Drinks González, baptized Saúl. Sexton.
People such as Becky Escobar, NO! not Escobar, Becky Malacara, belonged to a class and category with old money, but not too old. For instance, I knew don Julio Navarrete, her grandfather. The money is sixty years old, let’s say, and then, some sixty years ago, I had convinced myself that social classes were necessary for order and for one’s well-being. But that was a long time ago.
But let me tell you this, too. In that give and take we call life, one runs into people who earn all kinds of livings. Business, they call it. Making a living. To earn it, then, one needs the proper touch. You hear this in the Valley all the time, el tacto. And know what? Becky Malacara has it, and she uses it by being respectful, but truly respectful. That’s important. She has what that husband of hers has, what a man you never knew called Jesús Buenrostro had. The one called El Quieto by his family, although everyone uses that name for him now, and him dead after too brief a life … One standard. And she’s no actress, no put on. Here, let me serve my nephew Henry González, the veteran, as an example.
One fine day, Viola Barragán came by, and Viola is a power, right? And I bet I’ve got some twenty years on her. Maybe more. Sure. I’ve known her since she married Dr. Peñalosa, and that was a little before the second World War. At least six hurricanes since then, you know that? Well, she was just a kid then and her folks, the Barragán-Suris, married her off to Peñalosa. She must’ve been a kid of seventeen at the time … You’re much too young to know of of these affairs and things. Much too young.
The listener lights a cigarette and hands it to Sexton González, who’s settled down for talk cum digressions; the best way.
You’re much too young to even know of these things, but the Doctor, that’s Doctor Peñalosa, and I knew him well, he was from Agualeguas; the Doctor, he died, poisoned to death. Not a suicide, though, but more of an accident. Oh, you can still here some tart tongues running on and on that it was murder. No such thing.
Homicide by poison, but accidental, and done by a pharmacist. An apprentice pharmacist. But he’s dead, too. Orfalindo Buitureyra, the King of the Parrandas. It’s possible it was murder, the Valley’s part of the world, isn’t it? You live long enough, and with patience on your side, you’ll see a million things. For my money, and that’s just a saying, it wasn’t murder.
Viola became a widow … and now? A person of business, a handsome woman who walks and talks like a field general and who dresses in the best from top to bottom. Good for her!
But as I was saying, one Sunday Viola came by some time after High Mass, the last one. I’d finished with the sweeping and wiping of the church and benches. I’d checked the candles, the votaries too, and then polished the altar till I made that white marble shine and sparkle, just like the day they brought it in here all the way from a place really Up North. One of those cold states. So, I was doing what I always do: work.
Finished with that, a glass of wine. After this, a sign of the cross and I went out the side door, lit a cigarette and stood ready for my cup of hot chocolate, when this big old car pulled up. I haven’t been able to tell a car or its make since the thirties. But, that car was A CAR AND A HALF. Un carrazo.
Air, four doors, dark-colored, and maybe even a television set if there is such a thing now that the Japanese have begun to eat the world feet first … And there came Viola, a cigarette in hand, and holding a hot cup of coffee for me … Yeah!
I must stop here to let you know that Viola Barragán has always treated me with respect. Although just about everyone, and that includes those saints and devils of God, the kids, they all call me Drinks, Viola has always called me Saúl.
So as not to surprise me, so as to bring me up to date, she told me of my father’s old property. My father don Antonio died in ’22, and that property’d been lost on account of taxes. Well, she just bought it, she told me. That she wanted to open one of her businesses on that lot, and that she knew that my nephew Henry González had just retired from the U.S. Army after some twenty or thirty years in there. You follow?
And that she, Viola, wanted to know if Henry had any plans. Was he just going to laze around for the rest of his life, playing dominoes and shootin’ pool? Was he going to take a drink every day or was he planning to take up some job so as not to break the routine. Or what?
Didn’t even let me answer. That’s her style, though. That she was thinking of opening up a corner store business, some neighborhood place. That she needed someone she could trust, rely on. Well, we’d been at this some 10 or 15 minutes, and me without my hot chocolate, when I asked her to come into the rectory. She took my coffee and put it in some tray in that big old hearse of hers.
Viola Barragán is not of our parishioners here at Sacred Heart. Me? I’m a believer, all right, but I don’t stink up the place by going to every Mass every day. I just go to daily Mass and you’ll find me there at five ayem, seven days a week, ’cause it’s my duty and obligation since Mass is a sacrament. BUT! When it comes to converting folks, I leave that to other people.
Well, once in the rectory, Viola offered me one of her cigarettes, and I lit her fresh one and mine. Here, with this Zippo. A present from Father Ornelas, a Klail City boy.
