My heart was pounding, and I wanted to say no, and tell him that I’d only put in ten marbles like we normally did, but he started in with his chicken calls once again.
“Pock-pock, pock-pock, pock-POCK!” he said. “Come on, I’ll match everything you have, and even put in an extra five marbles. Hell, I’ll make it ten!”
I licked my lips. This was really tempting. But still, I just knew that this wasn’t right, because Gus was now moving me from our regular game into a game that I knew nothing about. Still, with the thought of those ten extra marbles, I finally cracked and said, “Okay.”
Hearing this, Gus now moved in with the confidence of a panther going after a deer, and he beat me out of almost all of my marbles in one, two, three. Because he wasn’t just bigger and stronger than me, but also knew how to work the marbles close to the edge by shooting into three or four marbles at a time. That afternoon, everyone applauded Gus, including the two girls. But then, the girl with the large, kind goat eyes actually came close to me.
“You did really well, too,” she said in a kind tone of voice.
My whole world stopped. My God, this was the first girl who’d ever spoken to me in all of my years of going to school. Her name was Nancy and she had long dark brown hair. She offered me a piece of bubble gum, and when I took off the wrapper, she took the funnies from me that were attached to the inside wrapper, and she read them and laughed. I could see she was really smart, because she’d understood the joke—which I never did.
Just then, a breeze picked up, and I glanced up at the huge old eucalyptus tree above us and I could see that he was smiling. I smiled back, thanking the tree. “Always remember,” mi mamagrande had explained to me many times, “the whole Spirit World is always with us wherever we go, if we just have the ojo-eyes to see from our hearts and the oreja-ears to hear from our soul.”
That afternoon, Gus went home telling everyone how he was still the champ and would always be the champ. And that night, I felt kind of stupid, but still I explained to my brother what had happened. To my surprise, Joseph didn’t get mad at me. No, instead he said, “I’m glad that Gus beat you.”
“But why are you glad that he beat me?” I asked, feeling all confused that my own brother would say this to me.
“Because you were getting cocky,” he said.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said quickly.
“Look,” he said, sitting up in bed, “if you hadn’t won all week long, would you have ever agreed to play in that larger circle?”
“Well, no, I guess not.”
“Exactly. You agreed to do it because you were beginning to think that you were so good that you didn’t need to stick to basics. Papa always says that the easiest guys to con are other con artists, because cons are always looking for shortcuts and easy ways in life.
“Now, just let me get out of bed and you show me how large that circle was.” I could see that it was hard for my brother to get himself out of bed. “He was smart, you know, to move you from your game to his game. I bet he’s had coaching.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I thought of that, too.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re thinking. Papa always says that knowing how to think and keep his eyes open is what saved him and his mother and sisters time and again during the Revolution.”
Going out the back door of our old ranch house, we crossed the field to our new home, which was almost done. My brother had to stop several times to catch his breath. And yet, when we’d go to the Army Navy Academy to watch him play football, we’d see them hand him the ball and he go running real fast, knocking people out of the way.
In the dirt in front of our new two-story home, I drew a circle about the same size that Gus had used to beat me. I couldn’t believe it, my brother now quickly showed me how to work a big circle. In a large circle, unlike a smaller circle, you shot into little groups of marbles that were near the edge, not the singles, which you could miss because of the greater distance. And I could see that this was exactly what Gus had done.
Then, I’ll never forget, going back to our old home that afternoon, my brother went over to the drawer where he kept his socks all neatly put away—military style, one halfway inside of the other—and he brought out a black sock and turned it upside down on the bed. And here, before my eyes, I saw the prettiest, clear-colored cherry-red marble that I’d ever seen roll out of the sock. It was a normal-size marble, too, but just a little bit larger.
“Back in the barrio this was my main shooter,” said my brother. “But I didn’t use her every day. I used Big Cherry only for special games. She’s yours,” he added.
“Mine?”
“Yes. Yours. And with this marble, I want you to beat Gus. Big Cherry has been in many battles. You look at her carefully and you’ll see she’s pretty marked up. Once, one damn—I mean, blessed—vato sneaked in a steelie on me in a game of chasies. Don’t ever play chasies with her. She’s your thoroughbred. You don’t use her for roping or bulldogging. Go on, pick her up.”
But I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at this most beautiful marble that I’d ever seen.
“Take her,” he said again.
Finally, I reached down and picked Big Cherry off the bed, holding her between my thumb and index finger so I could hold her up to the light. “But this marble is so beautiful, and I thought you told me that a shooter shouldn’t be beautiful,” I said.
“There are exceptions to every rule,” said my brother. “And besides, feel her weight and surface.”
“My God, you’re right. She’s heavy and she’s not too smooth either.”
“Exactly. So it’s okay if a shooter happens to be beautiful. The main thing is that you didn’t pick her for her beauty any more than papa chose mama because of her great beauty.”
“Mama’s beautiful?” I asked.
