Paddy & Dear Me

Out Of Exile – 1940 

Chapter 1

I never even knew I had a grandmother until Mom yanked me out of school. We ran down the empty hallway and stopped just inside the front door.

“Paddy, guess who’s waiting to meet you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your grandmother Amelia. She’s in the car.”
We rushed through the door and almost bumped into Mother Superior, arguing with two old nuns standing on the sidewalk. It was all in Portuguese, and they talked so fast I only picked up a few words. But who cares? They were so mad their cowls banged together. Maybe one would fall off and I’d find out if nuns really were baldheaded.

“Vergonhosho!” Mother Superior yelled.
I know that word. ‘Disgraceful.’ Kids hear it all the time at Holy Angeles school. Mother Superior pointed at a wrinkly old woman sitting in the back of our Chevy, sticking her tongue out at the nuns. It darted in and out like a snake’s, pushing past one yellow tooth on her upper gum.

Mom opened the passenger-side door and folded down the seat-back. “Do you want to sit with your Grandmother, Paddy?”

I pushed the seat upright and got in the front.

While Mom drove out of town, I watched Grandma through the space between the seat- backs. She was dressed all in black, widow’s weeds. Mom calls it, like what the Viuvash wear. They’re the old ladies without husbands who sit in the front pew at Mass. But they’re clean. Grandma’s all dusty and smells like smoke.

The witch in my coloring book is dressed all in black too, and she only has one front tooth. I used a whole black crayon on her, except her eyes and that tooth. I colored them red.

I turned to look out the windshield to see where we were, and when I turned back, eight bony fingers waved in my face like spider’s legs. Grandma was smiling, I guess. Her mouth stretched wide, and that yellow tooth seemed to point right at me. I like my coloring-book witch better.

The tires whirred as we crossed the metal grating on the American River bridge. This is my favorite place. When you come out of the trees along the river, you can see all the way across the valley to the High Sierras. The foothills come first. It’s late Spring now, and they’re usually covered with dead grass. Pop took me up there last year to see the cowboys drive cattle herds down from the summer pastures. We must have got the wrong day because all I saw was a tarpaper shack and miles of yellow grass.

After the foothills, you see the mountains, covered with trees. At the very top are five peaks, white in the winter. They look like they’re covered with snow in the summer, too. Pop says it’s because they’re made of gray granite and full of fools gold which makes them shine in the sunlight. I used to pretend they were magic mountains where dragons and other scary creatures live, just like in storybooks. We’re going camping there someday now that I know dragons are just make-believe. My favorite place doesn’t look too good today. A big grass fire burned up the foothills yesterday, and they’re all black. There’s still lots of smoke in the air; I can’t see the mountains at all.

It was dark when Pop got home from work. The cows were bellowing because their udders were full, so he went right to the barn to do the milking. I was sleeping on the ground in the backyard – Mom said it was good practice for my camping trip to the magic mountains.

Pop walked right by me with two full milk buckets, and I could hear him put them down in the kitchen and say hello to Mom. Then he must have done what he always does, peak around the homemade sheet made of flowered chicken-feed sacks that Mom hung in front of my bed. Pop likes to check that I’m breathing alright because I was sickly when I was little.

“What the Hell are you doing here?”

Oh, boy! I guess he didn’t get the message that Grandma was sleeping in my bed tonight. There’s only one phone in the hanger, and the mechanics are so busy keeping the airplanes flying, sometimes they forget to pass on messages.

Next thing I knew Grandma’s screaming and Pop’s yelling at her.

“Hush, Dale,” Mom said and pushed Pop onto the back porch. I guess she forgot I was sleeping right there because she didn’t whisper.

“Josef died yesterday,” Mom said. “Dear Me burned down the shack to signal to the valley that the Padrinho had passed. I think she wanted to make sure the Bishop couldn’t make her stay in exile by herself.”

I felt kind of sneaky spying on them like this. I started to fidget because the ground is hard, but if I make noise they’ll stop talking, and I might not find out who Dear Me is or what’s a padrino or… “

“Selfish bitch,” Pop said. “You know how many families she burned out?”
Mom was quiet for a minute. “I know, Dale, but you saw how they lived; a tarpaper shack ready to blow away; using dry cow pies for fuel. She sure couldn’t live there alone.”

“What about the church Home?”

“You know Father Anselmo can’t keep Dear Me there.”

“Well, where are we going to keep her?” Pop said. “The new house won’t be ready for months. We can’t pay the workers any faster.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Mom said. “Tomorrow’s the problem. She can’t be left alone.”

“Hell, no. She’ll burn this place down too.”

They didn’t talk for a while, then Mom said, “Paddy can miss school for one day; I’ll be home for the weekend.”

“Did you forget you work Saturdays?”

“Two days, then,” Mom said. “I’ll definitely be home Sunday.”

“A second grader babysitting a dotty old woman?” Pop said. “Not a good idea.” It sounded like Mom started to cry.

“Okay,” Pop said. “But Monday she’s gone. Right?” “Yes, dear.”

Oh, boy. No school tomorrow, and all I have to do is… Oh, no! “Mom,” I shouted. “What can Grandma eat? She’s only got one tooth.”

Chapter 2

Mom gave me instructions on how to take care of Grandma. “Don’t argue with her. She likes hot cereal because it’s easy to swallow. The most important thing is to stop her from walking to town.

“How?” I said.
“Tell her your father will beat you if she tries to run off,” Mom said.
“Pop wouldn’t do that.”
“I know,” Mom said, “but it’ll work with her. Get her to tell stories about when she was young. Most of them are lies, but she’s a great storyteller. And do your chores. We need butter for tomorrow.”

I checked on Grandma every once in a while I did my chores. I didn’t have to go inside because her snoring was so loud it made things rattle on the drain board. I was hosing myself off at the spigot by the back porch when she yelled, “I want mush!”

“Mush is for breakfast, Grandma,” I yelled back. “It’s lunchtime.”

She came onto the back porch, dressed in one of Mom’s old nightgowns. “Who says? You got a clock in your stomach?”

