Thirteen Senses (65 page)

“Here's to you and your wife and baby,” said Palmer.

“Thank you,” said Salvador.

They finished off the quart, and Salvador went out to his Moon and brought in a fresh quart, and they drank long into the night. Palmer told Salvador he and his wife were originally from San Francisco, that his wife's family had money and were highly educated. His wife didn't like it down in Southern California, saying it was a cultural desert and that San Francisco was the only really civilized city in all the western hemisphere except, of course, for Mexico City, where they'd gone to visit college friends on their honeymoon.

Palmer spoke Spanish fluently and he asked Salvador if he'd ever been to Mexico City.

“No,” said Salvador, “I was born in a little village in the mountains of Jalisco not too far out of Guadalajara. Then came the war, and we migrated to the United States along with lots of other poor people. My mother and father knew Mexico City and Guadalajara, but not us kids.”

“So then you only know Mexico through war?” asked Palmer.

Salvador nodded. He'd never thought of it like this. “Yeah,” he said, “my wife and I, that's almost all we've ever seen.”

“Well, that's too bad,” said Palmer, “you should visit Mexico someday as a tourist. It's a beautiful country, Sal!”

Palmer then began telling Salvador about Guadalajara and Mexico City, comparing both of these fine cities to San Francisco. He explained to Salvador how his wife had gone to a private school in San Francisco with the daughters of some of the finest families from all over Mexico. Salvador had never heard such talk and was very fascinated. He absolutely knew nothing of how the wealthy of Mexico lived.

“You know,” said Palmer, “we,
gringos,
did a very stupid thing in this country when we put up the border between Mexico and the United States. These two countries belong together more than the eastern and western U.S. Hell, I get along better with the Mexican people than I do with all those damned easterners, who think everything west of the Mississippi is still a wilderness.”

They talked until the early hours of the morning, and Salvador didn't go home that night. He just rolled up with a blanket that Palmer gave him on the couch in the living room and went to sleep. And down deep inside, Salvador well knew that if he'd told Palmer the truth, that Archie had lied and tried to trick him, Palmer would never have invited him into his home and gotten so friendly. Salvador's instincts for survival had been correct, when he'd told this big lawman what it was that he'd wanted to hear.

Sleeping that night on the couch, Salvador knew he'd passed through a very important needle's eye. He was sleeping in the home of his enemy, a
gringo
—and a lawman to boot—and he was an outlaw who'd come knocking with rage and vengeance on the back door.

Salvador started laughing with
carcajadas
because he could now see so clearly that if Maria hadn't taken their newborn to be baptized, then he, Salvador, would have never gotten so raging angry that he'd come home, broken the table, downed two pints, chopped down a tree, and had the nerve to come knocking on Palmer's back door!

SALVADOR AWOKE WITH A START.

He glanced around, at first not remembering where he was. Then remembering, that he was at old man Palmer's house, he gripped his forehead. What had ever possessed him to think that he could just come knocking on a rich
gringo's
door? He hoped to God, Palmer wouldn't have him arrested. He sat up, holding his head.
Mano,
did he have a hangover!

“Bathroom's down the hallway,” said Palmer, coming into the room. He looked washed and shaven and ready to go. “I'll make us breakfast,
compadre
!”

Hearing this word
“compadre,”
Salvador felt a rush of feelings go shooting up and down his spine! My God, Palmer was calling him family, like last night they'd really celebrated his child's baptism, and so now he, Palmer, was Hortensia's Godfather.

Salvador got up and went to the bathroom. Palmer was in the kitchen, cooking bacon and eggs. It smelled wonderful! The bathroom was the biggest bathroom Salvador had ever seen. It, too, had a beautiful view all the way down the hill to the sea. Never had he ever thought of a kitchen or a bathroom being built to have a view. This was a new world for Salvador. Maybe he and Lupe could also someday build a house on a hill with a view from every room.

He washed his face with cold water, used the smallest towel he could find, then he took a long, loud piss. He was glad that the big chief-deputy was whistling as he cooked. All this felt so strange to Salvador. Never in his wildest dreams would he have ever dreamed that someday a
gringo
would call him “godfather,” and then he'd be cooking breakfast for him, too!

