by Chris Perez
At the Nueces County Courthouse, Selena took control and all I had to do was go with the flow. I wasn’t scared, but I felt a little numb, as if I were in shock from making such an abrupt decision—one that would no doubt have consequences I couldn’t even predict yet. I never would have known what to do, but Selena just kept asking questions and the clerks at the windows explained what steps we needed to take. We were lucky in that the clerk agreed to waive the standard waiting period for a marriage license—probably because nearly everyone in Corpus knew who Selena was by then.
We paid what we needed to pay, signed the necessary papers, and then stood in front of the justice of the peace, who said a few words. Then, bam, we were married, just like that. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe that I was actually in this room with Selena, saying wedding vows.
Those moments went by so fast, yet I knew that the way I felt about her at that very moment was going to be the way I felt about her forever. No matter what I had thought about marriage before—not much, truthfully, given my own family history—I felt with great certainty that remembering those marriage vows would always be a sort of glue holding us together.
Neither of us cared that it was just the two of us standing in front of the justice of the peace or that we were so young. Everything else—even thoughts of the wedding Selena was giving up and worries about her father and the band—flew right out the window.
We were in love. We were husband and wife. We were happy. Nobody could come between us anymore. That’s all that mattered.
The best part of the day was walking hand in hand out of the courthouse, our shoulders touching, instead of having to pull apart when we were in public. It all felt so good, even as I wondered what Abraham would do when he heard the news. Selena and I were at peace with our decision, content to know that we had finally, officially started our lives together. We had every intention of living happily ever after. Nobody could stop us from doing that now.
After the wedding, we drove straight from the courthouse in Corpus to my dad’s apartment in San Antonio so that I could collect my things. San Antonio suddenly seemed safer to us since Abraham was in Corpus and we certainly weren’t ready to face Selena’s family with our news. Beyond that, we didn’t really have a plan.
As we drove, Selena and I talked about what Abraham might do, and what would happen if he ended the band. “He’s not going to do that,” Selena said. “He’ll come around.”
Whatever we did next, from whether we lived in Corpus or San Antonio, to how we would make a living, hinged on Abraham’s reaction to our wedding. We knew that we couldn’t really make any decisions about anything until we talked to him.
Every now and then, Selena and I would be derailed from this logical conversation by the knowledge that we’d done it—we’d really gotten married! It was almost like having an out-of-body experience, the way we could see ourselves in the car from the outside, not quite believing that we were looking at a young couple madly, deeply in love and now—in a very weird way—on their honeymoon. We had just done something major, an act that would change our lives forever, and we were still kind of in shock because we didn’t know how people would handle it.
“We’re married?” one of us would ask.
“We’re married!” the other would cry out, and then we’d both laugh until the tears were running down our faces.
At the same time, I tried not to imagine what Abraham and A.B. might be saying or doing right then. I was certain they’d had to cancel their gig in El Paso when Selena didn’t show up, and I knew they must both be worried sick, not knowing where she was, or if she was hurt or injured. They might assume the worst; after all, Selena never spaced out or blew off a gig. She was never anything less than professional—until today. But running off to marry me was Selena’s way of putting her foot down and saying “enough is enough” to her father. She was just two weeks away from her twenty-first birthday, and she was ready to assert her independence as a woman.
Selena and I kept worrying aloud about what we would do if Abraham demolished Los Dinos, but I didn’t really believe that would happen. Abraham surely wouldn’t throw away everything that they had worked so hard to create. I didn’t know what part I’d have to play in the band, if any, but that was fine by me. I could just keep doing what I was doing, making music in San Antonio and earning my own money. I had stood up to Abraham before and I was prepared to do it again.
My father had met Selena a few times, but usually only at shows. When she came to visit me in San Antonio, we did sometimes go to the apartment, but usually during the day while my dad was at work. He liked her, though. I knew that much. Selena had that quality about her that made you feel like you’d known her forever; within minutes of seeing her, she’d joke around and make you laugh, drawing you into a conversation and making you feel comfortable. Still, growing up with Abraham, Selena had learned that fathers could be a formidable force in a family. She was extremely nervous about telling my dad our news and so was I.
When we walked into the apartment, my dad said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much,” I said, and went straight to my room to start packing, trying to think of a way to tell him. Selena, meanwhile, must have stayed in the living room; by the time I was in my room with my dad behind me, she was nowhere in sight.
That’s weird, I thought, until I realized that Selena was really nervous. Even knowing her as well as I did, it always amazed me whenever Selena exhibited anxiety, because onstage she was almost another person: confident, emotional, personable, sexy, even swaggering. She always worried that people might not show up to hear her sing. Sometimes she’d peek out at the audience from backstage and, if there was a good crowd, she’d get giddy when she saw how many people were out there, no matter how popular she became. But, once Selena was in the spotlight, she gave her performances every ounce of her spirit and energy.
I started pulling clothes out of my dresser and stuffing them into a duffel bag. My father stood in the room, frowning as he watched. “Mi hijo, what happened?” he asked.