I went inside and opened the cabinet above the sink. “Okay, oatmeal or cream of wheat?” “Oatmeal,” Grandma said, “and I want it fried.”
“Huh?”
“Boil it first, then chop up onions, celery, sweet basil, marjoram… you got herbs, don’t you?
“Sure, Grandma, but… “
“Mix it all up and fry it, thick, like flapjacks,” she said. “Put butter on top so it melts.” “We don’t even have enough butter to fill tomorrow’s orders,” I said.
“Scrape a little off the bottom. Nobody will know.”
“That’s cheating!”

We finished eating, and I left the dishes to soak. Fried mush tastes pretty good. Kind of dry. Better with melted butter, I guess.

We live in a one-room chicken coop. Really. Mom doesn’t like me to call it that. After Pop fixed it up, she says it’s a cabin. It used to lean towards the road, but Pop made it stronger and put in windows and new tar paper on the roof. He built a screened-in back porch so we can get some air without mosquitoes bothering us. It’s alright to live in, for a while.

There used to be a big farmhouse out by the road. It burned down in a grass fire after the people that owned this place couldn’t pay the taxes. We’re building a new house on the foundation.

“Come on, Grandma. I’ll show you how to churn butter.”

“I made mantiega da cabra when I was younger than you. Real butter, from goats. It’s got a stronger taste.”

She pushed my hand away from the churn and started turning the crank. But she pooped out right away, and we took turns cranking the wooden paddles. Mom says I should always always be polite, so I had to figure a way to get Grandma to take a bath because she really stinks.

“Grandma, whenever you want, I’ll fetch water for you to take a bath.”

“I smell bad? You think I stink?” She started blessing herself in Portuguese and pounding her chest.

“No, Grandma. It’s just that your clothes smell like smoke.”

That calmed her down a little. Then I asked a question which I guess I shouldn’t have because she went right to bed and spent the rest of the day mumbling and crying and blessing herself.

What I had said was, “Grandma. Why did you burn down your shack?”

Chapter 3

Amelia Rosa Machado de Freitas didn’t give it a second thought when she set fire to the hovel she and the Padrinho had lived in for twenty years. It was just part of living in exile, like having to make sopash with beef jerky. It had been years since she had seen a pot roast or rolled a dry prig of summer savory on her fingertips to fill the kitchen with its weedy aroma.

Her day began with surveying the larder: six slices of beef jerky, some rice and a tin of olives and a piece of salted cod. That was it, and Father Anselmo wouldn’t bring their monthly rations for another four days.

Amelia decided on sopash and tell the Padrinho it was a feast day. He wouldn’t know the difference. She stoked the embers under the remaining sticks of firewood in the little cook stove and emptied the water cask into a cast-iron pot. When the water began to simmer, Amelia added the last of the jerky and a few sprigs wild yarrow, which she had convinced herself had the same tangy taste as summer savory.

A dust devil swirled through the door of the tarpaper shack. It settled over the old woman and the ersatz sopash like a shroud. Too late, Amelia banged the lid on the cast-iron pot which reverberated like a cracked bell tolling one o’clock in the shepherd’s hut.

“Que desonra!” She lifted the lid and skimmed what dust she could from the surface of the broth. “Disgraceful! Bad enough making sopash with jerky. Now it’s seasoned with half the hillside.”

Amelia bowed as low as her rheumy body allowed and made three quick signs of the cross. “Forgive me Father for committing the sin of Ungrateful–

“Amelia!” Josef Carvalho called from outside the hut. “Come and see my church before the clouds hide it. Hurry!”

Amelia’s shoulders drooped. She faced the heaven she knew hovered high above this shepherd’s hut and silently finished her plea for forgiveness.

“Coming, Padrinho.”

Josef Carvalho, the former leader of the Portuguese community, sat in a filthy overstuffed chair and pointed at the morning sun which had just cleared the crest of the High Sierras – to the east. “There, in the valley. St. Mary The Blessed!”

Amelia turned Josef’s chair to the west, towards the Sacramento Valley and away from the bright light, sure that the sun was to blame for the white film covering his eyes.

“Why do you move me, woman?”
“So you may see the rest of your properties, Padrinho.”
“Ah, very good. You see where the two rivers come together? That is where I showed everybody how to grow rice.”

“Yes, Padrinho.” Amelia envied Josef living in lush memories, where Anglos still bent the knee to him, Italians too, even the Irish scum. His fantasies protected him from the reality Amelia faced every day, excommunicated from the Church she loved, exiled to these barren foothills by the Bishop. A constant wind blew dirt through any crack in the walls it could find. Just to be mean, cattle drovers in the Spring and Fall guided the herds directly at the shack, leaving it quivering in a sea of brown backs, the beasts dropping cow pies everywhere, forcing her to watch her step for days until the manure dried.

Every New Years, when fireworks in the valley below woke her from a fitful sleep, she prayed until sunrise that this would be the year of forgiveness, only to be dejected when the first green shoots of grass spouted on their hillside.

Feeling ungrateful again, Amelia made continuous signs of the cross as she prayed, “No Nome do Pai, do Filho, e do Espirito Sanctus. And bless His Eminence for his charity in giving us shelter and for the dry manure the beasts of the field leave us because there is never enough firewood.”

Josef heard the words ‘His Eminence’ and assumed the posture of a grandee on his urine-stained throne, which smelled too ripe to keep in the hut.

“Has the Bishop come to pay his respects?”

“No Padrinho, it is just a prayer.” Amelia rubbed the small of her back with both

hands. “The sopash is simmering. I am going to rest for a while.”

“Yes, my dear. I will summon you if I need anything.”

Amelia made a sour face and went into the hut. She stirred the pot one more time and lay down on her straw pallet, trying to remember how beautiful their life was before their disgrace. But all her imagination could bring forth was a patchwork of green and tan, the colors she saw every day in the valley below.

She awoke to the smell of something burning. A thin plume of smoke rose from the cast-iron pot and drifted out the door. She hobbled to the stove and found that the broth had cooked away, leaving a black slurry bubbling on the bottom. Tears darkened the bodice of her threadbare smock as she limped into the sunlight to tell the Padrinho that God had punished them yet again for their sins.

