Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
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.
A couple of men strolled up, playing their guitars.
Salvador said nothing more to Archie. Long ago he’d learned that this wasn’t the end of the situation. It was just the beginning. He was finally understanding how to deal with a greedy man like Archie. You had to work him very slowly, and then he’d come around.
Hell, maybe this Palmer wasn’t even asking for this much money. After all, Palmer was an educated man and educated men, Salvador was beginning to find out—as he did more and more business with them—were usually pretty straight-forward, honest people. Hell, nobody was more honest than his attorney, Fred Noon.
“All right, come and get it!” yelled Archie, turning to everyone. “The cute little maaaaaa-goat is ready!”
From everywhere, the people came. They were starving. Archie’s whole face lit up with joy as he watched the people fill up their plates, licking their fingers. He’d seen a lot of hunger in his day, and it was truly a pleasure for him to see people with lots to eat.
The Sun was down, and Salvador kept seeing in his mind’s eye a huge roaring fire. His mother’s face flashed in the fire’s flames. The flames were leaping twenty-thirty feet into the Father Sky and she was dancing about the fire with a group of people with painted faces. It gave him shivers, it all seemed so real. He took a deep breath and asked the Almighty to please look after his old mama.
15
LIGHTNING flashed across the land and THUNDER roared through the canyons with the HOLY VOICE of CREATION!
SAL
“You were gone nearly a week! No one knew where you were! I was going crazy, mama! I can’t keep living this way! You don’t seem to know or care what you put me through! I swear, I’ve aged TWENTY YEARS this last week!”
“Well, then, I guess that pretty soon we’ll be the same age, mi hijita,” said the old woman cheerfully.
“THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” screamed Luisa. “You were gone! I thought that they’d STONED YOU TO DEATH!”
This was when Luisa finally noticed that Salvador had come into the room. Luisa whirled on Salvador with vengeance!
“And where have you been!” she bellowed! “Mama’s been lost! She just walked in! And you were lost, too! I’d thought that the Earth had opened up and swallowed you both!”
Luisa slapped Salvador across the face with all her might, then she was crying and hugging him so hard that it looked like she was going to break his back.
It was well over an hour before Luisa had finally calmed down enough to go to bed. Salvador now walked his old mother out the back door of Luisa’s house and to her own little shack in back. The Mother Moon was out and she was beautiful!
“Oh, just look at Moon, mi hijito,” said Doña Margarita. “If Luisa would only have looked at Mother Moon with an Open Heart, she would have known that here inside there was no reason to worry about me.
“What do you think people did for all those thousands of years before the telephone? They’d just put their hands to their Heart and look at Moon and Mother Moon would tell them about their Love Ones. Always talk to Moon, Salvador, especially when difficulties come up between you and Lupe. Mother Moon is your guide in the matters of Heart and Soul. Moontalk is the languaging of la familia,” she added, making the sign of the cross over herself.
“I’m tired,” said Doña Margarita, once they were inside of her shack. “Help get me into bed, mi hijito. We did so much Holy Work. Everyone was there. Everyone! And you know, La Gloria, herself, is blind.”
“La Gloria?” asked Salvador.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you, mi hijito, God sent down Three Holy Angels to take me up to Heaven to visit. It’s just up the mountain behind San Bernardino at a beautiful lake surrounded by huge, old pines. That’s where I met La Gloria—God’s Own Self in the New Sun of Creation into which we are now entering.”
“And She’s blind?”
“Yes, totally,” said his mother. “And so I asked Her how this happened, and She told me that She’d gone blind with rage. I asked how long had this rage lasted to make Her blind, and She grinned and said not too long, just a little over one hundred years. We both started laughing and laughing, mi hijito, this is how I will always remember this Great Woman of God, Her laughing eyes rolled over back, looking all white, and the whole land filling up with Her Great Laughter.
“You should have been with me, mi hijito, it was so beautiful up in that high country of Heaven. We could see forever and the waters of the Holy Lake were so crystal clear that you could see each little pebble down at the bottom, no matter how deep.”
Salvador stopped listening as he tucked his mother in. She just seemed to have no idea how upsetting it was for everyone that she’d been gone for all these days and nights without a word. Why even he, who hadn’t been here in Corona waiting for her, had still felt pains in his stomach.
“Why aren’t you listening to me, mi hijito?” she stopped and asked.
“You want to know the truth?”
“Of course.”
“Because sometimes I think you’re just crazy, mama, the way you don’t seem to realize how you upset people,” he said.
“I upset people, eh?”
“Yes, you do. We love you, mama, and you just disappeared. This time I side with Luisa. She has every right to be angry with you.”
“I see, it’s not the people who upset themselves with their own fears and doubts?”
“Mama, don’t twist my words. You know what I mean.”
“Am I twisting your words to question what it is you say, mi hijito? Oh, no, you and your sister are the ones who upset yourselves, and you seem to think that because you love me, you have the right to say I upset you.”
