Reaching Out (5 page)

"Pretty funny," He ripped off his shoulder pads and dropped them on the floor. "I am bushed." He lay on his bed. "What the heck are you typing?"

"The paper for my English class." I reached out to grab my handwritten draft that had accidentally fallen off the desk.

"Oh, no! I completely forgot about it," He jumped from the bed and sifted through a pile of papers on his desk. "Here it is," he said, holding up the mimeographed essay. He sat at his desk and began working on the assignment. I finished typing my essay and proofread it. This
is pretty good,
I thought. I set it aside and began reading for my theology class. About an hour later, Smokey interrupted my concentration.

"I need my typewriter," he said. I handed it to him, then continued reading, trying to ignore the typing noise, but I could not. I closed the book and headed to the library. I returned a few minutes before room check at eleven o'clock. Smokey was wearing his green pajamas and sitting on his bed, back against the wall, reading the newspaper and listening to music. His long legs hanging over the side of the bed looked like two thick tree branches.

"Are you almost done with your paper?" I asked, thinking he was taking a break from writing it.

"I finished it," He put down the newspaper and turned off the radio.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. It was a piece of cake. Hey, we'd better turn in for the night. It's past curfew."

"I still need to do homework for my logic class." I turned off the light and slipped into bed with my clothes on and waited until our prefect came by to do room check. After he left, I turned on my desk lamp, placed our small floor mat
against the base of the door to block the light, and studied until I finished.

The next day, Friday, I attended classes and turned in my English paper. Dr. Quinn did not assign us a paper for the following Friday, so I thought this was my lucky day. I was glad the week was over. That evening at seven, there was a giant pregame rally in the Mission Gardens. The Red Hat Band, a student musical group, played various tunes. I joined the rally, which paraded steadily across campus to Buck Shaw Stadium, where the Broncos were to play the "Aggies" of the University of California at Davis. As we approached the Santa Clara side, we fanned out and quickly filled the wooden bleachers. During the game, tour male cheerleaders dressed in shorts, white shirts, and red sweaters ran up and down the sidelines doing somersaults and cheering us on to support the Broncos. I thought they looked silly. I never saw my father or other men in migrant labor camps wearing shorts. I never wore them and even hated wearing them for P.E. in high school.

Santa Clara won the game. The bleachers emptied onto the field as fans congratulated the Bronco foorball players, who were full of scrapes and bruises. After the game, Smokey and I attended a dance sponsored by the sophomore class. Dancing was like a tonic for me. It helped me forget my troubles.

The following Monday, however, my worries were back. Getting to my English class a few minutes early, I sat at a desk
near the open classroom door, facing west. The gentle rays from the afternoon sun streaming through the entrance were suddenly blocked by Dr. Quinn. He entered the room, puffing and carrying his bulging briefcase. He set it down on the right side of the desk, wiped his sweaty brow with a white rumpled handkerchief, and lit up a cigarette. He took a deep puff and informed the class that we were to write an essay on whether nuclear power was good or evil.

"This essay is in lieu of the paper you normally turn in to me on Friday," he said, taking a second puff and exhaling through the side of his mouth. My heart raced as I waited for more details. "You have the entire class period to write the essay."

There were faint moans, light coughs, and a shuffling of papers as students got ready to write. I ripped a page from my spiral notebook and stared at it for a few minutes. I looked around me. Students were hunched over their desks, writing furiously. I thought about the question and wrote down that nuclear energy was neither good nor evil, that it could be used for either positive or negative purposes. I argued that the use of it to destroy human life was evil. Five minutes before the end of the class period, Dr. Quinn collected our papers, gave us a reading assignment, and began handing out our essays on Virginia Woolf.

"You may leave after you get your paper," he said. "I'll see you on Wednesday. As he called my name, I went up and nervously grabbed my paper, lowering my head. I rushed out
ot the classroom, went straight to the Mission Church, which was adjacent to O'Connor Hall, and sat in a back pew. I flipped to the last page.

