Burro Genius

by Victor Villaseñor

  Then, also, I don’t exactly know why, but this was just about the same time when I began to draw stars. A teacher would be yelling at us, punishing one of my vatos-amigos, and I’d begin to draw a star. A five-pointed star. Then I’d color in the star with blue and a little bit of green. Soon this was all I did all day long, especially when things weren’t going very well. I’d start drawing stars—five-pointed ones, then six-pointed stars, then I’d color them in with blue and green and little touches of red or yellow.

  The blue and green made me feel real good inside. And the red and yellow seemed to somehow warm me deep inside, like the Father Sun. Soon, I really don’t know how to explain any of it, but it felt as if I was creating a magic opening for myself—by drawing these stars—because then, when I’d colored a star, it would feel like I’d somehow magically jumped into it and be gone.

  A couple of times, I hadn’t even heard the teacher call on me, I’d been so far away, traveling through the Heavens in my star. This my mamagrande had also taught me—that people could star-travel, because that was what human beings really were, Walking Stars having come to Mother Earth to do Papito Dios’ Holy Work, just like our big Brother Jesus.

  When I finished the second grade, I got transferred to the brand-new school in South Oceanside on Cassidy Street. This school felt a lot safer for me, because it was so close to our rancho grande on California and Stewart Streets that I knew I could run home anytime if I wanted. Also, I noticed that there were hardly any other Mexican kids going to this school. Everyone was an Anglo, and I wondered why, but I didn’t ask.

  This year, I let my mother take me to Penney’s to buy school clothes for me, and my first few days at this new school in South Oceanside were wonderful. I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me, and so none of the kids knew I was stupid and made fun of me. This was really good, so I quickly made friends with a boy who lived up California Street from us, and his family owned the biggest bakery in the whole world in downtown Oceanside right on Mission Street, about five blocks up from the pier. Every day this kid brought cream puffs to school. I’d never had a cream puff before in all my life. At home, all we ever got to eat was the same old stuff: dirty ranch eggs straight from the chicken coop, lots of homemade tortillas, freshly made salsa, carne asada, great big avocados, tons of vegetables off our fields, weekly homemade cheese, and then, of course, all the fresh orange juice and lemonade you could drink.

  We never got anything really good like cream puffs. The closest thing I’d ever had to a cream puff was capirotada—which was bread and cheese and tortillas, baked for hours with honey and raisins. But this was nothing like a cream puff—and hell, we only got capirotada once a year after our Catholic celebration of Lent. And then, of course, buñelos, during the Christmas season, were the only other sweet thing that we ever got. “Eat figs, eat oranges, if you want something sweet,” my mother would tell us.

  Well, everybody in the whole school wanted to be this kid’s friend. His name was Whitakin, but I called him “What-A-King,” which I figured was one hell of a good name. That year his parents bought him a brand-new Schwinn bicycle right after we’d started school. I loved his bike, so my parents bought me a genuine Schwinn, too. Now, every morning What-A-King and I would meet at the corner of California and Stewart Streets and he’d get off his bike and I’d get off of mine and we’d walk our bikes for a whole block as we each ate one of the two cream puffs that he’d brought in a little white bag. They’d taste so good, all soft and yummy, then we’d wipe off our mouths, lick our fingers, get back on our bikes, and continue to school. Once a month, What-A-King’s parents would bring doughnuts and cupcakes for our whole class, but cream puffs, these he and I would get almost every morning.

  One day, a new kid came to school who wore cowboy boots like me and he told us that he was from Texas, where he’d lived on a great big ranch with his grandparents before his father, who was a Marine, brought him and his mother out here to California. He and I quickly became friends and he was the one who taught me how to play marbles. Suddenly, just like that, everyone was playing marbles. I couldn’t figure out how this happened. One day only a couple of kids played marbles on the whole school grounds, then this kid from Texas started playing and telling everyone that he was the best shooter in all of Texas, and now suddenly everybody and his uncle had marbles and they were all trying to beat this kid, but they couldn’t. His name was Gus and he was really good and played for keepies, and so soon, he had the biggest bag full of marbles of anyone at the whole school, including even the fourth graders.

  This was, also, the same time that I began to notice that things were becoming really different on our rancho grande. My sister Tencha was gone all week, attending a private all-girls Catholic school in Santa Ana, California, about two hours north of us. And my brother Joseph, as I said earlier, was now going to that military school in Carlsbad. Both my sister and brother now wore uniforms to school and I hardly ever got to see them except on weekends. But I remembered that my brother kept a bag of marbles under his bed, so one day after school I was going through his stuff, when he came in wearing his uniform and asked me what I was doing.

  “I’m looking for your bag of marbles,” I said. “I don’t have any left. This guy Gus at school from Texas is beating us all and he plays for keepies.”

  “We had an Acuña kid in the barrio de Carlos Malo like that,” said my brother Joseph. “He could beat the pants off anyone, even the older guys. But then he taught me how to do it, and I became a pretty good player, too, but never as good as Acuña.”

