Stars Always Shine (21 page)

“¿Qué es la causa?

“Well,” Place tried to continue, certain that what he was explaining made him uncertain. “La causa es que los chicanos quieren la tierra que era de ellos pero se la quitaron los americanos.” Place nodded with some assurance, feeling good that he was able to offer a nebulous explanation and hoping that Salvador would now change the subject to irrigation or feeding the animals.

“¿Qué tierra?” Salvador asked, wanting to know more about usurped land.

“Aztlán,” Place said, not offering further details because Salvador had now dragged him into unfamiliar territory. In a way this made Place feel guilty as well as uncomfortable.

“¿Dónde está Aztlán?” Salvador continued.

“Cerca de México,” Place responded. “I think. Cerca de Tejas,” he continued as he amended his answer.

“Pero Tejas y mucho de esa tierra era de nosotros,” Salvador said and pointed a thumb to his chest, explaining that there must be some confusion regarding who owned what land and when. “Mucho de la tierra de los Estados Unidos era de México y de los mexicanos, no de los chicanos.”

Place shook his head and relented that he really didn’t know about Chicanos, Aztlán, or who had owned Texas or any other states. And he wondered why that was. He scratched lightly at the side of his face, feeling alienated from what he felt might be part of his own identity. “I don’t know,” he said. “No más sé que soy mexicano americano y no soy chicano.”

Salvador, not really knowing any more about Place except that at that moment he was confused, suggested that one day they would find a Chicano and he could explain his own identity to them. He further suggested that one day perhaps he and Place could travel to Aztlán to see what it was like.

“Yes,” Place answered, grateful that the discussion was ending as the night grew cooler, “one day we’ll go to Aztlán. Good idea, americanito.”

As Mitch served the two tired men their dinner, she spoke deliberately to Place, not directing him to explain anything to Salvador about the next day’s events. Her words spilled out quickly in an effort to throw Salvador off from catching a clue to her plans.

“First, you’ll take him to the feed store to buy him boots and jeans. And make sure you get him the good leather roper boots and the boot-cut jeans. Get him a long-sleeved, colorful cowboy dress shirt too, the kind with a yoke. I’ll wrap his belt and we’ll give it to him at lunch,” Mitch instructed. “He’s going to be sitting like a big dog when we go out tomorrow evening. Your clothes are hanging in the closet, and I want you to try them on tonight to make sure they fit nicely. I picked up your boots from the bootmaker this morning, so make sure you try them on too. They do look mighty fine,” Mitch added with an impressed tone, as if reminiscing about a past lover. “When you get back from shopping,” she continued, “we need to be ready to go to lunch. I have everything arranged at the restaurant. And then we have to be at the Boot Hill Bar by four o’clock.”

Place nodded knowingly to signal to Mitch that he understood how the schedule was to proceed. In the early morning, they would wake up Salvador with “Las mañanitas” and an elegant, deeply dark chocolate cake with candles displayed in a question mark.

Upon reviewing Salvador’s papers in preparation for a possibly impending move, the bogus documents and the real ones, Mitch had discovered that his birthday was nearing and it was only fitting that some celebration was in order. Of course, she realized that the date could be misleading, but it didn’t matter because Salvador often indicated that he wasn’t sure when his birthday really was. It was also better that way for Mitch and Place in terms of the element of surprise, as Salvador did not seem to acknowledge that his birthday was soon.

Place had continued to throw his friend off any suspicious trails by telling Salvador that they would need to spend the next day running errands around the county. Building material had to be picked up here and a dump run had to be made there. But it was easy work as Place explained it, so it was really like a day off.

In the cool spring morning air, Mitch walked carefully toward the help house with her question-marked cake. At the back distance of the ranch, in the corralled boundary nearest Miwok Creek, Joker wailed as his bray bugled reveille and his snout saluted the morning sun, announcing to tenants and neighbors of StarRidge Ranch that another day of active duty was beginning.

“That damn Joker is going to tip him off,” Place jokingly whispered as he quickly positioned the tape player next to Salvador’s front door.

Mitch instructed Place to knock on the door as she lit the candles while balancing the cake on the faded white fence that made up the borders of the help house.

