Reaching Out (11 page)

"And faith," Mama added, proudly. "It we don't have faith and hope, what do we have left?"

"If you have a job, be grateful. And never turn down work," my father would often say. This is why I regretted not having a chance to tell him in person that in addition to working for the Santa Maria Window Cleaners, I would be working for Mrs. Hancock during the Christmas break.
He would have been proud of me,
I thought, as I left our house to go see Mrs. Margie Williams, Mrs. Hancock's personal secretary, I checked the telephone number and address that Father O'Neill had given me and called her from a pay phone at the Texaco gas station on Main Street.

"I've been expecting your call," she said. "Come right over."

When I arrived, she greeted me at the door and invited me in. A sweet smell of cinnamon and peppermint filled the air. In the corner of the living room stood a large Christmas tree, crowned with an angel and strung with twinkling white, red, green, and yellow lights. Mrs. Williams was small. She had light blue eyes, short brown hair, and rosy cheeks. She introduced me to her husband, who was tall and husky.

"You must know our son, Ken," he said, pointing to a graduation picture on the fireplace mantel.

"Of course." I recognized him immediately from high school. "He was a year behind me. Where is he now?"

"He's a freshman in college," she said proudly. "He remembers you too. I talked to him over the phone last night and he said to say hi'"

"Please tell him hello for me next time you talk to him." I felt more at ease knowing that their son and I knew each other.

Mr. Williams put on his suit coat, said goodbye, and left for work. For an instant, the image of my fathers face the last time I saw him flashed in my mind. Mrs. Williams then explained to me that Mrs. Marian Hancock had given her a list of people to whom she wished to give Christmas presents. Mrs. Williams was to purchase the gifts and I was to deliver them for Mrs. Hancock on the weekend before Christmas. I was disappointed that the job was for only two days, but I was glad to have it.

The following Saturday morning I returned to Mrs. Williams's house, ready to begin my new job. Her living room looked like a huge treasure chest. It was filled with big and small Christmas presents wrapped in colorful paper with different patterns and figures: stars and angels, Frosty the Snowman, starry lights, reindeers in flight, and teddy bears. She offered me a cup of hot chocolate, and after I finished it, she said, "You'll be driving the company van to
deliver the gifts." I was glad I wouldn't he driving our old DeSoto. "I've sorted the presents by towns and neighborhoods to make it easier for you. Here is a map and a list of names with addresses."

I loaded the van and delivered presents that morning to places and homes I did not know existed. The houses in Lake Marie Estates, near the Santa Maria Country Club, had large front yards with lush green lawns, trimmed hedges, lattice fences, and flower gardens. Some even had outdoor swimming pools and wide cobblestone or red-brick driveways.

In the pale afternoon light, I drove to Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, and left gifts for military officers at the gate since I did not have clearance to enter the base. I was disappointed, because I wanted to see the missile-testing grounds. I used to hear the boom of rockets periodically blasting off from the base when we had picked strawberries for Ito during the summer. They shot straight up into the air through aimlessly roving clouds, leaving a long trail of white smoke.

On Sunday, I picked up the van and finished the deliveries by midmorning and returned it to Mrs. Williams. "My, that was quick," she said, smiling. "You did a fine job. Here is a Christmas present for you from Mrs. Hancock," She handed me a large box wrapped in light blue paper with figures of peace doves. "Go ahead and open it."

I carefully took off the wrapping paper, folded it, and opened the box. Inside was a beautiful dark blue and white
reversible jacket with a hood attached to it. "It's water repellent," she added. This was a perfect gift, I did not have a waterproof jacket or a raincoat.

"Thank you!" I said. "Please thank Mrs. Hancock for me'"

"You can thank her yourself. She wants to meet you, I am going to call her to see if today is good for her. Please make yourself at home," She left the room. I sat down on the couch and admired a small Nativity set on the end table and listened to Christmas carols softly playing on the stereo. A few minutes later she returned and said excitedly, "She'll be happy to see you this afternoon."

