A Message from Home

he looked like a boy, but on her crazy shell bed, he could make music like a man

"You're A False Mexican," the lady said too loudly in Spanish. It was Saturday afternoon and very crowded in the market, with long lines at the cash registers. The lady handled the money and he carried the groceries, because this was Los Angeles, California. Also, she did the talking and he did the listening, because she was a citizen and he was illegal.

"You never take me no place. You never buy me nothing."

The lady was very strong and outweighed him by 30 pounds, but he could no doubt beat her up very easily. The trouble was, she liked to scream. They would hear her all the way to city hall. Illegals cannot afford to hit their women if they scream. There are several other things illegals cannot afford to do, but they can sit home and watch television as fine as any certified American. And he suggested going there.

"Why did God send me a dead fly from Guanajuato, where they are all pure Jews and cowards?" the lady answered.

One month ago, they met at the Club Rosita, which is large and loud and dark. Young men and old women go there to find each other. The women call it dancing. The men call it pushing the trucks around. Fresh from Mexico and very timid, he stood there for three hours on a single bottle of beer, till the lady bumped him by mistake. She was a respected widow and never danced with strangers, but the had a very sincere face. She was a little bit old and a little bit fat but still fairly low mileage, as they say. And she worried about him, because downtown, where he lived, Immigration raided every day, while she herself had a quiet little room for rent, very clean.

When Rosita's closed, they walked to the lady's house and he rented the room, but he never slept there. The lady's bed was bigger and softer. It was made of brass and abalone shells and was quite noisy. "I have never heard such a bed," the neighbor told him. "It plays tunes better than my phonograph and all night, too, waltzes, two-steps and Charlie-Stones. Be careful, little man, or you will soon wear out your needle."

The lady's cozy little home was like a palace to him with its refrigerator and radio, its tub, television and toilet. For once in his life, there was always more than enough to eat and drink, and more than enough of everything else, too, including pretty handmade pillows of every shape and color. Then, on a Sunday, the lady's sons and daughters came for a surprise visit with their wives and husbands. When he held out his hand to present himself, they passed him by, as if he might be a mule. And that reminded him he had a mother, too, in Mexico, and had promised to send money home every week. He was ashamed.

So the lady found him a safe job with her far cousin, who loved him like a son and paid him 75 cents an hour. He unpacked the crates that came from Mexico. To keep the pretty pots from breaking, the crates were stuffed with grass. It was almost green still and had the smell of his homeland on it. He often chewed the grass while he worked. But at the end of the week, what with the rent and an American haircut here and an American shirt there, no money was left over to send to his mother. Then one day, while he was unpacking a crate, he found a big, ragged man-sized turd in the bottom, nested there like an egg. It was hard as a rock and had no smell, but it lay staring up at him without saying a word.

He stopped chewing the grass from his homeland. And that same night, when he came from work, the music stopped, too. The brass bed forgot how to play its pretty little tunes. The lady bought tequila. She fed him six raw eggs every morning and the bravest of chilies every night. She was very clever and knew various unusual things to do to him, but she couldn't get the music started again. The lady was very understanding on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but today her understanding finally left her.

"Do you want to hear a funny story?" she asked.

"Why not?" he said as he carried the groceries from the market.

"One time there was a little farmer and he had a cute little wife and they lived in the state of Guanajuato."

"Hurray for them," he said.

"But a big, fierce cowboy from Jalisco, he carried off that little wife, and when he slung her on his horse, she screamed no louder than a tortilla."

"Maybe she was deaf and dumb," he said.

"Some men," said the lady, "would chase that cowboy and kill him to get their wife back, but not this little coward. Oh, no. Instead, he ran to the nearest tree to hang himself. But he had no rope and, like all those Jews down there, he was too stingy to buy any, so do you know what he did?"

"He jumped up and grabbed a branch with his left hand, yes? And with his right hand, yaaach, he seized his throat and strangled himself."

"How did you guess?" the lady asked.

"It was my uncle."

They happened to be passing the Club Rosita just then. Inside, the mariachis were playing very lively and with two trumpets. The lady stopped and flapped her ears.

"How brave and manly they sound," she said.

"We got beer at home," he said, "and comics on the television."

"You bore me!" the lady shouted.