Place knocked hard and fast and yelled menacingly into the door, “¡Abre la puerta; aquí viene la migra, americanito!” And Mitch raised questioning eyebrows at Place’s teasing threat that the border patrol was on its way.

Inside, Salvador opened his eyes quickly and Gatita’s eyes snapped wide to form big, round orbs, both of them now fully awake at the sudden pounding. Salvador jumped into his worn jeans like a fireman responding to a call and as he zipped them, his quick fingers were stopped by the melodic birthing of a familiar tune. Slowly, “Las mañanitas” pushed through the front door and seeped through the living room window and delivered itself to Salvador’s ears. He walked toward the door as if in a trance, his legs heavy and moving forward in circumspect steps; they were exploratory probes. The tune picked up in tempo, emerging from the womb of the old recorder like a bloody newborn baby who cries for life when first exposed to the outer world of humans with expectations.

Salvador opened the door, and Place lunged at him with a hug that was long and lasting.

“¡Feliz cumpleaños, cuate!” Place yelled as he held tightly to his dear friend. “Tú siempre serás mi amigo,” he continued, as he whispered to Salvador an oath of eternal friendship.

“Happy birthday, Sal!” Mitch cheered. And then in broken Spanish, as she held the cake in front of him to blow out the candles, “¡Fe-liz cum-ple-años!”

Salvador was stunned and remained silent, and as Place and Mitch urged him to make a wish and blow out the candles, he looked back at them and then behind them, still wondering if the border patrol was on its way.

On the deck, the trio ate cake and drank from mugs of steaming coffee, and Place rewound the cassette and played the Mexican birthday song over and over, occasionally asking Salvador what certain phrases meant. These early little mornings were young, innocent, and peaceful, and Place regretted that they often matured into days that required him to deal with their quirks, confusions, and confrontations.

Salvador sat respectfully and ate with caution as he stared at what was left of the cake. Without looking up he told Place he had never had a birthday cake. There was an apologetic sadness in his words, and they seemed to be burdened by a brooding sense of memory and loss. For Salvador, life was like a trinket, and he knew it should be worth more. But it was that trifling aspect of his own existence that had allowed him to take the chances he had, to meet people like Mitch and Place, and to believe that bigger and brighter trinkets could be his too. He sipped his coffee and wished he could disappear into its protective blackness.

Mitch, the one who paid more attention to the tradition of time on a watch or clock rather than what the sun declared, reminded Place that he and Salvador had some shopping to do.

“If you get confused, ask for Charlene,” Mitch offered in the form of last minute instructions. “She’ll know what you need.”

At the feed store, Salvador emerged from the dressing room with stiffly creased blue jeans. His wrinkled work shirt hung loosely over his waist, and Place tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his own pants as a signal to Salvador to check the fit.

“You need to put boots on,” Charlene instructed as she watched with the discerning eye of a fashion critic. “That way you’ll see if they hang the way they’re supposed to. Never buy jeans without seeing how they fit with your boots.”

Charlene walked quickly toward the boot section of the store with Place and Salvador following closely. After measuring Salvador’s foot, she disappeared into a back room.

As they waited for Charlene to return, Salvador pointed out to Place that his jeans seemed too long. To prove his point, he stood up and showed him how the jeans dragged past his socked heel and covered most of his foot.

“Está bien así,” Place assured him. “It’s okay, you’ll see.”

Charlene’s wiry body emerged from the back room, and in front of her she held a stack of boxed boots. She told Place how the boot should fit and he translated the instructions to Salvador.

Salvador stood straight and pulled up on his jeans. The boots lifted his pants off the floor, and even though they still looked long with only the toe of the boots bashfully peaking out from under them, they no longer dragged like a plow behind a tractor.

Charlene nodded her head in approval and motioned with her finger for Salvador to turn around. “That’s sharp,” she said with an analytical tone. “We get the right shirt on him and he’s ready to go honky-tonkin’. Hell, I might want to go out with him,” she joked as she winked at Place.