Amelia’s tears stopped when she saw Josef Pedro Carvalho e Deogo do Horta laying face down in the dirt. She stared at the Padrinho’s body trying to comprehend why he wasn’t sitting where she had left him. Then a sense of relief flooded over her. She rubbed the crucifix on her rosary between thumb and index finger and began a prayer for the dearly departed.

Amelia returned to the cook stove and scooped-up the remaining coals with a ladle. Father Anselmo had laid a signal fire months before when Josef began to fail. Each month, when he brought supplies, the priest doused it with old motor oil and kerosene so there would be plenty of black smoke when Amelia had to light it. She hoped someone in the valley would at least tell her priest about it. Amelia knew none of those hypocrites would say a prayer.

She waited hours, saying the rosary over and over, but there was no response from the valley. With no water and few supplies left, Amelia decided to make sure someone saw the signal that the Pedrinho’s time had come. She stirred the embers of the signal fire, and with the tip of the stick burning brightly, limped to the hated tarpaper shack that more than anything else typified her fall from grace.

Amelia threw the flaming stick on her straw pallet and hurried out of the hovel. The flames caught, and soon the hut burst into flame, forcing Amelia to drag Josef’s body upwind of the falling cinders.

Father Frank Anselmo tried to keep the pick-up in the ruts, worn in the center of the stock trail after twenty-years of monthly supply trips to the herder’s shack. The recent cattle drive had churned the ground, filling the ruts. The grassfire blanketed the foothills in a layer of soot, making the track invisible. The priest stayed in second gear and kept a light touch on the gas pedal and the steering wheel, letting the truck find its way home like giving a horse its head on the way to the barn.

He glanced at Amelia sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead and still shivering after a night in the open.

“Where will I live?” she said, the exact words she had uttered twenty years before when Josef agreed to the compromise that living in exile was better than debtors prison. The Bishop hadn’t considered what would happen to Amelia and her three children, and here he was facing the same dilemma now. The Bishop had died long ago, but many of her enemies in the parish were alive. And Amelia was still an outcast.

“I haven’t spoken to Maria yet,” Father Anselmo said and gripped the steering wheel tighter at just the wrong moment. He felt the truck slip out of the invisible ruts to the right. Instinct came to his rescue. He turned the wheel into the slide before momentum forced the vehicle to turn sideways and a possible rollover. The truck settled back into the grooves with a jolt and Josef’s body, wrapped in a tarpaulin, rolled against the side of the pickup’s bed with a thump.

Amelia looked out the back window of the cab.

“I’m taking his remains to the county coroner,” Father Anselmo said, “then we go to the hospital,”

“No! I’m never going there again!” Amelia said.
“Yes, you are!”
“You want me to have a fit?” Amelia said.
Father Anselmo concentrated on driving.

“Silence. So there’s no place for me,” Amelia slumped in her seat, closed her eyes and began a prayer vigil by making the sign of the cross three times.

The priest began his own ‘not-so-silent’ prayer. “Thank God that was is the last trip,” he muttered, then immediately felt guilty about the inappropriate way to think of the dearly departed and began a prayer for forgiveness. “But why feel guilty?” he asked, again under his breath. He decided to put aside this recurring debate with himself, about the cause of Josef’s exile: the fraud, deceit, thefts, sexual scandals. He had failed to get Josef to at least acknowledge the harm he caused others, including his own humiliation. Father Anselmo had long accepted that the vile act was a test of faith that gave him strength, making him feel at one with all the martyrs and saints of the church.

They reached the paved road, and Father Anselmo turn the truck towards town. Amelia opened her eyes to see mile after mile of abandoned farms, with once-valuable equipment rusting in fallow fields, and irrigation ditches choked with weeds.

“What’s happened?” Amelia said. “Where is everybody?”

“Moved to town … or away. Folks couldn’t pay their mortgages, and the banks had to repossess. When the banks crashed the County foreclosed for back taxes.”

They approached Josef’s largest farm and the church he had built – St. Mary the Blessed – a lovely little Gothic structure in a grove of trees. Father Anselmo attempted to distract Amelia by pointing out other signs of despair. But she spotted the church, with its stained glass windows imported from Italy boarded up and her lush garden overtaken by weeds.

The priest was surprised that Amelia seemed happy, her wrinkled face taking on an

almost youthful look. She must be remembering the glory days, he thought, with Josef Carvalho standing straight and tall and handsome on the church steps, surveying the yard filled with the horse-drawn carriages and a few motor cars of the elite, coming to pay homage to the leader of the Portuguese community. She would be picturing herself standing off to the side with two boys and little Maria Rosa, then about eight years old. He knew this because he remembered the same scene. It was the first time he met the Padrinho.

The sound of Amelia weeping brought the priest back to the present. How was he going to break the news to Maria that her mother had no place to live.

Chapter 4

Pop didn’t come home last night. Sometimes he sleeps on a cot in the hangar because the mechanics have to work hard to keep old airplanes flying. New ones are sent to England to fight the Huns.

Usually, on Saturday mornings, I go with Mom to sell our extra butter and eggs at the courthouse. I get to keep twenty-five cents to spend on whatever I want. The rest of the money goes in the bank, which is okay. Pop says they’re safe now. But today, Mom is going to make my deliveries to the ladies she works with because I have to babysit Grandma. She ate breakfast with us, then went back to bed.

“There’s enough batter for one more flapjack, Grandma,” I said.

“I want it,” she answered, “with two eggs. Now pay attention. You must turn the eggs just once, careful, so the yokes don’t break.”

I thought I did a good job with the eggs. Golden brown. None of the yokes leaked out.

Grandma took one bite. “They’re too runny. Put them back on the griddle, half a minute on each side.”

While I was fooling around with her eggs my flapjacks got cold, so I crowded them onto the griddle.

“Careful! Don’t squish my eggs!”

“Okay, okay.” I eased the eggs onto her plate. Grandma took a bite and I guess the eggs passed the test because she pushed her lips in and out and the corners of her mouth stretched towards her ears a little. “Grandma, does Mom call you ‘Dear Me’ sometimes?”

She gummed her eggs for a minute before answering. “When your mother was little, life was hard. I prayed a lot for strength and finished with a blessing making the sign of the cross and saying, ‘O, Jesus; O, Jesus; O, Jesus.’”

