Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (15 page)

On the way home I got to speculating on Butch’s future. He had something, I
felt, that few American boys possess. If the army didn’t get him and use him for cannon
fodder, he might go far. He was already a diminutive Ramakrishna. I mean, one of those rare
products of the soil—in any age, any clime—an ecstatic being, a being filled to overflowing
with love. A passage from a book came to mind—about the children of Chungking:

“There is so much goodness in these waifs of Chungking that I begin to believe
again, as I used to believe many years ago, that it would be much better if the world were
given over to children, and
anyone reaching the age of twelve should be
painlessly executed.”
*

Despite all the talk about living for one’s children, despite all that we do
for our children—usually too much—the American child is not happy with his parents nor, what
is worse, is he happy with himself. He senses that he is in the way, that he is a problem,
that he is being bought off. No American educationalist could possibly write about the
harmonious relationship between parents and children as Keyserling has written about the
Japanese, in his
Travel Diary
. But then no European, or Oriental, could possibly
describe the American woman as Keyserling has the Japanese. Let me quote a paragraph:

“There can only be one opinion about Japanese women on the part of anyone who
has a little feeling for style, that is to say, on the part of any man who does not demand the
performances of a hippopotamus from a butterfly: the Japanese woman is one of the most
perfect, one of the few absolutely accomplished products of this creation. … It is really too
delightful to behold women who are nothing but gracefulness; who pretend nothing but what they
really are, who do not want to show off anything but what they can really do, whose heart is
cultivated to the extreme. At the bottom of their souls there are not too many European girls
who want anything more and anything else than their sisters in the Far East—they want to
please, they want to be femininely attractive, and everything else, including intellectual
interests, is a means to an end for them. How many of those who apparently have only mental
aspirations would not breathe a sigh of relief if they could disregard this circuitous means
of charm, which it is difficult for them to dispense with in their world, and present
themselves as the Japanese women do! But this is just what they would succeed in with
difficulty, what those who attempt it fail in. The modern girl is already too conscious to be
perfect in a naive form, too knowing for an existence of pure gracefulness, above all, she is
too rich in her nature
to be easily perfected at all. In lovableness no
modern Western beauty can match herself with a well-educated Japanese lady.”
*

I mentioned earlier in this book that the new aspect of Big Sur reveals itself
through the children who have been added to the population since 1944, when I first arrived.
No doubt children played an important role in pioneer days, when the Pfeiffers, the Harlans,
the Posts and other early settlers opened up the region. Today most of these children are
grandparents. Today there are no longer any families which, like the old Harlan family, was
sufficient unto itself. (For several decades the Harlans got along without using money.) No,
the old days are gone forever. The new day is for the children who are crowding the country
school.

The striking thing, to me, about these youngsters is their individuality. Each
one is a personality, with his own well-defined character, his own unique way of behaving.
Some, like the Daytons’ boy, whose father is a woodcutter, live quite removed from the
community, and are taught at home. Some, too young to attend school, accompany their fathers
to work daily, and seem no worse for wear than if they had remained at home with their
overburdened mothers. Sometimes the mother, between phases of marriage and divorce, has to
take a job; then the child fends for himself most of the day, and because of it, becomes most
self-sufficient.

I think of one little playmate of Tony’s whom I am particularly fond of—Mike
Hougland, or “Little Mike,” as everyone calls him. Little Mike was already a “character” at
the age of four. Once he stayed with us for a week while his mother went on a trip. What a
marvelous addition to the family he was! Never have I seen a child so gentle, so contained,
and so silent. No matter what you asked him he always said Yes, but in such a wee winnie
winkle of a voice as to be almost inaudible. Even when he was offered food which he didn’t
like, or wasn’t used to, he would come up with a
tiny little Yes.
Sometimes, to tease him, to see if he
could
say No, I would ask him if he would like
me to spank him. And he would reply: “Yes.” Sometimes he varied it and said: “Yes,
please.”