I wanted to learn something about Mrs. Hancock before going to meet her, but I was not sure if there was a proper way to ask. Taking a chance, I said, "I am curious, is Allan Hancock College in any way connected to Mrs. Hancock's name?" Allan Hancock College was a two-year community college in Santa Maria where Roberto had taken wood shop classes at night to make furniture for his home after he got married.

"I thought you knew," she answered. When I blushed, she added, "Well, there is no reason why you should. Many people don't know either." She explained that the college stood on the site of what used to be the Hancock College of Aeronautics, which Mr. Hancock had founded and where pilots trained for service during the Second World War. After the war, he leased the land to Santa Maria Junior College for one dollar a year, and when the new campus was
built, it was renamed Allan Hancock College.

"He's a very generous man," I said.

"An extraordinary man. He owns and operates Rosemary Farm and the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, which runs between Santa Maria and Guadalulpe. His favorite steam engine is 'Old Twenty-one.' It's now a museum piece. Have you seen it.?"

When we first arrived in Santa Maria from Mexico, I would watch the trains go by behind the migrant labor tent camp we lived in, Roberto and I played on the railroad tracks and waited every day at noon for the train to pass by. We always wondered where it came from. We called it the Moon Train. Could this be the same one?

"Have you seen the engine?" Mrs. Williams repeated.

"I am sorry. No, I haven't. But I'd like to."

She proceeded to tell me that it was located near the railroad offices on South McClelland and suggested that I stop by to see it.

"Oh, gosh, I almost forgot. You need to be on your way." She jotted down Mrs. Hancock's address on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "Rosemary Farm is easy to get to..."

I had seen Rosemary Farm from a distance many times. The long cluster of low white-roofed buildings looked like mushrooms growing in the middle of hundreds of acres of green fields. I was amazed that Mr. and Mrs. Hancock lived there. I expected them to live in neighborhoods like the ones I had seen the past two days while delivering gifts.

"I know where it is," I said. "We can see it from Bonetti Ranch, where my family lives."

Before I left she gave me an envelope with money in it for my work delivering presents. I opened it in the car. I was flabbergasted when I saw three fifty-dollar bills. How generous! My father and I would have had to work sixty hours each picking strawberries to earn this much. I wished I could have shared this moment with him. He would have been very pleased.

The private entrance to the farm was on the west side. On both sides of the narrow paved road were small white wooden houses and cottages with flower gardens. They were numbered consecutively, starting with one. Mrs. Hancock's house was number 10. The facade of her house was no different from that of the other houses except for two white wooden pillars that framed the entrance. The rest of it was hidden from view with tall hedges and trees. I nervously rang the doorbell. Mrs. Hancock opened the door. I introduced myself.

"How nice to finally meet you," she said, ushering me in and motioning for me to sit next to a coffee table. She sat down across from me in a high-backed armchair. She had a soft, pleasing voice, a radiant face, sweet almond-shaped brown eyes, and graying blond hair pinned back in a bun with curls in the front. A string of white pearls adorned her collar. She was elegant like a swan. Behind her on the wall hung a floral tapestry with shades of black, brown, white,
rose, blue, and green. On a small table next to her chair was a small sculpture of the Virgin Mary and a leather-bound copy of the Bible with gold lettering. I thanked her for the jacket and the job and gave her Father O'Neill's regards.

"I am so pleased he brought us together," she said, clasping her small, slender hands. "Unfortunately, the Captain won't be able meet you. He's ill,"

"The Captain?" I wondered to whom she was referring.

"I apologize! I call my husband the Captain. You see, when he was a child, he was fascinated by boats. He rowed a flatboat on lakes at the tar pits in Los Angeles, and when he got older, he designed and built several vessels. Then he got his mariner's license. Ever since, he became known in our family as Captain Hancock. I simply call him the Captain."

"I am sorry he's not well," I responded. "Mrs. Williams told me a little about him. He is an amazing man."

