Nanowrimo part the Seventh

CHAPTER BREAK
Mario studied business at the community college in Bend, Oregon. In the early 1980’s, as now, it was a highly respected school. And as in anything Mario did, he excelled. He chose to study business and accounting, with the plan in mind that he would be his own boss someday. To live, not in a barrio someone kept for workers, but in a real home.

His idea of real home was a confusion of glowing jungle images, blue waterfalls and vibrant Mayan hammocks in the shade. In a real home, it seemed to him, there was a madre who played with you and told you fabulous tales. And there was staff—someone in the kitchen, someone to keep their house, In a real home warm, moist air moved slowly through the windows--a slow breeze scented richly with moldering jungle weeds and blossoms turning to fruit in the mango grove. Of course, in a real home you could grow your own food to eat. It was the same in Oregon, in the plot of yard behind the house. His mother grew much of what they ate through out the year.

And there was more from Oregon in his glorious confusion of home. Wide expanses of sunset from the bedroom window. Great Evergreen trees in the distant hills.
People tumbling over themselves to be on your porch with you. Whitewashed fences a clear division of who lived where. And madre, mama, at the stove preparing your supper. Madre walking to school with you when she would help the Spanish speaking children learn English. This on days when she did not go away to the great farm and cook.

In a real home, there was a charming, dashing father. He was strong and bold and funny. He told amazing stories of traveling by boat across the great ocean to places where people lived in a land of cold fog, rather than the warm embrace of the jungle fogs. This was a real father. The substitute, this Dr. Gomez of America, reminded him of his father, but did not laugh or tell stories.

So Mario worked very hard with this goal in his mind. Not to return to Chiapas where a century can be turned to ashes in the rain forest. But here. To create the dream of his early childhood in this landscape.

He saw many things he wanted while he was in college. One of those was a stunning blonde, with long athletic legs. On a cool spring evening he saw her running, and so he charmed her into having dinner with him. As he was handsome, kind and known to be a great student, it wasn’t hard to convince her. At dinner he found her intoxicating. Her conspiratorial laugh drew him in deeply.

She laughed, first, at the team they ran their first meet against.

“Mario, I know that we are just a community college, But really. I expected some kind of competition. It was like running, well, like racing little school children who didn’t know where they were going.” She laughed and her eyes disappeared and her smile filled her face. She leaned back, laughing at how much she enjoyed winning, and she seemed to invite him to laugh with her. To be a winner with her.

“I know you understand what I mean.” She was quieter and leaning across the table, intimately. “I’ve seen your name on the dean’s list. Above everyone else’s. Odds have it that you’ll be valedictorian. Don’t you feel it in your classes? Like you are the only man working in a room full of children?”

Mario’s parents were terribly proud of their son the Valedictorian. He drove them to Bend for the Ceremony and took them out to dinner afterwards. Dr Gomez looked at his son, twenty years old now and admired him. A tall strong young man. Bright and hardworking.

“Today, son, you have given me a reason to smile. I am so very proud of what you have done.” Dr Gomez shook hands solemnly with his son, and then embraced him.

“Look at you, our boy. There was a time you know, when we did not know if we would all live to see you grown.” Far from melodramatic, Sra Gomez eyes misted as she thought of those days. Those last days in Chiapas of waiting, waiting to see if their escape to America would arrive before the men of the Mafia did. Before the PLO sent in men to teach them what protection was for.

“Si madre. I remember those days of fear. We have done so much.” Mario drove his parents to a small family restaurant, one with good food and comfortable seating. Not fancy, but home like.

Dr Gomez spoke again. “Son, there are things that in Mexico you would have done and would have been. I am so sorry we have not been able to do that for you here. You have inherited a legacy of spirit, but no clinica in which to work. This is my sincere apology. But today, you have completed studies and I want you to know your mother and I will do everything we can to fulfill your legacy here. Son, it is not to late, would you like to begin a study of medicine?” Dr Gomez was sober, as always, and deep in thought as he spoke. Not until his son said to him “I have graduated!” did he really understand. For the first time in hundreds of years a Gomez son was not a doctor. He did not attend the ancient and revered Universidad Nacionale de Misiones in Mexico City. He was proud of his son’s hard work and yet disappointed that all of the hard work went to this small, junior college to study business.

