Ernesto B. Reyes

A Tale of Three Franciscos

I.
Francisco the First never knew his father. His name was suggested to his mother by one of the nuns in town. “Saint Francis of Assisi was known for his humility,” the nun had told her.

Before he had even grown any hair on his body, Francisco dropped out of school. He worked on farms, planting, tending, and harvesting crops, often putting in long hours in the fields to support his mother and four younger sisters. But in his quiet moments, like most boys his age, he would daydream and read comics. Kalimán, the Incredible Man, was his favorite.

“I want to be Kalimán when I grow up,” he told his mother.
His mother would smile and say, “Mi panchito, you are Kalimán.”
Francisco, for all his hard work, also liked to play just as hard, falling in and out of love as often as one might go to the grocery store. One day, he caught the blue eyes of a beautiful woman, the daughter of a wealthy family in town who owned many acres. Back in those days, people would marry and have children right away—before their senses had a chance to catch up.

Francisco became a father at 17. He had three daughters and one son, whom he named Francisco as well. Francisco the Second was born in the bathtub at home, brought into the world by his father’s hands. His father, at the sight of his son, cried like he had never cried before.

Francisco the First had only known his own father through an old, faded black-and-white photo of him at a plaza, drunk and worthless. He was a borracho, he thought, and he vowed never to leave his family. He tried to give them everything he hadn’t had growing up.

****

By the time Francisco’s son, Francisco the Second, discovered his first pubic hair, he and his father traveled to a “new world.” They crossed desolate land—dirt, rocks, rivers—without enough food or water. The older Francisco carried his young son when he had to, but nothing stopped them. The two walked on for what seemed like forever, until, finally, they crossed the border into a new land.

Francisco the Second didn’t understand why they had come here. He missed his mother, his home. He missed his sisters and friends. He even developed a crush on a girl at school named Unique.

The two Franciscos took a bus for hours until they arrived in a small, quiet town surrounded by vineyards and orchards as far as the eye could see. The town was called Fresno. 

The younger Francisco trembled with fear and homesickness. He wanted to go back, but the older Francisco wouldn’t listen. Finally, exhausted and overwhelmed, Francisco the Second wept. His father smacked him several times across the face to silence him.
“We’re here for a better life,” Francisco the First said in Spanish. The words felt heavy, but they were the only comfort he could offer.

After settling in California, Francisco the First hired a “coyote”—a man to bring the rest of the family across the border. The younger Francisco, terrified, had nightmares of a real coyote coming for his mother and sisters. By the time his younger sisters arrived, Francisco the Second had already started high school. His sisters, quite innocently, asked, “Why do you sound like a gringo?” Francisco the Second simply looked down, embarrassed, upset, and confused. Why did he sound like a gringo?

They stayed in a small house with a white woman who smoked cigarettes all day. Francisco the First had met her at a bar on the outskirts of town. She was young, but not attractive; she was, however, a Citizen and owned a house that she had inherited, and this was where she allowed Francisco and his children to stay. She claimed to be a “friend” of the older Francisco, although they were technically married. Francisco didn’t have the heart to tell his kids that he had found their mother, his wife, in bed with another man. So, he remarried.
Francisco the Second asked, “¿Y mi mamá? ¿Dónde está ella?” He no longer had pictures of her and was starting to forget what she looked like. The older Francisco looked at his son. 

“She’ll be staying in Mexico,” he said.

II.
Back home in Mexico, Francisco the Second loved school. But in this new world, he hated it. He didn’t understand why some kids mocked him for his accent or the way he looked. One called him a “wetback,” a word he didn’t understand until much later. One day, the kids debated who the “world’s greatest superhero” was, Superman or Batman? The young Francisco, remembering the comics his father had, said, Kalimán. The kids stared at him in confusion.
“Who the fuck is Kalimán?” they asked.

The younger Francisco grew insecure and timid. Some girls found Francisco the Second attractive, but he was too shy to approach them, which was only made worse by his father’s drinking, which, over the years, worsened. When he turned 17, he moved out of the house and, seeking a fresh start, legally changed his name to Enrique, rejecting everything his father had been. Francisco the First was hurt by this change, but Enrique—now a young man—felt liberated. 

He traveled to Europe and did some modeling and acting. A French woman once remarked that he looked like a “more exotic” Jack Kerouac, a reference he didn’t understand.

