Thick White Crust - GREAT GRANDMOTHER’S BULLET
August 26th, 2008by N.L. Belardes
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
G R E A T G R A N D M O T H E R ‘ S B U L L E T The escape to California took weeks.
Renaldo had difficulty hiding that he was one of Poncho Villa’s soldiers and was constantly questioned as they traveled toward northern Mexico. Handsome, Renaldo had a broad nose and full lips. He wore a great sombrero high on his head and had a full mustache to match. His eyes were of a deep red-brown like cherry wood. He wasn’t tall, but looked it as he sat straight on his horse.
“Where are you going?” soldiers would ask.
“To the funeral of our beloved mother,” Renaldo always answered. With much luck, suspicious soldiers would let them pass. It could have been because these two escapists traveled just ahead of the news of the priest of Las Floras de la Madre having been murdered by a young Revolutionary. Rumor had it the daughter of a well-known farmer was also kidnapped from the area.
On their way to California, Renaldo spent money from the stolen chest. He mostly bought food and whores along the way. The young Lita would sit and eat fruit under a tree while he would spend an entire afternoon in brothels, only coming outside to kiss her hands sweetly.
Renaldo never apologized for his ways. “It is what a man must do. I will not take and defile you in such a way,” he said. “In Alta we will marry and turn from Mexico forever. For us, my love, there is nothing here that can heal us—not a thing in this Revolution. I have fought in it for too long. And now I have killed a priest. They will try and find me before I reach the border. When the time comes, we will find a way to escape. For now, let me go and release a little more anger.” And then he would disappear, back to the brothel, back to the moaning that the young girl could hear through the windows while she sucked juice from fruit and lay back under the shade of whispering trees.
Lita did not truly love Renaldo, not yet. She loved that he felt so refreshed from his time in the brothels, the way he would kiss her hands and cheeks. She loved that she was protected by a man worthy of the Revolution. She loved that the girls in the brothel could scream so loudly in joy for him—a joy she wondered if she could ever find.
She looked into his eyes when he would walk to her under a tree. She looked into them deeply each night as he tucked her into bed and she gazed into his face before he would go out and drink among the different townsfolk. As he came back to her each night, she would pretend to be asleep. He would lie on the floor next to her bed and snore in a way that soothed her as she fell into slumber. That isn’t to say she didn’t dream of home, her family, her church, the other soldiers lazing about before galloping back into a world she would never know, where wealthy farmers sold fruit to Americans by the trainload.
Every time they spent a few days in a town she feared its people would realize their story and have Renaldo killed. In the northern town of Los Mochis their journey slowed and they stayed for an entire week. Renaldo claimed to have friends there. But friends he would never find, only enemies who claimed they had received word ahead of their arrival that he was a murderer. No one wanted to speak to him. What they did say was if he didn’t leave town right away, Renaldo himself would die.
In defiance he always stayed a few hours longer than expected. But he was never murdered nor turned in to the authorities. His supposed friends, the young girl could tell, looked as handsome, brave, and strong as any soldier she had ever seen passing through the old seaside towns where she had once frequented as a very young girl.
“I cannot believe this!” Renaldo yelled. “These are my brothers. All is now lost. This is horrible for me. Maybe we should have gone south, to Guatemala. We will have to take a boat to Baja. The government might not catch us on the seas. This is getting too close. Too close for such a man as myself starting a new life.”
Renaldo traded in his gun belts and sombrero for a suit and shiny black shoes. He trimmed his mustache and bought the young girl new clothes for their journey oversea. They would pretend to be a young couple traveling to see family in the far north. They both looked beautiful. He slicked his hair back and it glistened dark above his handsome brow. “We will spend richly, extravagantly, all the way through Mexico,” he said. “This money will be no good in America. So we might as well live generously on the road to freedom.”
They took a boat to the southern tip of Baja. Renaldo paid handsomely for a clean cabin on a steam ship. On board Lita dreamed of America and looked out over the ocean where she saw dolphin leap over choppy waves. She felt slippery between the two Mexican shores. Swift and delicate in the golden afternoon sea light, she cast her dreams into the sea so the dolphin would carry them.
While she grew hopeful for a new life, Renaldo grew uneasy, desperate. He flung his words out at the ocean like carcasses of sea birds that sank into kelp beds. He fumed at Mexico for putting revolutions, priests and beautiful girls in the way of his freedom.
“What is it I have done?” he coughed at the gulf waves. “Why have my people turned against me? I would jump into the sea but I am afraid it would cast me back out worse off than I am now!”
