Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
“In prison, your brother?!” said Lupe completely shocked. “But why?”
“Because of liquor.”
“Liquor? Oh, then he’s the one who’s the bootlegger in your family,” said Lupe, suddenly looking greatly relieved.
Seeing her reactions, Salvador nodded.
“Oh, then that’s why you didn’t want to speak about it,” she continued. “You didn’t want to speak badly about your own brother.”
Liking this, Salvador nodded again, giving an open door to the Devil.
“Salvador, you should have trusted me,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, “I should have.” He swallowed. Damnit, he’d really done it once again. He could feel el Diablo smiling. “And about the baby, then this is for sure?” he asked, wanting to get the feelings of the Devil away from himself.
“Yes, Salvador,” said Lupe. “This is for sure. We are starting our very own familia! And you’re not a bootlegger!” she added, eyes dancing with merriment.
“Lupe,” he said, seeing her trust and love and happiness. “But, also, you should know—” He stopped. He held. He breathed. There was so much that he wanted to tell her, to stop all this damn lying, but he was afraid of losing her. “Lupe,” he said again, “I want us to go to see mi mama. Come on, let’s go. She’s going to be so happy for us!”
And he turned and took hold of the steering wheel so they could go, because he damn well knew that his mama was the only living person in the whole world he could talk this whole thing over with and get some help before the Devil took over their lives.
“Salvador,” said Lupe, smiling, “aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“We were on our way to see my father in the hospital.”
“Oh, that’s right! I forgot. I’m sorry,” he said.
Driving across town to the hospital, Salvador couldn’t stop looking at Lupe. Why, she looked even more beautiful than ever before! But oh, deep inside, he felt like such a big damn liar. And of course, el Diablo loved it. One of the sons of the old She-Fox had managed to slip away, but this one the Devil had ahold of by his tanates!
Deep inside of himself, Salvador could now hear the Devil speaking to him as clearly as he’d heard the voice of Papito Dios so many times. And el Diablo was saying, “You’ve really screwed up, you no good, lousy, lying, backstabbing, cabrón, son-of-a-bitch, and you’re going to ruin everything! And she’s going to hate you! And you deserve it, pendejo!
“Unless, of course, you just keep on lying and hiding . . . then I’ll make it easy for you, and you’ll go far,” the Devil added. “After all, look around and tell me who are the successful people of the world—certainly not the saints or any of the good-hearted people. No, the really successful people are the tough-hearted, the strong, the clever, all our kind of people, just like you and me, amigo, people who have the guts to face reality and do what it takes to get it done, now! Pronto! Hell, you and I both know that it took real guts for me to leave the side of the Almighty and go out on my own. I’m un macho a lo cabrón! And look, I’m doing GREAT! The future is OURS, I tell you!”
Salvador shook his head, taking a deep breath, he didn’t want all this going on inside of his head. And he was just about to tell his mind to knock it off, to stop all this bullshit thinking, when the Devil SCREAMED out inside of his brain!
“GET SERIOUS, amigo! All nations are built on lying and greed, and manipulation! You’re doing perfect! And I’m here with you to ensure your success! Hell, show me a man or nation that isn’t founded on my principles of success and I’ll show a failed, hungry land!”
Hearing this, Salvador nodded, seeing that this was absolutely true.
The Devil leaped with joy, feeling so good to have at last gotten a good hold on Salvador.
“Good,” said the Devil, “wonderful, just look up into the sky on any given night, amigo,” continued the Devil, speaking so smoothly inside Salvador’s mind that he couldn’t help but listen, “and tell me what do you see—more stars or more darkness? Darkness, of course. For the powers of darkness are infinite! And every generation brings more and more people to our side. Lying is just a tool. There’s nothing wrong with lying, Salvador, be a man! She’s just a woman after all, an afterthought, a thing that had to be created so that man could reproduce. That’s all. Nothing more. Remember Eve was Adam’s downfall, amigo.”
