“Look,” said Salvador, “my sister, Luisa. I think she likes your sister, María’s, situation very much.”
“Yes,” said Lupe. “You know, at first everyone was so outraged by María’s decision to keep both of her husbands, but now with time passing, quite a few women have changed their mind.”
“Oh, and what does that mean?” asked Salvador, grinning.
Lupe laughed. “Well, nothing,” she said. “At least not right now.”
“Oh, you do have the devil sometimes, don’t you?” he said, laughing. “I’ll never forget how you glanced around, seeing if anyone was watching the day you decided to teach yourself how to drive.”
“You saw that?” she asked, smiling.
“Of course,” he said. “That’s when I saw you weren’t just an angel from heaven, but a human being, too.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “Because that’s the same day you asked me about my dreams and I realized you just weren’t a big show-off bully, but a wonderful man inside your heart and soul.”
“Really? Up to then you thought I was only a show-off bully?”
“Yes. Of course.”
And there it began again, and they were talking together with such joy, such happiness that when their two old mothers looked over and saw them, they both knew that they’d done the right thing in raising their two children. Lupe was just talking away, moving her hands like birds in flight, and Salvador listened in rapture.
“It’s going to last and with great happiness,” said Doña Margarita to Doña Guadalupe, “well past the fires of the bed.”
“Yes,” said Doña Guadalupe, wiping her eyes. “To talk so freely is to dream!”
“Amen, the lust of marriage is easy. It’s the being able to have good times with your clothes still on that’s difficult after marriage.”
“Oh, yes! I fully agree!”
The two old she-boars looked at each other and started laughing, laughing until they had tears in their eyes.
“Look, I know you and your family don’t drink,” said Doña Margarita, “which, of course, I rarely do myself; but how about you and me getting ourselves a good stiff one right now. We deserve it!”
Doña Guadalupe stood up. “By all means. Let’s do it!”
“Look,” said Lupe to Salvador, “our mothers are going next door where my father hides his liquor.”
“You know about that?” asked Salvador.
Lupe just eyed her husband. “Salvador, I might be young and inexperienced, but I’m not blind.”
He laughed, and she laughed, too, taking his hand.
Raising his cup for a toast, Don Victor silenced the mariachis. “All my life I’ve said,” he announced in a loud, clear voice, “that it’s better to raise pigs than kids, because, well, pigs, when they get too big and start to be a nuisance, you can always kill them and eat ’em. But kids, what can you do with them when they grow and start giving you problems?” He stopped and turned to Salvador and Lupe. “I salute you two with all my heart. I was wrong! And I love you both for the joy that you’ve brought to both of our homes!” He swallowed, standing tall. “Now, Lupe, my child of the night that the star kissed the earth, let us dance, you and I! One last time!”
He downed his drink and went across the yard to take Lupe’s hand and la gente applauded with tears coming to their eyes. Salvador crossed the yard and took his mother by the arm to dance, too. The sun was dropping down into the orchard of golden fruit and the whole world was smiling upon them. Don Victor held Lupe in his arms, going around and around, feeling the spirit of God come down from the heavens and put wings to his old feet. Nearby Salvador danced with his mother, who’d always been a fine dancer, and he gracefully turned and whirled her about. And Victoriano held his mother about the waist. She kept saying, “No! No!” with her mouth, but her feet were a joy to watch as she glided about the yard under the large walnut tree in her son’s great long arms.
The sun was going, going, turning to liquid flame, and Pedro was dancing with Luisa, and José was with Carlota. Sophia gripped hold of her husband, dragging him onto the dance floor, and María took turns with each of her husbands. Then Don Victor gave Lupe to Salvador and he took Doña Margarita in his arms. The right eye of God began to blink his last goodnights to them and the moon came up smiling, silver and blue.
The song of the violins ended and Lupe and Salvador stopped dancing and went behind their table to watch. Everyone was having such a wonderful time, everyone was so happy and relaxed now that they were feasting.
