“Look,” said Lupe, pointing Indian-style with puckered lips for Salvador to turn.
He did so, and there walking together were their two grand, old mothers, looking so beautiful, each carrying a cup in her hand as they made their way away from the lights of the party. Their old mothers were laughing with such gusto.
Salvador’s whole chest swelled up with pride. Only twelve years before, he and his mother and sister, Luisa, had been at the Texas border, caught in a sandstorm, choking to death, but his short, dark, little Indian mother had never given up. No, she’d taken him in hand—when he’d been ready to roll over and die—and she’d sworn to him before the Almighty, that they would live and she’d see him grow and marry and . . . she had.
Tears came to Salvador’s eyes, and he turned Lupe, placing her in front of himself so they could both keep watch over their mothers, then he pressed Lupe up against himself, and lowered his head, smelling her naked neck.
Lupe shivered, feeling his hot breath on her neck, and she rolled her head back, wanting to get more of his hot, good breathing on herself. After all, they were married now and so whatever they did together was sacred— her sisters had explained this to her.
Salvador started kissing her ear, using his tongue ever so lightly. Quickly, she turned her head around to face him, and they began kissing once again, as his hands moved smoothly over the small of her waist, stroking her full Latina hips.
Now she could feel the fire of Salvador’s loins getting hard as molten lava as he pushed up against her backside. Oh, she was on fire, too!
But then suddenly, Lupe broke from her truelove’s arms, just like that, without any explanation, and rushed out of the orchard, going past the party, and into her home.
Salvador was left standing in the walnut orchard feeling like a fool. People were glancing at him, wondering what had happened.
Doña Guadalupe, seeing her daughter Lupe rush into their house, quickly followed her.
Salvador went over to his own mother, shrugged his shoulders, and then together they walked next door to where the whiskey was hidden to have a couple of good shots.
“What happened?” asked his mother, Doña Margarita.
“I don’t know,” said Salvador.
“Don’t worry,” she said, stroking her son’s arm. “Just look around. God is with us. It has been another wonderful day in paradise here on Mother Earth.”
But everything didn’t feel that wonderful for Salvador or Lupe right now.
When Salvador had rubbed his molten hardness up against her nalgui-tas and he’d begun touching the inner part of her ear with his tongue— quick little hot-flashes had gone shooting all through her body. Suddenly, Lupe had trouble catching her breath, and she’d felt something break inside of her. She’d jerked her ear away from Salvador, tore loose from his arms, and ran with terror as fast as she could for the back door of her parents’ home.
Bursting in through the back door of her parents’ home, Lupe immediately rushed to the bathroom, which, thank God, was empty, and she’d no more than pulled up the yards and yards of her wedding dress, jerking them to the side and sat down on the toilet, than all these molten-hot juices had come pouring out of her, hitting the toilet bowl with a mighty bang!
Lupe didn’t know if she was pissing, or having her period, or if she’d just—God forbid—had her first sexual experience that she’d heard her sisters and girlfriends talking so much about in the last few weeks.
All she knew was that if she’d stayed in Salvador’s arms for one more second, she would’ve never had the presence of mind to leave his embrace. When he’d put the tip of his thick tongue into her ear, that had been—oh, she’d felt all these little quick wonderful hot-flashes go shooting through her!
“Mi hijita,” Lupe heard her mother calling her through the door, “are you all right?”
“I don’t know, mama,” said Lupe. “I think I am.”
“Can I come in?”
“No, please,” said Lupe, flushing the toilet and trying to get to her feet. But she felt so lightheaded that she immediately had to sit back down on the toilet.
“I’m coming in,” said Doña Guadalupe.
“Oh, mama, I don’t know what happened,” said Lupe, taking her mother’s hand. “We were so happy, then I suddenly felt something break and had to rush to the bathroom.”
