Mom, what was it like raising twins?” —Fernando Garcia


“Ay, sometimes I go to bed crying.” —Ma Garcia

Most of what we have written in our stories is true. We used poetic license in the sequence of events to give the reminiscences a logical flow.

We attended St. Jude Academy in San Diego, California for the first two years and St. Rita’s Catholic Grammar School across town for the rest of our elementary education. We received enough sacraments during our primary-education years to guarantee us a shot at getting into heaven in the event of our untimely deaths.

By the time we reached age of five, Ma must have rejoiced when she walked us to our first day of kindergarten and could look forward to a few hours of peace, Monday through Friday. Between the ages of six months and five years, we had already put her through a lifetime of trials. Before Fernando’s first birthday, and while living in a migrant worker camp, I drank kerosene out of a glass jar that Ma kept near the lamp. I had mistaken the clear liquid for water. While I spent a day in the hospital, my sister Martha spent the day on her knees praying for me. She likely regretted it a few years later when I sneaked into her bed one night and scared the hell out of her.

An exciting new world lay before us when we learned to walk. We climbed into the cab of Pa’s 1948 GMC work truck, somehow released the parking brake, and coasted out of the driveway and down a hill. Armando stood on the seat playing with the steering wheel while Fernando sat on the floor pushing and pulling the clutch, brake, and accelerator pedals. Ma realized a moment too late that her house was unusually quiet and noticed that the front door was open. She stepped out to see my brother standing in the truck as it rolled away. She chased after, waving arms and screaming. The truck came to a stop when it turned up an embankment. Fortunately, it didn’t turn in the other direction crossing a street heavy with traffic. Our Aunt Mary, Ma’s sister–not to be confused with Aunt Mary, my father’s sister–found our little adventure riotously funny.

On another occasion Fernando stood on a ladder rung and dropped a half–pound lead weight on Armando curious to see what would happen. He cried and got a pot knot on the top of his head. Ma gave him a treat, I got a whack.

We took an old quilt Ma had discarded in our backyard, which in and of itself was highly unusual as Ma rarely threw anything away. Fernando wrapped him in the quilt, allowing his head to stick out, and pushed him down a knoll. He laughed with glee as he rolled until his head hit a piece of concrete protruding out of the ground. When he came to a stop, I grabbed the end of the quilt and rolled him out. He cried as blood pulsed from the gash. He came home from the emergency room missing a patch of hair and four neat cat–gut stitches closing the wound.

When we climbed a rickety wood fence in our back yard, Armando grabbed a fence board, that gave way, and he fell nose first onto the ground just as Pa was pulling into the driveway from his work shift. Pa saw blood flowing freely onto his chest and ran to him. Pa covered his nose with a handkerchief and rushed him to the emergency room. For the record, I didn’t push him off the fence.

Armando got mad after I took away the broom handle that was his rifle. He sunk his teeth into my shoulder blade. Ma had to pry him off as I screamed.

We got caught, with our neighbor Genie, playing with matches and nearly burned down his garage. Ma smacked our hands with the backside of her hairbrush; Genie got a whipping.

Fernando shot Armando in the back with our neighbor Mikey’s BB gun that he kept just inside their back door. The BB imbedded itself into my Armando’s back. I begged him not to tell Ma and Pa but he snitched.

When Ma called us for dinner, we raced, trying to get there first. I tripped my brother. He landed open mouth on the concrete stairs from the lower yard and knocked an impressive–sized chip from a front tooth.

This was an era before behavioral scientists and child psychologists said that parents should reason with their kids or modern helicopter moms hovering over their children. Ma used her Old World system of threat, guilt, El Cucuy, (the Mexican boogie man), and the devil, as tools for keeping us under some semblance of control and discipline.

Our stories were written to give you an insight into what is was like growing up in this era. We sincerely apologize for our writings if we have offended friends, classmates, neighbors or relatives, whether they be Mexican, American, Chicano, gringo, gay, straight, transsexual, transvestite, bisexual, bilingual or bipolar. If you feel slighted, please understand that it is unintentional. We will never, however, apologize to Sister Mary Constance the principal and Mother Superior of the convent at St. Rita’s School. You will soon find out why.