(The first word Tony learned to say was No. He didn’t say it, he boomed it.
NO! It took a year before anyone could make him say Yes.)

Yes, Mike was adorable. And, like that Sparkie on the radio (the program kids
love most!), more of an elf than a boy. Sparkie, as everyone knows, talks a blue streak. And
his way of speaking is abominable, atrocious, though the kids seem to love it. It took me days
to catch on to his “elfin” lingo.

Mike’s charm lies in his silence. It is a most knowing, meaningful silence.
There is in it something of the sage and something of the saint. A saint more on the order of
Joseph di Cupertino. Those who have read Cendrars’ wonderful pages on him may recall that he
was farmed out to the monks because he was such an utterly incapable dullard. In the eyes of
God he was one of the blessed ones. It was his ecstatic love which sustained him in his
spectacular flights of levitation.

There is nothing of the dullard about Mike, however silent, loving and elflike
he may be. On the contrary, he is a constant source of wonder and mystification. He knows just
what he wants and he usually gets what he wants, but quietly, unobtrusively, almost
selflessly. I once bought Tony an expensive fire engine with the last money I had in the bank;
a week later it was in Mike’s possession. They had made a dicker. It was a fair enough trade
too, since Tony had had enough of the fire engine three days after he acquired it. (Sounds
horrible, but it’s the God’s truth.)

Mike can take a broken toy, any discarded object, indeed, and find it of
absorbing interest for months on end. When he wishes to have an airplane—one of those wooden
ones that cost only ten cents—he asks for just one, not a dozen at a time. He has a genius for
making them perform record flights. And if they break he knows how to mend them. Not Tony.
Tony takes after his
father, who prefers to abandon a car on the highway
and walk to the nearest town rather than lift the hood and soil his fingers. It isn’t even a
matter of soiling the fingers, really … it’s that his father knows in advance that he is
incapable of fixing anything, particularly mechanical things.

The three Lopez boys, on the other hand, will know how to fix anything, right
anything, adapt themselves to anything, long before they become adults. The Lopez family, I
must say at once, is my idea of a model family. The father, of Mexican origin, is one of those
underpaid workers that any man in his right senses would give his right hand to keep forever
as an employee. The mother is a mother in the real sense of the term. From Mexico they brought
with them those precious attributes which Americans tend to underestimate and even to exploit:
patience, tenderness, respect, reverence, gentleness, humility, forbearance and abounding
love. The Lopez children reflect these virtues of the parents. There are three boys, two of
them identical twins, and a girl who is the eldest. They get along like one big family. Almost
like a holy family, I should say. With them the word family means something. Nothing can
threaten it from within and probably nothing from without either. They have had a hard life
here in “the land of the free and the brave,” as Mexicans always do. But they have won the
love and respect of all who know them and have watched them struggle.

When one of the restless mothers in the community wishes to dump her child on
someone for a day, or a day and a night, or a week, or even for a month, it is to the Lopez
family she invariably turns. Rosa Lopez never says No. The word is not in her vocabulary.
“Si señora!”
she says, and she takes the child into the fold as she would her own.
And there, in the immaculate, overcrowded hut which they call home, this American child may
see for the first time a picture of the Madonna, a taper burning before a crucifix, a rosary
hanging from a nail in the wall. Perhaps also for the first time this American child will see
an adult joining hands in prayer, lowering his eyes, repeating the litany. I am not a
Catholic; I have no use for all the mummery and flummery which goes with
Catholicism. But I have a profound respect for the Lopez family, which is an ardent and a
devout Catholic family. When I visit them I feel as one ought to feel, but seldom does, after
visiting a church. I feel as if God’s presence had made itself manifest. And though I am
against rosaries, crucifixes, ikons and chromos of the Madonna, I say it is good that there is
one
family in Big Sur where these appurtenances of the faith are in evidence and
convey what they were meant to convey.