“Don’t worry, mi hijita, a woman’s body can have many complications. This is nothing new,” her mother told her. “In fact, this often happens with a young woman when she is a virgin. After all these years of yearning, her female body just bursts open,” she added, laughing. “Why, one of your very own sisters—but which one I will not say—had so much going on before her wedding night, that she burst like a ripe watermelon, not really knowing if she’d peed, or had a sexual outburst. After all, our female openings are all pretty close together, whether goats, pigs, cows, or us women. So calmate, mi hijita, for you are not the first or the last to be a little overwhelmed with your body’s reactions on your wedding day.”
“But, mama, what should I do? I’m afraid of going to bed on those fine sheets that my nina Sophia hand-embroidered with pink flowers and little, tiny green leaves and vines, and soil them.”
The older woman burst out laughing. “Spoken just like a real woman! Of your husband, you are not even thinking, but of those pretty sheets that make up your nest—you are thinking completely!”
Lupe’s eyes filled with tears. Being with her mother felt so safe.
“Look, mi hijita,” said her mother, “you don’t have to go on your honeymoon if you don’t want to, querida. The truth is that half the women I know would have been better off, if they’d met their husbands a week later. With the preparation of a wedding, and the men all drinking, it’s a wonder any marriage ever gets off on the right foot. Rape is more often what happens on a girl’s first night, if the truth be known.”
“But mama, Salvador has worked so hard to prepare our house in Carlsbad.”
“So?” said the tough, old, warrior-woman, refusing to be moved. “Then all the more reason for you to go when you are ready and he’s not crazy from all these activities!”
“But what will I tell him?” Lupe asked.
“I’ll tell him for you,” said her mother. “Don’t you worry about that. You’ll have plenty of opportunity over the course of your marriage to have to speak up for yourself, but . . . that doesn’t have to start today. Now, tell me, mi hijita,” she added in a gentler tone of voice, “what was it that you flushed; blood, pee, or el caldo de miel?”
Oh, Lupe would’ve died if her mother had spoken to her like this just a week ago. For “el caldo de miel” meant “the soup of honey,” as the sexual juices were referred to in Mexico. But something had happened to Lupe with the preparations for the wedding, and so she wasn’t embarrassed at all. It was as if, well, in some way she and her mother had become more like friends over the last few weeks, than mother and daughter.
“I think maybe all three, mama,” said Lupe, blushing all red, then laughing. “But I don’t know. It almost felt like all my female parts just burst open! And I didn’t really want to take a good look at it before I flushed.”
“Did it feel good, or did it burn when it burst?” asked her mother.
Lupe blushed. “A little of both, mama,” she said, recalling how it had felt so wonderful when Salvador had pressed his body up against her backside and put his tongue in her ear. Oh, she’d almost died!
“Then I don’t think we have anything to worry about; you’re okay.”
Lupe then went to her mother’s arms, hugging her and feeling so good to have such a wonderful, wise woman as her mother.
GOING BACK OUTSIDE, Doña Guadalupe approached Salvador and his mother, explaining to both of them that everything was fine, but that Lupe wouldn’t be able to go on her honeymoon.
“She’s going to have to stay home for a few days,” she added, glancing at Salvador’s mother, Doña Margarita.
“It is as it is,” said Doña Margarita, raising up her cup of whiskey. “I might have had a better marriage too if my own mother had kept me home for a few days after our wedding. He was drinking. We were dancing. Even the livestock got wild our celebration was so noisy.
“Mi hijito,” added the short old Indian woman, turning to her son, “you have a fine, smart, wise mother-in-law, gracias a Dios!”
“Thank you, señora,” said Salvador to Lupe’s mother, and he tried to smile and see how all this was for the best, but he was too upset. My God, he’d been looking forward to their wedding night for months. This, he’d thought, was to be the highlight of their lives.
Salvador decided to get stinking drunk, and so he did and everything was going well, until a few of his male friends started to tease him. Salvador viciously knocked one down and silenced the rest by telling them that in the mountainous area of Mexico where he was from, it wasn’t uncommon for an inexperienced bride to stay home for instructions before joining her husband.
The teasing stopped.
After all, among los Mejicanos the purity of an inexperienced virgin was the highest honor that any man could ever hope to bring to his bridal bed.
