Tortillas and Butter: A Young Man's Quest for a Meaningful Life

By David J. Gurule

For Tommy Chávez, growing up in Northern New Mexico had been great. The love he shared for his family was strong and exquisite. His life had been simple and he enjoyed it that way. But one horrific accident changed his life forever. With the help of his girlfriend Melanie and best friend Weasel, Tommy pushes forward as best as he can. Follow Tommy through his senior year of high school as he attempts to regain some kind of meaning to this life of his. One thing is certain though: the love of familia is like nothing else in this world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: Mar 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611393514

David J. Gurule

David J. Gurulé was raised in the small Northern New Mexico town of Peñasco. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New Mexico State University. David’s passion for writing inspired him to write this novel. His knowledge of the unique and often misunderstood culture in this rural area of America is something he holds close to his heart.

Book preview

1

Senior Year

Tommy Chávez rarely ever rode the bus to school, but today he decided he would give it a try. The morning bus ride had been quite subdued, so Tommy felt the ride home should be different. This particular bus route served the kids that lived in Río Lucio and Picuris. Elementary, junior, and senior high school students all rode the bus together.

As Tommy sat at the back of the bus he reached into his backpack, pulled out two sheets of paper from his notebook, and then crumbled the two pieces of paper into one big ball. Tommy made sure that none of the kids were looking in his direction, then shoved the ball of paper into his mouth and began chewing. He had a plan for this giant spitball as long as nobody noticed this soggy piece of paper swirling around in his mouth.

The bus rolled into Río Lucio and began its stops on the usual route as Tommy chomped away at the two pieces of college-ruled notebook paper that were now a soggy mess. After the fourth stop Tommy’s eyes were watering as he gagged and forced himself to keep this substance, now a mushy mess of saliva and pieces of paper, in his mouth. As the bus approached his stop Tommy removed the giant spitball from his mouth and cuffed it in his left hand. As the kids began to exit the bus Tommy hurled the spitball to the front of the bus just as the bus driver put his head down.

The spitball landed exactly where Tommy had hoped it would. Just to the right of the bus driver, Teodoro Lόpez, the spitball crashed against the windshield with a thump. The spitball had been so soggy, that upon impact had dispersed itself almost entirely across the windshield. The kids that were still on the bus erupted into laughter and wondered who had launched such an odious object at the bus windshield.

Poor Teodoro, he stared into his mirror looking back at the kids, but never said a word. Tommy never made a peep and hurried to exit the bus. It was not until then that he burst into a laughter that had seemed to elude him for such a long time. The laughter sure felt good to Tommy, but the thought of poor Teodoro having to clean up his mess did tug at his conscience. The rest of the school year Tommy would just drive himself to school, but just this once he had decided to act out in hopes of not getting caught, something he never did.

Tommy had just finished the first day of school at Peñasco High School. He was a senior and he hoped for a great year, one that he would actually want to remember and enjoy. He arrived at home and Grandma Adelina was making fresh tortillas. His timing could not be any more perfect. It was like she knew he would be home at that time because she had already removed some butter from the refrigerator, or mantequilla as she called it, and it awaited him. Tommy picked up a fresh tortilla, lathered the butter on there, folded it in half and began to eat.

Oh Grandma, I’m going to miss your tortillas next year, Tommy said with his mouth still full.

"Don’t talk like that mijito, you want your abuelita to start crying o que?" Grandma Adelina asked with tears in her eyes.

I don’t want to make you sad Grandma, but I can’t wait to leave to college, Tommy responded.

"Mijo, you haven’t even made it through this year and you’re already talking about leaving me and your Grandpa. Get through this year first, entonces we’ll talk about it," Grandma Adelina said as she slapped another tortilla on the comal.

It was never Tommy’s intention to make his Grandma cry, but he had dreams to fulfill. The year could not have come any faster for Tommy. It had been two years since the accident, yet he still remembered it like it was yesterday. He tried to not think about it, but at least the new school year would keep his mind focused and in nine months he would be a high school graduate.

His first day had been like the first day of any other year of high school. Seniors got to pick their classes first, so Tommy was able to get into the classes he wanted. This year it would be Senior English, Physical Education, Biology, Home Economics, and Typing. It was going to be a fairly easy schedule and Tommy was okay with that.

The class he most looked forward to was his Senior English class. Mr. Elliot Russell had been an English teacher in Peñasco for the past ten years. Mr. Russell was from Utah and genuinely seemed to enjoy being a teacher in this small and isolated town in Northern New Mexico.

Tommy never understood why a White English teacher chose to teach at his school. Once in a while there were racist remarks to Mr. Russell from students, but Mr. Russell took them with a grain of salt and never let the remarks bother him.

Mr. Russell had been Tommy’s teacher for Junior English and it was the first time that Tommy actually felt engaged in a high school class. Mr. Russell challenged Tommy to be a better writer. Mr. Russell allowed the classes to choose novels they wanted to read. This was a motivating factor for some of the young adults, a teacher who gave them some freedom to read what they wanted. It was often bestsellers and horror books, but as long as the students were reading and stimulating their minds, Mr. Russell was okay with it.