“No!” Lita said. There was something about Renaldo and the sea. She needed him to hold her. She needed the sea to help her breathe. “You will not leave me!” she cried.
Just before young Lita thought Renaldo might throw himself overboard and leave her to face the strange northern countryside alone, he turned to her. “My dear little flower. I suppose you are what dreams are made of, right? Alta will be a new beginning.”
In La Paz they enjoyed life as travelers in their own country. From the seaside patio of a small hotel they stared out over the ocean just as they had done on the ship. “You see all of this water, Lita? It is so grand. It is here for us. The fish, the sand, the waves, the moonbeams that shine on them. Forget this Revolution. There are bigger testaments of our faith out there that are more important than this damned country. America is out there too. And it is in that country where we will build a legacy for ourselves and for our children.”
In La Paz, Renaldo met up with a young revolutionary who had fought with him alongside their fearless leader, Poncho Villa. His name was Miguel Esparza. He wore a gun belt, though the wide pavilions of La Paz were a site of splendor and not for the murder and conquest of Revolutionaries. The streets were quiet. They cried to no one. Even the restaurants at the drunken hour said nothing sad.
Miguel found Renaldo at a restaurant café that overlooked the sea. He drank from a bottle of wine and wiped his mouth with his sleeve just as Renaldo had done when he was a soldier. “Where are you going?” Miguel was quick to ask.
“To America, my friend.”
“Ah, so you think you have grown into a civilized man? You there with your new clothes, your new hair, your new moustache. And your stolen money. Come now, Renaldo, there is nothing for a man like you in America. Besides, the authorities will catch you before the border. They will execute you. Come back and join the Revolution before it is too late, before you are dead. You are no good to Pancho Villa as a lifeless carcass. He has said himself that you’re a good man. He will change you. Come back and you can escape this murderous trail and lie of a good life.”
“And that is why you are here? To stop me?”
“I will not tell you why I’m here,” Miguel said, taking a long drink. In front of Renaldo steamed a big plate of fish and rice. Miguel picked up a fork and stabbed into a cod filet from Renaldo’s plate that steamed in little wisps. “But I will tell you,” Miguel said as he lifted the fork and took a bite, “Your name will be cleansed if you were to come back.”
“I will not come back,” Renaldo said. “I have lost my taste for this Revolution.”
“You have lost taste for the Revolution? What? Have you lost the very tip of your forked tongue? You have lost taste for life, country and for your brothers then. Look around. There is more to this life than beautiful seas, good food and young so-called victims,” he said staring at Lita.
“Perhaps life has a flavor much deeper than Revolution, Miguel.”
“You have been persuaded by lust!” Miguel spat onto the floor.
Renaldo was not sure if Miguel would try to shoot him just then. He watched carefully as Miguel stood up, stared hard at Lita, nodded to both her and him, then walked out of the restaurant.
That night Renaldo used some of the remaining treasure to buy a horse they would use to begin the long trek north through the deserts of Baja. “There will be towns,” he said. “Do not worry. There will be food and comfort and more fruit for you to eat all along the way. We begin tomorrow.”
In the morning, when Renaldo and Lita were leaving La Paz, Miguel and five others quickly surrounded them, forcing them off their horse. “Get down,” Miguel said, pointing a revolver at Renaldo. “I tried to do this the way of our people. With a forgiving heart,” he said. “But the Revolution has lost its patience and there is a bounty on your head worthy of bringing you back to the mainland.” As Miguel pointed his revolver at Renaldo, his horse took a few nervous steps. Miguel reigned him in, keeping his gun steady. “With all the fighting we have done together. We have had such a strong brotherhood.”
“Had, Miguel. Had.”
“I am sad to say the bounty says ‘dead, or alive’, and so I must do this with justice in mind. You understand. You may even have done the same at one time.”
This was more than Lita could bear. She cursed Miguel and his men. “Damn you for your allegiance to Pancho Villa! Damn you all. You do not know the truth!”
“The truth? Be quiet young girl. You are nothing but a defiled victim of this Revolution, once the daughter of a proud farmer. Now a whore.”
Renaldo stood dignified. “Kill me then. That is the only way I will go with you.” He said nothing more. His face was calm as he raised his chin to Miguel’s threat of death. He straightened his suit and brushed the dust off of his shoulders as if Miguel were merely going to take his photograph.
Miguel squint his eyes fiercely at Renaldo, took careful aim, then fired his revolver toward Renaldo’s heart just as Lita screamed and dove in front of the bullet and fell to the ground.
* * * * * * *
This vision of great grandmother I once told to my two young boys. They have heads full of blonde hair and their eyes are filled with grey-blue speckled eyes. There are oceans of wonder in them. They sat at a park bench in Las Vegas to hear the strange tale.