The devil was as much a part of the Garcia family as was the Virgin Mary. I loved the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus. She was good and pure, the only person who had never committed a sin. The most boring job in the world would have to have been being the priest who had to hear her confessions.

Our teachers the nuns, said that if you were in hot water with God for having committed a really, really big sin and were too afraid to ask Him for forgiveness, you could always go to Mary and she would intervene on your behalf. The God of wrath and judgment had a tender spot in His heart for Mary and couldn't deny her anything. This was a great advantage for Catholics. Our poor Protestant brethren didn't have the good sense to pray to her. The devil was always there, too.

When alone in the bedroom, I'd beat the crap out of the devil. I'd imagine him standing before me and grab him by the collar. I'd rear back my fist and hit him so hard that he'd go flying and land on a bed. I'd jump on him, straddling him like a cowboy hero jumping on his horse. The bedsprings squeaked as I pummeled him with rights and lefts. He would plead with me that he'd had enough. But he had tempted people like me into sinning and the ones who didn't make it to confession, to get forgiven, went to hell where he tormented them forever. Mercy? I think not. He had it coming, and more. I picked him off the bed and flipped him over my shoulder like a judo master slamming him to the ground. And like a good cowboy, I never kicked a guy when he was down. That was for cowardly bad guys like the devil. I picked him up, lifted him over my head, spun him round and round until he was good and dizzy, and then threw him through the window, shattering the glass into hundreds of pieces. He'd limp off like a beaten dog. God, it felt great giving the father of lies a sound beating. It was his fault that man had to die and not live happily forever in the Garden of Eden because he tempted poor, unsuspecting Eve.

I asked Ma, “What are the devil's favorite colors?” “Rojo y negro,” (red and black) she answered. “Y cuando esta de acercas uno huele el azufre,” (And when he's close by you can smell sulfur). I never used red or black when coloring again. When alone in the dark I began to smell sulfur, I'd make a hasty retreat into the house, to find Ma, who was as good and holy as the Virgin Mary. The devil possessed a lot of power.

The world was filled with people who had fallen prey to his influence, people like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and the sailors from the Navy bases where we lived in San Diego. Some of them would go to the Tower Theater downtown where they showed movies with naked women. My big sisters wrote letters to the degenerate owner of the Tower, explaining that morally corrupting our sailors was a terrible threat to our country's security. My sisters, under the guidance of the nuns of their Catholic high school, in union with the Legion of Decency, fought the good fight. They were doing their part to stem the nation's steady slide toward decadence. I mean after all decadence was what led to the fall of the Roman Empire. And we were next!

“Morally weakened sailors can't defend us like those who are standing on solid moral ground,” one of my older sisters told me one night. The stakes couldn't be higher; godless Russians were poised to overtake our morally weakened forces. Thank God for the nuns, my sisters, and the Legion of Decency. I couldn't wait to be old enough to join the fray.

I would become a leader in the Legion. Maybe if I talked to the bishop maybe he would put me in charge. I'd give inspiring speeches and help the world understand the importance of living moral lives. Millions who didn't know the truth, like we did, were being led astray by the devil. The world needed my voice. Why couldn't people understand? There were misguided souls who didn't believe in the devil, or even God, and it was my Christian duty to save them.

I lay awake nights, making plans to save the world.

As soon as I would get old enough I'd apply to become the director of the Legion. It would be my job to research moral degradation intensively. I'd start at the Tower Theater. I'd carry a notepad and document every moral transgression. And in the interest of furthering my education, I would go to burlesque shows and force myself to sit through them ten, twenty, thirty times if necessary, no detail too insignificant, no sacrifice too great. I would look at dirty magazines of all sorts. The more the degenerate, the harder I would have to apply myself. I'd have to do this in secret of course. People who saw me doing such things could understandably get the wrong impression. I'd wear dark glasses, a hat, and a long coat to hide under and then do my undercover work.

