She took Francisco home to her parents’ house and fed him gringo food—nothing like the blue corn tamales, posole, and green chili he was raised with, but a little closer to the Army food he was fed for two years, only better tasting, things like mashed potatoes, string beans, and steak. She made love to him under the stars. We may not say, in this case, “with” him because Francisco was in a kind of mummified state when he came back from the war; and during their sexual encounters, while he went about the motions, he never quite felt present.

So it was because of this young woman, whom he was as close to being in love with as he had ever been, that he acquiesced to the idea of enrolling in college, but no sooner was his angel on to other men as earthbound as himself than Francisco lost all interest in being a student.

He also lost interest in being a lover, not just a lover of privileged white college girls, but all women. It was not within Francisco’s scope of imagination to be a lover of men, neither, by the way. Although it may be said that with the exception of la sublime Armitaña and his godmother, he only loved men, even if only in the platonic sense.

He loved the strength and tenacity of his father and each of his brothers who—except for his brother James who seemed to find it easier staying in jail than out—were all family men devoted to their homes and land. He loved his tío Pedro above all his tíos and tías for maintaining the religious tradition of their ancestors. Above all, he loved Christ, his heavenly Lord. He loved God, too, of course, but God was too great and too remote for Francisco to have a fixed picture of in his head or to presume any direct contact with Him. At least that is what he felt for a long time until the day he took his knife to a piece of wood and began to carve out his first santo.

He and his tío Pedro went out on his uncle’s land one morning and felled a pine, one that was as straight and healthy and as perfect as their eyes and hearts could tell. They each cut a log for themselves approximately three feet in length. Next, they trimmed the front and back with a hand-adze and knife, then smoothed it with a stone just as one would use sandpaper for refining a surface.