  “Could you teach me?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said my brother Joseph, and he changed clothes, got his bag of marbles, and took me out to the front yard of our new home that was being built across the field from our old ranch house, over on the knoll that overlooked our valley. There in the soft bulldozed dirt, he drew a circle with a stick and put twenty marbles in the middle of the circle.

  “Now listen carefully,” he said to me, “a lot of people are always trying to be first shooters, but being a first shooter is only good if you’re so good—listen carefully, so, so good—that you can clean out the whole pot. Otherwise, it’s best to be the second or third or even the fourth shooter.”

  “Why?” I asked. I’d always lagged my shooter trying to get closest to the line so I could be the first shooter.

  “Because normally the first and second shooters only open up the pot of marbles, scattering them, and once that they’re scattered, it’s easier to shoot them out of the pot as singles, see?”

  “But some guys come in with those big, old boulder marbles,” I said, “and break up the pot with their first shot, then change from their boulder to a regular-size marble and shoot the hell out of the rest of the pot.”

  “Yes, you’re right, that’s what happens,” said my brother. “And this is the genius of Acuña, he made up the rule of no-switchies.”

  “No-switchies?” I said. I’d never heard of this.

  “Yes, that means that if you start with a boulder, you have to continue your whole game with that boulder.”

  “Damn, you can do that?” I asked.

  “What? Make up rules? Sure, why not? All you have to do is have the other players agree to it.”

  “But how can you do this?”

  “You vote on it?”

  “You vote?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God,” I said, suddenly seeing a whole new world of possibilities, “then voting is damn good stuff!”

  “You’re right, voting is good stuff,” said my brother, laughing. “You see, with the vote, then ordinary, everyday people can rise up together and have as much say as the powerful.”

  “Even me, who’s not real smart, I can do this?”

  “Sure. If you can talk, you can organize. Try it. Next time ask your friends to take a vote. Nobody really likes to see the pot broken up with a boulder, then see that shooter switch to a normal-size marble and shoot out most of the pot.�
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  “Yeah, I don’t,” I said. “And Gus, he always starts with a boulder, then switches.”

  “Now, what I’ve told you so far, this still doesn’t make you a winner,” said my brother.

  “It don’t?”

  “No, this is just the start, because now that everyone has agreed on using regular-size marbles, some people will want to bring in steelies.”

  “Steelies?” I’d never heard of these. I could see that my brother really knew a lot.

  “Yes, these are the little steel ball-bearings that mechanics take off cars, and these steelies are worse than boulders, because a guy who can really shoot with a steelie—which was always difficult for me—will not only shoot out the whole pot, but that little steel marble will break pieces off your glass marbles and soon all everyone will have are bags full of chipped, broken marbles.”

  “You saw this happen?”

  “Yes, that’s why we also made the rule of no steelies.”

  “And you just voted on it like you did for the boulders? This voting business can really be good,” I said excitedly.

  “Yes, it is,” said my brother. “That’s why I’m going to become a lawyer, because it’s only through the vote that we can help the poor workers in this country. Our father found this out in the mines when he worked with the Greeks in Montana. They’d vote on everything.”

  “Our dad knows about the vote?”

  “He’s the one who taught it to me,” said my brother.

  I was impressed. I’d never known that my dad knew all this and that my brother was this smart and such a fast learner, like those surveyors had said. I could now see that even though I was seven, I still had a lot to learn.

  “Now, let me see you pick out the marble with which you’re going to shoot,” said my brother.

  I quickly selected the prettiest marble I could find out of all his marbles.

  “Go on, now shoot, so I can see how you do it.”

  I got down on all fours with my shooter in my right hand, ready to shoot at the pot of marbles in the center of the circle.

  “Are you shooting at the whole pot?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Okay, go on. Do like you normally do.”

  I shot, hitting the pot of marbles straight on, and nothing much happened. The pot just opened up a little, but not one marble went outside of the circle, and so my turn was over.

  “Now watch me,” said my big brother, and I watched him select the marble he was going to use as his shooter. And he didn’t select the prettiest marble like I had done. No, instead, he took several, and weighed each one up and down in his hand, feeling each marble very carefully with his fingers and thumb.

  “You see,” he said, “I want the heaviest marble I can find that’s still a normal-size marble, and also I don’t want a real smooth-feeling marble, because then it’s too easy for that marble to keep slipping out between my thumb and finger when I go to shoot.”

  I listened very carefully. None of this had ever entered my mind.

  “I want an older-feeling marble,” he said, “like a cowboy always wants an older, experienced horse when he goes out on trail, or a baseball pitcher who feels the stitches of a baseball real carefully before he throws.”

  “Wow!” I said. “This is so exciting!” A whole new world was opening up for me.

  “Yes, learning can be exciting,” said my brother. “And now watch, I don’t shoot at the pot of marbles. I shoot at this lone marble that’s over here all by itself, so I can knock it all the way out of the pot. That ensures me that I’ll get another shot.”

  Well, lo and behold, my big brother Joseph cleaned out the whole pot. I mean, he shot out every damn marble in the circle. He was that great! No, he had to be better than great! He was the GREATEST SHOOTER I’d ever seen! I now know why he had the nickname of Chavaboy, Champion Boy!