My father had seen me make more than one mistake—usually with cars or alcohol. He had even come to the rescue a few times. By the look on his face, I could tell that now he was really worried that I’d made another one. I said, “Nothing, Dad. Everything’s fine.” I swallowed hard. “But we did it.”
“You did what?”
I couldn’t even say the word “married.” It wasn’t a word that was going to just roll off my tongue. How do you go from being in a secret relationship to announcing to the world that you’re married?
“We did IT,” I said again.
“I still don’t understand,” my father said.
“Selena and I got married,” I managed.
“What?” I had a chair in my room that I used to sit in to practice guitar. Now Dad sat down really slowly on that chair and shook his head.
I could tell that, for him, this wasn’t bad news, exactly, but it wasn’t good news, either. “Damn,” he said.
My father, always ready for a conversation, was nearly speechless. As I stood there watching him, I realized why: After being in a marriage that didn’t work out, after struggling to create relationships with kids he never lived with, my father knew that marrying young, or marrying at any age, wasn’t always going to end up the way you thought it might.
“Man,” he said now, clenching his fists a little. “Why did Abraham have to push you like that? What did he think was going to happen?”
“It’s okay, Dad,” I reassured him. “It’s a good thing. Everything is cool.”
A sudden movement in the doorway made me glance in that direction. Selena was standing there now, looking in, her brown eyes so huge that it was almost comical.
My father turned around and slowly got to his feet when he saw Selena. Then he took a couple of steps toward her, and Selena rushed into his arms, where he folded her into a great hug.
We sat and talked with my father for a while, an
d then we drove over to my mom’s. I’m not sure what possessed Selena and me to go there, of all places, for our wedding night. I guess we were both feeling pretty shaky and just needed to be someplace where we knew we would be accepted as who we were: newlyweds who had just promised to love, honor, and cherish one another for a lifetime. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
At any rate, we drove to my mother’s house and told her and Pops the news. Again, I had trouble getting the words out.
“Mom, we did it,” I said.
“What did you do?” she asked, looking from Selena to me.
“You know, Mom. The ‘M’ word.”
As close as she was to my mother, Selena must have been really nervous here, too, for she suddenly announced, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and fled.
My mother and stepfather reacted to our news much the same way my dad had. They knew how in love we were, and they were happy to hear that we were married. But they both thought it was a shame that Selena and I had been driven to marry so young, and in secret.
Finally, in bed that night, Selena and I talked about what might happen next. We agreed to live in Selena’s apartment in Corpus—a place that she had been using as a studio of sorts for her fashion design hobby—as long as her father didn’t harass us once we started living there.
“You’re coming back to the band,” Selena said. She was asking me and telling me at the same time.
“No,” I told her. “No way. After everything I’ve been through with your father and Los Dinos, I have no desire to deal with that stuff.”
She sat up in bed next to me. “What are you talking about? It’s not going to be like that.”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. “Neither of us knows what Abraham will do.”
She didn’t like hearing that. But it was true. I wasn’t about to drop what I was doing to run back to the band. I was pretty convinced that I’d be better off on my own than with Los Dinos.
Suddenly, my mother’s house phone rang. It was A.B. The family had been trying to track down Selena all day, he said, and they knew about our marriage.
Today, of course, people would have been tweeting or texting or blogging about it before she and I even made it out of the courthouse. Even without all that, news of our marriage had spread within the hour. The clerks at City Hall had probably told their friends, “Hey, guess who got a marriage license today?” This gossip had led people in the music business to catch wind of it. DJs started phoning Abraham’s house to see if the news was true. A few radio stations even announced the news.
Selena’s face paled when she first started talking to her brother and discovered that everyone in her family knew about our marriage by now. Then, all of a sudden, her brother said something that made her laugh. That was a good sign, I thought, feeling my stomach unclench a little.
Suddenly, Selena thrust the phone in my direction. “A.B. wants to talk to you,” she said.
My first reaction was to say no. But Selena gave me this look, and I knew I didn’t have any choice.
A.B. has a quality that he shared with Selena, an ability to disarm you within seconds of starting up a conversation, no matter how set you might be against him. He did that with me now.
As soon as I got on the phone, A.B. said, “Welcome to the family, bro,” and then he was laughing and I couldn’t help it. I started laughing, too, because the whole situation seemed so surreal. Plus, A.B. and I had started out as friends long before I became involved with his little sister. As tough as I wanted to be with him, as much as I wanted to hang on to my anger because everyone in the band had turned their backs on me, when I heard A.B say those words, my anger just melted away. Gone.
We talked a little more, and A.B. did apologize at last. “Man, I’m sorry things went the way they did,” he said. “But it’s all right now. Y’all are married, and it’s for the best. You’re coming on the road with us, right?”
The question caught me off guard. “Well,” I said, trying to think past the shocks that just kept coming. “Do you all want me to come back?”
“Of course,” he said. “Who else can play guitar like you can?”
“Is your dad cool with that?” I asked.
