A great calmness came over me, as I watched these huge, thick-bodied, dark gray beasts rolling in on the waves. They were surfing into the shore right towards us. I now realized that they weren’t sharks. No, they were dolphins, or porpoises. And there were two of them, and then I saw two more, and three more, and they were all now making eerie sounds to Duke as they kept swimming and rolling in with the waves.
Duke began pawing at the water with his right front hoof and continued screeching back to them. When they got in real close to us, he arched his neck and began to make a low guttural sound, and they began making chirping sounds right back to him.
The quick vibrations behind my ears spread to my whole head, and I began to understand things that I’d never understood before. My entire brain was now talking to me as it had never spoken to me before. And it was beautiful. The waves now had magic faces and I could see that each wave was alive. Everything, all around me, was now alive in a whole new way that I’d never seen. Duke was now humming, purring, too, in quick little vibrations, as he kept giving those low guttural sounds.
The dolphins were rolling their own sounds to Duke and me in the exact same, low gut-vibrations that I was feel-hearing between my ears.
I smiled. What did this mean, that the whole wide world could talk to one another through humming vibrations? This made a lot of blessed—yes, I mean, blessed horse sense.
The low guttural sounds now changed and became happy little high-pitched chirps. Hearing this, Duke got so wildly happy and excited that he suddenly lunged forward to go out into the sea and be with the dolphins. But I was scared of going any deeper, and the water was getting deeper and deeper with every lunge he took.
I jerked on the reins with all my strength, trying to stop Duke. But then he did something that I’d never seen a horse do in all my life. He turned his head sideways, grabbed hold of the side of the bit with his teeth, and jerked the reins completely out of my hands.
My God, Duke had just taken over his own reining! There was nothing I could do. I’d been a fool all these years to ever think that we people, who trained horses, were the ones in charge. I could now clearly see that horses could outmuscle us and outthink us, any time they wished. Duke was now his own boss.
I held on for dear life, praying as fast as I could. Duke was now swimming and the dolphins were all around us, and they were huge. I couldn’t believe it, their bodies were as big as Duke’s. And they just continued talking in low guttural sounds, then in real fast high-pitched screeching. Their conversation went on and on. They were just like familia, being so excited and happy to see each other. The last of the Father Sun was setting and long shadows were coming in all around us in wonderful colors of red and gold. The waves were now sweeping up over me and the saddle. I had my chest down by the saddle horn with my face in the horse’s mane, trying my best to not get swept off by the seawater.
This was when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eyes coming across the water. I lifted my head and saw that it was my brother Joseph, and he was skipping along the top of the water with another guy. They were just beyond the great big rock, where the ocean was calmer. The light of the fading day surrounded them and they looked like they were Angels having great fun as they made their way over the water. All at once I understood—oh, my Lord God—this other young man was Jesus Christ, Himself!
I quickly made the sign of the cross over myself, and the humming behind my left ear stopped, just like that, and instantly, I was sailing—knowing everything. Duke and the dolphins were cousins. Horses had originally come from the sea, as did all of life. And now they were simply saying hello because they were so happy to see each other after so many years.
Tears came to my eyes. I’d never seen Jesus before. In the past, I’d always only felt Him. My brother Joseph had gone up to Heaven and met Jesus, and now they’d both come back so that my brother could play in the surf with Duke and me.
I continued crying—I was so happy! My big brother had gotten his ride in the surf after all. It was dark by the time Duke and I started back for home. We went south on the beach and climbed the bluff alongside the steps at Cassidy Street, then headed for home.
I had no fear. The first Holy Star of the night had just come out, and the streets of South Oceanside were wide and clean and safe. I’d found my “place,” yes, here, inside of me.
“Thank you, Papito,” I said. “Gracias con todo mi corazón! I guess that You really do know what You’re doing. Thanks, Amigo.”
