Manolo and the Matador
Manolo's father, Carlos had spent his entire day scouting the town for his deluded little boy. He knew buying that guitar for his son's eighth birthday was a mistake. The only reason he went through with the purchase was because his wife, Carmen had nagged and insisted that if that's the special gift their child wanted, then why not?
It'd been two years now since her death. Oh, but enough about Carmen; this wasn't about her, it was about their son being the next boy in their family to keep the Sanchez tradition going.
Ah, bullfighting. Now that was a stunt only a Sanchez man could handle. Every man in the family had been a bullfighter; but Manolo was different...in a bad way.
He didn't even enjoy bullfighting. Everytime his back was turned, Manolo'd be gone, and so was his guitar.
One day, he'd had enough of this foolishness. After finding Manolo performing like a bum for pocket change on the side of a road in town, he snatched his son by the arm with one hand, and his guitar with the other.
Little Manolo dreaded the moment they arrived home; what was his dad going to do this time?Carlos angrily tossed Manolo on the couch, and threw his guitar on coffee table in front of him.
"I've had it up to here with your ignoring your training, and wasting your time with this guitar!"
"Papi-"
"Callate! Until you learn in what order your priorties need to be in, your guitar will remain on the very top the bookcase in my room."
"Ama and Maria'd tell me to be whatever I wanted."
"Well, allthanks to you, neither of them are here. If you hadn't encouraged Maria to free those animals, you'd be outside playing with her and Joaquin."
"I didn't tell her to free them!"
"Just stop it, and go to your room! You'll be allowed to come out in a few minutes, because you have yet to finish your daily training."
For thirteen years straight, Manolo was forced to get up at 5:00 every day, and train for nineteen hours (with a few breaks in between)
Even though the daily training was exhausting, Manolo's need to have his guitar back gave him something to look forward to.
Off and on through his child and adolescent years, and finally into the young adult age of twenty-three, his behavior pattern remained almost the same. Whenever his dad wasn't supervising him, he'd run into town with his guitar to play with the Mariachi Bros.
Sometimes, Manolo wasn't as slick as he thought. He'd make back to practice before his dad stopped by to check on him, and totally believe that his father had no idea that he'd neglected a good amount of time on his training.
But after dinner in the front yard that evening, Carlos brought up that same question he had the same answer to.
"How did training go today?"
Manolo almost immediately choked, and pounded on his chest to clear his throat.
"It-it, eh, okay, I guess.
"By the way, Pancho wanted me to let you know that they're playing in the town square tomorrow, and they'd like you to join them."
Manolo nervously cringed and looked away with guilt.
"You really thought they were gonna keep it hidden? You know they don't ever hide anything from me once a little interrogation is used. Well, you have anything to say?"
"I'm sorry Apa; I-promise you that I still trained today, I only played a little."
"I don't wanna hear it. You're going to be supervised every hour of the day, from now on."
Letting his bottled anger finally burst, Manolo threw his plate to the ground.
"Why?! Why am I not allowed to be myself?! Have you not even noticed how greatly I've improved in my fighting routine? Of course not! You only stay so rarely."
Stress-oriented tears rivered themselves into the canyons of his eye luggage where the smoky-black rings of lost sleep kept the stream moving down the sandy desert of his caramel cheeks, and formed a mini waterfall that flowed off the cliff-edge of his chin.
"What's my one rule?" Carlos asked.
"If your roof is over my head, I stay under your rules."
"Exactly."
"You still didn't respond to my question! Why am I forbidden to be me?"
Carlos threw his food away, too, and lividly stomped toward his heir. When they're faces were only a distance of about seven inches from each other, Carlos did the one thing he promised Carmen he'd never do: raise his hand to his son's face.
From there, it got very ugly.
He unmercilessly kept pushing and hitting.
"If you don't wanna fight a beast like a man, then you might wanna learn how to fight a person man to man."
Manolo didn't fight.
"Stop holding back!"
Manolo only continued to try to block the hits.
"Please, stop Apa! I won't hurt you! So why must you hurt me?"
By the time his upper age tolled on him, Carlos wheezed enough breath to kick Manolo one more time...while he was on the ground!
Manolo opened his eyes wide enough to notice the one man who promised to be at his side-his father-had thrown his treasured guitar in front of him.
"Don't ever let me catch you playing this anywhere close to me."
With nothing more to say, the elder returned into the house, and locked every entry. When Manolo mustered enough strength to pick himself up, he did his best limp back to the door, only to be greeted by a heart-breaking sign left on the locked door.
"The entry of Manolo isn't allowed until he earns the right to call himself a Sanchez, and finally, when he earns the right to be my son."
Sobbing like a child, Manolo limped into town, to find a place where he'd be accepted. It took him a decent hour, but he finally managed to drag himself on a doorstep downtown. He cried with instant relief when Joaquin opened the door.
"Manny?"
"Amigo..."
Joaquin picked up his friend over his shoulders and carried him inside.
"Mama!"
A woman about forty-seven years old rushed out of the kitchen and instantly tended to Manolo, who's face, stomach, and hands were bruised and bloody. His hysteria calmed once the bandages were applied and Joaquin put a blanket over him.
"Joaquin-"
"Try to relax a little, okay? Mama will bring you something to eat, you can watch tv, and once you've got a little sleep, then we'll talk."
"Alright."
The last thing he remembered was thanking Joaquin's mom for a delicious meal. Next thing that happened, he was awakened by the sound of the tv's white noise still running.
"Joaquin?"
A pair of pounding boots actoss the floor came running to him.
"Hey, you're up!"
Manolo's back hurt from the stiff cushions on the couch.
"Listen, Joaquin, my-Apa hurt me."
"Why?"
"Don't know. Hey, will help me get back?"
"Yeah, but are you sure this is a good idea?"
"No."
END OF PART ONE