“He’s going to have to accept it,” A.B. said. “He’s a little upset right now. He’s not taking the news very well, but he’ll get used to the idea.”
Of course that wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear. But what else had I expected? “All right,” I said. “If you say it’s cool, then I’ll come back.”
“I do. Tell my sister that I love her and I’ll see you guys soon,” A.B. said. “Welcome to the family, brother-in-law.”
We both started laughing again, and then I hung up. Selena had been listening to all of this, of course. If she had been happy before, now she was ecstatic. Everything was falling into place just as she had hoped.
We fell back into bed and wrapped our arms around each other, still amazed at our good fortune: We had found each other and our love had proved stronger than any obstacles thrown our way.
SIX
OUR FIRST MONTHS AS MAN AND WIFE
Courtesy of the author
The next day, Selena and I moved into her apartment in Corpus and started our honeymoon. Her father showed up at our door hours after we’d arrived.
Abraham’s expression was unreadable. I felt my hands go cold and my heart started pounding. I was determined to be civil—this was Selena’s father, after all—but I wasn’t about to invite him inside. How could I trust this man, who had done nothing but hurl insults at me since finding out that I loved his daughter?
The worst-scase scenario, as I saw it, was that Abraham would accept me, without really accepting me, if you know what I mean. Maybe he would invite me into the band again to keep Selena happy, but there was a good possibility that he might act like I was family when Selena was around, but otherwise make it clear that he was still displeased—clear enough that the other band members might continue giving me the cold shoulder. I was therefore polite when Abraham arrived, but reserved; I no longer trusted the man any more than he trusted me.
Selena stayed inside the apartment while Abraham and I talked outside. I never thought to ask her later if she’d known Abraham was coming over. He did that often after we were married—just dropped by unannounced—so she may have had no idea that Abraham was on his way.
I had been expecting the worst, so I was surprised when Abraham held things together. He didn’t say anything derogatory. In fact, he even began with an apology. If he’d been wearing a hat, he might have even taken it off and twisted it in his hands.
“I shouldn’t have been the way that I was,” he said. “I hope you know that I was only protecting Selena.”
I told him that I did know that, but I was still offended and hurt. “When we were on the road together, I spent more time with you and your family than I did with my own family,” I pointed out. “You should know me by now. I would never do anything to hurt Selena. I love her.”
He nodded, accepting this, it seemed. Then Abraham became businesslike—the mode he was most comfortable in, I knew. “Are you coming back to the band?” he asked.
I could have taken a stance and resisted—not just to be contrary, but because I truly was happy playing around San Antonio with Rudy and Albert, and working as an independent musician. Did I really want all of the baggage that would come with rejoining Los Dinos and the Quintanilla family?
Again, though, I tried to see things from Abraham’s point of view. He must have been humiliated and angry when he heard that Selena and I had gotten married behind his back. Because he had no idea of the true nature of our relationship, and didn’t even know how long we had been seeing each other, it must have been a total shock when strangers telephoned to tell him that his beloved youngest daughter, who in his eyes had the potential to be a superstar, had gone against his wishes and married a long-haired guitarist whom he didn’t deem worthy.
I de
cided that if Selena’s father could behave so professionally with all of his emotions surely swirling around inside him, I could, too. Plus I knew how happy Selena would be if I rejoined Los Dinos. “I’ll come back if you want me to,” I said. “It’s up to you and A.B.”
“Selena wants you in the group,” Abraham said gruffly, and then he actually gave me a hug. He was shaking a little with emotion.
Feeling the tremor in his body, I realized, once again, how devastated Abraham must have been when he discovered that Selena had gone against his wishes, and how much it had cost him to come over here and accept me into the family. Selena was his baby girl, and I know that man loved her more than his own life. But Abraham had apologized and he was trying to make it possible for us to have a relationship both within the family and in the band. I respected him for that.
We went into the apartment together then. Selena and Abraham hugged each other for a long time. She started crying, and then Abraham did, too.
“I’m sorry I pushed you kids into a corner,” Abraham said at last. “Let’s just continue from here. We’ll go on doing what we were doing as a band, and we’ll move forward over this bump in the road.”
So we embraced, said our apologies, and agreed to move on. It was a good thing we did, too, because things were ready to explode on the music scene for Selena y Los Dinos.
To celebrate our love, I decided to pay a special tribute to Selena with my favorite guitar. The guitar was a white Jackson Soloist. It was the first electric guitar I had ever bought that was considered top-of-the-line, and it did everything I needed it to do. Even when I upgraded to a Fender Stratocaster, I kept the Jackson with me as a backup guitar onstage and still played it now and then.
One night, Selena and I were doing a show in Austin when my good friend Tony Gonzales stopped by. Tony was an artist; he had designed and painted a number of shirts for me. When he came by the bus after the show, he brought me a T-shirt with a portrait of Selena on it, and that gave me an idea. I had always wanted a guitar with artwork on it, but I didn’t want anything mass produced. I also wanted to choose artwork that really symbolized something important in my life.