Reaching Out (6 page)

Smokey and I got along well except when it came to sports. He read the sports section of the newspaper thoroughly and faithfully every day of the week and had heated debates with Pat Hall, Jim Brodlow, and Tony Lizza, our next-door neighbors, about what teams and players were the best. The debates often turned to yelling matches, each stubbornly defending his opinion as if his life depended on it.

Sports were like a foreign language to me. Whenever these matches took place, I would pick up my books and run off to Varsi Library or take a leisurely walk in the Mission Gardens. My indifference to sports troubled Smokey, but what really upset him was my absence at Santa Clara games. He often tried to convert me into a sports fan, but I resisted like a mule. One of those times was Friday night, the second week of November, a few days before Thanksgiving break. We had just gone through midsemester exams and I felt tired and tense.

"You don't have any school spirit," Smokey complained.
"Don't you care about our Santa Clara teams? Why don't you support them? Do you care at all?"

"I do care, but I came here to learn, not to attend games."

"You can do both. You need balance in your life!"

"You're right; it's my
life,
" I shot back, "so let me live
my life
; you live yours, I am tired of having this same argument over and over. Why don't you leave me alone?" I had never spoken so harshly to him. Smokey was stunned. He stared at me as though I had grown three heads.

I was as surprised as he was. We had had this disagreement before, but I had never lost my temper. At home I had learned to control my emotions, especially in front of my father. My hands trembled and my face felt as though it were on fire. We stood facing each other in dead silence. I could see in Smokey's face that I had hurt him. His eyes looked like those of a wounded deer. He shook his head and sat on the edge of his bed.

"I am sorry, Smokey," I said, after calming down a bit.

He looked up and said, "Because you're my roommate and I care about you," he said. "That's why I won't leave you alone. I want you to enjoy life, to have fun." His tenderness and honesty calmed me down completely. He sounded like my older brother, who always looked out for me. I missed Roberto more than ever at that moment.

"I'm really, really sorry, Smokey," I repeated, struggling to find the right words to tell him how bad I felt.

"It's okay." He stood up and adjusted his cap. His tall,
lanky body towered over mine. "Look, let's compromise. You like dancing; I like sports. You come with us to the Santa Clara-St. Mary's basketball game tonight and I'll join you at a dance next weekend. Deal?"

"Let me think about it," I said, glancing at the pile of books on my desk.

"It's going to be a great game." He tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. "We just went through midterm exams—let's treat ourselves. Come on."

"Okay, deal."

"Great! Now all we need is a way to get there."

"Isn't the game here?" I asked. Traveling took time.

"It's downtown in the San José Civic Center. We'll ask Tom Maulhardt for a ride. He never misses a game." Early that evening, Tom, Tony Lizza, Pat Hall, Smokey, and I piled into Tom's white Volvo and drove to the game. It was one of the few basketball games I had ever attended. The old Spanish-style auditorium was in the north end of the city, about four miles from Santa Clara. The main entrance was jammed with students who pushed their way in. We squeezed our way through and managed to find seats on the Santa Clara side, facing St. Mary's students, who sat on the opposite side of the auditorium. They rooted for the Irish Warriors. We cheered for the Broncos. As both teams came onto the court, the noise from the stands grew louder and the stomping of feet made the bleachers shake. It felt like an earthquake. Both teams played well, but at the end the
Broncos conquered the Irish Warriors. All of us, even I, left the game feeling excited, full of energy, and proud. As we drove back to campus, my classmates continued cheering. "Let's celebrate," Smokey said, "Why don't we stop by a liquor Store and get some beer?"

"Are you crazy?" Tom, said, slowing the car down. "We're not twenty-one."

"So? I'm sure all of us have drunk before," Smokey responded. "Or did you mean who's going to buy it?"

"I haven't drunk before," I said.

"You got to be kidding!" Smokey exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're—"

"I am not joking," I said, interrupting him. "My father would never allow it." They all laughed. Bur I had not meant it as a joke.

"Okay, well, it's time you did," Smokey said. Tony volunteered to get the beer. Tom pulled up to a corner liquor store that had iron bars on its two small front windows. Tony got out and waited outside for a potential customer. As one approached, Tony stopped him, exchanged a few words, and handed him money. The man nodded his head in approval and went inside, A few minutes later he came out carrying two large brown bags and handed one of them to Tony. Tony rushed back to the car, looking all around like a fugitive.