It sounded like she said ‘Ah Zezoosh’ three times, real fast, like a long sneeze. I finally figured out she was saying, ‘Oh Jesus,’ like the Mexican kids say it. Pop says speaking Portuguese is just like Spanish if you’ve got mush in your mouth.

Grandma looked at her empty plate for a minute. ”Maria always repeated every word I

said, over and over.”

“Who’s Maria?” I said.
“Your mother. I don’t like the Anglo way of saying it. Now be quiet or no story.” “Yes, Grandma.”
“When your mother asked me what it meant, I was afraid she would say ‘O Jesus, O Jesus, O Jesus’ in front of the nuns and they might think she was cursing. So I told her it meant, ‘Oh Dear Me.’ As I expected, she said it over and over. People thought it was funny and started calling me that.”

Grandma looked at me for a minute, then said. “You may call me ‘Dear Me’ if you want. I like hearing it again.”

“Okay, Dear Me. Now tell me why you lived in the foothills?”
”I don’t want to talk about that,” she said.
“Pop said you burned down your shack on purpose.”
“It was an accident,” Grandma mumbled and blessed herself. “So many questions.” “That’s how I learn stuff. Who’s Josef?”

“The Padrinho, now that’s all!”
We didn’t talk for a while, maybe three minutes. “What’s a padrinho?” I asked. “Padrin-ho! Say the ‘H.”
“Okay…padrin-Ho. What is it?”
Grandma stopped wiping her plate with the last of the flapjack. She smiled a little and I

could hardly see any wrinkles on her face.
“Padrinho is a sort of a patron, no he’s more than that. Josef was… ’O Sabio’… yes, the

Wise One. People would bring him problems: with their businesses, their families. He’d give them advice, lend them money, settle family disputes.”

Grandma dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Josef was so handsome, tall and distinguished. He had beautiful black hair and a proper half-moon mustache for a gentleman. Josef was a great man.”

Chapter 5

Besides babysitting Dear Me, Mom told me to water the fruit trees, starting with the olive trees out front. One of Pop’s favorite things is to work on those trees on Sunday mornings and wave at people going to Mass. Protestants, too. He says they’re all hypocrites, except me and Mom, and as a proper Scots-Irish atheist he feels obligated to aggravate people who believe in God, wherever he finds them.

She wishes he’d stop and wants to try something new. “Your father has pruned the trees all he can.”

“He might kill them if he cuts any more,” I said.
“The only thing left for him to do tomorrow would be to irrigate them,” Mom said. “If

you water them good today, it might stop him from working out front in the morning.”

“That’s a great idea, Mom.”

Pop hates wasting water more than anything else. That’s why he’s cautious about what we plant because we only have a forty-foot well and it goes dry sometimes.

“If we can’t eat it, we’re not putting water on it,” Pop says all the time.

I had filled the ditches around five of the olive trees when I saw a dust cloud coming

towards me from town. It was small and moving slow so it couldn’t be a car. I didn’t pay any attention until a big dirt clod landed near me. I looked up a saw Guido and his friends, the bullies at school. Why’d they ride all the way out here?

“Where’s the whore, Paddy,” Guido shouted. They all started chanting, “Where’s the whore? Where’s the whore?” and threw more dirt clods at me.

I tried spraying them with the hose but couldn’t hold my thumb steady against the water pressure and got more on me than the bullies.

Guido shouted something in Italian, and they all hopped on their bikes and peddled fast for town, laughing and saying bad words in English.

I heard someone running behind me. “Paddy! Why were those kids throwing dirt clods at you?”

It was David Watson, my best friend. He goes to public school and we’re in the same grade. He’s really big because he was held back twice. David grew up on a farm in Oklahoma and bucked bails of hay and did other stuff that made him strong. He must have really scared Guido. That’s why they left in a hurry.

“They’re the bullies. They do dumb stuff all the time,” I said. “When I fill this last ditch, I need your help with the treehouse.”

I’m building a secret hiding place in a big acacia by our grape arbor. It’s got leaves all year round, and if Pop cuts off one branch, I’ll be able to see planes land and take off at the airfield where he works. All I need is someone to hold the boards in place while I hammer the nails.

“Sure,” David said.

Even though he lives down the road, his father won’t allow David to come onto our property. They’re Holy Rollers and we’re Catholic, well, me and Mom are Catholic.
It’s weird. Preacher Watson – he’s not a real preacher, we just call him that. He lets me play with David at their place. They even took me to an evening service once when they were babysitting me. It was great fun, people shouting and singing and twitching on the floor. Not like Mass where you have to kneel and be quiet all the time.

I told a couple of friends about it, and they tattled to the nuns. Going inside a Protestant church is only a venial sin, but jeez, at my next confession, old Father Anselmo gave me double penance: ten Hail Marys, five Our Fathers and who ever heard of saying two Acts of Contrition!

Because he’s older, David knows a lot of swear words. “What’s a whore? I said.“

“A woman who has lots of men friends.”

I thought maybe Guido had been talking about Dear Me, but she doesn’t have any friends at all.

We just got the platform nailed down when I heard Preacher Watson’s old Whippetmotor car.

“Your father!”

David almost fell out of the tree. If his father catches him here, David will get an extra whipping. He already gets one every night at bedtime to protect him from the devil taking over his soul while he sleeps.

When David left, I found Dear Me sitting on her bed, looking out the window. “The pomegranate tree needs water,” she said.

Pop hates that tree. “It takes more water than any other tree. And you can starve to death picking out all those little seeds.”

Mom doesn’t care. She always says, “It’s still edible. Keep watering it, Paddy.” Which I better do right now. The leaves are really drooping. “The pomegranate tree is

my next chore, Grandma.”
“What happened to “Dear Me?” “Yes, ma’am. Dear Me.”

I finished watering the fruit trees in the back. We’ve only got a dozen. They’re too hard to grow in the Valley because of the hardpan. That’s a layer of dried-out clay under the topsoil. It’s like cement. Pop had to use dynamite to break it up so the roots can reach into the damp dirt. I dragged the hose to the pomegranate tree again because it needed a double-dose. That’s when I saw the slow-moving dust cloud… again.

Oh, crap!

