“My God!” said Salvador.
“What is it?” asked Lupe.
“That man, he’s the owner,” whispered Salvador to Lupe. “He helped me once, years ago, when I was first getting into the liquor business and didn’t know how to get the big quantities of sugar that I needed. Jesus, he used to be so full of life! This store was his pride and joy, and it was always so full of piles of food!”
Salvador almost felt like turning around and leaving, but he didn’t. He took a big breath and walked up to the man. “Hello, my friend!” he said, with a big, happy grin, trying to uplift the man’s spirit.
But the man didn’t recognize Salvador and only responded with a weak “Hello.”
“Don’t you remember me?” asked Salvador. “You helped me!”
“Good, I’m glad I did, and now what can I do for you?”
“Food!” said Salvador. “My wife and I want lots of groceries!”
“Do you got any money?” asked the man cautiously. “I can’t just keep helping people, you know.”
“Sure, we got money!” said Salvador. “Cash! Lots of cash!”
“Really? Cash?” said the old worn-out-looking Anglo, who was probably only in his early forties. “Well, please, do come right in.”
Salvador watched him try to gather his strength, and be the confident man that he’d once been, as he showed them what he had left, but he just couldn’t bring it off.
Salvador bought boxes and boxes of groceries—things that they really didn’t even need—and he told the man that he’d be back. “So order more merchandise, my friend, because I’ll be coming in from now on, once a week!”
“Really?” said the man. “And you’ll have cash?”
“I’ll have cash for you every week, amigo!” said Salvador.
“Oh, good!” said the old man, and he thanked Salvador again and again for having come in. But the following week, when Salvador and Lupe came by, the store was all boarded up.
“Good God,” said Salvador to Lupe.
“What is it?” asked Lupe.
“He killed himself,” said Salvador, feeling a chill go up and down his spine.
“But how do you know?” asked Lupe.
“I can feel it here inside of me,” he said, taking a deep breath and blowing out. “Gringos, they do this, you know. Your brother, Victoriano, explained it to me, Lupe; they’re afraid of ending up with nothing.”
“Oh, no,” said Lupe, “it’s not nothing that they’re afraid of! It’s that they love money more than they love their familia!” she added with anger.
“But why are you getting angry,” said Salvador. “The poor man must’ve been suffering awful to kill himself.”
“I don’t care how much he was suffering!” snapped Lupe. “I’m with child and I’ll do everything I can do to keep alive so my child can be BORN! He had no right to be so selfish! May he BURN IN HELL, the coward!”
“Lupe, Lupe, please, calm down,” said Salvador, laughing. He’d never heard her speak like this. “He was a good—”
“No, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, Salvador!” she shouted. “I will live! And you will live, too! And that’s that, do you hear me? THERE ARE NO EXCUSES!”
Seeing her anger and determination, Salvador tried to stop his laughter. Every day, this young wife-of-his was surprising him. “Okay, okay, I’ll live,” he said. “I promise you, I’ll live.”
Salvador could still see in his mind’s eye how he’d gutted that screeching pig right there in bed with that farmer, then he’d put the flaming torch to the man’s face, explaining what’s what about life. He’d tossed the torch to the terrified man’s bed and the horror-stricken man had had to fight to stop his house from going up in flames!
“Salvador,” she said, taking his hand, “I may not know much about a lot of things, but I do know that life is sacred, and we have no right to take it, especially our own.”
His whole chest came up. “Couldn’t agree with you more,” he said. “No one should ever take their life, especially when the other guy is still breathing.”
Saying this, he looked into Lupe’s eyes and he could see that she and he had truly come a long ways since they’d married. Why, she was becoming his hero like his very own mother.
“Lupe,” he said, “the more I get to know you, the more I love you.”
“You better,” she said, “I’m with your child.”
Her strength was truly becoming the Food of his Soul. “My God,” he said, laughing again, “just look at you, Lupe, at how far we’ve come in the last few months. You’re a woman of IRON!”