Back in the United States, Francisco the First was still working in the fields to support his children, but he was growing older, and his hard hands were now turning soft. It wasn’t until he got a call from one of his sisters, notifying him of their father’s heart attack, that Enrique decided to move back to California. Seeing his father in the hospital bed, pale, lifeless, a shell of his former self, was a cold feeling. After that, for whatever reason, Enrique changed his name back to Francisco.
Francisco the Second didn’t like going to church when he was younger, but the older he got, and with his father’s condition, he felt compelled to start attending. It was there that he met a woman with a smile that could steal your heart. They dated for a year and then married at Saint Jude’s.

At the wedding, Francisco the First, who had slowly regained some of his strength, sat in the front row of guests, proud. A tear ran down his skinny cheek. On Francisco’s side, only a handful of relatives were present; it was mostly friends from work who attended. By this point, Francisco had been working at a warehouse factory and was a foreman, a job his father was very proud of.

Francisco the Second looked like a happy son holding the hand of his soon-to-be wife. The bride was beautiful in her white dress, her pregnant belly a promise of the future.

On the day of his birth, Francisco the Second looked at his son, who was born a month early and was small and skinny, and he cried. He hadn’t cried like this since immigrating to this country. He sat in his chair in the hospital while his wife rested and held his son for hours.

III.
Francisco the Second expected greatness from Francisco the Third, who was third-generation and born in the United States. It was true that school came much easier to Francisco the Third than it had to his father. He had perfect attendance and earned perfect marks in school. But his classmates mocked him for not speaking Spanish “perfectly” like the other Mexican kids. They called him a “no sabo” kid and “monkey boy”, names he wouldn’t understand until much later.

When he turned 17, Francisco the Third became the first in his family to attend college. He started at a community college and later transferred to a four-year university. It was there that he began going to therapy. He slowly started to understand his own mental health struggles, as well as the trauma that had been passed down through the generations. After college, Francisco the Third moved into a small studio apartment in Southern California with a woman he met online. By then, he was going by Frankie. He worked at a bookstore during the day and wrote poems at night. Tattoos began to mark his body, and weekends were spent in clubs or art galleries. Neither he nor his girlfriend wanted children, and Frankie felt free from the weight of family expectations.

IX.
Francisco the First had grown old. Very old. He was just skin and bones, and his hair was thin and as white as snow. He was bedridden, his body ravaged by years of hard labor, finally giving out. Though his mind remained sharp, his spirit had dulled. He had dreams that were more like hallucinations, of being a boy again, working on the farm in his hometown in Mexico—planting, tending, and harvesting crops, taking care of his mother and sisters. When he was awake, he said he needed to call his mother to see how she was doing and if she needed him to bring her anything from the grocery store, though he didn’t know that his mother had passed nearly 40 years ago, just when Francisco the Second was a boy. He lived with his youngest daughter, a widow with six children.
One evening, Francisco the Second, on his way to visit his father, was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. It was quick and unexpected, much like life and death often are. The news shocked everyone; everyone was hurt and in pain, but none more than the other Franciscos: the First and the Third. One had lost his son, the other his father. There was so much left unsaid between the three of them. It was only a matter of time before the first Francisco lost his will to live.

V.
Francisco the Third was now simply Francisco. He stood at the graveside, his father buried nearby in a small cemetery just a few blocks from Saint Jude’s. Many people attended, but only a few relatives were present; it was mostly Francisco’s friends from work, the same ones who had attended his wedding many years ago. The way they wept for Francisco the Second, you would have thought they were close, related by blood, brothers and sisters. In many ways, they were. Francisco’s grandfather was buried back home in Mexico, next to his own mother.

After much reflection, Francisco realized he wanted a family of his own. However, his girlfriend didn’t share the same desire, and they decided to part ways.
Francisco moved back in with his mother. She felt she was burdening his life, but he reassured her that he didn’t mind. She appreciated him more than ever, but sometimes, she cried when she looked at him. Seeing him reminded her too much of his father.
One day, while cleaning the attic, Francisco found a box of old photographs. One of the photos was faded and worn; it was from a day he had never seen—his grandfather’s wedding in Mexico. His grandfather, Francisco the First, looked so young and healthy, and the woman beside him was someone he did not recognize—his grandmother. Also in the box were black-and-white stills of Francisco the Second (“Enrique” at the time) from his modeling days. Francisco couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, yes. Pictures of a different time,” his mother said.

In another box, there were some old comics.

“Who’s Kalimán?” Francisco asked.
“Oh, those were your Apa’s comics. They were his favorite. Your dad, too.”
Francisco opened the worn pages, struggling with the Spanish but finding comfort in the drawings. He kept the comics for himself. They made him feel closer to his father and grandfather, closer to the men they had been, and to the man he was becoming.