“Look at the little bastard!” Guido jeered when he got in front of the house. “Where you hiding the old whore, Paddy?”

They dropped their bikes and called me ‘evil seed’ and things in Italian I didn’t understand. I didn’t move, just stared at them. I learned at school to never let them see I was afraid, and never run away. It wouldn’t do any good anyway; they’re bigger and faster than me. Anyway, they were just showing off for each other.

But they rushed me, and I fell against the pomegranate tree and peed my pants. Before I could get up, I heard David shouting and a woman screaming. I looked up and saw David running towards us, waving his long arms and yelling like a giant monster. At the same time, Dear Me charged out of the house swinging a broom and screeching like a crazy lady. The bullies mounted up and aimed their bikes for town – fast. At a safe distance, Guido stopped and yelled, “See you at school, whore bastard.”

David helped me up.
“I wet my shorts,” I said. “The dark spot in my crotch really shows.”

David picked up the hose and sprayed me all over. “Now your shorts are all the same color.”

Oh well, it’s hot. I’ll dry fast.

I had forgotten about Dear Me. She was on her knees, sobbing and praying over the pomegranate tree.

“Don’t worry, Grandma… Dear Me. It’s not dead. See, the roots aren’t broken. I’ll stake it and water it every day.” I didn’t seem to be doing any good, but I tried again, “I promise. It’ll be all right.”

I wonder what’s so important about a pomegranate tree? Mom wastes water on it; Dear Me has a fit over it.

Dear Me calmed down, just whimpering a little. Me and David got her to bed; then we sat on the back porch.

“Thanks, David. They really were going to whup me this time.” “Why’d they call you all those bad names?” David said.
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s the old whore?” David asked.

“Grandma’s the only old woman I know. But she doesn’t have any men friends.” “She wasn’t always old,” David said.

Chapter 6

I thanked David for helping me. I’m really sorry he’s going to get an extra beating for doing it. He just shrugged.

I came inside and found Dear Me huddled in a ball, her arms wrapped tight around her knees. She gasped once, long and loud. I think she stopped breathing.

“Grandma, grandma,” I yelled in her ear.

She flinched, and whispered, “Maria… call your mother, Patricio… call her… Pressa! Pressa!”

I jiggled the phone hook and gave the operator Mom’s work number. The lady that answered said Mom was in the basement and she’d send someone to fetch her.

Dear Me unwound herself and lay flat on her back. “Patricio, meu rosario?”

Her rosary beads were in her apron pocket, but her arms didn’t work right. I got them out for her. She grabbed my hand, and her eyes opened wide. “Meu do beb? Eu te amo Enrique.”

“I love you too, grandma. But it’s me, Paddy, not your baby Henry.”

Uncle Henry is Mom’s little brother. He stayed with us for a while after he got fired for sassing his boss at the railroad shops. Now he lives in crummy hotels and hobo jungles.

Mom finally got on the line, and I told her about Dear Me. “Dear Me’s cuckoo, Mom. She thinks I’m her baby Henry.”

Dr. Pearson got here first. He asked Dear Me some questions and poked around, but couldn’t find anything wrong. “You’ve got to keep her calm, Paddy.”

Oh, boy!

Then Father Anselmo pulled into the yard. As soon as Dear Me saw him, she started wailing, like the old ladies at funerals. “Eu sou morrendo– “

“You’re not dying, Amelia.” Father Anselmo said.

“Ultimas direitas, favore.”

“I can’t give you the last rites; you know that!”

Dear Me yelled louder and spittle flew from her mouth. She talked so fast I couldn’t understand what she said, except she had to see her baby Henry before she died. Father Anselmo didn’t say much, but his face got pale. Dr. Pearson watched him more than he did Dear Me.

A sudden shout surprised all of us. “Shut up, Mother!”
We didn’t hear Mom come in, what with all the noise Dear Me was making.
Dr. Pearson whispered a couple of words to Father Anselmo, who nodded and moved his

chair closer to Dear Me. “Let us pray, my child.”
I laughed at Dear Me being called a child. Father Anselmo gave me that ‘double penance look and his face got kinda pink. Mom and the doctor moved away from the bed. “Outside, Paddy,” Mom said. I ran out the back door and circled around to a window.

“You’re sure nothing’s wrong with her, Dr. Pearson?” Mom said.
Father Anselmo joined them and asked, “Nothing organically wrong?”
“Not that I can find,” the doctor said. “But changing from an austere life in the hills to eating real food has to affect her body. The excitement of being around people too, like the stimulation of the fight today– “

“What fight,” Mom asked.

“A boy named Guido and his friends were bothering Paddy,” the doctor said. “Amelia got involved, with a broom. And she wants to see your brother.”

Oh, crap!
I’ve got lots of relatives on Mom’s side of the family, but we don’t see them enough to

remember their names. Except for Aunt Theresa and Uncle Angelo; Mom likes them a lot. We see everybody else at weddings, funerals and Holy Ghost picnic. That’s where the richest farmer donates a steer to the parish. A butcher cuts it up, and the church ladies make sopash, chunks of beef in a spicy broth served with a big piece of French bread floating on top.

When Uncle Henry got fired at the Southern Pacific shops – the foreman didn’t like taking instructions from an apprentice on how to fix locomotives – Henry became a hobo. He looks for work when he feels like it.

“Do you remember what your Uncle Henry looks like?” Mom said. “Sure,” I said, “but just in case, do you have his picture?”

The first time we had to look for Uncle Henry, it was because someone was locked up in the nut house. “Who do we know that’s crazy, Mom?”

“Nobody,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“When we looked for Uncle Henry the first time. It was at the booby hatch.”
“You were so little I thought maybe you forgot.” Mom didn’t talk for a while, then she said,

“That was Dear Me.”
The only thing I remember about the place was this old lady that tried to hug me, thought I was her baby. “You mean she’s really nuts?”
“Dear Me is not crazy,” Mom said. “Father Anselmo or the sexton used to take Dear Me

and Josef their supplies once a month. If one of them was sick, they’d be brought to the hospital. The time you remember, her teeth were rotten and poisoning her blood. She only had one good tooth left and she wouldn’t let them pull it. Dear Me made such a fuss they took her to the psychiatric ward. The doctors finally gave up and let her keep it.”