At the hospital, they had no record of Don Victor. But finally, after much insistence, they located Lupe’s father in a small back room with five other men. All five men were bunched up together like fish in a can. And Don Victor was glad to see them, but he looked awful, with a yellowish tint to his face. They could hear screams coming from another room down the hall. The room smelled terrible. The window was closed, and there was no fresh air.
“I’m so glad that you two could come,” said Don Victor, smiling the best he could to Salvador and Lupe.
“Of course, we could come,” said Lupe, kissing her father. “How could we not? Are they treating you well, papa?”
“Well, what can you expect?” he said. “They got us all packed so close together that we smell each other’s farts, and they don’t speak Spanish and they don’t have frijoles or tortillas, then they take all the salt away from my food, so how can I be? Weak, of course, and starving for real food instead of all this tasteless, awful mush that they serve us here.”
The old man had told the truth, the whole room did, indeed, smell of stale farts and sick, decaying bodies. It was hard just to breathe. Salvador went to the window and tried to open it, but it was stuck.
The screams continued coming from down the hall.
“Salvador,” said the old man, seeing his son-in-law’s anxiousness, “remember this, as long as you live, never come to any damn hospital unless you’re in perfect health! Because if you do, and you’re just a little bit weak, they’ll be sure to do you in!” And he laughed, trying to be brave, but he just wasn’t able to bring it off. His hands were trembling.
Stepping out of the room to catch his breath, Salvador found a chair in the hallway and brought it inside for Lupe. It was a tight squeeze for Salvador to put the chair by Lupe’s father’s bedside. Sitting down, Lupe took her father’s hands and began stroking them. The old man smiled and little by little, his hands finally stopped trembling. The simple act of being touched felt like Heaven to the old man.
The screams continued. Finally, two male nurses came rushing past their door.
“Well, Salvador,” continued Don Victor, “I guess it looks like maybe you and I aren’t going to go to get that gold up in La Lluvia after all. And oh, I tell you, I know exactly where those nuggets are. Damnit, I would have liked to be rich at least once in my life before I died. So rich that all the family would be proud of me!”
“But, papa, we’re proud of you already,” said Lupe, taking his hand to her lips and kissing his fingertips.
“See how she lies to me,” said Don Victor, turning back to Salvador. “Proud of me, why? Because I left them. Because I refused to work below my station of a finish carpenter, and so their mother had to work day and night to keep la familia together.”
“But I’m not lying,” insisted Lupe. “We were always proud of you. Every day I went to school and sat in one of those chairs you made, I felt so proud of being your daughter. Every day I looked around at our little home, I’d feel so proud that you’d built it for us with your own two hands.”
“But it was a shack of a house,” said the old man, “and those little chairs at the school were so coarsely made.”
“Yes, our home was made mostly of sticks and mud and our little school chairs were made of coarse wood, but, papa, you made all those things with your ax and saw and with your love, from here in your heart. Don’t you see, papa, all of our life we’ve already been rich with love de nuestra familia.”
Seeing his daughter’s sincerity, tears burst forth from the old man’s eyes. Reaching out, he now took Lupe’s two hands wit
And Salvador watched, and it was so beautiful. Daughter and father and such open real feelings de amor.
But el Diablo didn’t like this one little bit! Because with Salvador seeing all this love and forgiveness crap, then he could start thinking that maybe Lupe could forgive him, too!
Women, and especially good-hearted women with their stupid, ignorant love, had been a thorn up the Devil’s ass since the dawn of time!
What he, the Devil, liked was a woman with vanity and arrogance!
Women who were cunning, ambitious, and self-serving!
Women who could bring out the worst in men!
Women who were untrusting, especially of love, and were LUSTFUL!
These BEAUTIES were el Diablo’s POWER! Women, who’d bring him the head of a man on a silver platter! Oh, how he hated thoughtful, sincere women!
“You’re right, mi hijita,” Don Victor was saying. “You’re absolutely right, but we men just keep forgetting this simple truth of life. Thank you, mi hijita, we were rich with love, weren’t we?”
