Just Between Us

by Mario Lopez

  Those weren’t the stories discussed in family gatherings, but you never knew what someone might decide to bring up. There was also constant joking and catching up on the latest news and gossip—Trasvina does mean “through the grapevine”—and food and drink, needless to say, along with music, sometimes live, and always dancing.

  Oh, and gambling. We gambled on every card game we could. As a fierce competitor ever since I can remember, I was really into a game called acey-deucey—and still am. It’s simple. You’re dealt two cards out in front of you, faceup. Then you bet on the next card being a value between those two cards. Say you bet a buck. If the third card is between your first two cards, you win the dollar. If it’s not, you lose the dollar. If it has the same value as either of your first two cards, you pay double. So the pot would get huge.

  Basically, acey-deucey is a game of luck. It’s all in the deal of the cards. You can decide not to bet, if you aren’t feeling lucky. But otherwise your fate is all up to chance. Maddening to everyone else, I was often lucky with cards and in other respects.

  But in the family I come from, leaving anything up to chance in life was not going to cut it. Not with Mom and her master plan to keep me out of trouble. The problem wasn’t just that I was a nonstop bundle of energy who could get into trouble faster than the average kid. The complicating factor by 1980, when I turned seven years old, was the increase of gang activity in Chula Vista, and it seemed easy for many kids to get caught up in that life and all the dealings that came with it. Some of my primos and other relatives got caught up and never could get out.

  My mom was a genius. Her whole philosophy was: if I can keep Mario as busy as possible, he won’t have time to get into trouble. And it worked, mostly because I didn’t want to disappoint her, knowing how much she loved and adored me. She, like everyone in her family, was always affectionate. She told me that she loved me every single day, and she kissed me every day, and that’s just the way I am.

  Mom’s plan was the key not just to keeping me out of trouble but, moreover, to my becoming who I am today.

  • • •

  The cardinal sin of all sins in our household was laziness. My parents each had their own turbocharged version of a work ethic that melded into one. And ultimately I must have inherited the hard-work gene from both my parents. Clearly, I had no choice. There wasn’t a moment when I got to just be lazy.

  To their lasting credit, Elvia and Richard Lopez led by example. My mom, in addition to working full-time as an operator with the phone company, was a force of nature in overseeing concerns for the whole extended family, not to mention in raising two kids. Dad was either at work or out in the garage fixing up old cars or he was busy outside doing yard work or whatever other manly projects he could undertake to be productive.

  “Mario, what are you doing?” Dad asked every time he happened to catch me kicking back and watching a little TV.

  “I finished my homework . . .” I’d begin, but before I could finish, he’d send me out to help in the yard or do whatever else he could think up that needed doing.

  Mom’s chore of choice was to have me vacuum, though I honestly didn’t mind. I liked vacuuming in very straight lines, so when I was done there was a cool pattern left on the rug. If you have to do it, why not make it fun?

  In teaching us to be responsible for chores, I don’t think my parents necessarily meant for work and fun to be synonymous. Along with the concept of responsibility came a message of toughness: that hard work might require sacrifice and guts. The lesson was that you worked hard to take care of your family, whatever it entailed.

  No question that Dad was toughness personified, working many different jobs through the years, even though he was awfully mysterious about what exactly they were. One thing was evident: he didn’t leave in the morning dressed in a suit and swinging a briefcase. For a while he ran a little landscaping business, and then, when I was around thirteen or so, he got his first real steady job working for the city as a machinist. Later, he worked for the street department, setting up sobriety checkpoints, driving big trucks. In between, odd jobs based on his many talents filled in the gaps.

  My dad was entrepreneurial in an old-school way, going the extra mile to help improve our lifestyle. He drove an older but cherried-out Cadillac and magically restored vintage cars that had been left on the junk heap. Money didn’t just appear by itself, but I can remember how he enjoyed counting stacks of cash around the house—separating the singles, tens, and twenties into orderly piles. He didn’t try to hide it. Why would he? We all knew enough not to ask stupid questions. After he was done counting, he put the money in his pockets, in bags, in the dresser.

  The reward to my sister and me for all this hard work was our Sunday drive to Tijuana for authentic mariscos, Mexican seafood. Before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the border patrol rarely hassled anyone with American license plates upon entering Mexico or even upon returning. We’d spend the day shopping around in Tijuana, then feast on delicious crab, lobsters, fish, shrimp, spicy yellow rice, and turtle (not illegal back then), eat until we were stuffed, and after dinner turn around and come right back to the States.

  Marissa and I were typical kids—we didn’t pay much attention to what our parents were doing. But around the age of ten, I recall a few occasions when I couldn’t help but notice that after we came back from across the border and happened to be driving along a deserted stretch of road, Dad pulled over onto a gravel shoulder and got out of the car. My eyes followed him as far as I could as he went behind the car and opened the trunk, as if he was just checking something out. Well, from what I could gather, it wasn’t something—it was someone. A few someones. Like four or five. Or that’s what I thought when I saw that many people who seemed to have come out of nowhere suddenly make a run for it and disappear into the brush. In shock, I sat there slack-jawed, wondering how the hell they’d gotten in the trunk, how long they’d been riding in there, whether they could even breathe. Those people had to be crazy to do that, or so I thought. But I never asked my dad about it. It was understood that he was in charge and knew what he was doing.

