Thirteen Senses (61 page)

“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 shame!”

“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.

Immediately, Archie began to protest, to say that he'd been robbed and wanted his money back, but just at that moment, the wild man saw his uncle Archie, and so he picked up some shit that they'd put in his cage with him, to make him look authentic, and he threw it at Archie to shut him up.

Getting a chunk of shit in his face, Archie let out a ROAR that terrified everyone in the tent. Then Archie threw himself at the cage, trying to reach in to get hold of his naked relative by the throat and kill him. But his nephew just grabbed hold of Archie's hand and bit it, growling like a wild man.

Archie let out a bloodcurdling scream, trying to lift up the whole cage and tear “Aunt Gladys's” boy, limb by limb. It took the announcer and two other men to pull Archie off the cage.

The people were screaming, shouting, and the tent poles were getting knocked down with the pressure of the mob of people who were trying to get inside to see what was going on. Inside, Archie hit the gigantic announcer right in his big stomach with all his might. But the huge announcer just took the punch like nothing—in one show, they shot cannonballs into his stomach—and he asked Archie if he could do this every day and twice on weekends.

“He's my DAMN NEPHEW, you crook!” bellowed Archie.

“Even better!” said the announcer. “We could bill you both! The wild beast and his uncle, the lawman!”

Salvador was laughing hysterically.

By the time Archie and Salvador and Julian finally got out of the tent, people were lined up by the hundreds, fighting to get inside. Sophia's husband was saying that he hadn't laughed so hard in years. Archie didn't think it was funny one little bit. He was pissed and still wiping the shit off his face.

All the women and children wanted to know what had happened.

“What happened,” said Julian, “is that I just found out that we,
los Indios,
will never starve! If we can't make money working, we can always get money by just acting wild!”

All the kids wanted to go in and see.

“Just look at Archie,” said Salvador, falling off his feet with laughter, “and you'll see everything! It's his damn nephew!”

“Was his thing like a horse?” yelled one little kid.

“Ask Archie to show you!” roared Salvador with laughter. “It's his relative!”

Salvador continued laughing. Archie was the best damn show in town!

AFTER THE CIRCUS,
Archie stopped by a friend's bright yellow house in downtown San Juan Capistrano right by the railroad tracks and bought a fine, strong, young billy goat and threw it in the trunk of his Hudson along with the kids.

Back in Santa Ana at Lupe's parents' home, Archie started a fire in the backyard and let the kids play with the goat for a while, so that the animal would calm down, then right there in front of everyone, Archie pet the goat gently and slit his throat, the whole while talking to him in a soothing voice as he bled him. Then one, two, three, Archie had the cute little animal skinned-out, gutted, and on the fire, smelling of Heaven.

Neighbors started coming because of the fine smell, and Archie showed the kids how to stretch the goat's skin and salt it down. Every kid in the neighborhood now wanted his own vest made from this goat's fine skin that they'd played with and had so much fun!

Archie set up the barrel of whiskey right in plain sight. This time no one would be hiding from Doña Guadalupe and Don Victor. Archie was sick and tired of hiding. He'd fallen in love with Carlota the first time he'd laid eyes on her back down there in Carlsbad over two years ago when he'd put on that dance across from his poolhall. Just the sight of her caused him to start snorting like a studhorse.

The Sun was going down. Salvador was looking off into the distance and being very quiet. He just knew that something very big was going on with his
mama
once again. He could feel it in his gut.

“You know, this is one hell of a country,” said Archie, coming up to Salvador, as he sipped his whiskey. “That crazy nephew of mine is now making more money acting wild than he's ever made in all his life. He's a hell of a good boxer, too. In an exhibition bout a few years back down in San Diego, he knocked down Jack Dempsey himself.”

“Dempsey?” said Salvador. He was still looking off into the distance.

“Jack Dempsey,” said Archie. “You know, the champ! Hey, what's going on with you, Sal?”

“I just don't know,” said Salvador. “But I got this crazy little feeling, Archie.”

“Hell, you just need a drink,” said Archie. “What's wrong with you? Has the wife told you to lay off? That's what my ex was always telling me. Man, that got old fast.”

“No, this has nothing to do with Lupe,” said Salvador. “It's
mi mama,
I keep—” But he stopped his words. Suddenly, he had a flash of a huge roaring fire and people were dancing around the fire.

“Salvador!” Archie was yelling at Salvador. “Come on, we need to talk! I finally got word to old man Palmer,” said Archie, leaning in close to Salvador. Palmer was a big-shot Chief Deputy Sheriff down in San Diego. “And he said to tell you that yes, he'll sponsor Domingo so he can get early parole, but it will cost you.”

“How much?” asked Salvador. For months now, he'd been working with Archie to get Domingo released early, but it was costing him more and more every time they spoke. He was beginning to get suspicious.

“Two hundred,” said Archie.

“Two hundred!” screamed Salvador. “Archie, I'm doing good, but not that good!”

“Keep your voice down,” said Archie. “Maybe I can talk Palmer down to one-fifty.”

“Bullshit!” said Salvador. “I'm better off telling Domingo to stay another year in prison and I'll give him the one-fifty when he gets out!”

“Well, all right, if that's how you feel about it, Sal,” said Archie. “But a year is a long time.”

Just then, Victoriano drove up with a truckload of melons that a farmer had left to rot in his fields. The whole neighborhood had gathered. The free whiskey had brought all of
la gente
out of their homes.

Lupe and her three sisters came out of the house with freshly made
tortillas
and a huge pot
of frijoles.
The goat was ready, and everyone's mouth was watering. Archie's homemade barbecue sauce smelled of Heaven. Lupe and her
familia
weren't used to seeing a man cook. Archie Freeman was truly a very strange individual, in their estimation. But what could they say, he was a big, happy, good-hearted guy, and he and Carlota now really seemed to be becoming a couple.