“Are you blind?” said my brother. “Don’t you see how men and women are always looking at our mother everywhere she goes. Our mother is more beautiful than any movie star you’ll ever see, and yet this isn’t why papa chose her. He chose her, he’s told us a thousand times, because when he first saw her, she was in line to go into the dance hall over in Carlos Malo with her brother and sister. And when a fight broke out, she didn’t get excited and enjoy it like her sister and the other women. No, she and her brother moved away, wanting no part of it, and so, by seeing this, papa knew that she was a woman of high intelligence, respect, and responsibility; a person that he could trust with his life. And trust, remember, is the foundation of all love, papa says.”
“I see,” I said. “Then our mama is beautiful,” I said, big tears coming to my eyes. “And papa, he’s smart, because he knew how to choose a wife, and knowing how to choose a wife is the most, most important thing that any man can do in all of his life.”
“Exactly,” said my brother, “because from our wives come—”
“Come our children,” I said as I’d heard our dad tell us a thousand times. “And our children inherit their instinct for survival from the women.”
My brother smiled. “I see that you’ve been listening. Good,” he added.
I couldn’t stop crying. All these years since I’d started school, I’d thought that my mother was ugly and my father was a fool. My brother took me in his arms and held me a long time, and it felt so good.
The following week, I went to school with a power inside of my heart-corazón that was BURSTING! And I beat the hell out of everyone at recess, including Gus, with our regular-size circles. And then, after school, when we went out once more to play under the huge old eucalyptus trees, I brought out my brother’s Big Cherry and I beat the crap out of Gus with his big circle, too.
And when he said that Big Cherry was the size of a boulder and I couldn’t use her unless he could do switchies, I almost said, “Sure, do your switchies! I’ll beat you anyway!” But I didn’t, because I could now see that this would be cocky talk. I put Big Cherry away and still I was able to beat him with my regular shooter.
&n
bsp; Something had happened to me. It was like I just couldn’t do anything wrong. But then, I remembered that my brother told me that our dad had learned from Duel up in Montana to always let the other guys win back a little bit of their money at the end of the night of poker-playing, so they’d want to play with you again the next day. I did this. I missed a shot, pretended like I was all upset with myself, and Gus got excited and came in and shot the hell out the last few marbles in the pot.
Then he screamed with joy, and went home that afternoon telling everyone that he was still the real champ, because he’d beat me in the end and he also had a hell of lot more marbles than me.
By the end of that week, it was easy to see who was the new marble champion of our whole third grade, if they just looked past how many marbles we brought to school. But I said nothing. In fact, I could now see that my brother had been very wise to tell me that a real king…kept his reign a secret.
I’d listened, practiced, learned, kicked ass, and…and…I’d also found out that my mother was beautiful and my father was smart and that maybe I wasn’t very good in the classroom, but still, I…un Mexicano, could think, organize a vote, and kick ass at recess!
I couldn’t stop crying, I was so happy—I was El KING!
CHAPTER nine
Knowing that I was king felt pretty damn—I mean, blessed—good! And now that I didn’t feel terrified of going to school, I quit wetting my bed. My days at school began to be magical, and not just at recess, either. In the classroom, I could now see that there was value in some of the things that were being taught to us. It was at this time that we were taught something called multiplication and division. Some kids were having real difficulty catching on, but for me, on the other hand, I was able to catch on how to do my multiplication and division right away.
Different than with the alphabet and reading, numbers made a lot of sense to me. With adding and subtracting I could figure out how many bales of hay we got off a hillside or how many marbles I had. And with multiplication, I could line up my marbles in lines of tens, then just multiply by ten how many lines I had. This was really great. It saved me a whole lot of time, especially now that I had well over four hundred marbles.
Also, different than with the alphabet, in math you only had nine numbers that you had to memorize unless you counted in the zero. And counting in the zero made a lot of sense to me, too, because after you got to “9,” then all you had to do was just put down a “1,” like you’d done at the beginning and add a “0” to that “1” and you now had “10,” which was like a whole new start until you got all the way up to “19.” Then all you had to put down was a “2”—which made sense since “2” came after “1”—and now you’d put a “0” behind this “2” and you had yourself “20.”
I loved this kind of clear, easy thinking. It made a lot more sense to me than that damn—I mean, blessed—alphabet, where you had to memorize twenty-six letters, then put those letters into bunches with no rhyme or reason to make up different words. Like the word “read,” itself, was sometimes “reed” and then other times “red.” This pissed me off! Reading and writing were a pain in the ass! Why couldn’t we have a lot less letters, and maybe even a “zero” letter to bunch things up with.
Because adding and subtracting made so much sense to me, I quickly learned how to add and subtract two or three columns in my head. None of the other kids could do it. Suddenly I was smart. I began to think that my days as a “slow learner” were behind me and no one at this new school was ever going to find out that I’d been called “stupid” at the other school across town. One day, during reading, our teacher asked who would like to stand up and read aloud, just as our teachers had done in the first and second grades.
My God, the terror that shot through my whole body made me sick. And suddenly, I wasn’t king anymore. Hell, I wasn’t even a third grader. No, I was a heart-pounding kindergarten-baby-born-in-the-gravy and ready to pee in my pants again.