“But mama, you disappeared. What was Luisa to think?”
“So, then, stop thinking,” she said. “Do you still not get it? Thinking, here in the head, is how we lost the Garden we had all over the Earth. It’s only when we return to the Heart, Here in Our Center, that we can regain all of our lost senses and step through the illusion of separation and return to the Garden. Mi hijito, we’ve come Full Circle. What we did in the Church isn’t some isolated reality. Our Sacred Unity of Light and Darkness is now Circling the whole Mother Earth with Sun and Moon, even as we speak.”
Salvador said nothing. He just stood there looking at his old mother. “Then, mama,” he said, “you’re telling me that for all these days that you were gone, you were really up in Heaven visiting with Papito?”
“Aren’t we all once we return to Grace?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.
And so she now told Salvador how Beauty, Harmony, and Peace had come down from Heaven in the form of Three Handsome Young Indian boys to get her one morning. They went by truck to the foot of the Big Bear Mountain where their old truck broke down and they had to go up the mountain by foot.
“I flew up the mountainside, I was so full of power!” said Doña Margarita to her son Salvador. “And on top of the mountain, we came to a beautiful Holy Lake that the local gente call Ojo-de-Dios, Eye-of-God, because the waters are so clear that they reflect the Sky, putting Heaven Here on Earth.
“It was so cold, that we built a huge fire the first night,” she added.
“I know,” said Salvador. “I saw these people dancing around a huge fire with painted faces and stones in their hands.”
“That was us!” said Doña Margarita. “That first night we heated up big stones, then we went into a cave-like structure half underground and put herbs and water on the hot stones. The whole cave heated up so hot with steam that it was like returning to the womb.
“The second night we built another huge fire, and I showed la gente how we dance on hot-burning coals back home. People came in from hundreds of miles all around. La Gloria used Her Spring Festival to Honor me for what I’d done down here in the lowlands with the Devil and Papito Dios.
“It was beautiful, mi hijito, they, too, knew that what I’d done was nothing new. Each of us, in fact, needs to bring Peace between God and Devil for us to Balance our Cycle of Harmony. Then Diablo can once more be viewed by us mortals as the happy-joking-prankster who volunteered to walk in Beauty into the Darkness of the Unknown.
“La Gloria led us in Holy Chant and the coyotes came to join us in Song, and Golden Eagles Screeched from the Heavens and the Great Old Trees around the lake stepped forward and joined with the Holy Singing of the Stones! Everything was in Symphony, Everything was Being Touched by the Blessed Breath of Creation!
“Oh, I could go on for days, telling you of the Sacred Places that we Voyaged Beyond as Guests of God, but I’m tired now, mi hijito, so we’ll talk mañana. Good Night. I’m sorry I caused so much worry, but if only Luisa would’ve checked in with her Heart, instead of her head, she would’ve known that I was fine. By the way,” she said to her son as he tucked her in under the covers, “She walks on water.”
“Who?” said Salvador.
“La Gloria,” said his old mother.
“You saw La Gloria walk on water?” asked Salvador.
“Yes, we all
“Then is La Gloria a Spirit, mama?” Salvador asked.
The old woman laughed. “Aren’t we all once we finally realize the Fullness of Being?”
“Well, yes, I guess so, but then—I mean, was She, also, of real flesh and blood, mama?”
“Of course, She is of real flesh and blood,” said Doña Margarita, smiling as she closed her eyes to go off to sleep. “Wasn’t Mary and Joseph and Jesus? Mi hijito, Our Holy Story of Creation never stopped. We are still all Walking Stars Living in the Sacred Breath of the Almighty.” And she looked so very happy and all at Peace—Dreaming.
La Gloria was now walking . . . across the Holy Waters of Creation up above San Bernardino under a Star Filled Sky.
SHE, La Gloria!
SHE, LA GLORIA!
SHE, LA GLOOOOOO-RRRRRR-EEE-AAAAAA!!! Star Walking upon Water!
WHEN SALVADOR GOT BACK to his distillery in Tustin, he found Kenny White all upset. And Salvador well knew that Kenny White wasn’t a man who panicked easy, so something very unusual must’ve happened.
“They were just kids, Salvador,” said the old man. He was half drunk. “Little, blond, blue-eyed girls no more than twelve or thirteen, and they were selling themselves, Salvador, with their parents looking on, hoping to make enough money to eat.
“It made me sick,” said the white-haired old man with tears running down his face. “What has this country come to? They were decent people, Sal! Good people, Christians, and yet here they were willing to sell their own flesh and blood for a dollar. So when I seen those two guys drive up in that beautiful new roadster, willing to pay for those little girls, I went crazy, Sal, and I know I shouldn’t have done it—but, hell, those parents could be going in the hills like your people and trapping rabbits and quail and living off the land, instead of selling their—”