Dad's salary as an ambulance driver was barely enough to cover family expenses. Mom worried a lot about that so she decided to look for part time work. Answering an ad in the newspaper she found a weekend job housecleaning and babysitting and a routine got started. Saturday mornings we’d drive Mom to the Freed home, her new place of employment and in the afternoon we’d drive back to pick her up. Her job, like Dad's wasn’t that far from our house, maybe four miles, but in terms of life style it was a million miles away.
The Freeds were established Albuquerque merchants who owned a downtown store. Their home was located in a middle class suburb and had manicured green lawns and a garage. The tree lined street was paved and in the center was a landscaped island. The neighborhood was part of the city's new uptown district and an oasis of beauty compared to where we lived in East San Jose, which was at the bottom of the economic ladder. Yards there weren’t landscaped although some of our neighbors grew flowers and vegetable gardens. Since Phillip and I rarely saw lawns or garages they were a source of wonder to us and until we were older we were convinced that only Anglos could have them.
One Saturday Dad realized with a start that it was late. We'd have to leave immediately to pick up Mom. "Get in the car," he said. He grabbed his car keys and hat and started for the door.
“Why? Where are we going?” Phillip responded. We were so involved in what we were doing we didn't want to leave.
“Never mind where we’re going. Get in the car.”
Dad thought issuing an executive order was enough to get us moving but it wasn’t because Phillip, who was a very smart little boy, felt he deserved detailed answers. Since whatever my brother did, I did too, neither of us budged.
“I want to know where we’re going,” Phillip repeated.
Dad didn't handle stress well, especially the kind we caused. He also wasn't accustomed to spending whole days with us like Mom, whose instinctive need was to keep us calm and happy, things Dad never worried about.
“Get in the car!" Dad's voice and irritation level was rising.
So was Phillip's. “I want to know where we're….”
Dad didn't have time to explain his actions to a whiny little upstart and he didn’t want to, either. He grabbed Phillip who managed to slither out of his grasp. When my brother slid under our parents’ bed I followed. With our backs pressed against the wall we could see the top of Dad’s balding head as he groped blindly around for us. It looked so funny we laughed, until two large hands clamped onto our legs and dragged us out. Phillip squirmed loose again but Dad had a firm grip on my leg, or so he thought until I wriggled free. Dad grabbed Phillip again but when he tried catching me Phillip got loose. We made it to the front door and bolted outside. To us, this was an exciting new game but Dad viewed it as an exasperating struggle.
Phillip was the key to getting both of us in the car so Dad went after him. Running for it, Phillip disappeared around the side of the house followed closely by Dad. A minute later Dad showed up out of breath and panting but with Phillip clutched tightly under an arm. Dad plunked him down still struggling on the front seat. I got into the car on my own and climbed over them into the backseat.
“Malcriaos!” Brats! Dad growled as he got the car started.
Phillip was upset. He struggled to free himself but there was no way, not with Dad’s meaty hand gripping his spindly leg.
“I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!” he yelled, which got me yelling too.
“I don’t wanna go,” came my high pitched echo from the backseat.
Dad backed the car out of the yard in a series of sharp, neck wrenching jerks. “If you don’t shut up,” he warned, “I’m gonna take both a you to the reservation and trade you to the Indians for a pig.”
Dad looked so upset we believed him. Phillip began to sob hysterically. He grabbed Dad’s arm and shook it, begging him not to trade us for a pig. I began crying and jumping up and down on the back seat. We started hiccupping loudly between wails. To people driving by us our convertible must’ve looked like a mad house on wheels. We sobbed the entire way to the Freed's home and not once during the trip did Dad take the time to explain that he was joking. It probably would have calmed us down but it wasn’t in his character to back off.
After a few more minutes Dad completely lost it. “THAT'S IT!” he yelled. “We’re going to the reservation right now!”
The decibel level of our hollering only increased as Dad threatened because in our minds this was the end, we'd never see him or Mom again. Phillip started kicking the car door. Dad yanked him back. "Maybe I’ll get two pigs, I don’t know.” he said, looking frazzled.
While I was crying hysterically I also began wondering where a pig could be kept at our house. Our grandparents in Grants kept a pig but its pen was at the end of a long backyard. In Belen, Uncle Pete sometimes raised a pig. That pen was also well away from the house. So it could be done, I thought. With us gone, there just might be enough room in our small yard for a pig. I visualized Dad hard at work building a pen.
Trading kids for pigs to the Indians seemed like a real possibility since there were reservations Dad could easily drive to. We passed them on our frequent trips to visit his family in Grants. Traveling west from Albuquerque on Route 66 Dad would point them out.
“That’s Acoma. That’s Laguna. See the Indians?" Often we did see Indians, sitting in the back of pickup trucks with blankets wrapped around them or on the side of the road selling bread and pottery. Sometimes they could be seen far off in the hills on horseback, herding sheep or cattle into the corrals and pens that dotted the reservation landscape. From there it was only a short drive to Grandma’s home. What would she think if Dad showed up with a pig instead of us?
It was late when we arrived at the Freed's. Mom stood outside waiting for us and she looked really tired. She walked to the car and was shocked to see us crying and hysterical.
