Baton Girl
Baton Girl Ugly. I always felt ugly. Ugly inside. Ugly outside. Ugly at home. Ugly at school. Ugly everywhere I went. Every time I saw my reflection, I wished I could rub off the Mexican brown and become white and pretty like Kathy Fields, Shirley Wailes or Debbie Brown, the rich white girls who rode the bus to school every morning when we lived on the Betz farm several miles outside of Johnstown. I yearned to be one of those pretty white girls, listening to them laugh, envying their neatly pressed dresses with matching ribbons and matching shoes. Sitting at the back of the bus with Cristela Gonzales, her sisters and brothers, I always felt ugly in my wrinkled second-hand clothes as we rode on dusty dirt roads to Letford Elementary School. Powerless dirty Mexican girl, swearing to myself that one day, I would be somebody.
And each morning when the tall, blonde and blue-eyes Gege Betz climbed onto the bus with her batons, wearing her short black and white baton twirler’s outfit, I felt even uglier. Dirtier. Poorer. I wanted so much to be movie star perfect like Gege instead of this poor Mexican girl. Gege Betz was physically beautiful and perfect with her ivory skin and shapely long legs, flashing her perfect white teeth as she flirted with the guys no the bus.
We lived on Harry Betz’s farm for many years and Gege’s family grew to know us well as we moved back and forth from Loveland to Johnstown. In exchange for labor, Harry let us live in an abandoned house which stood on their property about half a mile from their sprawling ranch house. Years later, in an attempt to reconstruct my poverty days, I would drive out to that country to search for the old house only to find it was no longer there. It had already been torn down, yet ironically, the big ranch house still thrived in the exact same spot.
I loved that run-down farmhouse as if it were a castle fit for a queen. It was a roomy old house with three bedrooms, though it had no electricity or running water. And I remember there was a large well outside where we would have to lower a bucket to get water. I can still see the dead insects floating on the water as we pulled the bucket out. But it was the only drinking water we had, so we were forced to ignore the bugs. The outhouse was nearby, but I hated going out to use it at night time. We never had real toilet paper. We would have to crumple up old newspapers and magazines. Despite all of this, living in that house seemed like an adventure for Fini and I, we were so young and naïve back then.
While mom and Dad worked in the Betz’s sugar beet fields, Fini and I would entertain ourselves. I remember how we’d climb up the old shack next to the house and pretend we had rifles. How were we to know that one day Fini would be carrying a real rifle, dying in a senseless war at the age of nineteen? When we got older, Fini and I would help Mom and Dad work. I remember that Mom and I would clean house for Mary Betz in the winter. It was a huge modern home with four large bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge living room, a den and a full basement. The den was my favorite room because it was filled with all the trophies Gege had won for her baton twirling. As I dusted each trophy, I imagined it was me twirling the baton, getting all the applause and admiration. For a few short moments, I would become Gege Betz until Mom would spoil the magic, calling out for me to help her clean the downstairs.
I also remember the big sliding door in the den that opened up to the back patio. Sometimes I would grab one of Gege’s batons when Mom wasn’t looking and I’d go outside to the patio and twirl it. I had taught myself to twirl a baton from watching Gege practice on weekends while Mom and I cleaned the big house. Then later, I remember begging Mom until she bought me my own baton. I loved my baton! I’d take it everywhere we went, to Amá’s at the Colony where I’d run to the Colony park and practice throwing it high up in the air, then catching it like Gege did. Baton girl. Little Mexican baton girl.
Gege’s bedroom was my second favorite place in the big house. She had a beautiful four poster canopy bed with a ruffled pink bedspread and matching curtains. What I loved the most were her collections of stuffed animals that completely covered the bed. I would pick them up and dance around the room with them, wishing they were my friends. And as I dusted the matching vanity that held an assortment of expensive perfumes and creams, I understood why Gege’s skin was so perfect and smooth. It had to be the creams, I thought to myself, rearranging each bottle carefully on the vanity.
While I helped Mom clean the big house, Fini helped Dad clean the yard. It’s funny to think how Fini and I were such resilient hard workers at that early age of seven and eight. As Fini grew older, Dad let him mow the lawn all by himself. I can still imagine myself glancing out the immense picture window while I dusted and seeing Fini’s strong boy arms pushing the lawnmower back and forth. Fini was just as concerned about helping Mom and Dad earn a living as he was in all those letters from Vietnam, letters that would go on and on about the allotment checks he’d sent mom or those that he was about to send. Fini always dreamt of buying Mom a house and he did. A sad government house. An only son dead in Vietnam house.
Besides all the hard work we did at the Betz farm, sometimes Fini and I would have fun, going off to explore the old barn next to the back yard. Inside, Harry Betz had stored an old tractor and a junky car that didn’t run anymore. Fini and I loved to pretend we were driving them through dusty Colorado roads. I didn’t feel ugly then. Next to Fini, I felt alive and free.
During those years that we lived on the Betz farm, Mary Betz was very kind and thoughtful. She would fix sandwiches for us, insisting we take lunch breaks. Then she would sit and talk to us while we ate. I could sense that Mary was terribly lonely in that big house. Harry was always working, her only son Larry was away at college and Gege was out most of the time with her high school friends. Mom loved Mary Betz, who also loved Mom as if they were close friends despite the fact that they came from two very different worlds. Mary Betz would give Mom the dresses and skirts she no longer wanted. When Mom wore them, she looked like a model from Look Magazine. In many of my favorite black and white photographs of Mom, she’s wearing the clothes Mary gave her, looking very beautiful. In one of those vintage photographs, Mom and Dad are standing in front of an old car next to their comadre. Mom is wearing a tight sexy black skirt and her hair is styled like that of Rita Hayworth. Even now, Mom talks about how some of her friends would make fun of her because she wore Mary Betz’s hand-me-downs. But I know they were only jealous of Mom’s beauty. Francisca Molinar Velásquez was as beautiful as Mary Betz. Yet, Mom was free while Mary was imprisoned in her big ranch style home, rarely going out. And while Mary was a soft-spoken woman with a generous heart, her husband, Harry, was loud and boisterous. Harry was a typical hard-nosed Colorado farmer. Yet, Dad respected Harry because he always had work for us even during the winter.
Later, when I was living in California, I remember how shocked Mom and Dad were when they found out Mary Betz had committed suicide. When they shared the tragic news with me, I also found it hard to believe. Mary seemed to have such a perfect life. Perfect home. Perfect husband. Perfect children. Shortly after that, Harry would sell the farm and move to California with Gege, who later married and stayed living there with her new family.
I won’t ever forget Mary Betz. I still have the blue-eyes porcelain doll with long blond braids that she gave me one Christmas, which I also named Mary. How I loved to rock her back and forth in her blue wooden cradle. I guarded Mary with my life, not letting any of my cousins play with here for fear they’d drop her she’d break. I loved my Mary doll. She was beautiful. White. Perfect. Not brown and ugly like me.
Written by Gloria L. Velásquez, Dec. 4, 2002
For my son, Robert John Velásquez Treviño