“Yes, papa, we were, and we still are,” she added.
And she was crying and he was crying and together they took each other into their arms. Lupe now rocked her father just as Salvador had rocked his own mother on many nights. Holy. Complete. Full circle. The baby de la familia now babying her own parent con amor.
The other patients in the tiny back room didn’t have any visitors, and they were being affected, too. Love was contagious.
So now it was el Diablo who was squirming and getting so upset that he could scream! The Devil rushed down the hall in a fit of anger, and suddenly, a ruckus was heard down the way, then a screaming, a horrible shrieking! But then it all stopped. Just like that. No more shrieking or screaming. All was silent.
Don Victor nodded. “That’s the third time that I’ve heard that since I’ve been here,” he said. “Te juro, what I’ve seen and heard here in this hospital in the last two days, I would have never believed if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. They neglect us ’til we start screaming, then . . . oh, oh.” He licked his lips. “Money, only money is what gets you respect here in this country. A smile alone from a nurse, I think costs half a day’s wages.
“Look, Salvador, you and Victoriano are going to have to make that trip without me. He knows where the gold nuggets are, too. Because I swear, life has so many twists and turns that I’m beginning to think that maybe we would’ve been better off to have remained in Mexico, instead of coming to this country.” He glanced about at the other patients, then pulled himself close to Salvador, whispering, “Te juro, I swear to you, they look down their noses at us as if we’re nothing but dogs. We need money, Salvador, we need gold! But also don’t be stubborn like me, realize that these twists and turns of life don’t all have to do with the curves and twists of Lady Luck as men like to think. I swear, if only I’d known then, what I know now, what a difference it could have made for me. My child loved those little chairs I made for the school. I didn’t know. My pride made me blind. Truly, the heart is where we really live, Salvador.”
Salvador nodded, thinking of how his own father had abandoned them, too. “Yes,” he said, “I think you’re right. The corazón really is where we live.”
“Yes, exactly, but I couldn’t see that when I was young, that even the twists and turns in life help el corazón to grow strong,” said Don Victor. “I was so stubborn that, well, I actually thought that it was my duty to control life. What a fool I was! Thinking if only I just had enough money. I swear, the sad truth is that God saves wisdom for our old age, when it’s too damn late!”
“That’s what my mother always tells me,” said Salvador. “God is afraid of us, so that’s why He saves our wisest years for last.”
The old man laughed. “Why, I’ll be, I think your mother is maybe right,” said Don Victor, his old eyes lighting up. “God fears us and the Devil tempts us, because with what I know now—I’d be a man of love and patience and not,” he added, looking into his daughter’s eyes, “a lost old fool.”
“But you’re not a lost old fool, papa,” said Lupe, still holding her father’s left hand and stroking it gently. “You’re a rich man, surrounded with love!”
Hearing this, the Devil came crashing back into the room. If a person died at peace, then he lost them to Heaven. He needed for Don Victor to be full of self-righteous rage and blaming and hating—for these were the ingredients that kept the fires of Hell burning!
But Doña Margarita had also come into the room—having taken on the form of a flower among the flowers that had been delivered to one of the other patients—and she was now set, watching the Devil’s every move. She wasn’t about to let Lucifer get his way with her loved ones. Oh, she was crouched and ready as a tiger!
“Mi hijita,” the old man was saying, “if only I’d known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have gotten upset so easily when life tossed me a turn or twist. For instance, maybe I wouldn’t have taken it so hard when they didn’t have any more carpenter work for me at the mine. Maybe I wouldn’t have left . . .” He bit his lower lip. “I would have swallowed my pride and stayed, because . . . oh, I missed you children so much, especially you, Lupe, whom I hardly got to know.”
The tears were flowing from his old eyes. “Forgive me, querida,” he said, taking her hand to his lips and kissing her fingertips once more. “Please, forgive me for abandoning you.”
At this point, the Devil stepped forward to put the words of resentment into Lupe’s mouth so she wouldn’t give forgiveness to her father, but Doña Margarita was a warrior of the highest order, and so when the Devil stepped forward, she leaped, shoving a long branch of rose thorns up his ass with such power that el Diablo jumped aside. Lupe was freed.
