, “come and kneel here beside my chair so I can hug you to my heart. I’ve waited for this day all my life, for my youngest to join in holy matrimony. Remember how desperate we were at the Rio Grande, but I swore to you before God that we’d survive and I’d live to see the day that you marry?
“Well, I did. I survived, and I’ll tell you why. Marriage is the greatest journey any man or woman can ever undertake—two strangers, not knowing each other, but yet still willing to join together in heart and soul—hoping, guessing, on which star that might land as they cross the heavens, hand-in-hand like two clouds, gliding on the winds of God’s breath. Oh, I’m so proud of you. Give me your hand; let me kiss you.” They kissed and held each other close, feeling, thinking, dreaming, then she pushed him away, holding him at arm’s length. “All right, no more of this, for I want you to realize that now is no time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
“No,” she said, closing her eyes and raising her bony index finger, “as I told you the other day, I’ve seen many a young lover lose the one that they love because they hesitated. This is war! Do you hear me, mi hijito? Time to do battle! Now you must move forward relentlessly and make your proposal formal so that the whole world can recognize your commitment.
“Your own father and I were talking of marriage with our eyes and caresses but, I’ll tell you, it meant nothing to the other single girls of my village until we announced our formal proposal so that the whole world could see that we were serious.”
“Oh, Mama! Do you always have to . . . ”
“Don’t ‘oh, Mama’ me anymore!” she snapped. “I’m old! I don’t have much time! So stop this nonsense and let’s put our heads together! Some people think that the things of the heart are so delicate that they must be handled with great care. But I’m not one of these people. I say that the heart is tough and vigorous, overflowing with life’s juices, so I say that we must be equally tough and decisive, too, and get to the heart of the matter or we’ll lose everything!
“Do you really think for a minute that I got your father to propose to me because I was so kind-hearted?” she said, making a face. “He was gorgeous! I had to wrestle him away from every girl in our village to get him in my bridal bed!”
“Oh, Mama,” said Salvador.
“I said don’t ‘Oh, Mama’ me!” She took a deep breath. “Now, to get you married and settled down, let me see, we’ll need a ring. And not just any ring, but a ring worthy of this occasion. For you must realize,” she added, tears coming to her eyes, “that this will be the first marriage of one of my children that I’m having the pleasure of witnessing during peacetime. Oh, war is terrible! It robs a mother of all her joys in life.”
“I’ll be,” said Salvador, taking his old mother in his arms as he knelt on the floor beside her. “I’d never thought of that. I’ll make this wedding the biggest fiesta the barrios has ever seen!”
“Good,” she said, “I’d like that. You see, you haven’t had children yet. So you’re not even half grown. You have no idea how important this is to me.” She drew herself up, drying her eyes. “And we must do everything by tradition. We’re going to need someone to ask for her hand for you.” She breathed deeply. “Maybe Domingo will get here in time to do it. He’ll be the oldest male in our family when he gets here. Oh, that Virgin better do Her part, or I swear the heavens are going to be in deep trouble, I tell you.”
Back in Hemet, the people were still talking about Salvador and how he’d let Lupe drive his grand automobile around the open field without her even knowing how to drive. The men loved it, Salvador was a real macho and the rumors started once again that Salvador had to be a bootlegger to have such utter disregard for a valuable car.
Hearing the talk, Victoriano angered and told the men off.
“Those are lies!” he said. “We worked with Salvador moving fertilizer. He has trucks. That’s how he makes his money!”
The men just shrugged, realizing that liquor was looked down upon in Victoriano’s family, but they’d meant no harm. Hell, la bootlegada was good business as far as they were concerned, and they admired Salvador if, in fact, he was a bootlegger.
Lupe heard the rumor, too, but she paid no attention to the men talking. She, like her brother, didn’t want to believe that Salvador could possibly have anything to do with that awful business of bootlegging.
For the next few days, Salvador asked around about wedding rings, but he found nothing that he thought was special enough. He decided to go up to Pasadena to see the madam of the whorehouse that sold liquor for him and ask her. Some of her girls were sometimes given expensive jewelry by rich customers and so, maybe, she’d be able to make a deal with one of them. And, also, Salvador was missing Lupe so much that his whole body was exploding; he had to release the tension from his loins or he’d rip apart.
Salvador arrived at the whorehouse just before midnight. The place was hopping. This was one of the finest houses of pleasure in all the Southland. The girls were absolutely beautiful. Many of them were aspiring actress
es waiting to break into the movies.