  There were a couple of other such instances, I think, though again I can’t be sure. I also have a vague memory of my dad bringing over birds—exotic birds—right in the trunk of that Cadillac. And who knows what else? He didn’t tell and I never asked.

  Like I said, memory has clouded the details for me. The fact was, you heard about rides across the border like that during the very rough Mexican economy in the eighties, a time when undocumented workers were in high demand in this country.

  Whether or not we did have extra cargo in other instances, you wouldn’t have guessed by my dad’s demeanor when we came back across the border, as I kind of remember on one occasion, and the customs officer asked, “Citizenship?”

  With nerves of steel, my dad answered, “American citizen.” That could have been iffy; I don’t know.

  The officer proceeded, “What are you bringing back?”

  “Oh, nothing, just my two kids. We went to get something to eat.”

  That was all. Who could have pulled that off if there was anything suspicious in the trunk? Nobody. Well, maybe nobody. After that, the way to avoid further scrutiny would have been to drive on past Chula Vista, on into the outskirts of Dana Point, at the far northern border of the San Diego county line. But I wouldn’t know anything about that.

  What I did know was that Dad took care of us and did what he had to do to provide. Looking back, I also think that Dad—given the kind of opportunities that I would later enjoy—could have been a very good actor, even a movie star. He had the best style, rocking the seventies gear like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, dressed in the low-button shirts and flared pants, like he was getting ready to go hit the dance floor. Dad was the kind of guy who could wear two-dollar cologne and smell like a million bucks. His signature scent? Jovan Musk. It came in
an orange cologne bottle and smelled fantastic on him. I’ve been with him countless times when women would come over and ask, “Excuse me, what are you wearing?”

  International man of mystery that he was, my dad subscribed completely to Mom’s master plan for keeping me busy and out of trouble, such as when she signed me up to spend my afternoons at the local Boys Club. Though I had no choice in the matter, I understood that it was a place to keep me safe and off the streets. It wouldn’t take long for me to throw myself in all they had to offer, especially wrestling. Today the organization is called the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, but back then it was just the Boys Clubs of America. No girls allowed. Wrestling was a godsend, just what Mom had been hoping to find for me, and so too was the Boys Club.

  Because both Mom and Dad worked full-time, that meant that my weekdays were carefully structured—starting with school, then with dance class and wrestling and the other after-school activities as they were added for me and Marissa, and then ending up at Nana’s house. As she and my grandfather spoke only Spanish, that was actually my first language, and by conversing with them as I was growing up, I was able to remain fluent. I loved our home away from home with Nana and Tata. It was like having another set of parents, except they let me get away with a lot more.

  Nana Trasvina, deeply religious, made sure that we were raised with strong connections to the Catholic Church. Without question, faith would become a staple in my life as it was for most of my family. In my view, there is a connection between hard work and the faith needed not to give up even during tough times. The rituals of religion, however, were more complicated to me, especially at a young age. Certainly, the Chula Vista community of Catholic Latinos was very religious, and I grew up surrounded by crosses and Bibles and verse and prayer. Even though my father didn’t go to church regularly and Marissa only went intermittently, I attended Mass on most weekends mainly because my mom did. She, Nana, and I would go together. Again, in my mother’s eyes, anything to keep Mario busy was a no-brainer—even though it was brutal having to sit still for that long and not lose my mind.

  As an adult now, church has become a place of solace for me, one of the few places where I can go to be alone and with my thoughts. Where I can recharge. And I like being Catholic—from the serenity and the culture of the religion to the respect it inspires, to the history and the teachings of charity and giving. In the crazy chaos of life these days, it’s a pause in which to disconnect and become centered, a way to start every week fresh all over again. I love the art associated with Catholicism and have a beautiful collection of vintage crosses that today hang on the walls of my house.

  But before I matured enough to appreciate my time in church, I struggled with some basic rituals during my Communion classes. It made no sense to me that the bread they use for the Communion wafer, which symbolizes the body of Christ, had to taste horrible. One of the first times I had to try a wafer in catechism class, I whispered to the kid next to me, “Tastes like the nuns took cardboard from a graham cracker box and rolled it in mothballs!”

  At seven years old, I was showing signs of having a gift of gab. The other kid cracked up but luckily I didn’t get into trouble with the SWAT team of nuns. Emboldened, I came up with a way to avoid eating the wafers. Whenever it came time, I’d put the wafer on my tongue, chew it a little, then secretly turn, spit it out into my hand, and hide it between the Bibles in the back of the pew seats. Worked like a charm. At first. Until one of the younger nuns caught me spitting it out and gave me a strong scolding. Yet that wasn’t enough to stop me from hiding chewed-up Communion wafers between the Bibles. I just couldn’t gum down the dry cracker and swallow it. But eventually my luck ran out, and I was caught once again. The nuns finally complained to my parents about my ongoing misdeeds.

  “Mario, I’m so disappointed,” Mom began when she sat me down. “Spitting out the Holy Communion is a sin. It’s disrespectful to the Church. You should know better!” She was so upset that Dad got upset.