“But, papa, there’s nothing to forgive,” said Lupe, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Everything has worked out for the best. You’re here with us now, and I love you very, very much.”
“Really, mi hijita, you forgive me and . . . and you love me?”
“Of course,” said Lupe, “with all of my corazón I love you and I forgive you and . . . and, well, we have a surprise for you,” she added, turning and taking Salvador’s right hand. “Papa, Salvador and I . . . are going to have a baby.”
“A BABY!” shouted the old man with a flood of tears bursting forth from his old eyes! “A baby,” he repeated with such joy. “A little baby from my baby! Oh, what a miracle life is! Good God, I’m so happy to have lived to see this Holy Day!”
And Don Victor strained to sit up in bed, so he could take Lupe into his arms. Quickly, Salvador moved forward, helping the old man to upright himself. He could feel that Don Victor’s back had become nothing but bones.
“Oh, mi hijita, mi hijita!” said the old man, taking his daughter in his arms. And he held her, with his eyes closed for the longest time, breathing deeply, then he opened his redshot eyes—from crying so much—and he saw Salvador looking at them. “Oh, aren’t women wonderful? Eh, Salvador, aren’t they the true wonder of our lives?” The tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I love you so much, mi hijitos. Both of you so very much.” He pulled Lupe in closer to himself as he stretched out an old, wrinkled-up hand to get hold of Salvador, too. “You girls and your mother are the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. Oh, my God, my God, I love you so, so much! And now here you are married and with child. These are the true riches of life, but I just couldn’t see them until now that it’s almost too late. God forgive me, God forgive every man who’s ever abandoned his home!
“Salvador,” he now added, “you are now going to be a father, the one who protects and keeps your home alive and full of love against the ways of the Devil, who’s so quick to deceive us men with dreams of glory and—”
But Don Victor wasn?
For hearing these jewels of wisdom coming from one who’d been on his way to Hell, the Devil became so enraged that he SCREAMED, kicking the window open and rushing out of the room!
A sweet, delicious breeze of fresh air came into the room, surprising everyone how the old window had just suddenly opened up by itself—a window that obviously hadn’t been opened in years.
Salvador breathed in deeply, totally accepting Don Victor’s words that yes, he, himself, was now the responsible father of his home.
And outside—much to the Devil’s disbelief—here was Doña Margarita still after him. And she now grabbed hold of the Devil by the throat, with such force and conviction of Soul that she half choked him to death before he could escape, howling as he went—up, up, over rooftops and toward Heaven before he realized where he was going, and so he quickly shot back down into his own domain of Eternal Damnation!
Doña Margarita was flying through the clouds, laughing con carcajadas!
“Almost got you, eh, Diablo!?! I surprised you so much that you almost went to Heaven again, instead of Hell!”
“You son-of-a-bitch—no, DAUGHTER-OF-A-BITCH!” screamed the Devil back at Doña Margarita.
“Oh, come on, why curse me any longer,” she calmly said to him. “Admit it, you’re in love with me.”
“IN LOVE WITH YOU!” screamed el Diablo, spitting in disgust at the leaping red-orange flames all about him. “I hate you! Look, what I’ve done to you and your children, you stupid, ignorant INDIAN WOMAN! I’ve raped and killed and starved and mutilated your children for hundreds of years! I DID IT! I found ways to get it DONE!”
“Yes, I know,” said Doña Margarita with tears coming to her old, wrinkled-up eyes, “and I ... I forgive you, Don Lucifer.”
“But you can’t forgive me, I’m the Devil! YOU MUST HATE ME!”
“Hate you?” said Doña Margarita oh, so softly. “But how can I hate you? For you, too, once came from God. Come, my poor, lost Child of Darkness and let me hold you, and hug you, and mother you with Love. You must be so tired and weary with all the bad, evil deeds you do. Come, let me mother you.”