“A legacy is a great honor for a son to hold. Thank you for offering me the opportunity. May I tell you what it is I dream to do?” They were seated around a table, near a fireplace with their mugs of coffee.

Timotea and Estefan exchanged a wondering look. There son had hopes, had plans. They were astonished that it had not occurred to them before. But here in America, in Clovis, all of hte Children planned their own future. No one arranged things for them, hoping they would think it was their own idea.

“There is a school in Portland where a man can learn to be a professional chef. It is a well respected program and difficult to enter. It is possible for the student of the culinary school to also attend the University in Portland—a real university and complete a four year degree. This is what I hope Padre, mi Madre. I hope to go to Portland now and attend the Culinary School and the University. When I have finished I can come home to Clovis and open my own Restaurante. Do you see what I want? I will have my own restaurante and work for no man.” Mario paused and assessed his parent’s reactions. He could see they were thinking, perhaps with mixed feelings.

“Padre, it is not medicine, I know. I have thought about medicine a great deal. About healing people. But I also think about feeding people, about having a place where people can gather together and celebrate or relax or eat when they have no where else to go. It is a romantic notion, I know. But a good one, I think.” He addressed his father primarily, as he was the hardest to read, the most closed with his feelings.

Sra Gomez responded first to her son. “This is a good wish. It is not medicine, but it is a kind of care. And it is honest work, something to be proud of. I think you have a gift in the kitchen son, and could be a very talented chef.” Tears glistened in her eyes. Her son dreamed of spending his life in their town. The town she had worked so hard to make home for him.

“Yes, This is honest work. This is something to be proud of son. No one would be ashamed of this for you.” Dr Gomez responded carefully. There came a time always when a son went his own way. If he had taken more care with his child’s upbringing then perhaps he would have gone into medicine. It was too late for this thought. What he had left to do was ensure his son did his best. Always did his best. There was never a time that a man should do less, Dr Gomez thought.

Mario relaxed a bit more over dinner. His parents hadn’t discouraged his dream. He didn’t tell them that he would have to work hard to pay for the school, work while he studied and that the restaurant would still be many years in the future. Indeed, he could see from the sorrow that crossed his mother's face now and then that they knew this already.

“Linda is going up to Portland too. She’s got a scholarship at a different school called the University of Portland. It is a good Catholic school. She’s studying accounting.” He grinned as he talked about Linda. He always did.

“That is very nice indeed. So you will be able to see a good deal of her then?” Sra Gomez had a new worry now, would they think it right to live together in the city? Her heart ached at the thought. Would they marry before they left instead—so young still?

‘We should be able to. The business school is a long course, she should take another three years before she has her degree. We’ll be in the same town, but she will be in the girl’s dorm at her school. I hope to find a room to rent near the culinary school. We should have weekends to visit each other.” He made a gentle point about their living quarters to assure his parents. To give them one less thing to worry about while he was away.

His two years of school turned into three as working made it difficult to take many classes at once. When he finished he had a bachelor’s degree in business management and a Culinary arts degree from the most respected school in town. The families, Linda’s family and Mario’s traveled to Portland to see both of them graduate. And to see them marry in the small chapel on the campus of the University of Portland.

It was a beautiful ceremony though long. Much of it was new to Linda’s parents but they accepted Catholicism if it meant that polite hardworking young man would take care of their daughter. And keep her as close to home as Clovis. It was such a relief not marrying her off to a Portland boy.

What was left now to accomplish his dream was to learn how a restaurant really works. And to make some money to open their own place. Portland seemed the best place to do all of that.

The rented a studio apartment not far from the river, in an area called Hawthorne where the hippies and artists lived, for the same reason they did. It was cheap. A local credit union hired Linda right away.