Mi Papi -José Martínez Solano

There is no greater sin than to not develop your talents, my father José Martínez Solano

Though few people are taken by the idea because to them it connotes something negative, I’ve always wanted to entitle a book Cercos Caidos (Fallen Fences.) It suggests to me that defenses are down, that you’re not fenced in. More importantly,  for me represents a very special time I shared with my father any time I was back home from my hated boarding school.

We’d set off early in the morning and follow one of the long straight lines of barbed wire fence that separated different grazing lands and went as far as our eyes could see, over the rolling hills of our ranch. We knew that eventually we’d find that a few posts had fallen and that some cattle must’ve crossed over to a field that was reserved for another season. We’d round them up, bring them back to their rightful place, and set the posts upright, tighten or repair the wires and continue on our way. If the wind was blowing right sometimes I’d get a whiff of his Old Spice after-shave lotion.

These were the precious times I could be alone with my father, the rare times that we could speak one on one although I don’t recall either of us doing much talking. Once in a while he’d reveal an unexpected or indiscreet secret or two about himself, his family or their friends. But otherwise, father had a difficult time relating to his daughters unless he was imparting a bit of his immense store of knowledge on an amazing range of topics. In me he found a ready audience.

Father was not the typical rancher. He was admired as a true bohemio, a lover of all things artistic and literary, a man of many interests and hobbies. He painted, wrote haiku, raised exotic birds, built board games, dug for buried treasure, listened to opera, read voraciously and spent hours poring through his huge Webster’s dictionary and set of Encyclopedia Britannica just for the pleasure of learning something new. He spoke English with a thick accent but his vocabulary was remarkable (he worked on triple acrostic puzzles in pen) and was a master at word play and puns and had a dark sense of humor. It was great fun to hear him talk and a deep challenge for me to keep up with him.

He had a prodigious memory and I loved hearing him recite the poems of Federico García Lorca and Rafael de León in an Andalusian accent and was amused when he ridiculed some of the cursi (pretentious) overly romantic verses of Amado Nervo. I was not particularly interested in history but he brought it to life for me through his stories. He explained the librettos of his favorite operas and spoke of the books he loved—The Decameron, Anthony Adverse, Ulisses, Finnegan’s Wake— and his favorite authors, Cervantes, Oscar Wilde, Rabindranath Tagore, and for lighter reading PG Wodehouse and Rex Stout. His greatest gift to me was instilling a love of reading and a passion for learning.

Years later, my time alone with him would not be limited to those special rides. I was the post that had fallen and needed to be set upright.

Sent over the edge while reading Camus’ The Plague, I quit my university studies during that difficult period of depression and despondency that doctors diagnosed “as adjustment reaction to adolescence” (This was in the early seventies, the time of “mini” and later, “maxi” skirts and my college friends referred to me as “la mini mujer, con el maxi problema” (the mini woman with the maxi problem). My mother, who I couldn’t stand at the time, was not able then or ever to deal with problems of this nature, and sent me off to Europe on a six-month tour hoping that I would somehow be magically cured while traveling. When that didn’t happen she banished me to live on the ranch with my voluntarily exiled father and instructed him to deal with me.

Thanks to my mother’s obsession with controlling my weight I had become addicted to doctor prescribed amphetamines that sped me up and kept me up all night. To counter the amphetamines’ effects I’d started taking sleeping pills and grown dependent on them while doing double duty at the University. In all fairness, no one knew at the time how dangerous they were and what terrible consequences they could have but it was left up to my father to get me off of them. Without giving me any notice he threw every pill away and I had to quit cold turkey. It was not pretty. I curled up in a fetal position in his arms on a creaky rocking chair and he comforted and rocked me all night as I sweated profusely, my veins dilating dangerously. After a night during which I felt I was dying – during which I could have, in fact, died –  morning found us exhausted.

I was angry.  I hadn’t realized I was an addict.  Pills had helped me get through life. They had helped me cope and deal with the pain of years away from home, and the subsequent reality of being back home and living with a man who wouldn’t or couldn’t talk too much about himself, yet couldn’t bear to hear what I had to say. Because of pills  I could be thin. And if I was thin I could do anything. To this day, I still feel that way. That morning there was a bitter taste in my mouth as I thought about this, but when I looked into my father’s eyes and he looked straight into mine for the first time I could remember,  I knew I’d be all right.  He put me in bed and tucked me in – another first – and I slept for days.

I was free!

From there followed one of the happiest times of my life. I loved the ranch more than anyone or anything and came to know every inch of it with my beloved horse Desprecio. Named after a penchant for tossing riders, the horse  spurned (despreció) anyone who dared try to ride him, quickly bucking them off,  until no one would even make the attempt and he could run free. Until I came along.  Bachi, my nanny’s husband, did not want to let me have him but I had seen the horse galloping on a hill, his mane flowing and I fell in love. I insisted, and as usual got my way . When we saddled him, the whole family came out to watch as I came over to him, spoke softly in his ear, patted him, got on and took off at a gallop.

During the rainy season, I’d lie on my stomach and drink water straight from the roaring arroyo; if the day was hot I’d fill my hat up with water and let it pour down my face. When I came to a tinaja, a deep spot where a pool formed, I’d take off my pants as instructed by my parents (jeans get awfully heavy when soaked and one of the local kids had drowned while bathing clothed) and swim amid the twigs and debris the roaring arroyo brought with it. I gathered acorns and wild berries and got to know and like myself again.

Like my father, the rest of the time I only did things I enjoyed—reading, gossiping and working on all sorts of arts and crafts (embroidery, decoupage, sewing) with the cowboys’ wives, and cooking. My father had built several kinds of grills and we’d smoke meats with green mesquite or grill over scrub oak logs and cook whole heads of garlic in the ashes. We put up pints of pomegranate jelly, staining our hands red for days; we cured hams and made homemade beer. I read 27 Nero Wolfe books the first summer and we’d try to replicate some of the meals mentioned in these mystery novels. Other times we looked  through the huge Gourmet cookbook to find exotic things to try. Father’s drinking started during cocktail hour, continued through dinner, after which he would retreat to the privacy of his den to read, or paint or watch Jack Benny on his blurry black and white TV, drink in hand. He left me alone to battle with the demons that I managed to keep at bay during the day but reared their ugly heads in lonesome moments. I’d  ponder my future, escape into a book, or write letters. But mostly I sang by myself or with the cowboys and learned dozens of songs that I still sing and that take me back to that time and place  Those were the times I missed my friends and being in the city. My father noticed and decided that I was ready to be on my own.  My parents set me up in a nice apartment in El Paso, Texas.  gave me a small allowance until I got a job and started to work in earnest.  I haven’t stopped since.