“Salvador, that store keeper didn’t know how to be poor of purse, but rich of Heart,” she said. “And that’s what’s happening to this whole country, too. These people just love money too much, and that’s not right, I tell you. All families see hard times. That’s just part of la vida.”
Salvador nodded. “You’re absolutely right, my familia and I sure have seen our share of hard times and yet, well, we always found a way.”
“Of course, you found a way, Salvador, you found the way of God,” said Lupe, making the sign of the cross over herself. “Look what happened to Sophia’s husband; they beat him so they wouldn’t have to pay him, and he was so hurt that he could hardly make it home, and still that day he found a dead rabbit on the road that had been hit by a car and a bunch of onions that had fallen off a truck. My sister cooked up a feast!” she said, with a smile full of pride. “Then a week later that same farmer came by and apologized. Life is full of miracles, Salvador. No one has the right to kill themselves!”
“I completely agree,” said Salvador, flashing in his mind’s eye on the fear of that man’s face as he’d thrown the flaming torch at him and the screeching gutted pig beside him. “We Mejicanos are pretty damn good, tough people, eh?”
“Con el favor de Dios,” she said, bowing her head.
Yes, con el favor de Dios, Salvador thought to himself, but also with a little help from the good, old Devil, too.
“You’re a good man, Salvador,” she said, soothing his big, huge, thick hand in hers and looking at him in the eyes.
“Thank you, querida,” he said.
And he felt so happy, and all at peace, but God help him . . . oh, how he loved to see the terrible fear that he’d put in that farmer’s eyes that night.
Heaven was theirs, but the Gates to Hell were wide open, too.
THEY FOUND another grocery store, bought a few things, then drove over to the farmhouse where Salvador had put up his distillery. Looking at the setup, Lupe realized that her husband was working day and night, around the clock. He had a mat and a couple of blankets on the floor right next to the stove.
“That’s where you’re sleeping?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “That way I can keep watch on the stove night and day and make sure it doesn’t blow up.”
“But wouldn’t you be safer in another room?”
“Not really,” he said. “If she blows, Lupe, she blows as big as a bomb, taking the whole house.”
“Good God,” she said. “I never realized that. Then let’s go outside,” said Lupe.
“Okay,” said Salvador.
And so they took the straw mat and blankets outside and put them under the pepper tree in front. It was a beautiful, warm spring day. They lay down and ate, truly enjoying themselves. Then Salvador noticed a large bush with huge purple-violet flowers across the yard over by the side of the toolshed.
“Do you know what those big flowers are called, querida?” he asked, pointing across the yard.
“Hortensias,” said Lupe. “They’re some of my mother’s favorites.”
“I’ll be,” he said. “Look, how they take in the sunlight. I’ve never seen a flower like this before. They’re so big and beautiful. You know,” he added, “if we have a girl, I’d like to maybe name her Hortensia, just like those flowers.”
“Hortensia, why that’s a beautiful name,” said Lupe. “And you know, if you look
at one of those flowers real closely, you’ll see that they aren’t just one flower, but hundreds of tiny flowers.”
“No, really?” said Salvador and he got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and walked over and picked one of the huge, round hortensias and brought it back across the yard. He was carrying his .38 in the front pocket of his loose-fitting pants. Their closest neighbors were two fields away. The farmer who had rented this place to Salvador had been overjoyed to get the cash. Salvador figured that he had nothing to worry about, but still a man in his business could never afford to be too relaxed.
“You’re absolutely right, this flower is made up of hundreds of small, tiny flowers,” said Salvador, lying down once again beside Lupe. The bright sunlight was surrounding them in delicious warmth. “You know,” he said, “if we have a boy, I’d like to name him Jose, after my brother, el gran fose.”
“But I like your name Salvador,” said Lupe. “So why don’t we call him Salvador or, well, Jose Salvador?”
“Yeah, I like that,” he said. “Jose Salvador. I’ll be damned, it’s like a miracle, isn’t it, how life just goes on and on, never ending, eh?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling with gusto, “around and around, generation after generation, never ending, forever. And I was just thinking of this the other day, that I come from a long line of women who’ve been getting married and having kids since the dawn of time. We’re not alone, Salvador, I can feel it, right here inside of me,” she said, patting her little popped-out stomach. “All of our ancestry is guiding us.”