Also, if anyone had continued to tease Salvador, there would have been guns drawn.
NOW, IT WAS the following morning and Salvador was waking up in Corona—some sixty miles east of their wedding in Santa Ana, California. His mouth tasted awful. He had a terrible hangover, and he just couldn’t wake up.
He could feel someone kissing him and tickling his ear, ever so softly. At first, he thought it was Lupe, his truelove, kissing him in their little cottage in Carlsbad—along the coast south of Santa Ana. But, then, he remembered that she hadn’t come on their honeymoon. He opened his eyes and here was his old mother before him, tickling him in the face with a long rooster’s tail-feather. And to his shock, it wasn’t his truelove in bed with him. No, it was his sister Luisa’s mangy old dog who was with him, licking his neck and ears.
Salvador leaped out of bed! The dog smelled foul! “Mama, stop it!” he yelled. “Oh, my God! My head hurts!” he added, almost losing his balance and falling.
“Good, you deserve it,” she said, laughing con carcajadas. “It’s way past noon! You’ve been kissing that dirty dog all morning.”
Hearing this, Salvador rushed out of the little shack, spitting in pure revulsion. Outside, he massaged his forehead as he leaned against the avocado tree by his mother’s outhouse and started peeing. The pain in his head would not subside.
After relieving himself, Salvador went back inside his old mother’s shack. He was still shaking. His mother had a cup of coffee ready for him.
“I put some hair of dog in your coffee for you,” she said, handing him a steaming mug.
He made a face. “Hair of Luisa’s dog, mama?’’
The old woman laughed. “No, not Luisa’s dog. This is what our priest, Father Ryan, says in English, ‘hair of the dog,’ when he puts a little whiskey in his coffee to help him get over his hangover. English, I swear, the more I learn, the more I have to laugh. Did you know that in English they call liquor, ‘spirits’? I love it! Anyway,” she added, “how are you feeling, mi hijito? Pretty bad, eh?”
“Yes, mama” he said, “awful! I’d like to loan my head to my worst enemy!”
“Well, all right,” she said, “sit down and sip your coffee and feel awful if you want for an hour or two, but then no more, because I’ve figured out that this is the perfect opportunity—when everyone thinks you’re on your honeymoon—for you to do some very interesting work. Remember, there is no bad from which good doesn’t come in life, if we just open our eyes and see past our limited vision. Who knows, maybe this situation has actually saved your marriage in the long run, eh?”
“Oh, please, mama, I don’t want to hear any of your old wisdom kind of stuff! Besides, I’ve heard all you have to say a thousand times!”
“Oh, only a thousand,” she said, refusing to be intimidated, “then I guess I need to tell you a few more times. The two greatest sayings of our whole entire Mexican culture are con el favor de Dios, with the favor of God, and no hay mal que por bien no viene, there is no bad from which—”
“All right, all right, I heard you, mama! But please, no more! I’m in pain!”
“Okay, then not another word. But I want you to know that I’m only giving you another couple of hours to feel bad, then that’s it. No more. You get out and start scratching the dirt, looking for seed like any other hungry, healthy chicken.
“Remember, one hour a day of feeling bad or sorry for yourself is good and healthy. Two hours is okay, but three fists of Sun and you need your food and water taken away, so thirst and hunger can then become your teachers. Life was never meant to be easy here on earth, but a lesson learned either by love or chingasos!” she added, laughing con carcajadas!
“Mama; please, no more!” said Salvador, going back outside. His head was pulsating with pain. He didn’t want to hear any more of his mother’s old stuff. My God, sometimes he just wished that she’d shut the hell up!
Going back outside, Salvador sat down on an old orange crate under the huge avocado tree between his mother’s shack and his sister Luisa’s house. The Sun was high overhead, and sipping his coffee with the whiskey and plenty of sugar, little by little, he began to feel better.
“Hair of the dog,” he said quietly to himself. He’d never heard this American expression before. “Hair of a dirty, mangy dog,” he now said, remembering how he’d awoken with Luisa’s dog in his bed, kissing him.