Mom handed me the picture of Uncle Henry. Just like I remembered: big and strong like

Pop, but he doesn’t have a beer belly. And he’s got this big mustache and lots of black hair. Pop shaves every day like he did in the Army and his hair died because he had to wear a helmet in the tropics.

“I guess we’ll start at the Rio Vista,” Mom said. “If he has any money, he’ll be there. Oh crap!

Chapter 7

The Rio Vista is a dump. It’s on the Lower End, Sacramento’s waterfront. Pop says the area is full of pickpockets, panhandlers, thieves, murderers, rapists and child molesters. Mom says if he knew we were here, he’d have ‘a cat with a paper tail.’ That’s some kind of fit.

In the olden days, the streets and the alleys were on the same level. When the snow melted in the mountains in Spring, the whole place flooded. Levees were built along the river, and the streets were filled in. The entrances to most buildings were moved to what used to be the second floor. Not the Rio Vista. The front door stayed in the cobblestone alley. It slopes down to what’s the basement level in all the other buildings.

Mom parked on Front Street, at the top of the alley. “Now don’t talk to strangers, just the room clerk.”

“He’s the strangest one there.”
“I know, just get in and get out, you understand.”
“You bet.” I closed the passenger door. “Lock it, Mom.”
“Don’t worry,” she said.
The sun never shines in the alley because the buildings are tall. The cobblestones are

slippery, and you’ve got to be careful walking down the slope.
Two bums picked their way down the incline from Second Street. They saw me and tried

running towards me, but I was on the flat ground now and beat them to the door, which is on a stoop, high enough for garbage cans to slide underneath. They yelled bad words at me and pulled one of the cans from under the stoop.

I kept right on running up the stairs, without taking time for a deep breath. Big mistake. They must have burned sulfur candles to kill vermin. My eyes and throat started burning. Then halfway to the top, I slipped on a slimy spot and tumbled all the way to the bottom and banged against the front door.

“Who’s down there?”
Oh, crap. It’s the creepy room clerk.
“It’s Paddy, Mr. Spencer,” I said and opened the door a crack for a couple deep breaths. “Is

my Uncle here?”
“What’s that Paddy? I can’t hear you too good. You better come up.”

Horse Mickey! He can hear me fine, just wants to get close to me.
“Are you coming up Paddy?”
“Right away, Mr. Spencer.”

I looked up the stairs and couldn’t see anyone in the tiny lobby, so I pounded up the steps

again, side-stepped the slick spot and made it to the top. But I tripped on the threadbare carpet and ended up sprawled against the room clerk’s counter.

Mr. Spencer leaned over and smiled. “You’re sure having a hard time staying on your feet today, Paddy.”

His teeth had green gunk around the edges, and his breath made me forget the sulfur smell.

“Mr. Spencer, is my Uncle Henry here?”
“My, look how much you’ve grown.”
He reached out to help me up. I thought. But after his hand chucked me under the chin, it

slid down my shirt front and under my belt buckle.
“Don’t touch my wiener!” I yelled and bobbed to the right.
“Leave the boy alone, Frank.” A harsh whisper came from the only chair in the lobby. It

was an old soldier who’d been gassed in the war. “Henry’s over to Jibboom Street, Paddy. Now git.”

I backed towards the stairs, thinking Mr. Spencer had forgotten me when I heard him say, “It’s a shame sending a nice boy like that to hobo jungles. They’re crawling with Commies and union scum. Railroad bulls don’t put up with it at Jibboom Street.”

“No more dangerous than standing in front of you, Carl Spencer,” the old soldier said.

The clerk spun around and tried to grab me. I hit the stairs running with him the right on my heels. Just before I got to the bottom, I grabbed the rickety railing. My feet went out from under me and Mr. Spencer flew past, hit the front door hard, did a flip over the stoop railing and landed on the two bums who wrestled over something they’d found while rooting through the garbage cans.

I slipped past them and made good time on the flat. But when I started up the incline to Front Street, I couldn’t get traction on the mossy cobblestones and wasn’t doing much more than running in place. I was sure the clerk would catch me.

I sneaked a quick look over my shoulder, and relaxed. Mr. Spencer and the bums were thrashing around on the cobblestones, punching and yelling at each other: the clerk mad about the mess the bums made; the hobos crying over their lost meal.

Mom saw me coming and threw open the passenger door. “Trouble?”

“A little,” I said, my breathing almost back to normal. “Uncle Henry’s at Jibboom Street.” I was scared. It never was safe for Mom to go in these places. We thought I could run fast enough to stay out of trouble. I wasn’t so sure now. People were getting meaner. “Mom, I don’t want to come here anymore.”
She didn’t say anything, just popped the clutch and we climbed the levee road.

Chapter 8

In summer, Uncle Henry lives for free in hobo jungles. His favorite is a piece of bottom land with rivers on two sides and railroad tracks on the third. It’s close to town where he might find work. Best of all, he says that if the railroad police come to clean the place out, he can hop a freight and get away fast.

The bad thing about Jibboom Street is that every spring the rivers overflow. They can’t carry the melting snow from the mountains to San Francisco Bay fast enough. But when the flood waters go down, and the ground dries out, people collect the trash that got stuck in the bushes and rebuild their shanties.

Families camp in the front, by the road. Bad men like the back because when the police attack, the women and children make such a ruckus they have time to escape. Other people camp in between. That’s where I’ll find Uncle Henry. If he’s here.

The family area was crowded this year, but quiet, the children huddled together. And there weren’t any men around.

I recognized one lady. Her shanty this year had a red and white shaving cream sign for a

roof. The walls were flattened cardboard cartons tied to a driftwood frame with rusty wire. The cardboard was shiny, so I guess they waterproofed it with used motor oil. Rags hung across the open front, trying to hide their possessions, which looked like more rags to me. Last year they had lots of stuff. They were the rich Okies, with two mattresses tied on the top of their car.

“Hello, ma’am. Do you remember me?“

The lady looked up from changing a baby’s diaper, which was faded and looked like a piece of the same chicken feed sack Mom makes curtains out of, the one with the big flowers. “You that Portagee’s kin?” the lady said.