“That could not have been our great grandmother. Stories like that only exist in movies, Dad,” my youngest said.
“Stories like that exist everywhere,” I returned. “Some remember the bullet hole in Lita’s shoulder. My father said he played with worthless Mexican money as a child. It is a story as true as the desert wind blowing through your blonde hair.”
“This is nuts, Dad,” said my youngest boy. Ten years old, he had a nose full of freckles and a complexion of fair skin. His own great grandfather on his mother’s side was in World War Two, had been in Europe’s Battle of the Bulge. He had repaired cables across Europe and dodged sniper fire in the woods near Berlin. On my mother’s side, there were heroes too—World War One heroes. On my father’s side there was Renaldo Velarde and Lita Cisneros. She took a bullet in the shoulder for him because she had suddenly loved the man more than life itself. It was a sudden moment. An instant blooming of a flower that appears one morning, where life once as barren as desert floor shrubs suddenly ring out with color.
“And then Renaldo went back to Mexico?” my other son asked. “Why?”
“Because that day on his way to the church before he killed the priest and stole the money, he saw Lita’s other sister. Legend says he went back and brought her to America too, that he went back because he wanted to start two families in the Santa Clara Valley. And he did. There are cousins in the family only few know. No one can explain why they have the same last name unless the legend holds true.
Read More of “Thick White Crust”:
Part One: H A U N T
Part Two: B O N I F A C I O
Part Three: S E P T E M B E R
Part Four: L E G A C Y
Part Five: G R E A T G R A N D M O T H E R ‘ S B U L L E T
Part Six: N O N - M I G R A N T S
Part Seven: D I A d e L O S R A S C A C I E L O S
Part Eight: T H E G A T H E R I N G
Part Nine: W H I T E F L I E S A N D W I D O W S
*************************************
N.L. BELARDES is a journalist, blogger and videographer. He writes several media blogs, including Noveltown’s Paperback Writer and Nick 2.0 (Formerly on ABC23). His work has appeared on the homepage of CNN.com and other news sites all over America. You can purchase Lords: Part One, which describes the infamous Lords of Bakersfield. They still creep the city long after they and a 1977 Central California dust storm ravaged the area. N.L. welcomes humorous notes and news tips to his MySpace or Twitter.
Tags: 9/11, Alta, author, Baja, California Writer, casino, Chicano fiction, day of the dead, Death, dia de los muertos, family history, gulf, Las Vegas, Latino, magic realism, N.L. Belardes, Poncho Villa, revolution, September 11, Sinaloa, sugar skulls
What an amazing legend! This is the type of story that makes me want to dig further into my past, to search a little harder for those stories I may not know. It seems that love stories of the past are so much more epic than those we experience today. The story of my great grandparents is similar in that you hear it and you sit back and think “wow, that’s amazing!”
Thank you for this, it’s super fabulous!
Almost makes me want to have some hot babe take a bullet for me. OK not really.
Wait a minute. Your Gravatar wasn’t there a minute ago. See? I say hot babe and your gravatar appeared!
I’m magic. Don’t you know this by now?!
I thought about not commenting on this, but then I just couldn’t stop myself.
Bullets are serious business, I cannot state for a fact that I would take one for you….just wanted to get that out there…thats one of those split second decisions and I might whimp out….it happens.
I’m doomed!
Aye dios mio!
What a rogue… two women!
And us “gavachos” don’t understand that this was a way of life, the wife in the church, the other women on the side, as many as they could manage. The come to the US and don’t understand why it’s frowned upon…lol
Great read. Whether the legend is true or not.
Mischief: How can you doubt the legend! Shame on you. Just kidding. Let’s get sushi!
Um I’m a sushi novice… but I love a mean teppan, those flying knives are cool!
Mischief: The best thing about teppan is the rice. I dig it. The legend is in the rice.
Sweet, fruit-eating Lita.
Your grandma was cooler than my grandma.
My grandma got in trouble once for wearing short sleeves.
I still love this story, btw. You write with crystal clarity. Looking forward to the next installment.
Also, I love whores in stories. Is that weird?
Am going to contemplate bellybuttons now.
I remember meeting Lita when I was really little. She was polite, tiny, thin. Fair skin. Her hair was white. She sat in a rocker. The floor was uneven by her stove. I remember her song-like voice but not much of her words. It was the early 1970s.
Short sleeves? Was your granny a rebel? Did she roll cigarettes up in those sleeves?