"Mission accomplished," he said, sliding onto the front seat and passing the bag to Smokey in the back seat. Tom parked the car near a dark, empty lot on Alviso Street, a few
blocks away from campus, Smokey handed each one of us a can of beer and passed around the beer can opener.

I wanted to belong. And I wanted to see what drinking was like and to make it up to Smokey for having yelled at him. But I felt nervous.

"Here's to the Broncos," Pat said, raising his can. "To the Broncos," we all repeated, taking a drink. The beer had a skunky smell and tasted like cardboard. I held my breath and gulped it down. I
don't feel anything,
I thought. We quickly had another round. I guzzled the second can. Suddenly, I began to feel lightheaded and giddy. I laughed at everything my classmates said even though I did not understand everything they were talking about. As time wore on, my giddiness turned to sadness. I started thinking about Tiger Town, a rough neighborhood in Santa Maria, where I had cleaned windows. It had rundown bars and liquor stores that stretched for several blocks on both sides of Main Street. The sidewalks were littered with cigarette butts, crushed cigarette packs, and broken beer bottles. I had to scrub the windows extra hard to loosen the globs of dried spit glued to the glass. Mexican music blasted through the front doors of the bars and a rancid odor filled the air. I liked the music, but the men inside made me sad. Some were
braceros,
temporary farm workers from Mexico, who came to Tiger Town from the local labor camp on Sunday afternoons when work was scarce. They sat at the bar, listening to
ranchera
music playing on the jukebox and drinking beer and staring into the
mirror behind the counter. They were all tar away from their families in Mexico, just as I now felt far away from my family in Santa Maria. I started to cry.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Smokey asked. "You start out as a happy and silly drunk and now you turned into a crying drunk."

The only recollection I have after that is holding on to Smokey and Pat as we walked back to the dorm before our curfew at one o'clock in the morning. I plopped onto my bed, dizzy and sleepy.

That night I dreamed I was washing the front windows of a bar in Tiger Town. In the dream the clear sky suddenly darkens like a black curtain. There is thunder and lightning and torrential rain. My bucket quickly fills with water, overflows, and spills into the entrance of the bar. The water slowly grows and gains strength until it turns into a rapid and forceful stream, carrying me away, encircled by beer bottles and cans, and dumps me into the Santa Maria River. As I struggle to keep my head above the murky water, I spot a woman dressed in white with long, flowing black hair. She glides along the riverbank, reaching out to save me. I desperately try to grab her hand, but she disappears.

I woke up in a cold sweat. For a few seconds I did not know where I was. My heart was pounding and my head felt like it was in a vise. I took four aspirins and crawled back into bed. Then I remembered what had happened the night before and felt ashamed.

In spite of the bad weekend, the following week brought me good news. I received an A on my midterm exam in Spanish Composition and Reading and an A- on my English essay. "Good improvement!" Dr. Quinn wrote below the letter grade. I could hardly contain myself. I ran back to my room, feeling as though I were floating on air. I turned on the radio and listened to rock 'n' roll while I cleaned the room.

"Are you tired of sitting around your
chante,
your
casita,
with nothing to do, and getting bored? Are you arguing with your girlfriend about what lousy movie to see?...Or maybe you're new to the area ... Need some exercise ... Work too much, or maybe just need to hit the social scene in a funky environment?...
Orale pues!
Don't be square. Come to Cervantes Hall in Sunnyvale and do the Watusi. Here is Little Eva with 'The Loco-Motion' to get you in the mood."

It sounded like the place to go. I jotted down the name and address on a scrap of paper, stuck it in my shirt pocket, and continued straightening our room.

"Here's 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' by Elvis Presley. If you are a loner, come to Cervantes Hall tonight and you'll get rid of your blues, man. I guarantee it!"

I had become a fan of Elvis's many years before, when I was in the eighth grade, struggling with the English language and trying to fit in with my classmates. Miss Ehlis, our homeroom teacher, asked us to come up with a skit to perform in front of the class. I saw this as my opportunity to be accepted by my classmates who were rock 'n' roll fanatics, and I volunteered to lip-synch Elvis Presley's "Treat Me Like a Fool." I was a hit, and so was Elvis for me from then on.