  I had no defense. That perfect storm of indiscretions meant I had to be spanked. If the nuns would have just put jelly on the holy wafer for kids, I could have saved myself from Dad’s belt. When it came to discipline, my dad maintained a fairness policy. If I deserved punishment, he would not hesitate to dole it out. But he was never unnecessarily rough. Rather, he primarily used his dominating presence to keep us in line, ruling with intimidation, in a deep bellowing voice; the fear didn’t come from his physical strength but his position as my father. He did have his pet peeves. Like how I made a clicking noise with my tongue and teeth whenever he told me to do something. “Don’t suck on your teeth,” he’d say and give me a glance that meant that I was not living in a democratic household and this was not open to negotiation.

  My dad didn’t need to do much to make a point. If I had a short fuse and was acting out, all he had to say was, “Mario. Ven aquí.” One look and I knew I’d better quit. If I defied him or didn’t listen, well, usually, that was cause for the belt. But he never slapped me with his hands. Thank God, because if he had, he would have laid me out.

  Whenever Dad unleashed the belt, the trick was to cry as soon as possible. The sooner you started crying, the less of a whopping. It wouldn’t totally save me from all pain, but it would speed things along. In time, I learned to let my thespian skills take over.

  Mom was another story. As the main disciplinarian in the household, she was immune to my theatrics and I feared her more than I did my father. Mom used a shoe as her weapon of choice, although she was skilled at wielding the belt too—she liked to mix it up. Heaven forbid her discipline technique should become mundane.

  Angelic as she is, Mom’s toughness would come out with others whenever certain lines were crossed. Talk about a mama bear protecting her cubs. Relatives used to say, “Don’t mess with Elvia’s kids, because she’ll get nasty.”

  I saw a glimmer of that after an incident at the first Catholic school I attended, Covenant Christian School. Let me just note that neither my mom nor dad expected the school to be responsible for teaching their kids discipline. They did expect us to be diligent students. At the four different elementary schools I would attend, I was a very good student, for the most part. One reason for that was because I always went to summer school—yet another aspect of keeping me active. The summer programs were held at different schools every year and I was exposed to a variety of teaching methods. Unfortunately, back in the second grade at Covenant Christian School, the teaching methods included the nuns’ apparent fondness for paddling.

  Mom heard one too many reports of me getting paddled. “That’s it,” she told my dad. “We’re pulling him out.” She refused to let anybody hit her child. In fact, when she came to pull me out of the school for good, I heard her explain to the staff, “If anybody’s going to hit my kid, it’s going to be me.”

  • • •

  The first time I ever stepped foot in our local Boys Club, I felt at home. The sense of belonging was almost instantaneous. Even at seven years old, I could see that the Boys Club was not just a place where busy parents sent their kids (like me) to keep them off the streets, but it was also a haven for children who had no parents to speak of. We had every kind of activity to choose from. Besides the wrestling that I dove into—like a fish to water—we played football and most ball sports, along with pool and air hockey and all kinds of games that everyone could play. The adults leading the program were former inner-city kids who knew all too well of the pitfalls for anyone growing up in the barrio.

  My wrestling coaches were the real deal. We had one resident coach whose breath reeked of alcohol and, because of his drinking problem, didn’t last. But Coach Walt Mikowachek was fantastic and I’ll never forget him. A Polish guy, he was just full of life and a great all-around human being, probably the first person outside of our family I really respected. Coach Walt cared about all of us and made us feel important. He invariably showed interest i
n what and how I was doing, exemplifying what it meant to be a mentor. Sometimes, you just have to be there for a kid and that’s more than enough. Any sort of consistency in a young person’s life means a lot. Some mentors at the Boys Club gave kids rides home at the end of the day, or others would get them a new pair of shoes—which could mean everything in the world to those kids who didn’t have shoes at all.

  As I went further into wrestling, my dad—who was never super demonstrative with his affections—showed his support in his own subdued way, showing up when I was competing and standing right on the corner of the mat. But I knew he was proud and I appreciated when every now and then I heard him say, “C’mon, mijo!” I didn’t need much egging on, as I was naturally competitive and pushed myself all the time, even when the stakes didn’t seem high. True, some of my dad’s cool rubbed off on me in other ways, but part of my competitive streak probably came more from Mom. My sister got some of that too, but more than anything Marissa really inherited our mother’s great compassion for others and her sense of responsibility.

  My dad was more of a jokester most of the time than outright competitive. Or he’d pretend something was serious when it wasn’t—like when he challenged me to play this stupid arm wrestling game, the one where two people lock their middle fingers together and twist in opposite directions.

  Don’t try this at home, but here’s the drill: You stick out your middle finger, the other person sticks out theirs, you lock them together, and both of you make a fist with that same hand. Now both people are knuckle-to-knuckle with their middle fingers locked together. One guy twists to the right and the other guy twists to the left. The person who can’t stand the pain and lets go first is the loser. Dad broke his finger a few times playing that game with adults, but that’s because he’s not a guy who gives up easily, and because in those instances he was at a party after drinking a few.