Every story about crossing a country should have whores, even if just describing them hanging out in a pool hall. This is the second whore scene in the book. Will there be more?
Hell yes - Grandma was a rebel. Did you not hear me before? She wore *short sleeves*!
(have I not mentioned before that I come from a really conservative religious background?)
Which takes me back to my original point: I love whores. Whores whores whores.
Not so much prostitutes.
Just whores.
Oh well why didn’t you say so? Whores.
Let’s write a book of poetry about them. Where’s Tyler? He can add in all the big disease names and tie in metaphors to the “House” TV show.
I’m all for books of whore poetry. I hear in some countries they’re making billions off them. They can’t keep the darned things on shelves.
Let’s go whore-watching.
Erika Rae… your love of whores deserves a Three Chord Whore t-shirt!
I’m in for whore-watching! I’ll wear my Three Chord Whore t-shirt and sport the whore attitude!
Renaldo seemed like such a hero in the beginning. So disturbing to find out he’s a wretch trying to reform himself in his own right and string poor, naive Lita along the way. Just goes to show that a woman’s strength after she truly admits to herself she’s in love has no boundaries and will give anything to save and stand by her man…. no matter what a dog he may be.
Did Lita even have a clue that her “love” even eyeballed her sister? Sick and sad. Such a tragic love story but inspiring because they did whatever it took to start over and try to make a positive new life.
I can’t wait for the next installment.
BTW, can I join you and Mischief for Teppan? I love that stuff! I’m fascinated by the flying knives, then by the men cleaning up their mess afterward. Such a turn on!
There’d be quite the mess if I tried cooking teppan and started throwing knives around since I’d probably cut all my fingers off. Is that what you meant? Would that be the turn on you’re looking for?
Sure, you’re invited. Everyone here is invited to teppan! Knives for everyone!
I gotta hand it to Renaldo. He created a family.
He definitely did that, didn’t he? Aye!
Chingpea, only you would be turned on by men cleaning up their mess after throwing around knives!
Stop it. You guys are scaring me.
How about NERF guns? Those are a turn on aren’t they?
NERF guns don’t do it for me… sorry. Gotta have the shine and the sharp!
You’re totally right, Matildakay! You know me well…
My Grandma’s best story was that she and Grandpa arrived in Los Angeles from West Texas in the early 20’s. She was a coffee girl and Grandpa was a street car conductor (I even have a postcard pic of him standing in front of the street car in his uniform). They lived in a rooming house. If I got the story straight, the old lady that owned the rooming house had a business and she was going to move the business to San Francisco and she wanted my Grandmother to go with her and help. My Grandmother refused because the woman’s son flirted with her when my Grandpa was away at work, and Grandma didn’t like it.
The lady’s name was Mary See of See’s Candies.
I checked on the timeline for See’s Candy company and it seems to be about right. The story could be true.
Of course my Grandma always kicked her own ass for not going to San Francisco, because she probably would have become rich helping with the company. See’s is known for taking good care of their employees and Grandma made it sound like Mrs See wanted her to be almost a partner.
But then, what did my grandma know? She was only 16 years old and had a 2nd grade education at the time.
Teppan is more fun if you have a big group, I think it’s 8 around the table…lets get a party going!!
Such a shame about your Grandma blowing Mrs. See off. What can you do?
I’m in for Teppan…
I think that’s the story of my life: almost a something. Which is a lot closer than a whole lot of nothing. Your grandma actually contemplating leaving at 16 is pretty brave. My mom left Iowa to run to California in the 1950s. She was pregnant at the time with a kid she gave up for adoption. Quite a stroke of luck that she became my mama after crossing the states on an adventurous whim for a new life. Seems to run in my family and deep in my blood. I’m always taking off on some crazy adventurous new path. My kids are more grounded than I am.
Party at Akiras!!
Now I understand why you wanted me to wait til the next chapter to ask you if you were Renaldo! Haha… I had forgotten how the legend turned. Great story! I definitely have that feeling of being in the old west/old Mexico. I can’t decide if Renaldo is a snake or if he was a man of his time and culture. Although a rogue with two families is probably snake-worthy!
My favorite line is: “It was a sudden moment. An instant blooming of a flower that appears one morning, where life once as barren as desert floor shrubs suddenly ring out with color.” You described perfectly that one moment when you realize you’re in love with someone!
Lita taking a bullet for a questionable hero/snake in that moment of realization is probably more than Renaldo deserved.
But women always sacrifice themselves for the men they love!