"He certainly is," she said. "He's been a blessing to me. We'll be celebrating his eighty-eighth birthday this year. Since you won't be able to see him, I'd like to show you one of my favorite pictures of him." She stood up, went to an adjacent room, and returned with a red photo album, then showed me a photo of Mr. Hancock receiving an honorary doctorate of science degree from the University of Santa Clara in 1959.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "I am glad he was honored by Santa Clara." I felt proud of my school.
The Captain clearly seemed
a leader,
I thought, recalling what Father Shanks would call a leader. He had certainly lived life to its fullest extent.

"I knew you'd enjoy seeing it," she said, smiling. "Now, before you leave, I have another gift for you," she said. She left and came back with a navy blue pinstriped suit on a wooden hanger. "This suit belongs to the Captain. We would like you to have it."

I was as surprised and moved by this gesture as I had been the time my father had given me his prized Saint Christopher medal for my eighth grade graduation. He had worn it ever since I could remember. I stood up and said, "Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you very much, Mrs. Hancock. Are you sure...?" I took the suit and folded it over my left arm. It was smooth, like silk.

"It would make us happy to have you wear it."

Noticing that she did not sit back down, I realized it was time for me to leave. "It was a pleasure meeting you," I said. "I appreciate all you've done for me."

"You're welcome. Please keep in touch and give my love to Father O'Neill."

When I got home, I gave my mother the envelope. "It's for Christmas presents for our family," I said.

"
Gracias a Dios, mijo,
" she said, giving me a hug. I then showed her the jacket and the suit and explained to her who gave them to me. She looked surprised but thankful.

"Como
hay gente buena en el mundo,
" she said. There are many good people in the world.

When I tried the suit on, the pants were too big in the waist and the coat was too large in the front.

"It doesn't fit," I said, coming out of my room and modeling it for my mother.

"You're right, mijo; it's too big for you," she said with disappointment.

The thought of not seeing my father for a long time, even in his worst moods, left a deep sorrow in my family and me. Every day, my sister would wait for him on the front steps and would cry because he did not show up at the end of the day. At college, I stayed awake at night, praying and thinking about what to do: stay in college or return home? I yearned to finish college, but my father's absence had left a void in my family that I felt I had the responsibility to fill. Family always came first, so I felt torn. After going back and forth many times, I made the decision to withdraw from college at the end of the first semester of my sophomore year and return home.

After Christmas break, I went back to Santa Clara to finish the last two weeks of classes. I was preoccupied and irritable. Smokey, sensing something was wrong, asked what was troubling me. "I am just worried about finals," I told him. I decided to let him know about my decision after final exams, because I did not want to bother him with my problems before then. I visited Father O'Neill on Friday and gave him
Mrs. Hancock's regards and told him about my visit with her and the two gifts she gave me.

"Good," he said. "I am glad you got to meet her. She has a heart of gold."

"Yes, she does."

When he told me I looked tired and asked if something was wrong, I shook my head and told him what had happened at home and what I had decided to do.

"Oh, no! I am so sorry. I can understand your feelings." He paused for a while and then added firmly, "But I disagree with your decision to leave Santa Clara."

"But I feel responsible for my family, especially now that my father has left."

"Don't you think that finishing college is also your responsibility? Think of the sacrifices your family made for you to be here. Think of the people who believe in you and contributed to your scholarships. Don't you think you have a responsibility to them too? Besides, remember what I told you. Everything happens for a reason, and you must have trust in God."

"I do have trust in God, Father. And I appreciate the sacrifices people have made for me and I don't want to let them down but..."

"Look, son, I know how difficult this is for you, but I think you should take more time to reflect on your decision in light of our discussion. Meantime, I will offer a novena for you and your family."

The more I thought about Father O'Neill's advice, the less sure I was about my decision. That evening, I walked around the Mission Gardens, trying to clear my mind. Was I being selfish if I stayed in college? What about my dream of being a teacher? I thought about how hard Trampita, Torito, and my mother were working to get by. I felt guilty, I returned to my room and struggled to get started on a paper for my philosophy final, I put it aside and went to bed but had a hard time sleeping.