I swear that the Star above me started blinking at me. By the time I got to our big white gates, I just knew that I was now seeing with my Heart-Eyes, as my mamagrande had always told me that we humans needed to do before we could reenter the Sacred Garden de Papito.
CHAPTER nineteen
That night, I didn’t tell my parents about the dolphins, but I did tell my little sister Linda, because I figured that she was still young enough to hear all this without getting scared. She loved it, and wanted to tell our parents.
“No, Linda,” I said. “They might sell Duke.”
“Why would they sell Duke?” she asked.
“Don’t you remember how mad they got when we told them about Shep and they fired Rosa and Emilio?”
She began to cry. “Why can’t we talk to our parents about these things? I want to tell them.”
“We can’t. They’re too old.”
“Well, then I never want to get old,” she said.
And I agreed with her. I, too, was beginning to think that getting old wasn’t good. Maybe this is why Joseph had left so young.
Then it was time for me to start school. I would be going to the Catholic school out at the San Luis Rey Mission, and this school, which was attached to the mission, was nicknamed the Academy of the Little Weed and it was mostly a girls’ school, but they did allow boys to attend up to the fifth grade.
I was pretty apprehensive the first day my parents drove me to school, because ever since I’d been little, I’d been scared of nuns, with their dark clothes and long robes. The first time I saw a nun—I’d been about three years old—I’d yelled, “COO-COO!” My way of saying “ghost,” and took off running in fear. I was older now, I was nine, and I’d had five years of public education to toughen me up, so I figured that I’d have a pretty good chance doing okay at this school. And I did for the first few weeks, but then one day, I blew it. This morning our nun was teaching us the Story of Creation when I raised up my hand and said that she had it all wrong.
“Oh, is that so?” she said to me. “All right, since you obviously know more than I do, why don’t you come up to the front and teach the class.”
In my ignorance, I didn’t realize that she’d just said this to intimidate me and get me to shut the hell up, so I said, “Sure,” and I got out of my chair and went to the front of the fourth grade class. Instantly, the humming began and that quiet little purring voice.
“You see,” I said, “originally there were Two Sister Planets. Twin Earths, in fact, and when the great flood happened on our other planeta, thousands people got all the plants and animals off of our sister planeta and put them on a great sailing ship, which was almost as big as all of San Diego County, with hills and valleys and lakes.”
The kids got all excited and some said that this made a lot more sense than how it was written in the Bible, with Noah’s puny little ark.
“Sure, it does,” I said to these kids, “because, you see, also, originally there were two Bibles, one for girls and one for boys so that men and women would know how to raise their kids, because you see, the real reason that we’re here on Earth is to plant—”
But I never got to finish my words, because the nun, who’d sat down in the back to listen to me, now leaped up and came racing to the front of the classroom.
“That’s enough! Stop this!” she yelled. “How did you dream up all these lies! There were never two Bibles!”
“I didn’t dream up any of this,” I said. “This was al
l told to me by my mamagrande, and also by my dad and mom.”
“Are they authorities of the Bible?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, and gambling, too. Because, you see, all of life is a gamble, and so at gambling we must be king.”
She suddenly looked very confused.
“Look, just let me go on,” I said, “I was just getting to the good part. You see, we never lost the Garden of Eden. We just got fat and lazy and too self-important to keep planting the Holy Seeds that God sent us to plant here on Earth for His Garden.”
“God sent us to plant the Garden of Eden?” asked the nun, turning very pale.
“Yes, exactly,” I said, feeling good that she was finally catching on. “Just as He has been sending us to other Earths for millions and millions of years. We’re all Walking Stars, see?”
In a flash, her mood changed and she lunged at me, gripped me by the ear, twisting so hard that I screamed in pain, and dragged me out of the classroom, yelling a word that I’d never heard before, “Blasphemy!”
I was taken to the head nun, a real old one, and the priest was called in and I heard them talk about my parents and my parents’ money and it was decided that they wouldn’t dismiss me, because of my parents being rich, but that I’d be kept away from all the other kids during recess from now on so I wouldn’t contaminate their minds.