Salvador was in the backroom waiting to speak to the madam, Liza, when he overheard a couple of well-dressed young men talking about a ship full of Canadian whiskey that had caught on fire off the coast of Santa Monica.
“But some of the stuff was salvaged and is going for over a hundred dollars a case!” said one of the men.
“Man, I’d give anything to get hold of some Canadian whiskey,” said the other young man.
Instantly, Salvador got an idea, and he left without waiting to speak to anyone.
He drove over to the big warehouse in downtown Los Angeles and waited for it to open its doors. He bought all the empty cases of Canadian whiskey that they had and then drove over to Corona and picked up Epitacio and José.
“We got to work fast,” he said. “This won’t last for long.”
They drove into the hills to where they’d hidden the barrels. All day long and into the night, they filled the empty Canadian whiskey bottles with their bootleg whiskey. They added a little brown sugar to each bottle and sealed it, then they took the cases down to a riverbed and burned them and tossed sand on them.
That night, Salvador drove back up to Pasadena to the fancy whorehouse and offered a deal to the madam.
“Listen, Liza,” he said, “I found a few cases of that shipwrecked whiskey. Taste it. It’s good. And I’ll give you twenty dollars for every case I sell here at your place.”
Liza only grinned. “I don’t need to taste it, Sal,” she said.
“Then we got a deal?”
“That’s right, honey,” she said.
“Good,” said Salvador.
That night alone he managed to sell every case that he had for one hundred dollars each. Salvador made better money that night than he’d made in all his life. Selling retail instead of wholesale was damned good business, especially if you happened to be the manufacturer.
He was so excited and was so much in love that he went with five different women that night. Oh, he was burning with desire. He now understood why it was traditional for the bridegroom to have a bachelor’s party at a whorehouse the night before he got married. The way he felt, it would be dangerous for him to go to bed with a virgin. He needed a very experienced woman to calm him down and make him civilized.
It was late afternoon the next day when Salvador left Liza’s place and headed back to Corona. He was going to pick up Epitacio and make up one last batch of Canadian whiskey to bring back to the whorehouse. People had actually started fighting over the chance to buy some of his shipwrecked whiskey. Oh, life was wonderful here in this country. Liquor making was illegal, and yet there was a big warehouse in Los Angeles legally selling everything a bootlegger needed.
But getting to Corona, there was a fiesta going on. Their neighbor, Rodolfo the schoolteacher, had killed a pig and everyone was eating and drinking. Doña Margarita was packed and ready to leave for Chicago the following day. The Virgin Mary hadn’t come through for her, and she was saying goodbye to everyone in the barrios.
“Oh, Salvador!” yelled Luisa, having had a few too many, “you got to stop Mama!”
“But how?” asked Salvador. “Tie her up? That would break her spirit, Luisa. I’d rather see her dead than kill her by stopping her from following her dreams!”
Lunging forward, Luisa slapped Salvador across the face with all her power. Salvador went flying backwards. He couldn’t remember ever being struck harder by a man in all his life.
“Don’t you dare talk like that!” she screamed, going to hit him again. “She has to live; do you hear me? Live!”
Salvador grabbed her hand in mid-air. “You’re drunk, Luisa! Stop it!”
“Stop it yourself! You just don’t care if Mama lives or dies!”
Doña Margarita saw them fighting and came rushing up. “Have you two no shame? What’s wrong with both of you?”
“But Mama, I love you so much that I don’t want you going to Cheee-a-caca,” said Luisa. “You’ll never come back! Salvador is wrong to say you can go.”
“Luisa, where is your faith?” her mother said. “Don’t you see that it’s peace-time here in this country? It was a thousand times worse for me when I went to Guadalajara to get your brother José released from prison!”
“But, Mama, you don’t speak English! This is all different! And I love you too much!”
“And Salvador loves me less?” she snapped. “No, Luisa! This has nothing to do with love! You’ve just lost your faith in the Almighty and are trying to impose your will on everyone, like a priest gone bad! Now sit down and listen to me and see if you can’t recapture your senses and see that what I’m about to undertake is nothing more than another trial given to me by Almighty God!”
The old lady made the sign of the cross over herself and sat Luisa and Salvador down so she could talk to them. She began to tell them the story of how she’d gone to get their brother José released from prison back in Mexico during the Revolution. All the people at the fiesta gathered around the old lady to listen, too.