“What’s wrong with the boys?"she demanded.
Dad had no idea how to explain what happened. "I don’t know! he said irritably. "They just keep crying.”
“He wants to take us…. Indian ….reser va tion...pig!" Phillip sobbed.
"Pig!" I echoed from the back.
As soon as Mom sat down in the front seat Phillip threw his arms around her neck and wouldn’t let go. She struggled to free herself from his tight grasp so she could breathe while trying to calm him down. “It’s all right, son. It’s okay, we’re going home.” She looked accusingly at Dad. "What did you say to them?"
“Nothing! They didn’t want to come, is all. I had a hard time getting them into the car.” Dad was forced to defend himself all the way home. Now that Mom was with us I began to calm down. I was certain she would never allow us to be traded for a pig. Phillip remained concerned about our fate, however. Even after we arrived home he held on to Mom so tightly she had to carry him inside.
Dad wiped my tears away with his hands before lifting me out of the backseat. As we walked to the house I wondered if my father really wanted a pig or whether he’d been joking all along.
"You’re getting a pig?”
“I might!”
“How'll he get home?”
“I'll put him in the back seat with you,” Dad said with characteristic exaggeration. That was a relief. It meant we weren't going to be traded.
“I can hold him?”
“Yeah, you can hold him."
“Where’ll he live?”
“I'll build a pen."
“Like at Grandma's?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
“Where?”
“Probably by the tree.”
“Can I help?”
While I was talking I was thinking, ‘Boy, oh boy, a pig!’ I could hardly wait.
“Yeah,” Dad said in a low voice apparently not wanting to be overheard. “But don’t tell your mama we’re gonna get a pig.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because it’s a surprise.”
When we reached the door Dad used his thumb to press the tip of my nose back a little to make a snout. He smiled at my silly look.
“Oink,” he said.
I reached up. With the palm of my hand I did the same to him.
“Pig,” I answered and we both laughed.
Dad never did trade us for a pig but he liked to make us think he could. Eventually Phillip and I learned to take all his teasing in stride.
Years later I came to understand that underlying this episode was my father’s rural sense of humor as well as traditions and stories he’d grown up with. Dad's Native American grandmother for example, had been captured by Commanches when she was an adolescent. Hispanic villagers hunting buffalo on the great plains were approached by these same Commanches hoping to do some trading and the girl was offered. One of the villagers, a young man, traded a horse to free her from her captives. She went back with the hunting party to their village of Sena in northeastern New Mexico. Unable to say where she was from, she stayed with these new people and was assimilated into the Hispanic culture. Later she married her rescuer, Dad’s grandfather. Our family history is not unique. Most Hispanic families in New Mexico have their own stories of intermarriage with native people.
According to family lore one of Dad's great aunts was carried off by Indians when she was a child. Years later the captive was located at one of the pueblos, married and with children of her own. She refused the chance to return to her original family. To see her they had to go to the pueblo. Such stories were part of frontier life in New Mexico, a time in the not too distant past when human beings really had been kidnapped or exchanged for livestock and necessities.
That evening Mom heated water on the stove and when it was warm she poured it in the metal tub for our bath. Phillip was first. She scrubbed him down and washed his hair, ears and face and then rinsed him with clean water. Dad turned on the radio and we listened to our favorite Saturday night programs. After Phillip was dry and ready for bed Mom gave me my bath. In the warm water the alarming experience of nearly being traded for a pig faded. Clean and sleepy, I crawled into the small bed Phillip and I shared and quickly fell asleep.
I had a dream, one I have not forgotten. Actually, it wasn’t a dream but a metaphysical appearance. I was visited by a tall man with dark hair down to his shoulders. He had a forceful presence yet the look on his face was gentle and serene. His huge, translucent wings enveloped me. Thou Art, I was told. Accept who you are and what you are. I heard the words clearly though none were spoken. This spirit, I realized, had come to bring a message of hope, one that filled me with happiness and revealed what I already possessed but did not understand.
I awoke early and as I looked about the dark room my attention was drawn to the kitchen window. Outside, streaks of deep red and gold lit the early morning sky. In this moment between night and day a feeling came over me of blessedness, a sensation I internalized and could recall when needed from then on. Quietly I left the warm bed and climbed onto a kitchen chair to look at the horizon. In the west the morning star was shining brightly.
From her bed Mom spoke softly. "What are you doing, hito?"
I pointed outside. "A star."
"It's early," she whispered. "Go back to sleep."
I looked at the sky one more time before climbing off the chair and going to bed. But the vision and its message stayed with me and I couldn't go back to sleep.
It was a new day. Even when the morning star was no longer visible I knew it was there. Like the star, the winged guardian remains a bright presence in my memory. The sense of being watched over gave me self confidence. My fears of daily life, I now understood, could be overcome by relying on my inner strength. I could not control my parents’ arguments or the chaos that was part of our lives but I could survive them because I had a purpose to fulfill in my life.
Within the next few months it was to become clear Thou Art would have an additional significance and define my path to becoming an artist. The full meaning of those words would be revealed by another guide, one not of dreams but an older member of my mother's family.