The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light Read Online Free Page B

never wore anything that made her look cheap or desperate. We kids saw how she carried herself—she walked differently from the way most other women walked. Even when we were very poor, you could tell she came from a certain kind of upbringing, some kind of privilege.
    My mom had a system with us kids. We all had roles, starting from an early age. “Today you two will clean the beds and the floor, and you two will do the dishes and get the pots and pans clean.Tomorrow you guys’ll switch. And when you sweep I want you to straighten up and make your back look like that broom—straight. Put your spine behind it, and don’t just move that dirt around; get rid of it. When you wipe the dinner table don’t just smear it, clean it up. Get a hot, hot towel so the steam can wipe out the germs. I don’t want any
mugre,
any filth. We’re poor, but we’re not filthy poor. No one is going to embarrass the family or embarrass the name Santana.”
    It was amazing. She could tell if we were putting our backbones into it, and if we didn’t—
pow!
We would get it. Now we appreciate what she did, because she created a certain thing that all my sisters and brothers and I have—a pride in what we do and in our family. But back then it was tough. My mom was really intense to live with. We were both the same kind of intense. She questioned everything, and so did I.
    I remember one time she was angry at me for some reason, and I just took off. I must have been all of five or six years old. I left the house, pulling this little toy crocodile on wheels behind me. I wasn’t crying or sad, I was just exploring and getting away from Mom, thinking about avoiding the rocks with my crocodile and not hitting certain lines in the pavement. I got involved with people in the market and the horses passing by. I was also thinking, “This is really cool—I can put a distance between my angry mom and myself for a little bit.”
    When my sisters found me, they ran up to me. “Weren’t you afraid, being by yourself? Didn’t you get lonely or scared?” Truth is, I didn’t have time to think about it. I think I was born living in the now, not being concerned with what’s up ahead. I think that experience planted a seed in me so that in years to come I wouldn’t limit myself or be so self-absorbed with fear. I would feel welcome walking into new and strange places, like, “Oh, I’m in Japan!”—and my eyes would get bigger as I would start noticing the beautiful temples. Or, “Oh, I’m in Rome; look at this street; look at that one!” and I’d be off exploring.
    When you’re a child everything seems new and wonderful—even the scary stuff. I first saw a fire when the local supermarket burned. Apparently even back then somebody wanted to collect insurance, so he burned down his own store. I had never seen flames so big. The sky looked red and everything.
    Another time I saw a man almost die when he was badly gored by a bull. I must have been five or six. I remember a bunch of men walking through town with posters announcing a bullfight. That weekend my mom dressed me up, and we went to the Plaza del Toros, which was on the other side of town from our house. I walked in the parade at the start of the event—marching to the
pasodoble
next to this little girl who was also dressed up. Years later I was able to tell Miles Davis that he and Gil Evans got it right when he did “Saeta” on
Sketches of Spain
. That’s the tempo and feel at the start, when everyone walks around the ring.
    You only have to see a few bullfights to know that when most bulls enter the ring they run to the center and look around, snorting and angry. But that day a bull came in and just looked at the toreadors. He was cool, like a fighter sizing up his opponent—like Mike Tyson before he had money. Then he ran. But he jumped over the fence, and people were leaping out of their seats and running for their lives!
    They somehow got the bull, opened the gate, and led him