She showed him her broad back and marched into Rosita's as free and easy as any man alive, while he stood on the sidewalk with his arms full of groceries like a woman and talked to himself: "Only last week, they hooked five illegals in there," he said, "and threw them back into Mexico. Not me," he told himself. "I will never go back. I would rather be dead."

When he was 12 years old, his family owned land and burros and a team of oxen. There was enough to eat, almost. But his father got thirsty and drank the oxen. Then he drank the good acres of flatland. "Who needs burros," his father said, "when I've got all these lazy no-good sons? What are their shoulders for?" So he drank the burros, too. But there was still the mountainside. You hired oxen and plowed. You stumbled along behind on one foot and one knee because the field was that steep. Now there was never enough to eat. And then your father started drinking the mountainside and you left home. You walked the roads of Guanajuato and you did whatever there was to do. sometimes not; it was like washing strange cars without permission. No, you would not go back there ever.

He shifted the grocery sacks from arm to arm. "And what about my lady?" he asked himself. "Left to herself in Rosita's, she will find somebody else. Then will come a certain little telephone call, and it's adios, U.S.A. Besides," he said, "who will know me for illegal with my American haircut and my fine American shirt?" So in he went and found the lady and slid the groceries under her table. She gave him no welcome, but she didn't send him to China, either. And he ordered beers and they sat drinking. The mariachis leaned on the bar, waiting for business, nine of them with their ruffled shirts and silver braid on their black charro suits.

"How handsome they look," the lady noted.

"They are too fat for their pants," he said.

"Muchachos," she called.

"People will stare at us," he begged, "police, Immigration and everybody."

But already the mariachis were ringed around the table and the lady was smiling up into their faces, as if all nine of them might be her lovers.

"A song," she ordered.

"Name it," they said. "We play everything."

"Your own favorite," she told them generously, "whichever pleases you most."

By calculation, they chose an old song very popular in the lady's better days, but by chance it celebrates the glories of the state of Guanajuato, its beautiful landscape, its noble cities and brave men to whom life is worth nothing without honor. No mention is made of any cowards in that state or tightwads, either. It is a fine, stirring song, though not exactly what the lady might have ordered, and when it ended, she failed to applaud. But there were four ears at the table.

"Again, brothers," said Teodomiro Sánchez Villaseñor, to call him finally by his name.

The mariachis played the introduction. Then Teodomiro got up and sang the words. His voice was not the best, but it was good enough and louder than anyone would expect. The mariachis smiled at one another, glad to give their lungs a rest. And Teodomiro sang of the road to Salamanca, which he knew so well with his own two feet. He sang of the heroic (concluded on page 176)Message From Home(continued from page 146) figure of Hidalgo the Liberator, who broods over the mountains, and of the great fiesta in Leon, where he had long ago gone with his brothers before his father caught the dry-throat. Teodomiro's voice went flying around the big dark room like an eagle and out the door and into the street. And when the song ended the second time, the lady grabbed his hand and spoke into his ear.

"Please," she begged. "I never meant those ugly words. You're cured now. I can hear it in your voice, so quick, let's go home."

He pushed her away, reached into his right-hand shoe and tossed a sweaty ten-dollar bill onto the table.

"Again!" he shouted. "And still again, till the money's gone."

The mariachis were happy to oblige. Again Teodomiro sang and now people left their tables and gathered close to watch. What they saw was a boy not yet quite a man but almost. They saw his black hair fall forward across his face till he looked like a wild Indian from the mountains. They watched while he ripped open his fine American shirt and while he pounded his skinny chest with his fists. Again and again Teodomiro sang Camino de Guanajuato, which is the name of that song, and when his voice left him, the mariachis picked up the words, till at last the ten dollars was all used up.

"More!" Teodomiro yelled. "Don't ever stop."

He turned his pockets inside out. He dug into his other shoe. There were no more dollars left. He grabbed for the lady's purse.

"Money!" he shouted.

"No more!" she shouted back.

So he hit her, carefully and several times, not very hard, just enough to make her scream. The police came then, of course. And of course they asked to see his papers.

"Come along," they said. "Vamonos."

He left quietly. The crowd followed to the street, hoping for a little action, but he got into the police car without a battle and it drove away. The crowd drifted back into the Club Rosita. The mariachis played Teodomiro's song one more time, because he had been such a good customer. The lady sat spilling black tears all over the table till her eyes looked 100 years old. Then the dance band came on. The floor filled up and the young men started pushing the trucks around.