Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
Half crazy-loco out of his mind, that very night Tomas drove up to the City of the Angels, and with a gagging, burned mouth and throat, he told his two partners to never venture to the North County San Diego again, for the Devil lived!
And the Devil’s name was Juan Salvador Villaseñor, and Archie, the law, was in full partnership with el Diablo, and my God, he prayed for the day that he’d be forgiven for ever having dreamed of interfering in another man’s territory!
By the end of that week, after taking care of . . . well, a little more unfinished business, Salvador’s reputation grew in such leaps and bounds that people now said that his blood ran backward from his heart and his earth-body cast no more shadow in the full Moon, for his soul was now at one with the Devil, himself!
3
And so she, the child who’d been conceived on the night that a meteorite struck the Earth, was now a married woman and she was in love!
FOR THREE MORNINGS Lupe slept in late, while the rest of her family got up before sunrise so they could go to work in the fields. And each morning Lupe would get herself a cup of coffee and go out on the front porch to watch the light of the new day.
Lupe had never done this before in all her life. She and her family had always been at work in the fields before the first light of the day. But now. being a newly married woman—who was getting herself healthy and ready for her husband to come and get her on Friday so they could go on their honeymoon—she had leisure time for the very first time in her life.
Several people came by that week to visit with Lupe, wanting to tell her of the rumors that were spreading like wildfire about Salvador having castrated a man and tortured another one to death, but Lupe always cut them short, saying, “No, not one word!” For her mother had taught her that a smart woman never listened to gossip, and she wasn’t going to start now.
After all, she and Salvador had taken their wedding vows before God, and he was now her husband and she loved him with all her heart and soul, and so she wasn’t going to allow even one ill word spoken about him in her presence.
Sitting on her parents’ porch with a cup of coffee with plenty of sugar and milk, Lupe watched the coming of the new day. Oh, this was such a luxury! Lupe had never known that sleeping in late and getting up slowly felt so good! Lupe now sat here on her parents’ porch steps, all cuddled together in her nightgown and robe, warming her hands with her cup of coffee and watching the morning sunlight come in through the tree branches and dance on her mother’s flowers, herb garden, and beautifully scented plants.
For as long as she could remember, her mother had explained to Lupe and her sisters that a woman had to talk to her plants and trees and flowers on a daily basis in order to feel complete. For Papito Dios had made woman from the plant-world, just as He had made man from the mineral-world.
Lupe could now see so clearly that her mother had, indeed, been correct. It was a miracle how each tree branch, each flower, each plant took on the life of the coming of the Sun. Why, the plants were beginning to smile, to sing, to whisper good tidings to Lupe as she sat sipping her coffee, mesmerized by the coming of a whole new day.
“Hello,” said Lupe to the plants all around. “Good morning. I hope you all slept well.”
The plants purred and Lupe knew they’d had a wonderful night. Lupe continued to sip her coffee. Papito Dios had truly been very wise when He’d taken the strength from the tree, the beauty from the flower, and the healing powers from the herbs to make woman strong, beautiful, and a healing force. Papito Dios had also truly been very wise when He’d taken wind, rock and the molten fire to make man. That was why men liked to be on the move like wind and go to rock caves to find peace. Where women, on the other hand, went to their garden of maize, frijoles, and yerbas buenas to reconnect themselves with these quiet, invisible, holy mysteries of life, la vida.
“Always remember that men are mineral,” her mother had told Lupe and all her sisters ever since Lupe could remember, “and women are vegetation. That’s why the two will always have difficulties. Men were formed from the clay along the river’s edge. Women were formed from the roots of the great tree that grows on the river’s edge. It’s a miracle that they ever come together at all.”
Having heard this story all of her life, Lupe now felt so happy that her mother had had the wisdom to not let her go on her honeymoon when she’d been passing blood and not feeling well—for now, on Friday, when Salvador came to get her, she’d be feeling well and clean and ready.
She could hardly wait!