"Hey, the place looks great," Smokey said as he entered the room, soaked in sweat, after playing a pickup game of basketball.

"Looks like you could use a cleaning yourself."

"What I need is rest." He sat down in his desk chair to take off his grimy clothes.

"There's no rest for the wicked. Remember our deal?"

"What deal?" he said, glancing at me and throwing his sweaty and grimy socks on the floor.

"We agreed that if I went to the Santa Clara-St. Mary's game, which I did, you'd go with me to a dance. There's a dance at Cervantes Hall."

"The name sounds more like a library," he said. "You're not trying to trick me, are you?"

"No, I am serious; I heard it announced on the radio. It sounds like fun."

"What's gotten into you?" he said, looking puzzled.

"I feel like celebrating. I got an A-minus on my English paper."

"Wow! You did better than me."

"Better than 'I,' you mean," I said.

Smokey and I got ready for our adventure. I put on a pair of black polyester pants, a white shirt, and black pointed boots. The trousers fit a bit tighter than they had a few weeks before, because I was eating more than I did at home and not doing any physical work. And the food in the cafeteria was all you could eat for the same price. I rubbed on 3-Roses hair tonic, which my brother and I used at home whenever we went out, I then splashed on Old Spice aftershave lotion and put on my tan corduroy jacket. Smokey dressed in tan pants, a white and blue striped shirt, a navy blue sport coat, and a pair of brown shoes.

"Wow! Those are mean-looking boots," Smokey said, scanning me up and down and lightly scratching his head. I was not surprised by his reaction.

After a quick supper in Nobili, we hurried to the bus stop on the El Camino, the main road that cut across the campus and ran from San José to San Francisco. We knew Cervantes Hall was in Sunnyvale, but we did nor know what bus to take to get there. We asked the driver of each bus that stopped if it was going north to Sunnyvale. After waiting and waiting and seeing several buses stop and go, we finally got the right one and arrived in Sunnyvale after traveling for more than
half an hour. "What's the address?" Smokey asked as we got off the bus.

"I got it here." I reached into my shirt pocket, "Oh, no! I left it in my other shirt!"

"What! You forgot? How could you?"

"I am sorry." We wandered around the city, asking for directions to Cervantes Hall. No one had heard of it. Smokey began to doubt its existence and was ready to quit and go back. "Let's not give up," I insisted. "Someone has to know."

"Sure, the radio announcer."

"If we can't find someone who knows in the next fifteen minutes, we'll go back," I said, trying to appease him. Luckily, after four more tries, we finally ran into a young man who knew where it was. When he heard me say Cervantes Hall, he asked me if I spoke Spanish. When I said yes, he gave me the directions in Spanish. It was his native language, too.

"We're in luck," I said to Smokey. "Follow me; I know where I'm going."

"You'd better."

The sky was dark and cloudy. We walked for several blocks, away from the center of town, until we spotted the green and white neon sign of CERVANTES HALL on the side of the large barnlike building. Outside the double-door entrance, a large, muscular man with long, thick brown wavy hair stood guard. He wore a black T-shirt bearing the name
of the dance ball and had a tattoo with a skull and crossbones on his forearm. Guys dressed in jeans and white T-shirts hung around outside the hall, eyeing the girls and trying to decide whether or not to spend the money to go in. They laughed and joked and swayed to the music that blasted through the doors. Their shiny, long black hair combed back on the side made them look like some of my friends and neighbors in Bonetti Ranch. I felt at home. We bought our tickets and walked in.

The loud, vibrating music and dancing reminded me of the vets dances my brother and I went to in Santa Maria. The live band played rock 'n' roll music nonstop. The lead singer jumped around the stage and gyrated. Screams punctuated the music. Smokey seemed nervous at first, but once he started dancing, he did not stop. And neither did I. We competed with each other, trying different dance moves. We did the Twist, the Mashed Potato, the Locomotion, the Watusi, and many others. We were having so much tun that we forgot we had to be back in our room by one o'clock, and it was close to midnight before we checked the time. Rushing out in a panic, we traced our route back, through empty and dimly lit streets, to the bus stop on the El Camino. We waited at the bus stop for several minutes, but no bus came by. It was beginning to drizzle.