Maria Theresa was the valedictorian of her high school, graduating early at sixteen and a half. But her high school was on the south side of town so she received no scholarship offers like her counterparts from the Anglo community would certainly have gotten. She ended up going to college at the University of Texas at San Antonio, certainly a poor cousin in the UT system, where she studied political science. While attending UTSA she lived at home and worked as a waitress at Casa del Rio to pay her tuition. The Alamo, just a few hundred yards away, meant nothing to Maria. Her ancestry was on the loosing side. And though that fact was rarely the first thing on anybody's mind, it was inextricably embedded in the social structure of San Antonio. After graduating as valedictorian, she finished her undergraduate degree in three years with straight A's. But she was still changing in the back room of Casa del Rio and putting up with Charlie's shit eatin' grin.
Maria had grown up frustrated and resentful about the inequities of the world. Having never gone further from home than the outer loop highway that circled the city of San Antonio, she did not realize that the inequities that she attributed to the world were somewhat limited to San Antonio and the rest of the world had its own inequities that had very little to do with her. Nonetheless, she had dreamed of going into politics to make the world, her world, a better place.
But politics were not to be in her future. Near the end of her junior year she had one of those life-transforming experiences, when her Uncle Julio lost two fingers in a construction accident on the north side of town.
Julio was a master carpenter. He was also what the other construction workers referred to as a 'good man'. This meant that he was reliable in showing up for work and he neither drank nor cheated on his wife. He went to church often enough to be respectable but not so often as to be annoying. And if he had any religious convictions he was sensible enough to keep them to himself. The other workers liked Julio and respected him. And the accident worried them greatly. If it could happen to a good man like Julio, it could happen to anyone.
The accident occurred when Julio was ripping a two by four. Ripping a board means cutting it with the grain lengthwise. Julio was cutting a two by four in half, to make two narrower two by twos. Near the middle of the board there was a knot, which his skill saw caught on and jumped. At the same time a day laborer stepped on a nail and screamed and string of obscenities. Julio almost lost control of the board as it jumped. Instinctively he grabbed the board just above the knot and tightened his grip to steady it. The knot was small, so the skill saw went right through it and then through his index and middle fingers.
At first, Julio had no idea what had happened. He saw a lot of blood but felt no pain. For a moment he thought maybe the board was bleeding. But in time that was both dilated and compressed, Julio saw his two fingers lying on the ground and tried to figure out why he didn't feel anything. Other workers were crowding around trying to figure out what to do, while Julio still hadn't figured out what all the fuss was about.
The foreman sized up the situation immediately. He grabbed his handkerchief and wrapped it tightly around Julio's hand. He told Julio to hold his hand over his head to slow the bleeding and drove him to the University of Texas Medical Center Emergency Room. The foreman's cool deliberate actions may have kept Julio from bleeding to death, but they didn't save his fingers, which were still lying on the slab back at the construction site. The workers stood around the accident site recounting the events, each trying to expand the importance of their individual roles in the proceedings. And in between their claims of heroism and quick thinking, they nervously stole glances at the two fingers still lying on the concrete floor, making promises to themselves to begin living better lives.
Julio spent the next week at home unable to think about much other than the throbbing pain in his finger stumps. The following week, when the pain in his fingers had become bearable, his mind turned to another agony. How was he going to earn a living? Julio was a master carpenter with only one good hand. He could not grip boards. He could not climb partially constructed buildings. He couldn't even do a very good job of holding a nail in place with one hand while hammering with the other. What was a master carpenter with one and a half hands to do?
When Maria Theresa was a little girl, she was Uncle Julio's favorite niece. He would bounce her on his knee and call her Chiquita. Later, when she was on the honor role in high school, Uncle Julio would make such a fuss over her good grades that Maria's parents told him to be careful that he did not turn her head with such praise. Julio dismissed their concerns and said she would become somebody really important some day and would have to learn to take such admiration in stride. Maria craved attention and respect. And her visits to Uncle Julio were always a haven of good feelings in a life of otherwise unfair slights.
Maria came to visit Julio every day after his accident. Finally after two weeks he began to express the concerns that were weighing down his spirits.
"What shall I do, Chiquita?" he asked. "I cannot work anymore."
"You need to get a good lawyer," was her reply.
Not knowing any better, they looked in the telephone book and chose the lawyer who had the largest advertisement containing the phrases 'Work Related Injuries' and 'Hablo Espaniol'.
The attorney was very friendly and agreed to take care of everything for a percentage of the settlement, which he promised would be more than a million dollars. Julio was ecstatic. To him, a million dollars was more money than the government had. Julio imagined him self in a new car and maybe even a new house. He thought he might even buy a business that he could run even with two missing fingers. He hugged Maria and told her how wonderful it was to have somebody so smart in the family.
But when the lawyer delivered on his promise, he also delivered a nasty surprise. A million-dollar settlement isn't nearly as much as most people might think it is. They don't just hand you a check for a million dollars. Expenses come off the top. This includes court costs, hospital costs, and investigative expenses. Then the attorney takes his percentage. Finally, the construction company agreed to pay out the money over twenty years in equal monthly payments. When the dust settled, Julio found that each year he would be receiving much less than half of what he was making on the job, not including overtime. It was barely enough to live on. He glanced over at Maria and didn't say anything. But the message was clear - Maybe she wasn't so smart after all! It was, to Maria, the unkindest cut of all.
On that day, Maria decided that politics were too slow. If she was going to fix any of the inequities in her world she would have to do it through the courts. She went home and applied to the University of Texas Law School.
When intelligence is driven by emotion, there is no equal. Maria was going to graduate from Law School in another couple months in the top of her class. She was certain to pass the bar exam on the first try and then no more Casa del Rio. She looked around her at the faded walls, painted in Southwestern colors - turquoise and flamingo. She would be so glad to leave this place and never come back.
"But it wasn't all bad," she thought to herself. There was that cute Anglo boy today who was trying to strike up a conversation with her. She thought about his sleepy gray blue eyes and thick brown hair. "He was so funny," she thought, "trying so hard to fit in. But for all his efforts he stuck out like a Jalepeno in oatmeal."
Suddenly, as though she was closing her eyes to avoid a scary scene at the movies she drew in a deep breath, crossed herself and put the cute Anglo boy out of her mind. "It could never be," she thought. And anyway, she had a mission to fulfill that didn't include any cute Anglos.
As Maria left Casa del Rio through the kitchen, Charlie the cook looked up at her and smiled. In response, she showed no expression at all. Her face was as tranquil and opaque as the murky gray green waters of the San Antonio River.