  “And now listen to me,” he said. “I was never that good of a shooter until Mike Acuña taught me how to shoot, and I practiced for hours and hours.”

  “Then can you teach me how to shoot as good as you?” I asked all excited.

  “You weren’t listening. That’s not what I said. I said that Mike Acuña taught me how to shoot, but then I added that I practiced for hours and hours all by myself.”

  “Oh, then, can you teach me how to do it?”

  “Of course, that’s the easy part. The practicing is what’s tough. And while you practice, you don’t play marbles at school.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it will interfere with you concentrating on getting better. For two weeks, all you do is practice at home alone, without telling anyone. And at school, you don’t play. Instead, you watch this boy Gus and the others play. You study their every move, memorizing their different styles, learning a little here and there from every player, and you tell no one what you’re doing. Understand?”

  “Okay,” I said. My heart was pounding. I was so excited, I could have popped. “I understand.”

  “Good, now first things first,” continued my brother, “and so the first thing you learn is how to set the game up in your favor, or at least make it even. The second thing you learn is how to select your shooter, and now the third thing that you must learn to do is how to hold your shooter.

  “You see, some guys like to hold their shooters, fist down, all knuckles to the dirt like this. Others like their hand rolled over, palm up. Then there are a couple of real fancy ways, up high with your fingers spread out. Myself, I learned to keep it simple so I could concentrate on the playing. So, if I’m first shooter, I take a double-hand stand, up high on my first shot, so I can shoot downward to break up the pot. But then, after my first shot, I go into the traditional, old-fashioned, palm-up, big-knuckle-anchored-in-the-dirt position. Are you getting all of this?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding up and down. My God, and all I’d done was come into my brother’s room to look through his stuff for his big bag of marbles. I’d never dreamed that there was all this “thinking” to playing marbles.

  “Good,” said my brother, “I’m glad that you’re finding this interesting, because being able to not just ‘hear’ but really listen is what papa always says is the beginning of all learning. And to learn is to be able to make distinctions. Now, are you ready for the big one, the secret that will make you a winner?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m ready!” I said, feeling all excited.

  His face changed and he put his hand on his forehead.

  “What is it?” I asked, suddenly seeing that my brother wasn’t looking very well.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve just been a little tired lately,” he said. “But now listen, this is the secret to winning, and this secret you must never tell anyone until you retire from the game, or you want to pass it on to your brother or sister—”

  “Sister? Girls don’t play marbles!” I said, laughing.

  “In the barrio some girls did. Not too many, but the one or two who did, they were better than most of us guys.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Now, listen closely, because this secret is actually done before you even start to play, and yet the whole outcome of your future is based on this secret. And papa says the same thing is true in poker, dice, business, in all games of life, there’s a secret, and it’s always very simple.”

  “Well, what is it?” I asked.

  “Are you listening?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m listening, damnit!”

  “If you’re the first shooter, you make sure that not all the marbles are put together real tight,” he said.

  “What? That’s it?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”

  “But—”

  “Mundo, ‘but’ means you weren’t listening,” said my brother just as our father always did when we used the word “but.” I could see that something was really hurting my brother. “Now, let’s try again. If you’re the first shooter, you make sure that when everyo
ne puts their marble in the circle, two or three of the marbles are a little bit away from the rest of the pot. Then these loose ones are the ones that you shoot into, and from an angle. Because when you hit those loose marbles from an angle, they’ll scatter away from the pot, and most often, one or two will go out of the circle. But if they’re all in real tight, it’s like hitting a brick wall for the first shooter.”

  “But José,” I said, “how will I ever know if I’m going to be the first shooter, since we always put our marbles in the pot before we lag our shooters to see who gets to go first?”

  “Just change your procedure of doing this, too,” he said. “Make a side bet of one marble each for whoever wins the lagging, so that the lagging will become a betting game on its own, and you can then say that you want to do it first.”

  “I can do that? Just tell people that we lag first, then we put in our marble afterward?”

  “You can with the vote,” he said, “and by being the one who made the suggestion of what to vote on.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You see, once you get a vote going and people feel that you’re a fair person, then they’ll go along with almost all your other suggestions.”

  “They will? Oh, wow! Then the guy who brings up the idea on what to vote on is way ahead of the game of getting what he wants.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And papa taught you this?”

  “Yes, and he learned a lot of this from—”

  “His mother,” I said. Our dad was always talking about his mother, Doña Margarita.

  “Exactly, from his mother, and also from that man named Duel up in Montana.”

  Our father always spoke about Duel, too. “Then papa used to play marbles?” I said.

  My brother laughed. “No, papa never played marbles,” he said. “But one day when papa saw me looking sad in the barrio, he asked me what was the trouble, and I told him that I’d lost all my marbles. He asked me who had beat me out of them. I told him Mike Acuña. He told me to go and get Mike. I went and got Mike, thinking that papa was going to tell Mike to give me my marbles back, because he was way older than me, but papa surprised me. Instead, he asked Mike if he’d like to make fifty cents a day teaching me how to play marbles.”