Finishing his coffee, Salvador began to see that maybe his crazy old mother was, indeed, correct. There really were no accidents in life, la vida, so maybe this was, in fact, the perfect opportunity ... for him to take care of some very important unfinished business before he began his life as a married man. After all, none of his bootlegging competitors would ever expect a lightning-fast attack from a man on his honeymoon.
FOR SEVERAL MONTHS NOW, two guys had been coming down from Los Angeles to Carlsbad, trying to cut into Salvador’s bootlegging territory. Everyone knew that Salvador’s territory included all of North County San Diego, then the areas of Lake Elsinore and Temecula. The areas of Riverside and San Bernardino he shared with two other medium-size bootleggers, and San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Tustin, and Orange he also shared. In Los Angeles, Salvador was completely out of the picture. That huge area of the City of the Angels, with its thick density of population, was an area strictly taken care of by the big boys, the Italians, who were out of Fresno. They were in a whole other league than Salvador.
This big organization from Fresno—in the San Joaquin Valley in central California—had connections from the East Coast, and the power to bring in the finest liquor makers from Italy. They had the exclusive rights to all of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.
With these big boys, Salvador wanted no problemas. In fact, he was in their debt, because, after all, it had been one of their finest liquor makers from the old country, Al Cappola, who’d originally taught Salvador how to make “bootleg” liquor when they’d been spending time together in jail in Tulare, just outside of Fresno.
There in the jail of Tulare, everyone had been fighting each other like cats and dogs, when Salvador had been put into the tank. In no uncertain terms, with a lightning-fast attack, Salvador had demolished the biggest troublemaker, a big bully redneck farmboy, and then he’d had an election taken among all the prisoners, including the Chinaman, electing a judge and three enforcers, and all the bullying and sexual abuses had instantly been brought to a stop.
That was when the dignified, old Italian had seen Salvador’s worth and so he’d immediately befriended him. And when Salvador learned what it was that the old man did for his livelihood, Salvador had offered to pay him a few dollars per day—a huge sum—if this great magician from Italy would teach him the art of making fine liquor.
At first old man Al Cappola had stared at Salv
ador with his huge, lioned face, saying absolutely nada, nada, nothing. But then he’d finally spoken. “If any other man would ask me this, I’d spit in his face, but . . . seeing how you are a man of high intelligence, who immediately brought peace and respect to this tank of fools, then I say, yes, I will teach you,” the old man had added with a power. “But with the understanding that you will never do any business in a territory that belongs to our organization of the amigos Italianos!”
Salvador had agreed and after that, he and Al Cappola had become very good friends, paisanos as they say, and so the big organization out of Fresno respected Salvador and he respected them. This was why he, Salvador, couldn’t figure out who were these two guys who were coming down from Los Angeles and trying to move into his territory.
But who knew? Management changed hands in every organization, and a bootlegger’s territories were as vital to a bootlegger’s survival as hunting territories were to a tribe of hunter-gatherers.
Sipping his second cup of coffee, a large part of Salvador just felt like hunting down these two guys, killing them both, and that would be that, bringing an end to the whole thing. What really made him mad was that these sneaky bastards had only started moving into his territory once he’d started making plans for his wedding.
The world of men truly didn’t respect a man in love.
To marry, that was okay, but to really fall in love with the woman you planned to marry, this was a sure sign—among men—that you’d lost your marbles and joined the world of women and children.
And then began the jokes, “Hey, mano, has she put the ring in your nose, yet? Who wears the pants, eh? Have you been told to squat when you pee so you don’t mess the hole of the outhouse?”
The list of these remarks was endless, and none of them were innocent, his mother had explained to him. These remarks were well-thought and were all aimed at you, a newlywed, to make you feel stupid and weak because you were in love.
“And so, mi hijito, above all else,” his mother had told him, “this is why each new married couple must be very careful of their friends who are single or embittered in their own marriage. These vultures will try to drag you down into their own world of discontent, because—to see you happy—threatens their entire world!”