Burro Genius

by Victor Villaseñor

For nearly a month, we’d all been working around the clock, and then last week my mother had told my father that she wanted some white gates to be built at the front of our rancho grande to give the celebration an elegant entrance. And my father, he hadn’t gotten angry with her request. No, he’d looked at our mother in silence, then he’d turned to us kids.

  “Just look at this woman that I married,” he’d said to us, “she was born in a little ranchita in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico, and she grew up so poor that they had nothing but a shack anchored to a rock, and here she feels so natural giving orders to everyone like she’d been a queen all of her life.”

  “Don’t ridicule me, Salvador!” snapped our mother.

  “I’m not, querida,” said our dad. “I’m doing the opposite! Because you just never fail to amaze me! I think I know you, then you become even greater than I DREAMED! I give you honor, querida! You are LA REINA DE MI CORAZÓN, the queen of my heart! So much blood and hunger we saw, and still you rise up with the vision of an angel! Hell, yeah, we’ll get those gates built, y pronto!”

  I’ll never forget the old bricklayer that my dad brought in to do the job. His arms and hands were huge and hairy and he wore his Levi’s so low that you could see the crack of his ass. He always carried a pint bottle of whiskey in his back pocket and farted louder than a racehorse when he worked. He was the best and fastest bricklayer in all of Southern California. He was the one who’d done all the brick work of the front and back patios of our new home, and now he went to work on those front gates like a stud horse going after a mare in heat.

  “Of course, I’ll get these damn big gates done in time for your celebration,” he’d said to my dad. “You’re my kind of man, Sal! You love your whiskey and love your wife, but not necessarily in that order!”

  Also, late one afternoon a stone artist from France came to our house and showed us the pictures of the famous Cliff Gardens Restaurant that he’d built in Los Angeles.

  “How long will it take you to build us two water fountains?” asked my father.

  “Oh, maybe two or three months,” said the stone artist, who told us to call him Frenchie.

  “I’ll give you two weeks!” said our dad.

  “Impossible,” said Frenchie.

  “Why?”

  “Well, just to get the material alone will take weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because up in Los Angeles we had to wait for this, and then that, and it took weeks to get our supplies because of the war just ending.”

  “No problema,” said my dad. “I have connections that no money can buy! You tell me what you need, and I’ll have it here tomorrow!”

  The stone artist couldn’t stop grinning. “I like your style,” he said to our dad.

  And so Frenchie moved in with us and worked day and night, eating Mexican food three times a day and drinking whiskey at night, and miracle of miracles, he completed one fountain in the front patio and another in the back patio in three weeks.

  But then there was another problema. Our mother wanted an elegant housewarming with fine dishes and crystal. But our father wanted a real kick-ass pachanga a lo ranchero with tortillas, and everyone eating with their hands. After about a week of debating this issue, it was decided that yes, champagne would be served in real crystal glasses, but also when the steer was taken out of the ground pit, the head and brains of the animal would be served with tortillas on a platter at the main table in puro Tapatio de Jalisco rancho grande tradition!

  Parking the tractor in the tractor barn, I quickly ran between the fruit trees to our new home, and there was my father in the front patio, showing John Ford the layout of our new place. We still hadn’t moved in all the way yet. We were still waiting for the rest of our furniture to arrive.

  “It’s even more spectacular than I’d been told,” Ford was telling my dad as I came running up. “Is this fountain made of real stone? It’s beautiful!”

  “Absolutely!” said my father. “Everything is genuine real! In fact, there are two natural springs, one here in front and another one in the back. That’s why my boss had his house built here, between the two springs.”

  “This is a natural spring?”

  “You got it,” said my dad with a grand smile.

  I almost laughed. These weren’t natural springs. Hell, the water was piped in with copper pipes and the rocks were fake. But Frenchie, that great artist from France, had made the stones look so real, even though he’d made them out of cement, that it was hard to tell, especially with all the ferns and flowers planted around the little waterfall.

  “You want to go inside?” asked my father.