“Yes, I feel that, too,” he said. “But I don’t really want to think about my own father.” He took a deep breath. “I like to skip over him and think about my grandfather. Now, there was un hombre! Hey, if it’s a boy, I think I’d like to call our baby Pio for my grandfather, instead of Salvador.”
“No,” said Lupe, “I want us to use your name, Salvador.”
“Really, you want to use my name, Lupe?”
“Yes, yours and your brother Jose’s. You are a good man, Salvador.”
Hearing this for a second time, that he was a good man, Salvador breathed in so deeply that he had to look up at the Father Sky. This was all he’d ever wanted to hear, coming from the woman he loved. A car passed by.
“Okay,” said Salvador, having seen the car before, “then if it’s a boy, we’ll name him Jose Salvador; but if it’s a girl, we’ll name her Lupe Hortensia, after you, mi amor, and this gorgeous flower, that’s not just one flower, but a treasure of hundreds of tiny little flowers—just as our child is sure to be a treasure in a hundred little ways, too!”
Lupe drew close to Salvador, kissing him. A flock of crows came flying by overhead, coming off the produce fields. They landed on the top branches of the huge pepper tree, and instantly, they began making a racket of sound.
“Lupe,” said Salvador, hearing the birds, “after so many years of suffering it looks like the world is finally beginning to be at peace for us, so let’s have the biggest baptism celebration that this country has ever seen!” he added with his whole face lighting up with gusto. “Yes, let’s do it, Lupe, like people did back in los Altos de Jalisco before the Revolution! I remember my grandfather Don Pio slaughtering a steer, killing a couple of pigs, and people would feast for days at a child’s baptism!”
“Can we afford it?” asked Lupe.
“We can’t afford NOT TO DO IT!” shouted Salvador, grinning ear to ear. “Even during the Revolution we still celebrated. I’ll never forget, our village was burned to the ground, Lupe, women and children had been slaughtered like beasts, but, still, that night, after we buried our loved ones, we celebrated. And my parents even danced! We need to always dance, Lupe! We need to always celebrate! We need to always laugh and love and live no matter how twisted and awful things seem! So let’s have a baptism for our first child, marking the beginning of the many celebrations for nuestra gente here in this new country of ours!”
Tears of joy were now also running down Lupe’s face. “Let’s do it!” she said.
Instantly the flock of crows in the tree turned into Angels for those who had the Eyes to See. God was Happy! His children were at long last beginning to Awaken.
The drums were beating!
The Drums were Beat, BEAT, BEATING! Singing Papito’s One Song de AMOR!
ARCHIE CAME ROARING up in his big, black Hudson to Salvador’s distillery in Tustin—fifty-some miles west of Corona—honking to beat hell. “Come on,” he yelled to Salvador, “the circus has come to town!”
No matter how broke people were, they always seemed to have money enough for the circus. But Salvador didn’t want to go. He was dead tired. He’d been working around the clock for nearly two weeks now. He needed to go to sleep. Also, all day he’d been having strange feelings about his mother.
“No, Archie, I’m too tired,” said Salvador.
“Bull! Get dressed! You look like hell! We’ll pick up Lupe and Carlota and take them with us, and have a great time!”
“Oh, all right,” said Salvador, “but I’ll have to bathe and shave.”
“I hope so,” said Archie, “you stink like shit!”
Bathing, Salvador got to feeling a lot better. He hadn’t been out of the house in thirteen days. He was almost done with his distillery job. Tomorrow he’d go over and see his mother. Ever since yesterday morning, he’d been having these quick-little flashes about his mama, and a huge roaring fire. Coming out of the house, Salvador found Archie loading a barrel of whiskey into his trunk.
“Were you going to tell me, Archie,” said Salvador very carefully, “or was this just one more leg and arm that I’ve lost?”
