To Selena, With Love (15 page)

“Shhh,” Selena said. “Just push this button here so it spins, and I’ll do the lever thing.”

We did that three times, and that’s all it took. The machine started spitting dollar coins, and before I knew it, we had three hundred dollars in our hands.

After playing the slots for a little while longer, Selena said, “Let’s go play blackjack!”

“You’re crazy,” I said. “I am not sitting at one of those tables and losing money. I don’t know anything about playing blackjack.”

“Come on, it’s easy,” she pleaded.

“No, no, no,” I said.

“What’s the matter?” she teased. “Can’t you count fast enough?”

I folded my arms. “Say what you want. I’m not playing.”

Selena laughed. “Okay, then. Watch what I do. If you want to do it, just jump in.”

So I watched, and again, Selena amazed me. I have no idea if she’d ever played blackjack before or if, once again, she just put her
mind to something and learned it faster than anybody else could have. Selena sat down at one of those blackjack tables and, within minutes, she had mastered all of the hand signals. She tapped on the table or waved her hand over her cards, and even slid her cards under the chips when she wanted to stand.

Selena lost a few hands and, quickly disgusted with herself, said, “Let’s go.”

But she hated to lose at anything, so I knew that wasn’t the end of it. Sure enough, Selena returned to that same table a little while later, sat down, and played a few more hands until she started winning. Then, smiling that full-wattage smile of hers, she said, “All right. I’m out.”

She didn’t care about the money. She just wanted to know that she could win.

At the Vegas show, I realized for the first time that we had been big fish in the small Tejano pond, but now we were swimming in a much bigger pond with more exotic fish. Our old friends La Mafia were there; that group now included my friend Rudy on bass, so it was a bit of a reunion for us.

I was hanging with those guys while Selena went off to do some shopping with Suzette, when all of a sudden I saw Ricky Martin heading toward us. He was just making his name as a solo artist after a huge career with the group Menudo.

“Hey, I like your work. What’s going on?” Ricky said. As we stood there talking, I realized with amazement that musicians I admired were actually listening to our songs.

In addition to performing at the
Billboard
show, we walked away
with the regional Mexican music award and it became clear to all of us that we were achieving our goal of having our music recognized internationally. It was time to cross the border and play in Mexico and Latin America—the next logical step before we broke into the mainstream English market.

AP Photo /
Houston Chronicle,
Dave Einrel

T
he promoters at Capitol EMI were intent on having us continue building our reputation on the international music scene after the success of
Entre a Mi Mundo
. This meant traveling abroad.

Mexico was the logical place to begin our international publicity blitz. We already had a fan base there, and we could easily drive to the shows from Texas. Of course, none of us fully realized just how nerve-racking it would be to go from playing relatively small venues in the U.S. to playing large amphitheaters and doing interviews in Spanish in Mexico.

We were scheduled to play in Monterrey during our first trip, and there was mad press all day. We went from one interview to the next: radio, television, magazine journalists, you name it. Before the trip, Rick had helped me practice saying my name and what instrument I played.

I kept repeating this phrase to myself like a mantra: “
Mi nombre es Chris Perez y toco la guitarra
.
Mi nombre es Chris Perez y toco la guitarra.
” I knew how absurd the Mexican journalists would think it was if we sang in Spanish but couldn’t even manage to speak in
basic textbook phrases. I was determined not to embarrass the band—or myself.

Despite my good intentions and all of that practicing, I still managed to humiliate myself. During our first interview with the radio DJs in Monterrey, we all had to go down the line and introduce ourselves, just as we’d practiced. I froze up completely. When it was my turn, I said
“toca”
instead of
“toco,”
essentially saying, “My name is Chris Perez and he plays the guitar.” Naturally, everyone laughed at my expense.

“Dude, I told you how to say it,” Ricky scolded me afterward.

“I know, I know,” I said miserably.