Last year it had been Salem’s Lot and Bless Me Última that Tommy enjoyed the most. Tommy was looking forward to the readings and writings for his English class, but the rest of the classes were sure to be dull.

Tommy had been advised into taking typing by his counselor, but he was really considering dropping that class. ‘Typing?’ Tommy thought in his head, that was some old-school stuff he was never going to use, but he would give it a try for a few weeks.

Physical Education would be his way of staying in shape for the track season since he would not be joining basketball or soccer again this season.

Biology and Home Economics seemed easy and kind of boring, but Tommy would try and make the best of it. He decided to take Home Economics in order to expand his knowledge on the culinary art. Grandma Adelina had taught him some of her tricks over the summer, but he needed to learn how to cook for next year when he was no longer at home with his grandparents.

Tomás Chávez was six foot, one inch, one of the tallest kids at Peñasco Junior/Senior High School that year. Everybody called him Tommy and he preferred that name anyway. The school was small, so having the seventh through twelfth grade all in one school was not such a big deal. Tommy figured there were probably 275 kids in the entire school and that was probably too generous of a number.

Like any other school, there were always different cliques of kids. You had the nerds, the jocks, the ‘wannabe’ gangsters, the partiers, and then those kids who just really never had a group to hang with. Tommy liked seeing himself as a loner. At one point in his life he was a jock wholeheartedly, but things had changed since the accident and he did not associate with too many of those kids anymore. There were some people he was close to, but for the most part he eluded from socializing or trying to make friends.

The one he was closest to was Melanie, his girlfriend since April of 1995. They were inseparable and truly loved each other.

His other main buddy was Jason Weasel Salazar. Tommy and Weasel were best friends since they both attended Head Start on the Picurís Indian Reservation. They were not Native Americans, but at one point the reservation ran a Head Start program and they had been fortunate enough to attend school there.

Tommy had other friends, but nobody he cared to hang out with. He also had numerous cousins and he was close to some of them, but they were not his age, so he stayed away from them when he could help it.

Tommy grew up in the small northern town of Río Lucio, New Mexico. Río Lucio is a suburb of Peñasco, which is quite funny when you actually think about it. Peñasco was the heart of the town and the one located on most maps. When you went out of town and people asked where you were from, the answer was always ‘Peñasco’. Peñasco, in general, consisted of itself and numerous towns surrounding it. To the West was Río Lucio, Dixon, and the Picurís Indian Reservation, to the South was Chamisal, Las Trampas, and Ojo Sarco, to the East was Rodarte, Llano, and Llano Largo, and to the North was Vadito and Placitas. Of course there were more communities and more names, but those were the larger ones.

Give or take, there were probably two thousand people in all of the communities combined. Tommy once heard from a teacher at the school that the population in Peñasco stays pretty constant. There are no stop lights, so that always gave outsiders a good idea of how small Peñasco really was. There were two gas stations and a couple stores that sold some groceries, but that was it as far as businesses went. Every once in a while a restaurant or two would come alive, but that seemed to always be short lived and would eventually close down.

The land was beautiful though. The views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were unlike anything else in the state of New Mexico. Peñasco was located above seventy-five hundred feet, so the summers were never hot and most winters brought an abundance of snow.

Tommy loved waking up in the morning and taking a peek at ‘La Jicarita’ mountain. There was just something about that mountain that seemed unique and mesmerizing. At almost thirteen thousand feet in elevation, La Jicarita was special to Peñasco and its surrounding communities. It was like this mountain opened up its heart and its blood flowed down to each and every person in the community to nurture and drink from. Some people said La Jicarita got its name from the forefathers of the community who said the crater just below the top of the mountain resembled a sugar bowl. The mountain sure was unique and for hundreds of years the inhabitants in the valley below had thrived and persevered.

For Tommy, growing up in Peñasco had been sensational. His childhood was filled with so many great memories. There were the occasional trips to Española and Taos. Those trips were mostly for groceries and toiletries. The bigger trips were to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Those trips happened only a few times a year, but it always seemed like an adventure when Tommy made it to the big city.

One summer, the Chávez family had gone on vacation to Colorado for a week. They had visited some family in Gypsum and the rest of the time they mostly camped out. That had been the farthest and longest vacation of Tommy’s life.

But for the most part, Tommy had been confined to Peñasco his whole life. Most kids never left the community much, but that was okay. They had grown to love the place they called home and life was normal when things were quiet in a rural kind of way.

Tommy spoke just like his grandparents did and probably most of the people in the community. Their conversations consisted of about half Spanish and half English vocabulary. Throw in there a few fabricated words and you could fit right in.

Most of the people in the community were Hispanic. There were some of the Native Americans from the reservation and a few White families, but that was it. There was not a very diverse background of cultures, but most kids never even knew the difference. Their lives consisted of this small-town atmosphere that sheltered