“Yes ma’am, I’ve got to find him. His mother’s dying.” “He’s in the back with the men and that no-account preacher.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What kind of a preacher, ma’am?”

“One of those shouters, fire-and-brimstone Holy Rollers. Sounds like he’s runnin’ for political office, too.”

“This preacher wouldn’t be Mr. Watson, would it ma’am?”

“That’s who it is. Wait a minute. The Portagee said his people had trouble with Watson. You the people he’s talkin’ about?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s us.”

“Well, you can hear him hollerin’ from here. But don’t go back there; you’ll be today’s martyr. Preacher Watson ain’t got the gumption to send a grown man to perdition!”

David’s father is a janitor at the Fox Theater, and he’s some kind of deacon at the Pentecostal Church. David says they won’t let give sermons anymore because he doesn’t make any sense, just noise. Now he saves souls in the hobo jungles and tent cities called ‘Hoovervilles.’ Pop says that’s okay because his hollering takes peoples minds off their troubles, and nobody cares if his sermons mix up Jesus with Communists.

Even though Mr. Watson won’t let David come over to play, our families got along until Pop threw a bottle of beer at Mr. Watson and broke his windshield. What happened, it was a Sunday morning, and Pop was out front worrying the olive trees and waving at church-goers as usual. He had on his regular farm clothes: lace-up clodhoppers; baggy shorts, no belt, the button straining against his belly. That’s it. No shirt, no socks, no underwear.

Mr. Watson was on his way to services, alone, and he was really angry. The whole family usually goes with him, but David told me later that his mother was sick, and they had an argument. She finally yelled that she didn’t feel up to going to services just to watch Mr. Watson take the collection in a side aisle.

Mr. Watson got so mad he took it out on David, giving him his daily whipping early, shouting that David was controlled by the Devil. He brought his belt down harder and harder on David’s bare backside until Mr. Watson was splashed with David’s blood and had to change to his other shirt, which wasn’t ironed, and Mrs. Watson wouldn’t do it.

So, when Mr. Watson chugged by in his old Whippet, shouting bible verses, Pop acted cheerful and yelled, “Have a beer, Reverend,” like he usually does, and held up a Lucky Lager.

Instead of ignoring Pop, like he usually does, Preacher Watson shouted, ”There stands the anti-Christ incarnate,” and aimed the nose of his motorcar at Pop’s belly button. “I will strike a blow for Jesus with my terrible Swiss sword!”

By mistake, he tromped on the brakes and the gas at the same time. The car stalled, and its

16

rear end slid around, blocking traffic on the dirt road. With the Whippet refusing to be his sword, Preacher Watson yelled and leaped at Pop, whacking him across the nose with his bible.

Pop went down with a roar, both from surprise, I guess, and the sand burrs stuck to his hairy back. David’s father jumped back into the car and get it started just as a full bottle of beer shattered his windshield. He rounded the first parked car with Pop in pursuit, looking like a bear in my coloring book, chasing his first meal in Spring.

I haven’t seen Preacher Watson since.

All of the men in the camp were in a clearing surrounded by scrub willows. I slipped into the trees not realizing that most of their women were right behind me.

Preacher Watson stood on a stump working hard at saving souls. The men just muttered and shifted around like a herd of horses with a storm coming.

The women began thinning out the crowd, getting their men-folk out of harm’s way. Soon, I didn’t have anybody to hide behind.

“There’s the son of the anti-Christ,” Mr. Watson screamed. “Smote him where he crawls with the jaw bone of an ass!” And he came right at me with his bible raised.

Just as I was about to get what Pop got, a tall man stepped in the Preacher’s way. “Stand aside!” Preacher Watson yelled. “I must defend my flock from evil!” “This is my nephew,” Uncle Henry said. “He’s going to be an altar boy.”

Suddenly, cries of “The Bulls! The Bulls!” came from the front. Big men swinging ax handles came running towards us, hitting everybody they could catch and kicking the ones that fell. Preacher Watson headed for the railroad tracks where he’d parked his car.

“Forget this bunch,” shouted a huge man dressed in a khaki uniform with a badge pinned to his chest. “Get the preacher.”

The giant turned and pointed his ax handle right at me. “There’s the kid; don’t hurt him.” He picked me up and ran towards the front. “Stay close, Portagee!” he shouted over his shoulder.

The camp was destroyed. Women huddled in a circle and cried with their kids, except the ones lying on the ground that didn’t move.

Mom waited by the Chevy, doors open, motor running, twisting a rosary in her fingers. “He’s all right ma’am,” the giant said, “but you best leave quick like.”
Me and Uncle Henry piled into the car.
The giant shouted after us, “Find another camp, Portagee. This one’s closed permanent.”

On the way home, I shot rapid-fire questions at Uncle Henry. “Who were those big men?”

“Sheriffs deputies, railroad Bulls.”
“Why were they hitting people, busting up the camp?”

“The preacher was talking sedition.”
“What’s sedition?”
“That’s enough for now, Paddy,” Mom said. “Henry, we can’t come looking for you anymore.”
“No, it’s too dangerous,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking about Arizona.”
“What’s in Arizona? They’re all coming here for the war plant jobs.”
“Nothing’s there, but the summer lasts longer, and there’re too many bad people here.

The Bulls don’t leave us alone anymore.” “You could get a job,” Mom said.

Uncle Henry scowled and watched the scenery go by. No one spoke until we got home. Dear Me lay on her bed, looking all helpless and weak. Then she spotted her baby Henry, and I saw the first step in a miracle recovery.

Dear Me smiled.

Chapter 9

Uncle Henry slept here last night, in the backyard, next to me. It was still dark when Mom started yelling, “She’s gone! Paddy, wake up!”

I looked out from under my blanket. “Who?”
“Henry, get up,” Mom said. “Dear Me’s not in her bed!”
“That’s my bed!”
“Oh Paddy, not now,” Mom yelled louder. “Henry! Are you awake?” “Yes, yes.”

I didn’t he sounded awake.
“Where would she go?” he finally said.

“Dear Me wanted to go to early Mass,” Mom said. “I think she’s walking to town.” Six miles? Wow!
“Paddy, did you tell her that Father Anselmo officiates the early Mass?” Mom said. “No. We didn’t talk about church.”