“Come and get it!” yelled Palmer.

“You bet!” said Salvador, yelling back.

“Sit your ass right down,
compadre
!” said Palmer with
gusto
!

“You got it,
amigo
,” said Salvador. He was all excited, but still felt a little too self-conscious to use the word
“compadre”
himself.

And so they had a fine breakfast together with plenty of eggs and thick cuts of freshly cured bacon and plenty of hot, black coffee. Then Palmer took Salvador outside to his avocado orchard to show him how to “doctor” the trees. As the huge old man spoke to him, Salvador truly felt as if they'd entered into paradise.

Hell, his own father had never treated him this well!

Salvador no longer saw Palmer as a
gringo,
or even a lawman. No, he now simply saw the huge man as a fellow human being! For the first time Salvador very clearly saw that this country of the United States could now also be his home as much as
los Altos de Jalisco,
or anywhere else.

“You see, Sal,” Palmer was saying, “you're going to have to explain all this grafting business to your brother, Domingo, that I'm showing you, so if anyone asks him anything, he won't look completely ignorant.”

“Okay,” said Salvador, trying to concentrate.

“To begin with,” said Palmer, “we graft these trees because the original avocado trees produce a fruit with too big of a seed inside and also the skin isn't thick enough so we can ship east. But when we cut these old trees back to a stump, then graft on this other variety of avocado, we get a lot more meat on the fruit and the type of tough, thick skin that we need for shipping.”

“Oh, I see,” said Salvador. “Very good!”

Old man Palmer and Salvador worked side by side in the hot Sun, and as they worked, the lawman-farmer kept talking, and Salvador found out a lot more about his family and that his children didn't come by to see him very often, or at least not as often as he would like.

Around noontime, Hans, who also owned avocado trees, came by with a basket full of food and some of his homemade beer—which was terrible but cold—and they ate and drank together in the shade of a big eucalyptus tree.

Salvador couldn't remember having had such a wonderful time in all his life—not since he and his
familia
had had to flee from their beloved homeland
de Jalisco.

LATE THAT SAME AFTERNOON
, Salvador went to his car and got a bottle of his best whiskey, and he and Hans and Fred Palmer shot down a couple of good-sized drinks, and kept right on working. And work they did, fast and hard, learning this new trade of “avocado doctors”—and not as hired hands—but as
amigos, compadres,
FREE MEN!

Oh, Salvador had never had such an experience in all of his life! Why, work could be fun! Sweating could feel good! This was Paradise when you were a free human being working on your friend's place with your own two GOD-GIVEN HANDS!

“You know,” said Hans, when they finally went in for the day, “a lot of my friends and relatives back in New Jersey still aren't liking these avocados that I ship to them.”

“Hell, that's just because they don't know how to eat them,” said Palmer. “Avocados are delicious! George Thompson's dad was a damn genius to have brought in these babies from Mexico! In not too long, avocados are going to be the number-one crop in this whole area!”

“Yaaa, I'm sure that may be true,” said Hans with his heavy German accent. “But we got to first figure out an angle on how to sell 'em, or we're just going to lose our pants and shoes like those men did with all those eucalyptus trees east of town. Tell me,” he said, turning to Salvador, “how do you people eat these avocados back in Mexico?”

“Well,” said Salvador, feeling good to be included in this conversation with two such educated men, “we put them in our
tortillas.
But also we mash them up and mix 'em with
salsa,
and they're
muy
tasty!”

“How? Show us,” said Hans. “I'm a cook. I love learning new recipes.”

“You got any tomatoes and
chile?''''
asked Salvador.

“Is the Pope Catholic?” said Palmer. “Hell, I grow my own
chiles
and tomatoes just for this very reason. I love
salsa
!”

So Salvador cut open three big avocados and mashed them up in a big bowl, then added lots of freshly-chopped tomatoes, onions, and
chile.
then salt and pepper and squeezed in one big juicy lemon. Hans's and Palmer's mouths were watering when they finally tasted it.

“Hey, this is delicious!” said Hans. “What's it called?”