I’ll never forget as long as I live how our teacher looked around the class to see whom to call on first, and when her eyes came towards my section of the classroom, I closed my eyes and said a quick little prayer. “Please, Lord God,” I said, “don’t let her call on me, because if she does, I’m sure to pee in my pants.”
Then I heard her laugh, and so I opened up my eyes, and miracle of miracles, God the Merciful saved me, because instead of needing to pick someone to read, all these hands went flying up, especially the hands of girls, wanting to read.
“Thank God for all girls,” I said to God, and I thought that my prayers were answered and all my problems were over forever and ever, and our teacher was only going to ask who wanted to read for the rest of the year. After all, she was right to do this, I figured. We weren’t first or second graders anymore. No, we were big third graders, three years away from being “babies-born-in-the-gravy,” so reading should be voluntary.
But then one day, she asked, “Well, who hasn’t had a chance to read so far?” and she glanced all around the classroom and once again her eyes—oh, my Lord God—came to rest on me.
I got so scared that I thought of bolting from the classroom, jumping on my Schwinn, and pedaling for home as fast as I could. But then, thank God, the bell rang and it was lunchtime.
Quickly, I tried to figure out what to do. I only had so much time and I knew there were quite a few of us who hadn’t read yet, because it always seemed to be the same six girls and a couple of boys who always raised their hands, wanting to read.
I went around and very quickly asked the different guys—who I thought hadn’t read—if they’d read so far. A couple of these guys immediately said that they hadn’t. A few others wanted to know why I wanted to know. I didn’t know what to say because, up to that point, everyone in my class assumed that I was one of the smartest and most capable of all us kids, because of my marble shooting and how good I was in math.
“Look,” I said, suddenly remembering how my brother Joseph had explained to me that our dad had paid that Acuña kid to teach my brother how to play marbles, “I’ll pay you each, well, a nickel if you put up your hand and tell our teacher that you haven’t read yet.”
“You got a nickel?” asked one kid suspiciously.
“Well, no, not right now, but I’ll bring some tomorrow.”
“And how do we know that you’ll keep your word?”
“Because I promise,” I said.
“But everyone knows that Mexicans never keep their—”
This kid never got to finish his words. I was on him like a swarm of flies on fresh shit, knocking him to the ground and hitting him as fast as I could. “Okay! Okay!” he yelled. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”
My heart wouldn’t calm down. I wanted to keep hitting him. It was my first real fight. I could now see that all my other fights had just been wrestling matches. This one had been the real thing. I’d really wanted to hurt him just like his words had hurt me. He’d never had a chance. I liked this. Never again would I ever let anyone say anything bad about me or my people. I’d knock the living hell out of them. And if they were bigger than me, then I’d go home and get myself some dynamite and blow them to smithereens!
Suddenly, I remembered Ramón—my hero. And I wished that he’d been here to see me in action. I wondered what had happened to him. He’d been so smart and capable, but our teachers had never seen this. All they’d ever seen was a “stupid, lying, no-good sneaky Mexican.”
After lunch, we went back into the classroom, and when the teacher asked who hadn’t read yet, my “good friend,” whom I’d just beaten up, glanced at me, then put up his hand up real fast, and he read really well. Then another “friend” of mine raised his hand, too. At lunchtime, I’d made deals with four kids, but I’d only had to knock the hell out of one. And the next day, I brought a bunch of nickels in my pocket and paid off the four guys, even the guy whom I’d beaten up. But he didn’t want my money.
“Go on, take it,” I said. “And no hurt feelin
gs. Just never insult me again.”
He nodded, taking the nickel. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d get so mad.”
“Well, now you know.”
“I didn’t even know if you were really a Mexican. I thought all of the Mexicans lived across Oceanside in Pas-olie Town.”
I never heard the word “pozole,” which was a type of Mexican soup, pronounced the way this boy had said it. It sounded vulgar, just like the word “Mexican” had sounded so dirty when that playground rooster-female teacher had yelled it at us all through kindergarten.
“The word is ‘pozole,’” I said to him. “Not ‘pas-olie.’ That sounds ugly. And I want you to know that Mexicanos do keep their word. In fact, hombre de palabra, ‘man of his word,’ is the highest praise you can give to any man, my father always tells us.”
“Okay,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“Okay,” I said, “but now you do know. And yes, I’m Mexican. Both of my parents came from Mexico.”
It was over. I could just feel it. Having beat this kid up so easily had opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. Having worked on the ranch and needing to move pigs and calves and horses around all my life had made me strong and taught me how to maneuver in a way these city kids knew nothing about.
It was almost the end of the year and our teacher asked Gus and me and this one other kid to stay in the classroom during lunchtime, because she needed to speak to us. Instantly, I knew what was going on. We were the three kids who always tried to avoid reading. But I’d seen Gus and this other kid read a couple of times, so I knew that they were a whole lot better than me.
So when lunchtime came, I acted like I’d forgotten what our teacher said, and I got up and started going out with the other kids. Because once I was out the door, I already knew what I was going to do. I was going to jump on my Schwinn bike and pedal home as fast as I could and never come to school again. I’d hide in our big avocado orchards all day, or down in the swamp, then come home in the afternoon and pretend I’d been at school all day.
Burro Genius Page 14