“Of course, I was gonna tell you, Sal!” said Archie, closing his trunk lid. “What do you think your sheriff is, a damn crook! I’m the law, damnit! I’m as honest as the day is long, which I might add—” he said with a twinkle in his eyes—”gets a little too damn long for me in the summer months!”
Saying this, Archie burst out laughing to beat hell. He and the Devil were really very good friends.
Before getting in the big Hudson with Archie, Salvador went over to the bush of hortensias alongside the toolshed, and slipped his revolver behind the bush. He had this little feeling. Then he got in the vehicle with Archie and they drove over to pick up Lupe and Carlota. Sophia and her husband, Julian, and their kids were visiting, so Archie—always being the big-hearted man—said, “Come! Everyone’s invited! Kids and all! Salvador is paying!”
Just then, Maria, Carlota and Lupe’s other sister, arrived with her kids and Archie invited them, too. And how they did it, they’d never know, but that day twenty-some people got into Archie’s Hudson and Victoriano’s truck.
The circus was in the riverbed just outside of San Juan Capistrano. It was the tightest drive that Salvador and Lupe would ever have in all of their lives. But no one was complaining. Not even the kids who had to ride in the trunk of the Hudson—with the lid wide open.
At the circus, they all were truly enjoying themselves, hearing the music and seeing the lions and elephants and clowns, and smelling all the candy and food and strange animal odors.
The main attraction was announced by a huge, gigantic, fat man wearing the tallest black hat ever seen and sporting the longest, thickest mustache ever imagined. He had a bullhorn and he shouted that the main attraction only cost fifty cents extra per person, but was too frightening for shy-hearted women and children under eighteen.
“For the first time in modern history!” bellowed the huge man, “a wild man has been captured from the highest peaks in all the Sierra Madre mountains! A human beast so wild, so untamed and uncivilized that he refuses to wear clothes, and he spits and growls and puts terror into anyone who dares set eyes on him!
“And also, so that you men won’t be shocked or put to shame, I’ll tell you that some people might look at his feet and call him bigfoot, but if you look closer, it’s not his feet you’ll call big! This human beast puts most studhorses to sh
ame!”
“Damnit!” said Archie, grinning. “This sounds like one of my relatives from Pala! Come on, baby!” he said to Carlota. “Let’s go see!”
“I’m not going,” said Carlota, “not on your life!”
“Why not,” said Archie. “You ain’t no shy-hearted woman!”
“Shut up, Archie!” said Carlota.
Archie only laughed. “Hell with it, let’s go, Sal, and you, too!” he said, turning to Victoriano and Sophia’s husband, Julian. “Let’s the four of us go see how this beast stacks up to us machos!”
Victoriano declined. He didn’t want to waste any more money. As it was he’d thought that they were fools to have come to the circus. Sure, the farmer had come and he’d apologized and given them back their jobs, but hell, now the farmer had nowhere to ship his produce. People just weren’t buying. Whole fields of produce were being left to rot. Victoriano didn’t even have the gas money to get home.
And so Archie paid the extra buck fifty for the three tickets, then they got in line with the couple of other men who were lined up to see this horror of horrors. And the kids wanted to go see, too. None of them had ever seen a wild man before who spat at you and growled—and who knew, said one small boy, the beast might even piss on you!
“I’ll piss right back on him with my big thing if he does,” said Archie, laughing. “I’ll just jump right in the cage with him and see who’s more wild!”
Archie and Salvador and Julian were laughing uproariously as they went into the tent. Then, they’d no more than disappeared into the tent, when Lupe and Carlota and Victoriano and Sophia heard Archie’s huge, BELLOWING VOICE screaming something terrible!
A crowd gathered at the entrance of the tent. Now everyone was trying to pay their fifty cents as fast as they could to get inside. My God, if the wild man had put such terror into their local sheriff’s heart, then he was truly worth seeing!
But what happened inside the tent, was that Archie took his pint bottle out of his coat pocket and took a drink, and was handing the bottle to Salvador when he turned and saw the wild man. And the wild man was none other than Archie’s own nephew from the Pala Indian Reservation at the base of Palomar Mountain.