She was, after all, now a married woman!
Her heartbeat quickened with just the thought of the delicious kisses that they’d had in the walnut orchard behind her parents’ house. Then, when Salvador turned her about, so that the backside of her body came up against the full length of his—she’d truly understood for the first time in all her life why men came from rock and molten hot fire!
She shivered, sipping her coffee, and remembered Salvador’s kisses and the feel of his body up against her buns as she now watched the early-morning light giving color and life to her mother’s garden.
IT WAS FRIDAY, and Salvador was washing up and changing his clothes so he could go and pick up his bride over the coastal hills from Corona to Santa Ana. He was at Luisa’s. There was no running water in his mother’s little shack in back, so Salvador was bathing and getting dressed in his sister’s house in the front.
“Salvador,” Luisa was now saying as she watched Salvador prepare to shave his face in front of the old, broken mirror, “forget Lupe! Don’t go get her! Admit that you were a fool to have ever married that girl! You spent a fortune on that fool girl. Nobody ever bought me a diamond ring!” shouted Luisa. “Nobody ever got me furniture and set up a house for me. Then her mother came out to tell you that Lupe wasn’t ready to go on her honeymoon, this is an outrage! She didn’t have the guts or decency to come out and tell you herself!”
“Calm down, Luisa,” said Salvador, strapping his straight razor so he could start shaving. His face was lathered with soap and soft-feeling from having taken a hot bath. This would be a very good, close shave, so when he and Lupe kissed again, they could also rub cheek to cheek without his beard scratching her. “You’re talking crazy, Luisa. I’m already married, and everything is going to be wonderful!”
“Oh, no!” she continued shouting. “I know what I’m talking about! This is the future being put in your face, and you know it, Salvador!” Luisa was eight years older than Salvador, and she was really upset. “I tell you, you should have married a real woman like the ones I’ve introduced you to! But no, not you, you got blinded by a pretty virginal girl, thinking it’s so beautiful to train una inocente to your own ways,” she added sarcastically, “instead of getting a real woman who already knows the ways of the world, and would appreciate you for the real man you are!
“You fool, Salvador!” she said. “Don’t go get her, I tell you! Listen to me, Lupe is only going to make you miserable for the rest of your life! And you’ll never be appreciated for the man you really are! Mark my words, I’m a woman, and I know what I’m talking about!” she added, shouting with power. “Lupe isn’t for you!”
Salvador said nothing. What could he say? He began to shave with long, upward strokes at the neck, and small, downward strokes at the cheek. The truth was that Luisa had never liked Lupe from the start, as Carlota had never liked him from the start, either. And besides, if he wasn’t careful, he could cut his throat with his straight razor.
Just then, their mother, Doña Margarita, came in the back door. “What is all this shouting about?” asked the old lady. “I could hear you all the way to my own house, Luisa!”
“Oh, mama!’’ yelled Luisa. “I’m telling Salvador that he shouldn’t go to pick up Lupe! That she’s only going to make him miserable all his life! Look, what she already did—she didn’t even go on her own honeymoon!”
“Luisa, Luisa,” said their mother, closing her eyes in concentration, “do y
“But I’m not jealous!” shouted Luisa louder than ever. Salvador almost cut himself. “I love Salvador! We’ve been through hell together, but we always supported one another! We never hid behind our mother’s skirt, and didn’t face reality!”
“Mi hijita,” said the skinny, old woman, “and what is jealousy if not the other side of love, eh? Of course, you love your brother very much and want the best for him, but—and this is a very big ‘but’—love without reins is a love without brakes. And love without brakes is a love without trust, and a love without trust will consume any person’s mind. Why do you think that even the Devil, himself, fears to travel the voyage of love, because he well knows that if he ever lets himself rise up in love, he’ll then never have the brakes to stop until he has rejoined God!