There, in red ink, was a large letter "D." My heart sank to my stomach and my eyes filled with tears. I wiped them with the back of my hand and read Dr. Quinn's comments: "Well written and good insights but interpretation and analysis are too subjective; also, too much on Virginia Woolf's life." I felt scared. Maybe I wouldn't make it here at Santa Clara. I said a silent prayer and headed to my favorite class.

Dr. Vari, already in the classroom when I arrived, was engaged in casual conversation with a few students who had arrived early. "Why the long face?" he asked in Spanish as I walked in. Everyone spoke only Spanish in the class, which made it more welcoming for me.

"Oh, it's nothing." I feigned a smile. "I am a bit tired."

"Too much fun this weekend," he said. Noticing that I did not react, he quickly added, "Seriously, if something is wrong and you want to talk about it, come see me."

He began class by commenting on our compositions and explaining common grammatical errors in the use of the subjunctive in "if" clauses. Glancing around the class to make sure we were all paying attention, he explained, "In an 'unreal' or 'contrary-to-fact condition,' a past subjunctive is used in the 'if' clause, and normally the conditional is used in the result clause." He wrote an example in Spanish on the blackboard:
Si yo tuviera talento musical, aprenderia a to car el piano
. "If I
had musical talent, I would learn to play the piano," I understood the example, but not the technical terms he used. My concentration faded in and out; the D grade in English kept flashing in my mind. At the end of the class, he returned our compositions.

"You can do better," he said, handing me my essay. I looked at the grade. It was a C-. I was stunned. I felt a wave of heat go through my entire body. "If you need extra help with spelling and accents, please come see me during my office hours," Dr. Vari said, noticing my disappointment and embarrassment.

"Thank you," I responded, looking away. I was more worried than even I was not doing well in English or Spanish, my own native language! When I got back to my room, I slammed the door behind me.

"What's the matter?" Smokey asked. He was putting on his football uniform for practice.

"I got a D on my English paper." I was too embarrassed to tell what grade I got on my Spanish composition. "What did you get on yours?"

"I ... I didn't do that well either." He buckled his belt, glanced at me, and added, "Don't worry about it. Everyone gets lower grades their freshman year in college than in high school,"

I was not totally convinced he was right. After he left the room, I went to his desk to borrow his typewriter for my religion class paper. Next to it was his English paper. It had an
A grade marked on it. How could he get an A when he had worked on it only one evening? I had worked on mine all week! Suddenly I became angry with Smokey, which confused me, because I understood why he had lied to me. I felt intense pain in my jaw, the back of my neck, and my shoulders. I took a couple of aspirins and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what to do. I thought about the many sacrifices my parents had made for my siblings and me. They left their homeland to seek a better life for us. My father had worked in the fields ten hours a day, seven days a week, even when he suffered back problems. My mother harvested crops alongside my father and did the cooking and washing for our whole family. Roberto also worked in the fields and missed six months of school every year during the time he was in elementary school, junior high school, and the first two years of high school.

Oddly, the more I thought about my past, the stronger I felt inside. I got up from my bed, went to my desk, and began jotting down recollections about my childhood. I often did this, especially when I felt discouraged. That night I wrote about the frustration I felt my first year of school, when, not knowing a word of English, I had to repeat the first grade.

On Wednesday, Dr. Quinn returned the essays we had written in class. I was surprised he had corrected them so quickly, and even more surprised when I saw the results. "B, Good ideas and well written," he had scribbled on my
paper. I felt a heavy burden lift from my shoulders. After class I went into the Mission Church and knelt in the first pew, on the left side, facing the fresco painting of Saint Francis at the Cross. I said the "Our Father" prayer and remained there several minutes, contemplating the mural depicting Saint Francis resting his toot on a globe, his hands touching the crucified Body of Christ. It was as if Christ's sacrifices flowed through Saint Francis to bless the whole world, including me.

Ever since I was four years old, I felt fear whenever I saw anyone wearing a green uniform. From the time my family and I crossed the United States-Mexican border, crawling underneath the barbed-wire fence that separated the two countries, our father warned us that we had to hide from
la migra,
the border patrol guards dressed in green uniforms. "If they catch you, you'll be deported back to Mexico," he said repeatedly. We managed to evade the green-uniformed men for ten years, but they ultimately caught and deported us when I was in the eighth grade. And even though we came back legally, I continued to feel apprehensive every time I saw a green uniform.