The devil was powerless in the Garcia household. Father Gomez blessed our house just after we moved in. He used holy water and holy incantations in Latin. Our family went to Mass every Sunday, attended Catholic schools, and memorized the Baltimore Catechism questions and answers. We confessed our sins on the first Friday of each month and received Holy Communion every Sunday.

Hector, who lived across the street from us, went to Gompers Junior High School. He made friends and brought them over to play one Saturday. I got to like them and didn't want them going to hell. Once, during a break from playing war, we sat and chatted. I was aghast that they knew so little of the spiritual world. I explained heaven and hell and purgatory to them and asked them if they were aware of these facts.

“I know about heaven and hell,” one said. “But I don't know what in the hell that other place is.” It made my head spin to hear him use a cuss word when talking about God's justice system. I explained Adam and Eve's original sin and how Jesus came to earth and died so people like him could have a chance at getting into heaven. Then the kid laid a bomb on me when he said. “I wasn't baptized.” Not baptized? I offered to baptize him right there. The poor fool declined. I warned him of Jesus's impending return to separate the believers from the heathens and what fate awaited them. He stopped me and said, “Look, preacher boy, I don't care about any of this shit.” I asked Hector not to bring him over again.

One day he'd be sorry, I'd look down from heaven and shrug my shoulders. “Told you so.”
 There was a lot of work to be done in the world. The devil was deceiving people at every turn. There were juvenile delinquents everywhere. It seemed as if everybody was getting divorced, even Hector's mom. She had been a good, practicing Catholic and got a divorce. The church allowed her to go to Mass but she couldn't receive Communion anymore. The devil had to have had a hand in it. Father McGinn, one of the parish priests, came into our fifth-grade religion class and told us just how sinister the devil was. “He can get into your mind and trick even good children like you into having sinful thoughts.” I rolled this around in my head. The more I thought about it, the more sinful thoughts came to my mind. I begged the Virgin Mary to go to God and ask Him to forgive me. I didn't want to have impure thoughts. I came to fully realize the awesomeness of the devil's power when I went to confession.

“Father,” I said, “the devil's making me sin.”

“And just how is he doing that, son?”

I was mortified having to say it out loud. “He made me think of what one of the nuns might look like naked, Father.” I was so embarrassed I wanted to cry.

Father was silent for a moment then said. “Which one?”

“Sister Mary Grace.”

“Oh, yes, the pretty one. Well, don't worry too much about the devil's tricks. He even plays them on me sometimes. Just pray harder.”

I walked out of the confessional dumbfounded. The devil even gets to priests, the men of God who have been ordained by His Excellency, the bishop.

Ma had the family pray the rosary on our knees once a month after the dinner dishes were done. During May, the month of Mary, we prayed the rosary to her every night. On such nights Ma moved the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue from the top of the TV console and replaced Him with a statue of the Virgin. Mary stood with her arms open, welcoming us to her. A golden halo, connecting her to the heavens, hovered over her head. She stood on a snake, symbolizing her power over the devil.

The rosary has fifty-nine beads with a small metal with the images of Jesus and His mother and a crucifix at the end. Each bead had a prayer recited with it and for a few beads we said two or three prayers. Ma, Ana, Carolyn, Martha, Fernando, Carmen, and I knelt on the living room floor. My brother Tony was excused since he was away studying at the seminary and my Pa was sleeping before his midnight shift. My big sisters were expert at praying the rosary really fast, getting us through in time to watch “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Ana began rapid fire: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongstwomenandblessedisthefruitofthy womb,Jesus.” Like Olympians seamlessly passing the baton to the next runner, we answered, “HolyMarymotherofGodpray forussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeath,amen.” We kept the pace going for the Our Fathers between each of the ten Hail Marys.

After we got through one night, I walked into the bedroom and saw the devil, in my mind's eye.

“So, playing your filthy tricks in Father McGinn's mind, eh? And corrupting public school kids, eh? Just you wait until I get old enough to join the Legion of Decency.” I grabbed the devil by his collar and reared back my fist.