Taking her hand, Salvador led Lupe away. By the orchard he turned her about. “Oh, querida,” he said, “I’m so happy, I tell you, it’s just so hard for me to realize that we’re really married.”
“Me, too,” she said, feeling a warmth come all over her. “It’s still all like a dream to me.”
Salvador saw the warmth, the glow, come over Lupe, and he took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I love you so much, querida,” he said, “and my hope is that our marriage will always be a wonderful dream.”
“Me, too,” she said, squeezing his hand and looking into his eyes. “For this marriage is the dream of my life.”
“Mine, too,” he said. They gazed into each other’s eyes, then kissed gently, softly, slowly.
“Haaah, you made the kiss first this time,” said Salvador, eyes sparkling.
Lupe pursed her lips together, thinking. “I think we both made it,” she said.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I think you made it a little bit first.”
“Oh, let’s see,” she said, drawing him close again.
And so they kissed again, in a soft, gentle caressing of lips, of mouth, of prickly moustache.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “And I made it first again.”
They laughed, feeling so very good and warm inside. They turned and looked again at the fiesta, standing side-to-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, and gave witness to all the festivity that was going on in their honor.
They saw Pedro take little Isabel out on the dance floor and begin to dance. They saw their old mothers talking and laughing together, truly enjoying themselves.
They took each other’s hands and just stood there feeling so full of life’s riches. They’d won, the two of them, each a child of war, had survived. Not becoming embittered or disillusioned because of the hardships of their childhood, but in fact, they had blossomed, gained a deeper respect for living and joined God’s light, bringing honor to the very source of life itself . . . their mothers.
They stood there at the edge of the luscious orchard of dark, green trees and large, golden fruit, and the sun went down behind them in a miracle of color of red and orange and silver, a magnificent display of God’s magic, and they went slipping, sliding, passing through the needle’s eye, and they were now in paradise dreaming, dreaming the dream of living in the greatest gift of all. The union of one man and one woman in the true graces of God. The dream of hope, the dream of joy, from now to all eternity. Amen.
THE BEGINNING
AUTHOR’S NOTES
And so yes, my parents had a long and wonderful marriage, 59 years, and they realized most of their dreams. My mother got her office, and my father was able to work for himself, never needing to kiss any man’s ass again. They were both able to help their parents in their old age and their children never suffered what they’d suffered. But, still, I must tell you, that my father’s rage didn’t stop at my parent’s wedding. My grandmother, Doña Margarita, was right when she’d told him that it would be his cross to carry for life. And because of his rage, my parents’ married life was hard in many ways; but, also, it was full of enormous triumphs over cultural barriers, wild adventure and great festivity.
I am Victor E. Villaseñor, the middle child of Salvador and Lupe. I was raised the first few years of my life with my older sister and brother in the barrios of Carlsbad, California, right next door to my father’s pool hall. I spoke very little English until I started kinde
rgarten and I thought that we lived in Mexico. The gringos, the americanos, were like foreigners from a strange land to me for the first five years of life.
But getting back to my parents’ story, which is, of course, their history in the truest sense of the word, “his story,” right after they got married, my parents moved to Carlsbad. They rented a little house from Hans and Helen, and they had a wonderful first two years until my father finally admitted to my mother that he’d lied to her and he was, indeed, a bootlegger.
My mother tells me that she felt betrayed and was so ashamed that she would’ve left my father if she hadn’t been pregnant with my older sister, Hortensia. But, also, times were hard—it was the middle of the Depression—so she could see why my father did it.
My father took her to see the priest, and the man of God tried to convince my mother that la bootleggada wasn’t as bad as she might think. In fact, the priest told my mother (for a case of my father’s best whiskey) that bootlegging wasn’t against the laws of God and reminded her that, in fact, Jesus Christ Himself had turned water into wine.
But my mother wasn’t about to be taken in by my father or the hard-drinking priest. Arriving home, she told my dad that she didn’t care what the priest said; she was going to have a child and it would be them, not the priest, who would go to jail. So she made my father promise to get out of his illegal business as soon as he could.