And now I had to wear one once a week during my entire freshman and sophomore years. I had no choice. Like many land-grant colleges, Santa Clara required all undergraduates to take the two-year basic military science program (Reserve Officers Training Corps). The one-and-a-half-unit courses consisted of two hours of lecture and one hour of drills. Every Tuesday morning we dressed in our army uniform and
marched in Buck Shaw Stadium on the east side of the campus.

The night before, my classmates and I spent hours getting ready for our Tuesday-morning ritual.

"I know how much you like doing this," Smokey teased me, taking out his army uniform from the closet and gently laying it on his bed lengthwise. I ignored him and continued doing the reading for my Western civilization class. From the corner of my eye I saw him pressing his trousers with the palm of his hands, trying to get rid of the wire hanger crease marks. I put down my textbook.

"You can iron mine when you're finished with yours," I said.

"Deal. If you spit shine my shoes." We both laughed. I took out my uniform, hung it on the door knob, and brushed off the lint with my hands.

"It's easier and faster if you use Scotch tape," Smokey said. He took out a roll of tape from his desk drawer, cut off a strip, and, holding both ends, passed it over his uniform.

"You're a genius; you'll be promoted to general in no time.

"Just follow my orders," he said, "and I'll make you a good soldier yet."

"Yes, sir." I saluted him and clicked my heels. Smokey left to get a haircut from Ernie DeGasparis, my only classmate from Santa Maria High School. Ernie had set up shop in his room on the third floor of Kenna Hall and cut hair free of charge for his friends.

I continued getting ready to pass military inspection on Tuesday. Using an old sock and brass solution, I polished the clip belt buckle, the two small round insignias that were pinned to each side of the jacket lapel, and the insignia of the American eagle pinned to the front of the cap. To polish the black leather low quarter shoes, I spit on them and furiously rubbed them with a small cotton ball until they shined like glass. I had just finished polishing the second shoe when Smokey returned sporting a crewcut.

"Ernie is ready for you," he said. "It's time to get rid of your hair hat." Unlike my classmates, I had long hair with an elevated wave at the front, I hated getting it cut, but the choice was not mine. As cadets we were expected to conform to uniform grooming standards.

And we did. On Tuesday morning every freshman and sophomore male dressed alike and wore a black plastic nameplate on the right breast pocket flap. As we crossed the campus on our way to Buck Shaw Stadium, Santa Clara looked more like a military camp than a university. We reported to the field house, where each one of us was handed an M16 infantry rifle that was about twenty inches long and weighed about seven pounds. We were informed by Captain Glasson that during ROTC activities, cadre and cadets of senior rank were to be addressed by rank and name, and that in the chain of command each one of us would be addressed as cadet and name. We were to use the term "sir" and salute when conversing with or replying to a cadet officer or officer
The Making of a Soldier 51 of higher rank. These rules and discipline reminded me of my father, who demanded that we obey him at all times and not question his authority.

We were then grouped in platoons and lined up in rectangular formation. A senior-rank cadet went up and down inspecting each one of us, making sure we had everything in order: brass and shoes shined, crew haircut, and clean shave. If anything was out of compliance, we got demerits, which affected our grade. After inspection we jogged in place for one to two minutes, counting cadence, and carrying our M16 rifles as we marched, following orders: "Attention; left, march; left face; right face; count off; double time..." At times when I got confused and did a left face instead of a right face, I heard the senior cadet holier, "Fay attention, cadet!" "Yes, sir," I shouted back automatically, thinking how silly and what a waste of time these drills were.

In the afternoon, we attended lectures given by Captain Glasson or Colonel O'Brien on American military history and map reading, which I enjoyed because I liked learning about the past, but I still disliked wearing the army uniform and going to drill. Eventually, though, having to wear it stripped me of my dread of men dressed in green uniforms; more important, it pleased my father. When I gave him a picture of me in uniform a few months later, over Christmas break, he said, "I am proud of you, mijo. You can make something of yourself in the army when you're poor."