The boys are incurable rascals, incurably happy, active, and helpful at home.
There is not a trace of spite, of meanness or vulgarity in them. As is so often the case in
America, the children of foreign families, poor foreigners especially, seem born with taste,
sensitivity and an inner resourcefulness which are usually lacking in the American child. The
Lopez kids have something additional. A chivalrous nature, I would call it. If they are
obliged to play with children younger than themselves, which is frequently the case, they
sponsor them as no grownup could. What I particularly like about them is that they play hard
and rough: they have a vitality and a sense of play which seems inborn. You will never find
them whimpering and whining. They were little men at five and six. As for Rosita, the
daughter, she has been a little mother ever since she began to walk.

As a hired man, a gardener, Señor Lopez was never able to afford expensive
toys for his children. He was only too thankful that they had their health. He loved his
children very much and he knew how to handle them—gently but firmly. His wife, Rosa, had
scarcely enough time each day to finish the household tasks. They had none of the conveniences
which even the poorest American family considers indispensable. (I am using the past tense
only because I am referring to their life at Krenkel Corners, in the years when we, too, were
guilty of abusing Rosa’s generous nature.) No, the Lopez family had never anything in the way
of luxury. They considered themselves fortunate in that Señor Lopez had a job—possibly for
life.

Did the children suffer because of the parents’ restricted means?
Hardly. Just as in Spain one finds the happiest children in all Europe,
ragged, barefoot, naked though they often are, and generally filthy and starved—often beggars
at three or four—so in Big Sur one has to go to the home of the poorest family to find that
joy and contentment, that spontaneity, that love of life, which the Lopez children ever
exhibit. In a book devoted to London street games, Norman Douglas, author of
South
Wind
, makes it painfully clear that the children who have the most fun, the children
who are the most inventive, are those who have absolutely nothing to play with. By contrast,
look at the recreation grounds attached to the public schools in our big cities. Millions of
dollars spent on expensive apparatus, yet the poor urchins look like little convicts who have
been given permission to exercise—or else like pent-up demons who have a half-hour in which to
wreak havoc.

One day I happened on the Lopez kids just as they were at work building an
imaginary city. It was in the back of the vegetable garden, among the brambles and thistles
which they had hastily cleared away. The project already covered quite an area, and they were
only at the beginning of their enterprise. What got me were the “materials” they were using to
create this miniature world. What were they, these materials? Tin cans, milk cartons, old
matting, matchboxes, toothpicks, marbles, beads, shoelaces, dominoes, playing cards, used
tires, rusty curling irons, bent nails, discarded toys, pincushions, safety pins, broken
scissors, pebbles, rocks, hunks of wood … any god-damned thing that came to hand.

Only a few days before I had called on a friend of ours, a physician, whose
son Tony wanted to play with while I did the shopping. The doctor seemed extremely grateful
that his son would have a playmate for a few hours and graciously offered to drive Tony to the
house himself.

I had never been to his home before. When I arrived, toward sundown, I found
the Japanese gardener watering the flowers and shrubs, but the kids were nowhere in sight. I
dallied awhile, studying the beautiful, well-kept grounds, inspecting the spacious patio
with its lounging chairs and tables, admiring the house tree hidden in a
majestic oak, staring in amazement at the assortment of apparatus—scups and swings, ladders, a
“labyrinth” (it probably has another name), the bikes and trikes, the wagons and pushmobiles,
and so on. Christ only knows what this devoted father had not thought to buy for his children.
He was fond of children, and he believed in doing his utmost to make them happy. His wife, who
was turning them out as fast as could be, also loved children. Fortunately. The children owned
the place; the parents merely lived there.

But where were the two boys? After I had explored a few wings of the
house—nobody seemed to be home—I came upon a huge room, the sort I would love to annex as a
living room, which was obviously intended for the exclusive use of the children. There on the
floor were Tony and the doctor’s son, playing with a piece of wood and a string. What they
were playing I never discovered. What I did learn, though, was that they were overjoyed to
have hit upon something of their own contraption, something which didn’t cost fifty or a
hundred dollars, something that wasn’t rubberized, chromium plated, jet propelled, and of the
very latest model.