My father promised, but he procrastinated. Then, a few months later, their distillery blew up in Tustin, California, almost killing my father. My mother, big with child, dragged my father’s body from the burning house, put him in their truck, and drove off just as the police arrived. She was outraged and she told my father that this was, indeed, God speaking to them, a much higher authority than any priest. My father conceded to her, and this was a major turning point of their life. One, they went legal shortly after that, and two, my mother was never going to allow herself to be taken lightly again. She was twenty-one years old.
Then the following year, Prohibition ended, and my parents bought the pool-hall in Carlsbad from Archie, who’d married my Aunt Carlota. A few years later, a man named Jerry Smith came to my father and asked him if he owned the pool-hall. My father said, “Yes, I do.” Jerry Smith brought out his badge, saying that he was from the Internal Revenue Service and he wanted to know why my father hadn’t paid his income tax. My father insisted that he’d already paid his taxes. He’d done it when he’d bought his city business license. Jerry tried to explain to my father that one thing had nothing to do with the other. But my dad just couldn’t understand what the man was saying. Finally, my father got mad and told Jerry, “Look, buddy, it sounds to me like you’re telling me that the federal government is nothing but a free-loading thief! I got too much respect for this free country to believe this, so, no . . . I can’t pay you any yearly taxes!”
Enjoying my dad’s independent spirit, Jerry laughed and they had a few drinks together. Then, opening his briefcase and showing my dad the different income tax forms, Jerry came to realize that my father really didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, nor could he read the forms. “Tell me, Sal,” said the agent, “do you have anyone in your family who can read books and understand numbers?”
“My wife,” said my father proudly, “she’s educated and reads books easy.”
That was the second big turn of events in my parents’ married lives. My mother was brought into my father’s business, and Jerry Smith taught her how to keep books and explained to her the responsibilities of a business person in the United States. She took over the bookkeeping of my father’s pool hall with a power that surprised everyone in the barrios, especially the other women.
Then, the following year when my father couldn’t buy an off-sale liquor license because he had a prison record, my mother stepped right in. “I’ll buy it,” she said, surprising my father and everyone else in the barrios.
In the next five years, my mother blossomed into a full-fledged business-woman, even buying a second liquor store in the Anglo part of town in Carlsbad. That’s when I was born. And as I grew up, I’d see my mother do the banking, run the books, oversee the payroll, and do most of the hiring and firing of the ten or twelve Anglos and Mexicans alike who worked for them.
I grew up thinking that all women were the money handlers of every marriage. And I saw that my mother had her own car, and she came and went as she pleased with bags of money and boxes of receipts. My parents became a force to be reckoned with in the area; my dad, the aggressive, imaginative leader, and my mother, the one who’d follow through and make sure that things really got done and weren’t just left up in the air, as was my father’s style so often. And in the evenings, I’ll never forget, I’d curl up at my mother’s feet while she did her bookkeeping and I’d nap as if I were in heaven itself until I was put to bed.
Then, one day I remember very clearly, my older cousins came by wearing Army uniforms, and everyone was so excited, saying that the war was going so badly for us that California was now in danger of being invaded. The following week, my parents’ friends, Hans and Helen, who spoke with a funny German accent, came by and told my parents that they’d been ordered to move twenty miles inland from the coast or they could have their property repossessed by the government, as was happening to the Japanese. They asked my parents to please buy their liquor store in Oceanside from them immediately. That night, my mother went over the books with Hans, and the next day we all went over to see the store. I remember that it was big and had a huge dark room in back and an attic that smelled bad. The place was booming with business. It was the first time that I recall hearing English being spoken all around me. That week, my parents bought the store and hired Hans as their manager.
Shortly after that, I’ll never forget, my father came racing into the house one day all excited, telling us that the owners of the biggest, most beautiful ranch in all the area were moving back to Canada before we were invaded and they were putting their place up for sale.
