Sometime before my seventh birthday, we moved to a bigger house. Buildings and apartments made of adobe could be found anywhere in the barrio. My parents were able to find one with two rooms. It was right across the street from Fidel’s Grocery Store, a convenience store catering to the Hispanic community. The prices resembled today’s convenience store prices. Expensive.

The barracks-style building had an outhouse, which we shared with two old men living in separate rooms. Fidel, the old man who owned the store, rented out these rooms to poor people, and we still qualified as poor. There was no air conditioning, but the adobe kept the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Walking five blocks, we moved our meager belongings in one trip. We didn’t own a car at the time. However, it wasn’t long before Chuy got his hands on a 1951 pickup truck. He drove that truck back and forth to work without a driver’s license.

“How can I get a driver’s license when the questions are in English?” he would ask. “If they had the test in Spanish, I would pass it, no problema.”

Fidel’s sat on the corner of Ryan and Texas Streets, a busy intersection during the day, but it was very quiet at night. Right next to the front entrance was a big picture window with his name painted on it in big black letters: “Fidel’s Grocery Store.” The store was small by today’s standards and covered with green stucco on the outside.

Fidel had all sorts of items besides groceries. Very few people bought their groceries there because it was too expensive. He made most of his money selling beer, soft drinks, candy, and ice cream. There were times when Fidel would allow us to buy things on credit, which had to be paid at the end of the week.

It was nighttime when we got word that my dad had crashed into Fidel’s picture window while driving drunk. Driving south on Texas Street, he’d missed the turn. He must have been in a drunken stupor when he struck the store head-on.

Someone came knocking on our door, saying, “Chuy just crashed into Fidel’s store. Come quick!”

It was late at night. As I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus in the darkness, we ran outside. When my eyes adjusted, I saw the truck. He’d gone right through the big picture window. The truck was stuck halfway inside the store. Broken glass was everywhere, and he was standing there with not a single cut or broken bone.

The police arrived in time to find Fidel cussing and yelling. He was furious, threatening to press charges for all damages. The police, once they got Fidel under control, proceeded to question my dad, who was in no condition to describe what had happened. His not being able to stand without stumbling gave it away. It wasn’t long before I saw them driving him off to the county jail.

I don’t know what ever became of Fidel’s threat, but I do know that Dad had hell trying to get a driver’s license after that incident. It would take several tickets and a few more days in jail for driving without a license before he decided to learn just enough to pass the test. Even then, it would take several attempts.

The day after the accident, Pino and I walked to the county jail to see Dad. The judge would not be available for a few more days, so he had to stay locked up.

The Pecos County Jail was not a very big place. It sat at the corner of West Gallagher and Main. The building was intimidating. Made of stone inside and out, it resembled an old haunted house. The sheriff lived in an apartment on the bottom floor of the two-story building. The prisoners were kept upstairs.

When it was time to visit the prisoner, Mom and I walked up a flight of steel stairs. The empty, echoing sounds with each step we took reverberated off the walls. The inside was made of old wrought iron with walls painted light green. As we got to the top of the stairs, I noticed steel bars separating those jailed from the visitors. There were several men in one large room. Other prisoners were kept in separate cells. There wasn’t much room to move, so we had to wait until a visitor left before another was let in.

I didn’t want to go inside, but Mom was insistent that I see what the jail was like and how the prisoners looked behind bars. I stood with my back against the wall, not wanting to get too close to the bars. Dad walked a few steps toward us. I shook at the sight of him behind those bars.

“Hey, come here,” he said, putting his hands through the bars and wanting to hold mine. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk. I was terrified.

“Come here!” he demanded. A few short steps got me to the bars. He smiled and said, “Are you being good?”

What the hell do you mean, “Are you being good”? Look at you! Who’s behind bars? I thought.

Mom had brought him a clean shirt, clean pants, and a pack of cigarettes. They talked briefly in a whispered tone. I believe it was so I couldn’t hear about the serious trouble he was in for driving drunk, damaging the store, and not having a driver’s license.

A few days later, my dad showed up at the house, fired from his job and mad as hell. I was totally surprised we didn’t get evicted from Fidel’s barracks.

The summer of 1957, we were still living in the adobe barracks and struggling to make ends meet. Dad was out of a job, again. Things were getting pretty uncomfortable as conversations turned into arguments between him and Mom. He did manage to find work, but things around the house were still tense.

While Dad was out working or drinking away the week’s earnings, I roamed the hood. About a block down the street, heading south toward the town plaza, was an old schoolhouse that had been abandoned when Butz Elementary was built. This place had been turned into living accommodations for poor people. Some of the classrooms had become apartment-like dwellings, but not all of them. The Rodriguez family lived in two of the rooms, and the others were left empty. With doors missing, walls crumbling, and the place trashed by kids, many wondered how the building was still inhabited. But it had become the perfect place for young boys to play in.

The Rodriguez family was made up of a bunch of boys, some close to my age. I would hang out with them, roaming the old building and trashing old desks and chairs. No one cared. We’d play chase, jump through windows, run in hallways, and dangle from old lumber stacked at least six feet high. It made perfect hiding places. It was a jungle, and we loved to zoom in and out of the crevices between the old boards.