Then the next day after school two priests came to our home to see my parents. My mother made yerba buena tea and cut up some Mexican sweet bread into smaller pieces to serve the two men of God. They then explained to my parents what I’d said at school, and they added that they were sure that my parents had never told me any of this nonsense, being devout Catholics, so I must’ve gotten my wild ideas about twin sister planets from someone else.
I could see that my mother was all upset. She immediately told them how they’d had to fire Rosa and Emilio, two ignorant Indian people, because of all the old Mexican superstitions that they’d been trying to put into my sister’s and my head.
“Just wait,” I said, speaking up. “This isn’t true. Rosa and Emilio never told us about the two sister planetas. It was you, mama, and your mother who told me the story of—”
But I got cut off before I could finish what I was saying, and told that I’d have to leave the room if I couldn’t keep still. The two priests ate all the pan dulce and drank all the tea, decided to stay for dinner, had several drinks with my dad, and then they concluded their visit with telling my parents to also not speak any more Spanish to my little sister and me at home, that this was only hindering us from getting the best American education possible.
After the two priests left, it was really strange for my sister and me to hear our parents trying to speak to us in only English. My dad finally started laughing when we came to realize that Linda didn’t know the difference between the two languages. She thought that a mixture of Spanish and English was a language all of its own, like she’d say, “Lets get el caballo-horse by his pescuezo-neck.” Also, because I’d had such a difficult time learning how to read in public school, it was suggested by the two priests that, for a little extra money, I’d be kept away from the other students and given private tutoring by one of the young convent student nuns.
The young student nun that taught me privately was so kind and nice and beautiful that it was love at first sight. Within a week I was bringing her flowers almost every day, but then when I proposed marriage to her—because she was the smartest, strongest, and most beautiful woman I’d ever met—she told me that she was already married to Jesus.
“But He’s dead, you know,” I said.
“I’m married to Him in Spirit,” she said.
“Oh, then that’s okay,” I said, laughing. “In Spirit, I’ve seen him, too. So you can then have two husbands like Mary—Joseph and God. I’ll be your Earth husband, so we can kiss and have babies.”
She smiled, and was just going to say something—I guess, maybe accept my proposal—when that real old nun rushed into the room, the one who’d called the priest, and slapped me so hard that I was knocked out of my chair. Then she began to hit the younger nun, knocking the habit off her head.
This was when I saw that my little nun had the most beautiful reddish-brown hair in all the world. It looked just like my horse Caroline’s, the sorrel. I jumped up and attacked, biting the old nun on the back of her leg so hard that she SCREAMED out in pain, swinging around and around, trying to get me off her leg. She called me the Devil, and sent for the priest again, and boy, did he get mad at me this time, when he found out which nun I’d proposed marriage to. I guessed he was in love with her, too.
I was now called an “infa-something,” locked in a closet with brooms and mops, and every day I’d be marched to church to sit alone so I could repent for my terrible sins. But I could never figure out which terrible sins I should repent for, so I’d just sit there in the cool darkness of the church all alone, and I began to like it.
Sitting quietly one day I realized that all the statues and pictures on the walls of the church were talking to one another, just like Duke and those dolphins had spoken to one another. I liked this. It almost sounded like the whole church was alive with a symphony of purring. Soon I began to like getting punished, just so I could be sent to the church to be alone. I began to draw stars once again. Holy Stars. And now, since I’d seen my brother with Jesus down on the beach, I knew why I loved to draw stars.
Drawing stars was what helped us kids keep our soul-memories alive. Drawing stars was what kept us from going crazy, surrounded by all the doubt and fear that adults had. I began to notice that I wasn’t the only one drawing stars. So were half of the kids in my school. I’d see stars in their workbooks. I’d see stars on the cover of their binders. I’d see stars on the palms of their hands. But of this I told no one, except my sister Linda. I was in enough trouble already.
