Matamoros was a fair sized city in the late sixties, i don't know about then, but now there's over 4oo, ooo pop. I remember palm tree lined boulevards and beat up, old city buses running up and down the dusty streets leaving black smoke at every stop. It was hot and humid, which may explain why mom sold a lot of estropajo at her store; kids came out of the shower all red from being coured with those infernal things. I ran around (unsupervised) in just my briefs and would often have to run from one shade to another because the tender soles of my little feet would burn on the hot concrete.
Las casas de don Santos were on a street named Laguna Salada and it would turn into a raging river of brown water when there was a good rain; some neighborhood kids would jump in it and splash around. At night, after our baths, we joined the adults outside who would sit on their porch or they would pull chairs out on to the sidewalk and pass the time while the house cooled down a bit before bedtime. We would have a game of tag or hide and seek and get all sweaty again. People stuck box fans in their windows and you lay there sweating until you fell asleep, we survived without air conditioning.
I refused to go to kindergarden, it's that simple; but i'm getting ahead of myself. As far as i was concerned i was growing up with a single mom just like the lady next door and her little son and daughter that i played with. Even though my aunt Carmen, who lived with us, said that my dad lived with us for a time, neither i nor my older sister remember that; but, she does remember him visiting more often than my two memories. Then in September of 1968 he showed up in that 1958 Chevy station wagon and piled our belongings on top of the roof rack to drive us back to Burkburnett where he had been living for nearly a year with El Zapatero who was now working for him there and that's when i start to remember having a father around.
I just refused to go back to kindergarden, actually, because i went there-- i dunno--couple days, a week, and the teacher wants us to pair up to dance; gotta hold hands, learn some kinda waltz thing, the whole bit. I snapped, threw a fit, apparantly mom couldn't get me to go back or she just said forget it! Wait 'til your father gets home! Well, guess what? he didn't show up. She was a working mom with a one year old and no father around to lay down the law to me, so i didn't go to kindergarden. The school was a cool looking place though; i always picture the buildings as colorful giant concrete mushrooms because that was their basic shape, the roofs weren't that round just domed and white. There were 2 or 3 mushrooms on this nice green lawn that was fenced in; the buildings had no doors, they had garage size entrances, one facing the front, and one facing the back, where the playground was, so you got a nice breeze through. Inside it was the size of two average classrooms and there were bathrooms on one side where i can remember looking out a window at a banana tree with green bananas hanging from it.
The next year, somehow (without learning to dance) i got into the first grade in this brown brick two story building with lots of windows, not too far from home; i walked there every day. I started learning how to read and how Cortez put Moctezuma's feet to the fire in order to find out where he kept all the gold, dang Spanierds, always wanting things the easy way. And what did they give the Aztec, besides gonorrhea? The siesta.
Two memories from first grade: turns out i was susceptible to nose bleeds from being out in the sun too long. Or thats what my teacher told me as she wiped the blood off my face, and she said: just stay out of the sun; she was pretty. She wore these tight knee lenght skirts and a blinding white button down blouse all the time. We had a uniform, actually, white short or long sleeve dress shirt and navy pants and navy skirt for the girls. She put her hand under my chin and held my face up to hers as she wiped my bloody nose while i stared at her red lipstick and dark Dolores del Rio eyes, i knew, pretty much then that i would like girls, not like in kindergarden.
Memory two: we sat in desk-chairs, the guy in the next isle to my left, can't remember his name, it was either Juan or Ramon; well, he didn't like me.
This one day, it seems everyone had their pencils out, including Juan-Ramon, i had one of those clear plastic Bic pens (mother sold them) and was having problems with it so i would shake it; Juan-Ramon was making faces and pretending to shake his imaginary ink pen, in essence, mocking me. Ok, i get it, what can i do about it? Juan-Ramon is a tough guy, i get nose bleeds in the sun. This un-macho, anti-Latinish, savoir-faire attitude of mine must have infuriated poor Juan-Ramon whose father must have taught him to accept nothing less than machismo from his fellow man, even at that early age. All i remember is that all the students were up by our chairs gathering our thngs, or putting things away and something was said or done, that i have no recollection of, and J-R hauls off and punches me in the nose. There's plenty of blood, of course, my nose was not just sensitive to the sun; but, guess who has to clean me up? oh, yeah.
So, mothers were informed (no one has telephones); next day, mom and i, J-R and his mom are sitting in the principals office and he's chewing out
J-R pretty good and J-R is just bawling like a baby; i would probably be bawling myself from radiant scolding if i hadn't been so distracted and baffled and maybe a little embarrassed by J-R's total break down. He and i never had any more trouble.
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