“Guacamole
,
”
said Salvador, “but we need a little
cilantro.
”

“Guac-a-what?” said Hans.

“Guacamole,”
repeated Salvador.

“Gua-qua-hell!” said Hans.

“Here, take a few more shots of whiskey,” said Palmer, laughing. “You have to loosen your lips to get hold of Spanish. That's why the Mexican
señoritas
always make the best damn kissers in all the world. They got loose, fast-moving lips and tongues. My wife learned that from her Mexican girlfriends. They'd practice kissing in the mirror for hours!”

The Father Sun was going down into the sea and Hans kept drinking more and more whiskey, trying to loosen his German tongue so he could say
guacamole,
but he could just never get hold of the word.

Salvador and Palmer laughed and laughed, matching him drink for drink. Then Salvador suggested that they go to the
barrio
and get a couple kilos of corn
tortillas, carne asada,
then they could really see what
guacamole
was all about!

Coming back, they almost ran head-on into old man Kenny White and the truck he'd found for Salvador. Kenny could see that they were half drunk and up to no good. He loved it and followed them in Salvador's new truck back to Palmer's place.

Walking into Palmer's house, Kenny put his arm around Salvador and whispered to him that his brother-in-law was looking for him. Salvador nodded, but said nothing. He was still pissed. Then Kenny told Salvador to be careful because every time Palmer's family left town, Fred Palmer got Mexican Wild.

“Mexican Wild?” said Salvador. “What's that?”

“You just watch and you'll find out,” said Kenny, “a few more shots and he'll start barking and howling to the Moon! Hell, he's the best coyote-howler in the region! Even the chickens run from him once he gets going. You see, originally, Palmer's people came from Tucson, Arizona. They were in the mining business on both sides of the border and made tons of money. All his people speak Spanish like natives. But his wife, hell, she's even richer than him, but she don't think her shit stinks.”

“I'll be damn,” said Salvador, laughing, “then this is what you call Mexican Wild, eh? A man howling and being happy?” And he thought of all the money that Archie's nephew was making, acting wild. Also, he wondered what it could mean that Victoriano was looking for him. He hoped to God that Lupe and the baby were okay.

In Palmer's huge kitchen, Kenny and Salvador put the
carne asada
in a pan, then they cut up a dozen big, juicy avocados and made a huge bowl of
guacamole.
Kenny and Salvador had become even better friends since the old man had started driving liquor-runs for him. Salvador just couldn't believe it—here he was with three Anglos—educated men, men who could read and write—and he was having one of the best times of his whole life!

Then Kenny and Salvador heated up the corn
tortillas,
and the four of them now pigged out with
tacos de carne asada
and the whole bowl of
guacamole.
Hans and Palmer were sure that they'd come upon the best damn appetizer that any drinking man would ever want!

“We've struck gold!” said Palmer, giving a coyote howl!

“I agree, this
guaca-
hell and
tortillas
is the best!” said Hans, kissing his fingertips, then giving a howl, too. “But you know, I'm still gonna have trouble selling it to my relatives in New Jersey. Because, well, fruit just don't sound like it'd go well with drinking whiskey or beer, eh?”

“Well, then, hell,” said Kenny, laughing, “just call these avocados a damn vegetable! What the hell would they know back in New Jersey?! Hell, myself, I'd call it the Mexican vegetable especially grown for the drinking man so he don't get a hangover! A cure, I'd call it,
una cura para tu cruda,
as they say in Mexican. Eh, Sal?”

“That's right,” said Salvador.
“Una cura para la cruda!”

“Yaaa, that I can sell if we just say it in good English like I speak,” said Hans, butchering each word as he spoke. “We really could call it a vegietable!

You know, like the potato that you can eat baked or mashed and goes so well with beer, wine, or whiskey.”

“So that's it,” said Palmer, “from now on the avocado will be known as a vegetable, as the miracle vegetable from old Mexico that helps with bowel movements, arthritis, hangovers, and everything else,” added Palmer, howling to the Heavens again. He was getting more Mexican Wild by the moment. “And its natural oiliness gives longevity, too!”