It would be really cool to have such a rich story about your great grandmother in the family. I can’t say that my grandmothers were that adventurous. But my grandma at the age of 88 told me for the first time that my grandpa was not her first husband!! Turns out her first husband she married really young and he was abusive so she had to get away from him and get a divorce. Grandpa was her second husband. She told me her secret then to make me feel better about my own divorce. And 20 years after grandpa passed away… grandma found love again at 87 and married her third husband!
Maybe there’s hope for me yet.
Oh and Belardes, I didn’t forget… are you Renaldo?
I love teppan! I want teppan too!
Wow, I wrote that line? I never remember what I write. I had to go back and find it to make sure you weren’t quoting Lenore, Tyler, Brad, Meghan, Dawn, Erika, James, and others — the people on TNB who are far better writers than myself.
I guess that is true: people have these little awakenings.
Hazel Dixon-Cooper, who wrote Born on a Rotten Day, Friends on a Rotten Day and Love on a Rotten Day taught me a few years ago that, well, I’m pretty much rotten. I love her and hate her for that. She’s a great writer and a deadly horoscope assassin.
Renaldo is somewhat of a real person and my dream. So he’s part me. I guess. Am I?
OK. Can we go to Akira’s now? Mischief and chingpea are waiting. We need four more peeps.
Yay! Teppan with the gang!
Definitely rotten Belardes! Let’s eat teppan.
Mr. B, powerful.
But what I love more is the fact that you passed on the story to your boys maybe breaking the trail of mystery and perhaps disconnectedness of your own journey, making their road a little easier.
You are giving them a gift I certainly didn’t have growing up, helping them fill in some of the blind spots in their existence.
And if not a gift they’ll just continue to shake their heads at me: “Dad, you’re messed up.”
I’m also a teppan lover. Alas, am I too late for this party??
Heck no you’re not late. But would you drive to Bakersfield just for a night of food and insane conversation? If so, that’s 5, 3 more to go!
Someday the children will learn that all great movies take their cues from life.
Well, maybe not Blade Runner.
Take my whole story and place in a gritty urban future of soot, rain and neon and wala! Blade Runner part two! OK, you have to add robot detectives in there somewhere, and Ridley Scott or Paul Greengrass has to direct it.
She cast her dreams into the sea so the dolphin would carry them. That in itself is one of the best lines I have ever read in a story of splendor and wonder.
bill
Thanks Bill. Personally I’ve thrown my dreams everywhere, including to big-eyed goldfish. I got your book in the mail. We need to plan our article…
the thought of trading in a gun belt and a sombrero for a suit and shiny shoes makes me kind of sad. metaphorically.
this is only getting better, Belardes.
Maybe he kept a pistol.
The messed up part is a given, no? = )
But they’ll understand the man they love to pieces much better.
They better love me to pieces, those bratty kids. For some reason I just remembered how much smarter my kids are than me. They’re brilliant. Brilliant!
Man this is rich stuff - are you shopping this around for a book deal?
Not really. I sent a couple of chapters to a little valley press here who seems interested. I suppose I should send a few chapters off to agents who can land big deals since I’m re-writing it. I’m taking suggestions, names, bribes…
Nick, excuse me, but speaking of whores, which you and I both know I love to do, do we dare tell Ericka Rae about my upcoming memoir: “Lost in America” which is now at the printers being reviewed for liable.
I guess this legend is kind of the reversal of the guy who shot a wild young cowboy in El Paso for dancing with Felina, the girl he adored, then, vanished out the back door, got chased by a posse and took a couple of hits and dies telling Felina of his love for her. Course you mix up gavacho cowboys with Mexican vaqueros (excuse me, caballeros) and you got all kind of crazy things happening. LOL
Great family legend! Nothing noble ever happened in my family. Just death by epidemics, orphans abandoned by an evangelizing violin player father, temper tantrums, suicides, alcoholism. Nobody would have jumped in front of a bullet, which takes a pretty fast jumper. Right?
It could have been a slow-moving bullet, Joe. They made those back then.
I need to revisit your book. If I can’t find my disk I’m going to have to beg for a new one. You’d understand if you saw my desk. Horrible. I think a lot of people have been lost in America. That’s for sure. I write from experience.
So basically I just imagined the whole bullet-taking in slow mo with Lita slowly leaping in front of Renaldo saying, “Nooooo.” Kind of like when Marsha Brady got hit in the nose with the football. All in slow mo—”My nooose!”
Your words always rock socks Belardes.
I can’t wait until this is all in book form and I can get lost in your wonderful story. I want it on paper, not computer screen. So greedy, I am, NL.
That would be cool. I’ve been pitching it around lately to see if any publisher/agent is interested… Crossing my fingers and my eyes!