Breaking Stones

Breaking Stones – Preview This excerpt takes the reader through an episode where BURRO the Donkey saved my life in Portugal ( Chapter 1: The Burro and Me) and an episode where Theo the Race Horse almost kills me and a couple of old tourists from Chicago on a wild Calèche ride in Old Montreal (Chapter 7: Horsing around). Enjoy the ride ! I was awakened by the sounds of crying outside in our front yard. People were chatting loudly. There was a huge commotion. I got out of bed and rushed to the window to check what all the fuss was about. Still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I could make out people loading luggage into a broken-down old taxi. Next thing that I remembered was my father lumbering into our house and coming up to hug me. He muttered something about leaving for Brazil for a better life. I was shell-shocked. I ran outside where I found my mother and grandmother sobbing uncontrollably. It was as if someone or something had died. And in effect, something did. My dad was only 30, and he was leaving. We weren’t sure if we would ever see him again. I was just five at the time. In hindsight, I can understand why my father would leave his dirt-poor community in pursuit of a better life. But at the time I felt devastated. I just couldn’t quite fathom how anyone could leave behind their wife and child. In lieu of any money, he did leave my mom with two gifts; the donkey I called Burro and me. This emptiness and pain lingered for weeks, then months. Finally, though, with the passage of time, a certain sense of normalcy returned to our lives. We had no choice. It was all about survival. I was being raised by a mother who had to work the land to get by. It also gave me a certain sense of responsibility to help out, even at my young age. I felt that I had to make a positive contribution if we were going to make it. Not that I had much choice. I was both my mother’s sole company and her right-hand man. Me and Burro, that is. Before I started school at the age of seven, I worked by my mom’s side plowing the land, planting vegetables, feeding the animals and doing whatever chores that were required of me. We lived off the land. If we wanted to eat, we had to grow it or kill it. Because the land was so rocky, there were only a few strips of land where we could grow produce, and most of this land could only be cultivated by hand. Getting our goods to market was another nightmare. There were no paved roads in the area. We had to go on foot through some rocky passageways which were even difficult for donkeys to traverse. My specific job was to care of the calves, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits and chickens. We had a dog and a cat and, of course, my best friend, Burro, who was not only my main source of transportation but also my soul mate. I swear he could read my mind. What a buddy. But never more so then the time when Burro saved my life. Really. One day, while helping my mother transport a heavy load of hay on a carriage pulled uphill by two young calves, the wheel became stuck and the calves just weren’t strong enough to pull it out. So my mother had this great idea of putting Burro in front of the calves, and me in front of Burro and have us all pull together while she pushed in the back with all her might. We did get it dislodged but the force was so strong it caused an instant movement forward. Walking backwards, I tripped on a rock and fell on my back - with the two rampaging calves, Burro and the carriage about to run over me. But then a miracle. Burro noticed my predicament and froze into a crouching position in front of the onrushing calves, stopping them instantly. It worked and I was to live another day much to the relief of my screaming mother. As far as the eye could see, there were rolling hills and mountains and olive trees. It may have been the stuff of postcards, but the reality is that we lived in a home without running water or electricity. There were no bathrooms or toilets in our region back then. Our area was considered Jurassic because there were still remnants of dinosaurs, fossils, anyway. We lived somewhere between the Stone Age and the Steel Age. I can easily imagine dinosaurs roaming around there. I finally started school when I was seven and getting to school was no picnic either. The school was far away and the route was treacherous. In the summer it would take my cousins and I about twenty to thirty minutes to get there, navigating our way through jagged rocks and shrubs. Making the trip even more daunting were the snakes emerging onto the pathways. When I turned ten, it was time for me to find a real job. And so I did. The road which passed in front of our home was being modernized a little. I got hired to break down stones for the road’s foundation. I was given a sledgehammer and a pile of boulders to break down into smaller pieces. It was backbreaking work, and the heat was nearly unbearable. It was all part of my greater education. I had just finished grade four and there was no other school in the vicinity. So that would be it as far as schooling went. Breaking Stones and working the land, such was my destiny. Moving ahead 22 years, thinking I knew enough about horses from having been raised with a Burro, I bought a calèche (horse and buggy) business in Old Montreal which seemed like a fun job, but there’s an aspect to the business that most people don’t see and that is: every shift starts with shoveling … well … shit. The routine for every calèche driver before hitching goes as follows: You get to the stable at seven in the morning to feed the horses, then take them outside to be washed. While the horses dry, you clean the stall, which, of course, entails shoveling lots of shit. In need of extra horses to make the business profitable, I headed off to Lachute in rural Quebec to mingle with the farmers and look at the horses being sold at a livestock auction. Then I spotted this majestic looking horse. His name was Théo and he was five years old. When he went up on the auction block, I felt like a little kid, with my heart beating like crazy. I just couldn’t let this opportunity go by. The bidding went by weight and when it reached 45 cents a pound, the bidding stopped and the horse was mine. The horse weighed 1,200 pounds. Wow! I’d been waiting to own a beautiful young horse all my life, an upgrade on my Burro in Portugal. The following day, I got to the stable, took Théo out and tied him to the carriage. Then I climbed aboard and shouted: “Let’s go, Théo.” He took off like a bat out of hell, almost causing me to fall backwards. Had I fallen off, it would have been a nightmare with this horse galloping through the busy streets of Montreal with an empty chariot trailing behind. I knew I had to be patient. The next day I went back for a second training course, following the same routine. I hitched him up and walked him around for a couple of hours. Then, the minute I got on the carriage he took off kicking and leaving a cloud of dust behind, as I held on for dear life. This time it was even worse. Théo was galloping even faster than the day before. He didn’t obey any of my commands. Suddenly, he turned around and headed for the busy Victoria Bridge. I pulled as hard as I could and yelled for him to stop. Théo wouldn’t obey and kept on going forward at blazing speed. I thought we were both going to die and cause a major accident, but luckily traffic was light, although I could hear cars and trucks honking. I still don’t know how I made it back to the stable alive. It turned out that Théo was a race-horse from the Blue Bonnets racetrack. A senior calèche owner suggested that I buy this magical white powder to put in his drinking water. So I followed his advice and bought this sort of horse tranquilizer. The next day, I put a scoop of it in Théo’s drinking water, and the training went well. The horse while drugged was calm and followed my instruction