“This is our chance of a lifetime!” said my father.
“But what if we get invaded?” asked my mother.
“Bullshit!” screamed my father. “We’re not getting invaded, and that’s that! We got to keep strong in our heads, not panic like fools, and buy this ranch right now! It has orchards and pastures and cattle, horses, chickens, barns, tractors—everything! And, best of all, a dozen hilltops—all overlooking the sea—where we can build our dream home, Lupe, and stand proud for ten generations!”
“But Salvador,” said my mother, “I’m scared. We’ve been moving so fast.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” said my father, hugging my mother close, “it keeps you alert like the chicks watching out for the hawk. Now, let’s do it. Pull out your magic books!”
My mother was reluctant, but still, that night my parents went over her books again and again, adding up all the cash they could possibly put together, hoping to see if they could come up with an offer for the ranch before anyone else got wind of it. But trying to do all she could, in the morning my mother had to tell my dad that there was just no way on earth that they could pull it off.
My father raged and raved, making references to Don Pío and how important it was for them to not back down when their dream was so close at hand. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. All I knew was that my father and mother were yelling at each other over money once again. Finally, my father said that, well, he’d go and see Archie, but he hated to do it.
Years later, I found out that Archie turned him down again, this time saying it was just too big. My father went to the bank, over my mother’s protest, and borrowed $20,000 against everything they owned. He bought the 126 acres overlooking the sea, and I’ll never forget how I got to ride in the front of my father’s saddle as we rode our horses through the orchards and pastures and fields of produce, going from hilltop to hilltop, trying to decide on which knoll we’d build our dream home.
Six months later, we moved to
the ranch in Oceanside, two miles north of where I’d been born in the barrios of Carlsbad. The following year, my grandmother, Doña Guadalupe, died in the master bedroom of the old ranch house under the giant pepper trees. All of my mother’s people came in from northern California, Arizona and Mexico. I cried and cried and wouldn’t let go of my beloved grandmother, the woman who’d given me tea and sweet bread and told me stories of the past ever since I could remember.
The following year, I started school and was truly shocked when I was told on the playground that I was Mexican and didn’t belong in this country. Then to complicate things even farther, the new priest came to our home and told my parents that they shouldn’t allow us to speak Spanish at home. After he left, my parents looked like they were at a funeral when they told us that from now on, they wanted us to speak only English at home and at school. I’d get in trouble if my friends and I were heard to say anything in Spanish. Oh, that was a terrible time. School became a nightmare. The only time I was happy was when I was riding my horse or working on the ranch with our workers who were all from Mexico and great with horses and lariat.
I was seven years old when my mother finally decided on which knoll we’d build our dream home. She chose a knoll half a mile away from the sea where the wild-flowers grew. “I want plenty of sunlight,” she told my father, “so I can plant my mother’s lilies and they can flourish; and, also I want roses and night jasmine so they can fill our home with wonderful fragrance, just as I had when I grew up in La Lluvia.”
My father agreed, and they hired two architects to work with my mother, who designed the house. There were carpenters, electricians, more than twenty people, who worked on my parents’ dream house for the next two years. The foreman was from Detroit and he had false teeth. I’ll never forget how frightened I was the first time I saw him take his teeth out and put them in his shirt pocket when he sat down to eat lunch in the shade of a tree.
Finishing the house, my parents had a fiesta that lasted a week. The mayor, the chief of police, and over six hundred people came to my parents’ housewarming. I remember the celebration well. My mother said that she was dedicating their home to Saint Joseph and Our Lady of Peace. My father said that was fine for Lupe, but he, himself, had built this huge twenty-room mansion in revenge against Tom Mix, a man he hated from the bottom of his heart, because Mix had always knocked down five Mexicans with one punch in his no-good phony movies. “And the best revenge in all the world,” my father added, “is to live well! Especially longer and better than the bastard you hate!”
Rain of Gold Page 79