And there went Viola again: “Someone reliable, Saúl. And I’ll see to Henry’s kids’ education, if they haven’t finished it yet.” Like that, see? Said she remembered Emma Zepulveda, Henry’s wife, and that she always saw her as a woman of sense, and that’s why she, Viola, had come to see me on this.
And this wasn’t just talk either. Henry’s folks are dead, been dead. For years. That boy joined the army at fifteen; yes, he did. The Army people came here, to Pérez’s Pool Hall and signed him up at twenty-one dollars a month with uniforms, room and board for three years, five if he wanted them. That boy got drunk on all that money and stayed drunk for two weeks until the U.S. Army sent two soldiers for him. Henry, he wanted to go, but he had lost the time and the date, and the place. They, the soldiers, put him on the Missouri Pacific nine-fifteen and from there to Fort William Barret to start a new life. Loved the Army. Never ate so much and so well. Came back like a balloon, well, almost, ’cause the U.S. Army don’t like you fat, but he, Henry, said he never met a meal he didn’t like. And you know, like he said, years later, too, and he wasn’t a kid then, a prisoner in Korea, the war many of the boys were in, a prisoner, and he ate everything. Lost weight, but he wasn’t skin and bone. He was one of those big sergeants. You can’t get no more stripes on him, see? Fills up the sleeves, both of ’em. That’s my nephew Henry.
But like I said, Viola wasn’t just talking. I told her Henry was ready to work, anytime. And he was. Well, not six months later, that corner store grows out of the ground there, and it’s open for business. And there they were, Henry and Emma running the place … Becky, she runs those stores, and now Henry and Emma own part of it. Becky worked it out this way.
Henry, he was a baker in the U.S. Army, and Becky says why doesn’t he open up a bakery on the same lot. Emma runs the store, Henry runs the bakery, and the bakery is theirs. Just like that. Becky says the store will make business because people will come in for both on the way home. That girl was right. And Henry’s no drinker, by the way. Ever since he went on that parranda on the Army money, he swore never again. Not even a beer.
So, Becky runs the Shopping Bags and that agency of small cafes, the hamburger places. Busy Bees? The Busy Bees, right?
We’re not a rich parish, not like others I could name … but Father Ornelas—he’s not the pastor, that’s Father Eloy—but Father Ornelas—and I always call him that even if I had known his folks before they even married—anyway, Father Ornelas talks to both Jehu and Becky; and let me tell you, she’s business and at the same time, nice. But nice. And with Mexican courtesy for all. There are some people who wouldn’t know courtesy if it hit ’em in the face like a water-filled balloon. Anyway, Father Ornelas talks to them. They bring the kids here, to this church, this parish, and they don’t live here, in this area. But Jehu grew up with Father Ornelas, see? Now, this is a secret, and I don’t have to explain to you what that means. Becky says that Jehu would like to be told if Father Ornelas is … is threatened with a transfer. Yes.
Old Juvencio Ornelas the Candyman died as a result of the many sugars in his body, and now it’s only Petronila Ornelas, and she lives with some old folks. Folks like me, but folks who need more help. Me? I can work. I’m like that man who used to bury people, he now works at the big Bank, el banco del rancho …
Well, Jehu and Becky keep up with people like that. Jehu knew and knows and remembers what being poor means … Becky? She had money from that old grandfather of hers and from her own father too. But she says that doesn’t matter. What matters, and here she sounds a lot like Viola, what matters is what you do. What you do … I am me, I told her. I explained it in Spanish. Yo soy yo.
And now? Everytime she sees me, she says, “Yo soy yo, don Saúl. ¿Y usted?” I tell her who I am, quién soy yo … Ha!
Esa Becky is independent, and married too. Reminds me of the late Enriqueta Farias. An old woman when I knew her, and that means going back in God’s time. She was Jehu Malacara’s great-aunt. Well, Rafe Buenrostro’s too, of course. A Relámpago woman. Born there, died there. Religious, but fierce, too. Generous. Lived to be a hundred, maybe more. They live long in that family, unless God calls them early or some man decides …
As for Becky, well, I’ve known the Navarretes since 1893, ’94. And I let her know who she is, where she comes from … she likes to know things like that. Respects the past but won’t live in it.
Me? Married the once and that was it. Hmmm. St. Paul says it’s better to marry than to burn. What did he know? He ever marry? Always traveling, giving advice in that hysterical voice of his. But Dr. Luke? Ah. Remember the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table? It’s what you do with them, as Father Ornelas says. And Jehu doesn’t hand out crumbs. Money and jobs are far from crumbs …
Can’t say much about Becky’s first husband. I never met the City Councilman. Belonged to one of the other parishes. Yes.