In another dimension, I got superpowers. The power to tell you to stay, and you'd have to stay, and you'd take me to the pier on a Sunday afternoon and I'd make it empty as all hell, save for only one, or maybe two veteranos wearing bucket hats with a bunch of hooks hooked up on the part of their hats that makes them look like they're wearing a jellyfish. And they'd be eating tacos. Tacos de lengua. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Because I said so. And you'd tell me how we were going to go get tacos ourselves as you lifted me up on your shoulders and a sea breeze brushed past my face, like I was in your Falcon again, like I had my head out your window like a dog with the windows down. "See the biggest island out there?" you'd say, pointing, and I'd look the wrong way. "Other one, Ed," you'd say patiently. "There you go. That's Santa Cruz." I'd ask if anybody lived out there and you'd say, "No. Not for a long time anyway. Back in the day this was all Chumash land. Chumash waters. Chumash air and sand," and you'd speak up a little bit louder when the veteranos would start looking at us, except I wouldn't make them veteranos anymore, but white people. Those sorta old rednecks who always used to fish there, the ones who'd break their necks when you used to walk up, and I'd be hiding behind your legs, and they'd stare at us like they owned the goddamned place, like there was a colored sign still up somewhere, like you weren't in uniform, like you weren't gonna go serve in their war, go get your leg blown off for them in their war, head blown off too, because you couldn't run, weren't gonna run, your brothers retreating, your brothers dead or gonna be dead, while you laid down 500 rpms of full metal jacket during a three-sided ambush. "Couple hundred years ago, the Chumash were everywhere, Ed," you'd say even though the rednecks would be looking at us. "They lived here on the mainland and would sail across this channel to join family who lived out on those islands." I'd make a catamaran appear right then, and you'd watch as it zipped through the foam just below the pier, as it bobbed up and down over a series of white caps. I'd ask you what the Chumash sailed in to get across the channel, and you'd say, "Tomols," and I'd say, "Tomols?" and you'd say, "Yep," while still staring at the catamaran as it sailed out towards the harbor, where in real life, a hundred or so pontoon boats and fishing vessels were always dormant. "Real big sons-of-bitches those tomols were. Some of them got up to thirty feet. Need something like that to sail across shark infested waters. That or to get away from Spaniards trying to kill ya." Your shoulders would feel tense underneath me all of a sudden, so I'd close my eyes and picture the Chumash shooting bows and arrows at these white men, and once I was done, I'd tell you I'd never learned about any of this stuff in school, and you'd laugh with your big laugh that used to make me feel like I was the sky, and you'd tell me you hadn't either, and then the white men would disappear, and it'd just be you, and me, and the pier, and the open water. The surf would begin to settle, and we'd listen to the seagulls until a humpback whale jumped out from the blue, and somewhere far away, the real me would be jealous then of the two of you screaming, the two of you soaked and wet. And it wouldn't be a surprise when the penguins waddled across the boardwalk and offered you both a series of fine linens and towels, when the both of you shed your wet clothes and became penguins yourselves, and cannonballed off from the pier. The ocean would be freezing, but it wouldn't be long before the other penguins also crashed into the water, and you'd smile at me, and I'd smile at you, and then we'd all be off, racing across the sea floor, swallowing anchovies alongside pods of porpoises, spending the rest of the afternoon discovering the bones of megalodons, plesiosaurs, and liopleurodons. I'd bring you a tomol if I could, Tío, and help you find freedom across those waters. I want to find the Chumash, to let you know they aren't all gone. 

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