“So put the reins of faith and trust in God, on this love that you have for your brother, or mi hijita, you will only end up getting near the Devil and speaking like a jealous, frightened sister, undermining your brother’s home, instead of being the strong, good-hearted sister that I know you are.
“Now, no more! For remember, my own father, the great Don Pio, was also against my marriage to your father. And your grandfather warned me that if I married this red-headed man of pure Spanish blood, that my life with him would be pure misery, because every time he’d anger, he’d throw it up in my face that I was nothing but a lowlife, ignorant, backward Indian savage—and your grandfather was, indeed, correct,” added the old woman with her eyes suddenly filling with tears, “for such became the case.
“But still, mi hijita, I want you to know that there was never a day that I regretted my life with your father, Don Juan, even amid all the great pain and great suffering that came between us, for just look at you children who came from our union!”
“But, mama,” said Luisa, “you don’t understand! There are a dozen wonderful women who’d marry Salvador in a second with all their heart and soul! The whole trouble with Salvador, mama, is that he picked a woman with his head, wanting to train her, instead of choosing her with what is between his legs!” she added in frustration.
“That’s enough, Luisa!” said their mother. “You got the mouth of a witch!”
Still refusing to be stopped, Luisa burst out laughing. “I, the mouth of a witch!” she said. “Why, mama, all our life it’s been you who has told us that this is exactly what men say of any woman that they can’t handle—that she’s a witch!” And she continued laughing and laughing, truly loving it. Then she wiped her eyes and said, “Oh, Salvador, mama is right, I love you so much, and I know you got big balls, so I’m just afraid this inocente is never going to be able to give you what you really need. What do you think keeps a marriage alive, eh? Why do you think Epitacio returned to me after being lost for all those years? It’s all here in the center of a woman,” she said, gesturing vulgarly between her legs, “where life itself begins, that a man’s tanates finally find refuge, inside a woman’s warm juicy nest of honey!”
“Ayyyiii!” said their mother, laughing, too. “I think you’ve been around me too long! But your sister is right, Salvador, love comes and goes, but what keeps a marriage alive and well over the years is respect of the bed, which takes the sting out of our everyday disappointments.”
“Okay,” said Salvador, “out, out, out! Both of you! It’s a miracle that I haven’t cut my throat with all the talk that’s going on.”
Putting his mother and sister out of the bathroom, Salvador quickly dressed and was out the door. He was feeling ten feet tall! He had won his territories back in a lightning-quick attack, and now he was on his way to pick up his bride, the love of his life!
SALVADOR WAS DRIVING down the tree-lined street of Lupe’s house in Santa Ana when he saw Archie’s big Hudson parked in front. Immediately, Salvador smelled trouble, and his heart took flight, pounding inside his chest like a great drum.
He took a few deep breaths, calming himself down. He parked his Moon automobile behind Archie’s big, black car and went up the steps to Lupe’s parents’ home. He was good now, he was good, but also he was unarmed. He breathed, keeping himself alert and ready, come what may.
Carlota answered the door. She was all smiles and big happy eyes. Now, Salvador just knew for sure that he was in for some big problemas.
“Hello, Sal,” said Archie, sitting in the front room sipping tea from a little white cup with Lupe, Carlota, and their father and mother. “I thought you’d be coming along just about now, so I came by to invite you two new-lyweds to go out to dinner with me and Carlota to that new amusement park over in Long Beach.”
Salvador glanced at Lupe. My God, she was beautiful! And he saw that she had her bags packed and was ready for them to go on their honeymoon. “Well, I don’t know,” said Salvador. “You see, I’d like to drive Lupe down to Carlsbad before dark to our new house, so, well, she can see the flowers that I planted in the front yard and the—”
“You got your whole lives to do that,” said Archie, cutting Salvador off, as he got to his feet. It was always very impressive when Archie stood up. He wasn’t really a giant, but the way he took up ground when he stood up and the size of his huge California Indian face, well, he just dwarfed men who were six-feet tall. “So,” he was saying, “why don’t you just come along with Carlota and me for dinner. I think it’s important, Salvador,” he added with that special grin of his.