One day, I went early to their place and found the boys outside yelling and screaming. They were between the old schoolhouse and an abandoned building with a narrow passage between the two.

One of them said to me, “Mira, mira.” (“Look, look.”)

They had two dogs surrounded between the buildings. Using brooms and mops to scoot them together, they watched the dogs with wicked smiles on their faces. It was my first experience seeing dogs doing it. I was stunned.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

The male dog would jump on the back of the female dog and hump.

“What are they doing?” I asked again.

The boys just laughed and pointed at the dogs. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, waiting to see what would happen. Once the male dog entered the female dog, they got stuck. I turned to one of the boys, who was yelling and egging them on.

“What are the dogs doing?”

He ignored me and used the broom to beat the female dog so she would let the male free himself from her. Once the dogs were separated, they surrounded them and had them do the same thing again.

I found this difficult to understand. It wasn’t the kind of stuff I could discuss with my parents. The incident left a lasting impression on my seven-year-old brain. There were more questions than answers, which I struggled with for a long time. I didn’t ask any more questions for fear the boys would make fun of me. Instead, I watched with intensity and asked why these dogs would go back and do the same thing, knowing full well they were going to get beaten until they separated.

It was weeks before I went back to play with the Rodriguez boys again. When I did, there were several little puppies running around outside. I didn’t put two and two together. It would be a long time before I understood.

We must have moved up the poor scale that year because by then, we seemed to be managing. I mean, we were still poor, but there were weeks when, with Dad working a steady job, we didn’t struggle as much. The arguments between Mom and Dad were still there but weren’t as frightful.

The summer was ending abruptly for me. I needed to get ready for the second grade. However, school was not to start until September, so I had some time to keep playing. The Christmas before, Dad had bought me a BB gun—something I had been asking for. (I can understand an axe for Christmas, but a BB gun? I was six. What did I know about guns?)

“I love it! Can I use it?” I had asked that Christmas morning.

“No,” my dad had said. “You can use it when you turn seven. It’s too dangerous for you. Leave it in the package. On your next birthday, I’ll show you how it works.”

That summer, I was chomping at the bit to learn how to shoot the BB gun because I was turning seven.

“It’s going to be my birthday,” I said to both Mom and Dad. “Are you going to show me how to use the rifle?”

On July 29, 1958, we broke open the BB gun. Dad showed me how to load, cock, aim, and shoot. I would sit outside and shoot at beer bottles, mostly missing my target. But the more I shot, the better I got.

The rule was that I could not use it until both my parents were home. One day, knowing they would not be home until later, I pulled the rifle out from under the bed and went outside. I was shooting beer bottles, the quart size because that was what my dad drank. I had my sister Nancy, who was six, place the bottles—two at a time—and I’d shoot at them from twenty to thirty yards away. (Not very far because the rifle didn’t have a lot of power. To break the bottles, I needed to be closer. If not, the BB would just bounce right off.)

Nancy would place the bottles on the ground as I’d cock the rifle. I wasn’t very strong, so I would place the barrel on the ground and hold the butt of the rifle to steady it. I’d push the cocking lever down until it clicked. By the time I got all that done, my sister would run like a scared jackrabbit, kicking up dust and dirt with her bare feet. She would run as fast as she could as I took aim and fired. Many a time, she wasn’t fast enough, and I almost popped her one in the ass.

I was ready. It was time to take this baby into war.

I took the rifle to show the Rodriguez boys. They had BB guns too. Maybe that’s where I got the idea of wanting one. We were talking about hunting wild animals, imagining we were in a jungle.

The oldest boy said, “Let’s have a war!” That’s what I had been waiting for.

We all jumped up, picking sides. I wanted to be with the older kids, of which two had rifles. But I was outranked. The older three boys were on one side, and the younger three boys on the other. I was with the younger group. We had only my rifle. On the oldest boy’s signal, we were to run, take our place among the wooden planks, and start firing. Some would hide inside the windowless rooms of the schoolhouse while others went behind the building.

“It’s war!” someone shouted, and the shooting began. The two young kids who did not have a gun were told to use rocks as missiles. The three of us ran outside near the debris, where rocks were abundant. There were no rules, like, “Don’t shoot at the face” or “Don’t shoot at the head.” It was a free-for-all.

Since I couldn’t cock the rifle fast enough, I handed it to one of the other boys on my side. I let him shoot while I threw missiles. I don’t remember how this war was supposed to end, but I swear, I think it took an hour before we gave up. No one got hurt too seriously. At least there was no blood. Just some red welts around the legs and hands.

I took my BB gun and went home exhausted but smiling because I only had one red welt on my nose. I don’t know where it came from. It could have come from my own side. Who knows? It was total chaos. Great time!

The next day, we decided to have another BB gun shootout. The problem was that we were running out of BBs. Where to get some was the discussion for an hour or so.

“We have to go to the store!” someone yelled.

One of the older kids said, “¡No seas pendejo!” (“Don’t be stupid.”) Where do you think we’re getting money to buy BBs?”