It was a shiny shirt with rays of colors that seemed to brighten Salvador’s face. Red, blue, green, and yellow stripes picketed his torso and streamed down the long sleeves of his arms. Charlene tugged at his shoulders and pushed his arms up as if she were dressing a mannequin. She turned him as her keen eye studied his shirt, pants, and boots. Her smile showed satisfaction.

“He’s ready,” Charlene declared. “He only needs a belt and a hat and every cowgirl from Red Bluff to Bakersfield will turn her head to check this wrangler out.”

Place told Charlene about the custom made buck-stitched belt Mitch had ordered with Salvador’s name hand-tooled on it and a buckle which showed a ranch hand with his animals. He didn’t bother to explain why they hadn’t considered a hat and just mumbled to Charlene that the hats were on their way. But Mitch didn’t like them, especially cowboy hats. As far as Mitch was concerned, hats were an expression of an overblown ego, and Place and Salvador didn’t have that problem, nor did they need to assume it. Charlene expressed approval at the selection of the belt, and as she rang up the items she casually asked if they would need a bootjack.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Place said, grateful for the reminder.

Charlene reached under the counter and produced a bootjack. As she continued ringing up the merchandise, Salvador picked up the bootjack and puzzled over it.

“¿Qué es esto?” He asked Place as he turned the item in his hands in an attempt to figure it out.

“It’s for your boots, to take them off,” Place answered as if Charlene had asked the question, and to make his explanation clearer he repeated himself in Spanish as he put the bootjack on the floor and guided the heel of Salvador’s booted foot into it. He tapped at Salvador’s other leg and told him to place his foot on the tail end of the bootjack. Helping him in a mechanical way, Place motioned for Salvador to pull up on the bootjacked heel. The new boot slid off smoothly, and Salvador looked at the simple contraption with awe. He placed his other booted heel in the device and pulled his leg upward. It was marvelous!

“¡Pinches americanos, tienen todo!” Salvador exclaimed as he stepped back into his new boots, impressed by American ingenuity. All the way home he examined the simplicity of the tool that helped a tired and solitary man take his boots off without sitting on the edge of the bed and yanking outwardly and awkwardly.

The food was colorful. Saucy reds and greens flowed into yellowy cheeses that melted over meats and beans. The orangeness of the rice added to the kaleidoscope of food. The blue-and-red corn tortilla chips mixed in with the traditional yellow chips indicated that indeed Mitch, Place, and Salvador were eating at an upscale restaurant. Carefully, Place and Salvador ate around the blue and red chips, together ignoring them for their odd color, but doing this only subconsciously. Mitch noticed this and thought to ask about it. But the more she ran the question through her head the more aware she became of what such a question would imply.

“How come both of you are ignoring the blue and red chips?” she thought to ask, and then decided against it, thinking the question too ethnocentric, too much like anthropology. That mental question collided with the other one she always wondered about: “How do you pick which language to use when you’re speaking with other people who also speak both Spanish and English?” Mitch had asked Place about that linguistic switching, but he was vague in his answer, unsure himself. Mitch studied the two men as they ate and listened closely as they spoke, even though she understood very little of their casual conversation.

They ate like Romans. With few words spoken, they slowly consumed all of the food placed before them. They traded portions of the main course. A couple of spoonfuls of chile colorado for the same amount of chile verde. Mitch’s plate of carnitas proved to be an effective trading commodity as she negotiated a deal for Place’s cup of soupy beans, frijoles de olla. All parties involved in the trading ate with satisfaction, eating as if the food would provide needed energy for hard-worked bodies and tired minds.

Salvador took an indulgent drink of his ginger ale, sucking on the straw until the sounds of the empty glass gurgled and chuckled that the resource had been fully tapped. He sat straight and put a fist to his mouth to let a suppressed burp filter through. Place took a finishing swipe at his plate with a piece of flour tortilla, and Mitch continued to enjoy her meal, focusing on the bright mound of rice.

As the trio placed utensils and napkins on empty plates and pushed them away to indicate that they were finished eating, Mitch shot a warning glance to Place and he nodded with a pokerfaced knowledge that signaled that he was on cue. Place reached across the table to shake Salvador’s hand and wish him happy birthday once more. With his other hand coming out from under the table, Place extended a small, brightly wrapped box toward him.