One day I was walking to the church alone to repent for my sins when I spotted my little nun. “Hello!” I yelled to her. I hadn’t seen her since the day that I’d proposed to her. But when she saw me, her face filled with terror, real terror, and she turned and ran away from me as fast as she could.
I ran after her, across the grass, and into the building she’d entered. Here there were nuns—dressed just like her—everywhere. I was stopped by one nun and asked what I was doing in their private quarters. I tried to explain, but I was grabbed and slapped before I could say anything. Then one nun—I’ll never forget—said that I was the Devil boy who’d caused Teresa all her trouble. Two big, strong nuns grabbed me real hard and took me out of the building, back across the grass, into another building, and I was locked in a dark, smelly room where I could cause no more problems. Then came the priest, the same one who’d gotten so angry when I’d proposed to the little nun. He screamed and shook me so much that day that I puked.
When I got home after school, I immediately saddled up Caroline and went running along the railroad tracks. I climbed up the hill from the tracks to the green grass of the cemetery and tied Caroline to the fence that ran along the outside of the burial grounds. I climbed the fence and ran up to the big white cross with Jesus and Mary.
“What the hell is going on?” I yelled at Jesus, I was so mad. “Eh, what’s wrong with You and my brother? I thought that You two were looking out for me! I didn’t do anything wrong, and yet I just keep getting in trouble. THAT’S NOT FAIR, DAMNIT! And yes, I mean DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT!”
But Jesus and my brother wouldn’t talk to me. I guess that They didn’t like me cursing at them. It was Mary who finally spoke.
“Come to me,” she said in a lovely soft voice as she put out her arms for me, “and let me hold you. We all know how hard it is for you, and We love you with all Our Hearts.”
I went to Mary. She wore such beautiful, colorful clothes, and I lay down on the grass beside her as she held me. It felt so good to be in her arms. I relaxed and cried and cried, and soon the rage began to leave my body. Then I felt two hands begin to massage my b
ack. It was Chavaboy, I just knew it.
“Joseph,” I said to him without turning to look at him, “really, it should’ve been me to go, not you. I’m not smart enough to figure out what to do here,” I said with tears coming to my eyes. “I’m a burro, the dumbest kid in all of our school. You should’ve stayed and become a lawyer like you said you were going to do. What can I become, except maybe just stupider? Damnit, Joseph,” I added, suddenly getting angry again. “WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME! You never had any problems learning how to read. You were a GENIUS! I should’ve died! NOT YOU!”
The massaging of my shoulders stopped just like that, and I realized that I shouldn’t have gotten mad and used the word “damn,” but I was so damn, damn, damn, DAMN MAD that it was hard not to say “damn” when I felt like the whole world was against me.
I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I awoke feeling really good. Wonderful, in fact. I stretched and yawned and felt like I’d maybe gone up to Heaven to visit for a little while. I looked to the west and saw the tall, flat mesa where Shep had leaped into the sky to intercept my brother’s soul, and I just knew that this was, indeed, a Sacred, Holy Place where I was. I decided to start coming to this place, our “place,” every day after school. This I would never tell anyone, except my sister Linda.
The following year, our little sister Teresita was born, and our father took Linda and me to see her at the hospital, but they wouldn’t let us in because we were too young. Our father winked at us, then he took us around to the back of the hospital. He opened a window and lifted Linda and me up to the window so we could crawl in and meet our baby sister. This was so exciting! We were all a little familia hiding from the hospital authorities.
This was the same year that my parents sent me to a new Catholic school, Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea at Hill Street and Wisconsin in Oceanside. At this new school—it had just opened—things got much better for me, and I think that it was partly because of the school’s name, “Star of the Sea.” But still, I could see that I really wasn’t learning how to read any better. It was just that now we were no longer required to stand up and read aloud in class, so no one realized that I couldn’t read.
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