Having added the word “important,” Archie now knew that he’d made his point, for Salvador’s whole face shifted.
Archie laughed and laughed, finishing off his tea. The tiny teacup looked so ridiculous in his huge, thick-fingered hand. Archie sucked down the last of his tea with a big, long, air-sucking sound.
Salvador breathed, realizing that he’d been had. “All right, Archie,” he said, “if it’s all right with Lupe, then, well, we’ll be happy to join you and Carlota.”
Just then, as Salvador turned to his bride, Lupe made a little face that would endear her to his heart for years to come. For she made this cute, little face, puckering her lips together like she was really disappointed, but then she smiled this grand smile like a gracious lady, and said, “Yes, of course, Salvador, for we really do have the rest of our lives together, querido.”
The word “querido,” meaning “sweetheart,” sent Salvador shooting through the Heavens! And that little, quick face of puckered-up lips told Salvador that, yes, indeed, she truly did want to be with him, and not go out with these people for dinner. But that she’d do it anyway, for he was her querido, her sweet love.
It became a whole experience for the four of them to say good-bye to Lupe’s two old parents, Don Victor and Doña Guadalupe, and go out the door. Because now that his bride was ready to go off with him alone, her every look, her every touch, or just the brush of her hand sent him flying!
ARCHIE AND CARLOTA got in the front of Archie’s big, black Hudson and Lupe and Salvador climbed in the back. A new amusement park had opened up out in Long Beach, and this was where Archie was taking them.
Salvador and Lupe held hands and didn’t talk much the whole way out. They were both too nervous. But Archie and Carlota, on the other hand, weren’t nervous at all, and they talked the whole way, telling jokes and laughing happily.
Long Beach was warm and beautiful. Catalina Island looked to be just a couple of miles out to sea. They walked along the boardwalk and looked out at the sea, four well-dressed young people.
Then Archie and Carlota went on the roller coaster. Salvador and Lupe laughed with gusto every time they caught sight of their terrified faces. Once, laughing so hard, Lupe lost her balance and started to fall, but Salvador caught her in his arms. Their eyes met. They held, not moving, just holding there looking at each other, and then Salvador drew Lupe close, kissing her ever so lightly. To his surprise, Lupe now grabbed him, kissing him in return with such open, wild passion that he jerked
She saw his startled look and laughed. “We are married, you know,” she said, eyes full of mischief.
“Well, yes, but I thought that you were—”
“What? Afraid?” she said, laughing all the more.
“But the whole drive out you hardly came near me,” he said.
“Well, you acted like you were mad at me,” she said.
He grinned. “Me mad at you, oh, no!” he said.
“Well, then, let’s kiss some more,” she said. “That was delicious!”
He licked his lips, glancing around. He’d never expected this. But Lupe, she never once took her eyes off of him, as they now drew close together once more, kissing again and again, then again! They were both beginning to tremble and feel very light-headed, when Carlota and Archie came walking up.
“Didn’t I tell you,” said Archie, slipping his arm around Carlota, “leave them alone a minute and they’ll be at it like real lovebirds, eh? Come on,” he added, “let’s all go throw some baseballs at those clowns, then eat. I’m starved! You know, I could’ve made it to the Yankees if they’d allowed half-breeds to play.”
They all threw some baseballs at the clowns. Salvador and Lupe couldn’t stop glancing at each other. Archie was really good and he won a big stuffed bear. Then they went down the boardwalk to find a place to eat. They came to a Chinese restaurant with a big red dragon painted at the entrance. Carlota and Lupe had never been to a Chinese restaurant before. Archie immediately decided that they’d all eat Chinese.
“But I don’t talk Chinese, except sew-sew cho-cho, which means ‘where’s your hot sister?’ “ laughed Archie, towering above everyone as they went inside. “So how are we going to order?”
“I talk a little Chinese,” said Salvador.