My only source of comfort was that some of the other band members stumbled around in Spanish, too. Selena, though, rose to the challenge, as she always did. She was the one who really felt the media pressure, because by now everyone in Mexico knew her not only from her music, but from the Coca-Cola commercials. She was already hugely popular in that country and crowds surrounded us everywhere we went, to the point where Selena couldn’t even get off the bus unless it was to duck into a hotel or go onstage.

With the journalists, Selena was as personable as ever, giving each media personality a warm hug and a big smile, winning them over before she ever had to say a word. As a third-generation Texan who had to learn Spanish phonetically, with her father coaching her on her accent, she knew that there was a chance that the Mexican fans might dismiss her. Instead, they adored everything about her, from her dark hair and brown eyes to her curvy figure.

The fans saw Selena’s sincerity and generosity, and felt her love for them. Selena appealed to everyone from excitable preteen girls
who wanted to dress and dance like her, to
abuelas
who loved those heart-wrenching ballads like “Como La Flor.”

To Mexicans, and to most Mexican-Americans, Selena was that perfect symbol: a sexy star who had come up from the streets, bringing her family with her, and still remaining virtuous and hard-working along the way. It wasn’t an act, either. What they saw was true and the fans knew that.

In Mexico, Selena mangled her conversations in Spanish like the rest of us, but not for long. She said, “It’ll be cool. You watch. I’m going to learn Spanish and surprise everybody.”

Every minute we were in Mexico, Selena’s Spanish jumped up a notch. She got better and better, to the point where I’d have to ask her to slow down so that I could understand what she was saying. Her fluency in Spanish eventually helped her in Los Angeles and Miami as well as in Mexico, because at those concerts the audience was also made up mostly of Spanish-speaking fans who all wanted to hear her music. They came from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, you name it: the accents were all different, but everyone loved Selena.

It was in Mexico where we had the craziest, most zealous fans. They showed up in numbers we rarely saw at concerts in the U.S., and although we appreciated how completely they had embraced us, sometimes it was overwhelming.

For instance, during one tour in Monterrey, we were playing to tens of thousands of people in an outdoor arena. Suddenly the crowd—too many people, packed in too closely beneath an intensely hot sun, without water or shade—started surging forward. The audience members shoved and pushed against each other as a force of energy moved the crowd forward. People were getting
trampled below the stage. Others were climbing up the scaffolding, trying to get to us, especially to Selena.

“Get out of here!” Abraham barked at us. “Now!” He motioned for us to run for the bus, which was parked right behind the stage.

Hearts pounding, we did as we were ordered, leaving Abraham out there to try to intimidate the crowd, make them behave.

Whatever he said didn’t work. The audience started throwing half-empty beer cans at the instruments, equipment, and speakers, the metallic sounds ringing like gunshot even above the noise of people chanting and shouting for us to return.

The arena was enclosed by high walls. There was really only one way in and one way out; all I could think about was what might happen next if the fans rushed around the stage, dodged the barricades, and surrounded our bus. I put my arm around Selena and eyed the height of the wall, considering whether we could manage to jump over it if we climbed on top of the bus.

Finally, Selena shook me off. As daring and courageous as she was, she wasn’t about to just sit there. She knew that the fans were only impatient because they couldn’t see her. She went out onstage and faced the mob. Speaking in Spanish, she asked them to please calm down so that she could sing to them.

The fans always listened to her. They quieted and we went back onstage, fingers crossed that we’d be able to get out of that arena in one piece.

That was how it was in Mexico: exciting, thrilling, and a little scary. We all had to learn as we went—including our promoters. Fame had come to us before we were quite ready for it.

Anytime we played in Monterrey, it was especially crazy, because people here had been listening to Selena’s music from across the border long before she ever came to Mexico. Not only did we do interviews all day, we’d also do afternoon and evening shows. We wouldn’t get a lot of sleep, so everyone was irritable. We didn’t even have time to get out and walk around or see anything of the city. We were too busy doing promotional stops for Capitol EMI.