“The Packers Mass has always been his,” Uncle Henry said.

That’s the first Mass of the day, for people working in the meat packing plants and canneries.

The tea kettle whistled and Mom went inside to make her coffee. I followed. ”Just feed the animals, Paddy. Mr. Meadows will do the milking. Leave some eggs for him.”

“Again? When’s Pop coming home?” “Move, Paddy. We’ll talk the car.”

By the time we left, it was false dawn, with the first streak of purple light above the horizon getting wider. We were almost to the trees along the river before we saw Dear Me. She looked like a black shadow, hunched over a little, but boy, could she walk fast!

Mom leaned over and shouted out my window. “Get in the car, Mother.” “Will you take me to Mass?”
“You know you can’t go in the church,” Mom said.
“I’ll stay in the vestibule,” Dear Me said.

“That’s still under the roof of God’s house, remember?”
Dear Me stopped talking and started walking — to town.
“Come on, Mom,” I said. “Dear Me and Father Anselmo are old friends. Maybe she’ll see

some other people she knows.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mom said.
Mom had the car in low gear and tried to drive at the same speed Dear Me walked. But to

keep from stalling, Mom would give it a little gas, and we’d shoot ahead. Then Dear Me would pass us, and Mom would plead some more and tap the gas pedal and we’d pull ahead again.

“Stop the car, Mary,” Uncle Henry said when we pulled ahead again. He got out and took Dear Me’s hand. “Would you like to ride with me, Mother?”

Dear Me looked up at him and smiled. It was just like yesterday when she hadn’t seen her baby Henry for a long time and cried, “Meu do beb? Eu te amo Enrique.”

When we got to the church, Mom said they would stay in the car until the last minute. “You go ahead to confession, Paddy. We’ll be all right.”

“But it’s hot out here,” I said.
“Paddy, go to confession.”
“But I think… ”
“Stop being such a worry-wart, Paddy. You’re going to be an old man before I’m an old

woman.”
“But, Mom… ” “Go!”

I got stuck last in line at the confessionals. As soon as I said my Act of Contrition, I quick- walked up the center aisle, eyes down, hands in a praying position, doing everything just right because I didn’t want to lose being in the state of grace. I almost had a sinful thought when I had to take the worst seat in the church: first pew on the aisle, where you had to stand up in front of everybody and lead a prayer sometimes.

I hadn’t even finished genuflecting when the whispers started. The whole front section on the pulpit side of the church was filled with old ladies dressed in black, the Viuvash. Wow! They never come in a bunch like this to Packer’s Mass.

One old lady smiled at me and blew a kiss. Then she whispered something to her neighbor, who passed it on with a smile. Another one spotted me and leaned forward with a mean look on her face. She said something to her neighbor, kind of loud. I heard that word again: whore. Then all the old ladies chattered and pointed at each other and made signs of the cross over and over. Father Anselmo started Mass, and everybody shut up. I forgot about the Viuvash.

I love Communion. It’s doing something to touch Jesus, not just words that you have to remember just right, or when to say them. I knelt at the altar rail and watched Father Anselmo work his way towards me, one confessor’s tongue after another flicking out to accept the Holy Eucharist, Body of Christ.

Father Anselmo finally stopped in front of me. I opened my mouth wide enough so the wafer wouldn’t touch my teeth, and let my tongue slide over my lower lip. And I waited, mouth open, eyes closed.

Someone started singing a high note in the back of the church. I looked up at Father Anselmo who was holding the wafer close to the tip of my tongue. He looked toward the vestibule to see who was making the noise. We must have figured out who it was about the same time because he put the wafer back in the chalice and I closed my mouth. We looked at each other for a moment. He looked really sad; I think I did too.

The singing turned into wailing and sobbing and Dear Me cried out ‘Josef’ a lot of times. All the Viuvash stood and turned toward the back. They must have spotted Dear Me because they started pointing and yelling. Father Anselmo walked toward the pulpit. The Viuvash bunched up along the rail, I guess to protect him from evil.

The old lady who blew me a kiss said something harsh to the mean old lady who had said ‘whore.’ The whole bunch split into two groups and began shouting at each other. Then the mean Viuvash limped towards me, yelling and shaking their fists.

Father Anselmo opened the gate in the altar rail and pushed his way through the old ladies. He shoved me towards the back of the church and raised his voice, not the scratchy old man’s voice I was used to. Now it was loud and bounced around the stone walls and high ceiling of St. Mary The Blessed and showered down on the Viuvash like instructions from God. “Sit Down!”

Chapter 10

Mom took Uncle Henry back to town last night after we got Dear Me settled. I had to sleep on the ground by myself again. It’s getting kinda boring.

Pop came home the next morning. I don’t know why he tries to be quiet when he fetches the milk pails from the back porch. His Model A makes so much a racket it wakes up everybody anyway.

I walked with him to the barn. “Why don’t you come home after work? I miss you. Mom misses you. I bet Dear Me would miss you if she knew you.”

“Paddy… “

“And Mr. Meadows is taking all the extra milk and eggs and Dear Me eats so much we won’t be able to fill our orders and… ”

“Paddy, stop talking.” Pop opened the barnyard gate. “Put hay in the trough.”

Pop brought the cows into the milking stalls and started talking before I could say a single word. “Your grandmother and I know each other very well. We’ve got problems that I can’t fix. It’s best if I stay away from here for a few days to give your mother a chance to work things out.”

“How long will that take?””
“I don’t know,” Pop said. “Now go take care of the chickens, Paddy.”
Mom and Pop were talking outside the barn when I finished. I started to join them. “Go to the house, Paddy,” they said almost at once.
I joined Dear Me at the back window. Nothing much was going on, except Pop talked

more than Mom, which was different, because Mom does most of the talking when they fuss. Finally, Mom reached up and kissed Pop, then picked up the milk pails and walked toward

the house. Pop headed for his car. Me and Dear Me got busy doing something besides spying. Mom poured the milk into the cooler container and handed me the buckets. She had tears

running down her cheeks.
“Rinse them out, Paddy.”
“When’s Pop coming home?”
“I don’t know,” Mom said, and went to work.