  “Oh, no. I’ve seen enough. I don’t want to get you and your boy in trouble.”

  “I told you, the boss is gone right now. He wouldn’t be back till late tonight. Come on in and I’ll show you around,” said my dad, opening the front door.

  The house was still mostly empty and so our footsteps echoed through out the large rooms.

  “Beautiful floors,” said the man.

  “All hardwood, clear-oak,” said my dad. “Damn hard to get right now, because it’s so soon after the war.”

  “Yes, I know. Some of my friends up in Los Angeles have been wanting to remodel their houses, but can’t get the material.”

  “Yeah, that’s why it took my boss two years to build this house. But he’s got big connections in high places, so he pulled strings to get what he needed.”

  “I understand that he’s called the Al Capone of the West,” said the man.

  My father glanced around acting like he was suddenly real nervous. “Who told you that?” whispered my dad.

  “Well, I thought it was common knowledge that he’d been a bootlegger.”

  “Ssssh,” said my father. “I didn’t know that. But then, that explains why he always comes with a car full of armed bodyguards.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes,” said my father, still acting like he was nervous as hell. “I work for him ten years, but I never ask him no questions. He treats me and my kid good, and that’s all I need to know.”

  “Maybe I better leave,” said the man.

  “No, come in and see the bar. I’ll fix you a drink.”

  “I’m leaving,” said the man.

  “Look, I told you, he’s not here right now. Come on down the hallway and I’ll fix us both a drink.”

  I watched my father take the man by the arm and walk him past the living room with the new carpet and spotless grand piano, past the dining room, by the kitchen, and to the playroom with the built-in bar. Outside of the playroom was the huge back patio for dancing. Next to it was the second fountain that was surrounded with even greater stonework and a profusion of palm trees and ferns.

  “My God, this is a paradise!” said the man.

  “Yeah, pretty fancy,” said my dad. “What do you want—scotch, tequila, whiskey?”

  “Do you know if he has any of his old bootleg whiskey left? I hear tell he used to make the best liquor in the west!”

  “That’s what I’ve heard, too,” said my dad. “Look, I think I know where he just might keep his last bottle of that stuff, but…you got to promise to never tell a soul, or I could not just get fired, but, well, you know, if it ever got back to him, my son and I could disappear.”

  The man’s eyes twisted. “Honestly! My God, I won’t tell a soul,” he said, licking his lips.

  “Okay, let me see. Yeah, here’s the last bottle left,” said my dad.

  I had to bite my lip to not laugh as I watched my dad bring out his special old bottle and serve them each an inch of whiskey in a large glass. The man watched my father pour the golden liquid like it was pure gold. And I knew that this really wasn’t even my dad’s real bootleg whiskey. That, he kept in the cellar under lock and key. What he was serving this man was Sunny Brook, or Kentucky Cream or Canadian Club, which he said were almost as good as his own, and he kept one of these in an old bottle for an occasion just
like this.

  Having poured the two whiskeys, my dad handed the man one glass and took the other. The man sniffed his whiskey, held it up to see its color, nodded his approval, then he sipped it like it was the greatest liquor he’d ever tasted.

  “Ah, that’s good!” he said. “The best! But I better get out of here. I don’t want to get you and your son in trouble.”

  “Come this weekend to the celebration,” said my dad.

  “Really? You think I could do that?”

  “Sure. Why not? He’s inviting the whole town. It will be a feast for kings! A whole barbecued steer, Mexican-style, and music from across the border.”

  “Okay. I’ll come. And here,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “for you and your son.” He handed my father a five-dollar bill.

  “Thanks,” said my father, pocketing the money. “You don’t know how much this means to me. Gracias.”

  “Doesn’t he pay you well?”

  “Well, you know how rich people are. They didn’t get rich by being generous.”

  “Well, here let me give you another—”

  “No, no, this is enough. Thank you very mucho,” said my father, continuing to act like he didn’t know how to speak English very well. “I’ll walk you out to your car.”

