My father, Julian, was the second boy in a family of five children that included just one surviving younger boy. He was only four years old when his oldest brother, Carlos, died, and Father dealt with this loss by becoming very protective of his younger brother, who was born two years later. This protecting drive extended to his mother because El Viejo was an abusive man who liked to shout orders and demand perfection, while always insisting that he had never been properly obeyed.
To this day, I think of my uncle Nenico as the most beautiful man I ever saw. He was svelte and had a face full of angles, highlights, and shades. His eyes were a vivid shade of blue, and his head overflowed with gentle black waves. He was cheerful, easygoing, and charmed everyone with his playful laugh.
In contrast, Father was always serious. His intelligence was unusual and not obvious to everyone. He was socially awkward and easily hurt. He understood things in rigid, absolute terms, and life’s gray mysteries didn’t live comfortably in his mind.
He was also loyal and ever-present for his male friends, and the quiet friendships he developed in his childhood would remain with him into adulthood. Even so, he had no difficulties cutting off a friend if he believed that he had been injured in some form.
Shy and awkward around girls, he trusted his beauty would mask the inadequacies he felt, never aware that his overly expressive eyes betrayed him every time.
He had great difficulty reading, writing, and recalling the lessons in class, and these limitations made him impatient with the world, always leaving him feeling frustrated and chastised.
One day, when he felt his teacher had embarrassed him beyond what he could take, he walked out of the schoolhouse and never returned to complete the fifth grade. Instead, he returned to work at his family’s farm, where he was happy to hide, never wishing for more than what he had already received from life. All he wanted to do was marry, build a house, and spend his existence within his own plot of land.
Father was a laborer, an assembly line worker, content with the orthodoxy of his life.