“Remember, we had nothing left and we were alone,” she said. “All the men of our family were gone or dead, only God knew which. And the authorities had arrested José because he’d embarrassed our local marshal by protecting a widow’s honor.
“Remember, Salvador,” she said, turning to her son, “you were about seven or eight, and you and Domingo still had that black bull, Chivo, that you’d raised from a calf?”
Salvador nodded. “How could I ever forget, Mama? I’d never been without you and I broke away from Luisa, and ran after you. But you paid me no attention. So I just followed behind you up the road, crying my head off, and Chivo stayed right beside me like a big black dog.”
“It was the end of the world for us, Mama,” said Luisa. “Papa was gone to the United States to look for work and we didn’t know if he’d ever return. And Alejo, Jesus, Mateo, all my big brothers, were dead, having been killed in the war, and Domingo had also disappeared; and here you were, going off, leaving me to take care of my little brother and my two sisters.” Luisa wiped her eyes. “We almost died of fear, Mama. That’s why I don’t want you to do it again.”
“But the point is that you didn’t die,” said Doña Margarita, “and you’re big now. So quiet. No more of this, and let me finish my story.” She sipped her whiskey.
“I went down our mountain and past the lakes to the road,” said Doña Margarita, “and you followed me, Salvador, crying the whole way. Finally, just this side of Josephine’s place, I stopped, thinking that you’d cried enough, and I sat you down on a rock underneath an oak. You were breaking my heart with all your crying, but I still explained to you that I had to go alone.
“But why can’t I go with you, Mama?’ you asked me. And I said, ‘Because a person alone is an army, mi hijito. They’re frightened, they have no distractions, so they keep their eyes as alert as the newborn chick. And I need this, mi hijito,’ I said to you, ‘for I have nothing else except my wits and the backing of God Almighty!’
“And so I kissed you goodbye on your tear-covered cheeks one more time and then I left, leaving you there with your pet bull, barefoot and with your little pot belly hanging out over your pants,” she said, laughing.
“And so when I got to Arandas, I was so tired that I immediately went to the church to pray. I needed to regain my strength and figure out what to do. For, remember, even God needs help in making miracles here on earth.”
A murmur went through the crowd.
“Then, I don’t know, but I must’ve fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew I heard a voice speaking to me like in a vision. And I was told that I did, indeed, know someone very powerful in Arandas who could help me, the enemy of my husband.
“A great peace came over me and I wanted to go back to sleep, but you know how God is once He starts talking to you. He just wouldn’t shut up.”
She laughed and everyone laughed, too, not thinking that it was strange or uncommon for one of their
people to be spoken to by God. After all, they all had relatives who told stories just like these. And they cherished them.
“So, not being able to sleep, I went out of the church armed with God, and I went across town to my husband’s enemy, the very same man who’d tricked him out of our goats years before. I went into his store of business and I waited my turn to introduce myself. When I did, he got very angry. But, of course, I didn’t shy away, having the Lord God on my side, and I simply told him that I’d come for his help. He was shocked.
“‘But don’t you realize that I have bad blood with your husband?’ he said to me. ‘Señora, I want nothing to do with you or any of your family for as long as I live,’ he yelled.
“‘Sometimes I feel the same way,’ I said, refusing to take insult. ‘Now, as I was saying, my son José is in prison and I need your help.’
“The man sat back. ‘Señora,’ he said, ‘a revolution is going on! We all have our problems! Now, no more of this. I have work to do! Get out! I have no time!’
“‘But I do,’ I said. ‘All the time in the world. Look, I brought food and water so I’ll just settle down in this corner until you have time for me.’
“He stared at me as if I were crazy. ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘either you don’t understand Spanish or something is very wrong with you! I hate your husband and all his offspring for all eternity! I would do nothing to help you and your son, even if I could!’ And he turned his back on me, returning to his customers, but I had God on my side so I had no doubt. I just sat down on the floor and began to eat my tortillas and sip my water.”
Doña Margarita smiled and took up her glass of whiskey, but it was empty. Quickly, someone served her a little more. Everyone was enthralled with her story, marveling at her tenacity. She was their pillar of life, a woman who couldn’t be thwarted.
“The poor man,” she continued, sipping her whiskey, “he had no idea what to do with me. But I knew what to do. I just sat there for hours until I disappeared, becoming part of the furnishings and people could no longer see me.
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