  I watched my father walk the man out to his car and see him off. Then my dad came back into the house laughing so hard that I thought he’d choke. “Lo chingé!” yelled my father. “And got paid for it, too! Oh, this is BEAUTIFUL! And here, you get half of the five dollars, mijo, for not laughing. That was fun, eh?”

  “But you lied about everything, papa?”

  “Yes, and he loved it!”

  My dad fixed himself another drink and laughed all the more. And when my mother came home with my brother and two sisters—they’d returned from San Diego—he told them the story and my brother and sisters laughed. My mother didn’t.

  “And what will you do if he comes, Salvador. You’ll look like a fool,” said our mother.

  My father just winked. “No worry, querida, you just wait and see. Hell, he’s a big movie producer from Hollywood and he has a beach house down in Del Mar. Hell, he’ll probably end up wanting to put me in the movies!”

  Early the next morning, we had to slaughter the steer. We’d already killed the two goats and the three pigs and taken the meat to Talone’s in Vista to keep the meat in his big walk-in cooler. Now all we had to do was the steer.

  For two months, we’d kept the steer penned up and we’d been grain-feeding him. Now he was over a thousand pounds. Carefully, we got one rope over his horns and another rope on his left hind hoof. This way we could walk him from the corrals down the dirt road to our tractor barn where we had the chain and pulley to hoist him up after we killed him. He wasn’t a wild-range animal anymore. We’d befriended him over the last two months while we’d been grain-feeding him in the small fattening corral. He trusted us and so we were able to walk him quietly from the corrals to the tractor barn.

  A couple of years back, George Lopez, a big, handsome family friend, had come roaring up on his Harley-Davidson the day we were going to kill a steer and the animal had spooked and taken off racing through the orchard. It had taken all the horsemanship that my father and my brother knew to get their ropes around two tree trunks and bring the bucking steer to a halt.

  Now we had a truck parked at the fork in our road that came up towards the corrals so that nobody could come in on us. We were doing pretty well and the big, young, juicy steer was almost inside the tractor barn where we had a little grain and alfalfa waiting for him, when he abruptly stopped and began sniffing the ground. I glanced at my father. I guessed that the animal could smell where we’d killed and butchered the three pigs and two goats. But because of all the gas and oil of our farm equipment, we’d thought that he wouldn’t smell the other animals’ blood and guts. We were wrong. He was suddenly very wary.

  “Hold on to your ropes real good,” said my father to my brother and our foreman. “It looks like he’s gonna spook.”

  Now the huge steer was snorting and the hair had come up on his back.

  “So what are we to do?” asked my brother.

  “I don’t know,” said our father. “But we got to keep calm so he don’t smell any fear coming off of us.”

  All of our lives our father had explained to us that there was a proper way to kill. That the animal had to be kept cool and calm or the meat would have a funny little smell that wasn’t good for our digestion. “That’s why the meats from the big markets sometimes don’t feel very good to us in the stomach,” our dad explained to us. “Because most slaughterhouses don’t give a damn how they kill an animal. This is the reason Talone’s steaks are the sweetest in San Diego County. To kill with patience and understanding, even in war, is what my grandfather Don Pio, the greatest man who’s ever lived, explained to us was necessary for any good leader.”

  We all knew the story of our great grandfather Don Pio very well. He’d been a short dark Indian from Oaxaca and he’d been the one who’d taught our father so much about respecting life. My brother had hold of the rope on the hind leg of the steer and Nicolás, our top hand, had hold of the rope on the horns. My dad had his .22 Remington rifle in hand and all the knives were inside of the bucket with which we were going to catch the blood. After all, fresh, warm blood was a real delicacy on a good, properly done kill.

  “I guess we’re going to have to get him out of here and maybe kill him under the pepper tree,” said my dad. “But we got to move him real easy, so don’t make any sudden movements.”

  “Couldn’t we just get some gas on a rag and rub his nose with it, so he can’t smell anything?” asked my brother.

  “That might work, but also it could just confuse him and…confused animals—just like confused people—can get a little wild, mijito,” said my father. “But what the hell, let’s try it. Mundo, get some gas on a rag real pronto.”

  I quickly did as I was told. This animal was huge. We’d raised him since a calf. He was half Hereford and half Holstein. His face was all white, and his body was almost all black. I took the rag to our gas pump and rubbed it around the gas nozzle, then came back slowly towards the steer. If he panicked, he could really hurt me or tear up the place before they brought him under control.

  “Relax yourself,” said my father to me, seeing how scared I was. “If he smells any fear coming off you, we got trouble.”

  I took a big breath and blew out, trying my best to be fearless, but it was tough.

  “Easy, big boy,” I said to the huge animal. His head alone was bigger than me, and his horns had never been chopped and were long and razor-sharp. “This is just a rag with gas to confuse you,” I said, “so we can kill you. Ooops! No, I didn’t mean that,” I quickly added, not wanting to panic the animal, and yet I also didn’t want to lie to him, figuring if I was truthful, he’d feel better. “Look, we want you to smell this rag to confuse you so we can then—shit, papa, what am I supposed to say to an animal that we’re going to kill?”

  My brother Chavaboy and Nicolás burst out laughing.

  “Here, give me that damn rag and you take the rifle and knives!” said my father.

  I gave my dad the rag and he handed me his long-barrel .22 Remington and the blood bucket with the knives.

  “Smell this, cabrón,” said my dad, putting the rag to the steer’s nose. The huge animal took one sniff of the rag and leaped about three feet straight into the air, whirling about, farting a huge alfalfa-smelling fart, and went racing out of the old tractor barn. “HOLD HIM!” shouted my dad. “Work him over towards the pepper tree!”

  Digging his heals into the ground, Nicolás, a real vaquero from the state of Zacatecas, held the huge animal pretty well, and my brother was doing well, too. But we could see that my brother was quickly tiring, so my father threw the rag away and took hold of the rope on the hind hoof with my brother. Pulling and holding, then letting the animal go when he was pointed the right direct
ion, we finally got the steer down to the big old pepper tree.

  “Tie him up,” said my dad to Nicolás, “then go and get the hoist and chain from the tractor barn. This will give him time to calm down. And you,” he said to me, “go get the grain and alfalfa.”

  Nicolás and I quickly did as told. My father stayed behind with my brother and the steer. My brother wasn’t looking so good. I quickly ran to get the grain and alfalfa and bring it back to the steer while Nicolás climbed up in the rafters and got the tackle and chain off the main beam. Getting back to the pepper tree, I could see that my father looked pretty worried about my brother, and I could also see that my brother Joseph didn’t want to be thought of as sick or weak, so he was holding on as strongly as he could. I had to fight back my tears. I loved my brother and I could tell he was hurting.

  Finally, after about twenty minutes, the steer looked like he’d calmed down. He was starting to eat the grain and alfalfa and flick his tail to keep the flies off of himself. Talking gently to the big animal, my father now picked up his Remington and walked real carefully around the steer until he could get a clear shot at him between the eyes. And sure enough, one shot from that little .22 right between the eyes, just below the horns, and the huge beast went down like a ton of bricks, never knowing what had hit him.

  Instantly, expertly, my dad moved in with one of his knives and cut the steer’s throat just under the jaw, slicing the jugular so that the blood would now quickly pump out of his body, like nobody’s business, and into the blood bucket. The bucket was almost full when the huge animal began to kick his first kicks of death—kicks so fast and wild and powerful that they actually yanked his whole body about and could have broken a grown man’s leg if he wasn’t well out of the way.

  Suddenly, all the cats and dogs on the ranch were at our side, attracted by the smell of the kill. But they didn’t dare move in on us, because they all knew that this kill belonged to us, the humans.

  Nicolás climbed up into the big pepper tree, got the short thick chain over a stout limb, bolted the chain together, then hooked the chain and tackle to the short chain. As soon as the kicks of death had subsided, my dad moved in and cut slits in the steer’s hind legs at the first main joint well above the hooves, then he hooked each hind leg into the end of a wagon bar, and started hoisting the steer up as we all began skinning him with our knives.