When Dad Came Back

by Gary Soto

  Gabe was scared that the horse would topple over and land on him. He recalled the time Tomas Campo—the biggest kid in fourth grade—had tackled him in flag football. The air had been driven from his lungs, and he had risen from the grass, gasping. The memory put fear into his heart. But then his heart was filled with gratitude when Moon Glow—head down, as if watching her own hooves—made it across the rocky area.

  “Good girl,” Gabe sang in praise, patting her neck.

  They rode in silence for a few more minutes, then Heather turned to Gabe and signaled to keep quiet. She dismounted, bent down, and picked up a fallen tree branch.

  Gabe, still in the saddle, wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve. He was looking at his fingertips—slivers were embedded under the skin—when he witnessed a curious trick: a stick moved across the dusty path.

  Then he really saw: it was no stick, but a rattlesnake.

  “Be still,” Heather ordered. “He's just crossing.”

  Moon Glow took a single step backward, and the rattler halted. The snake showed his tongue, a little strip that reminded Gabe of the gum he used to pull from his mouth, to see how long he could stretch it. The rattler's eyes were greenish and his head almost flat. The snake was staring him down—Gabe looked away first. He admonished himself for this cowardly act. Why in the heck did he look away?

  The rattler moved on, leaving Gabe touching his own racing heart.“

  They usually don't bother you,” Heather explained.“ They just have places to go, like us.”

  Their own destination was a small ridge that overlooked a dry terrain of brush, large granite boulders, and a mixture of oaks, river willows, and evergreens. Hawks floated on warm currents of air. Lizards and rabbits darted from the brush. The sky was hazy, but the sun, angled in the west, was bright as a coin.

  Gabe learned that Heather was a third-grade teacher. This piece of information made him squirm. His guide for the day was a teacher! He considered apologizing to her, because in third grade he had been just plain bad. Instead, he said, with some degree of truth, that he liked school. He didn't volunteer that what he liked best was recess and lunch.

  “Your uncle is a tough fellow,” Heather remarked. “But you know what he lacks?”

  Gabe shrugged his shoulders lightly.

  “A TV,” she answered. “Come on! Who lives without a TV?”

  Gabe liked her more and more, this third-grade teacher. They rested in the shade. Gabe drank from a canteen, the old army kind. He splashed water against his face, and rubbed it along his neck. He examined his palms: mud. He lay back, his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He saw red behind his eyelids.

  Gabe went silent, thinking of his dog, Lucky.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Heather asked.

  “My dog,” he answered, sitting up.

  “You have a dog?” She smiled and lifted the hair around her ears, as if she wanted to hear about the dog. “Let me guess—he's a pup, huh?”

  Gabe nodded. Since he was feeling at ease with her, he volunteered, “Me and Lucky—that's his name—were waiting for my dad.” He outlined the evening when he and Lucky had camped out in the backyard, ready for the arrival of his father. He had brought out a hibachi and intended to cook hot dogs as a midnight snack. But did his dad come? No! His dad was dead to him! He couldn't even do something like show up!

  “I know I sound angry, but that's how I feel.” As the silence grew, Gabe realized that he might have said too much. His relationship with his dad was his own problem. Why dump it on her?

  Heather offered him a puzzled look. She frowned sympathetically and asked, “Your parents must have been divorced for a while?”

  “Yeah, like years.” Gabe unburdened himself. He told Heather how his dad had driven away with their car, and how he had never sent a card or money, or done anything that could be recognized as communication, not even a single telephone call saying that he had the nicest apartment in hell. For years, Gabe believed that that was where he belonged—hell, or a place like hell. He told Heather how his dad had returned to Fresno homeless. It wasn't a pretty picture—a dad dirty on the outside and dirty with lies and deceit inside.

  “Maybe something happened,” Heather offered. “Maybe he got hurt and couldn't see you that night.”

  Gabe had considered that. Still, his dad's failure to show up made him suspicious. “I'm a changed man,” his dad had claimed, but Gabe wondered if he really was.

  Heather confided, “My father split when I was eleven.” She was staring down at a bloody smear on her forearm, where she had slapped a mosquito. She slapped at another mosquito on her wrist. It almost looked as if she were punishing herself for being a bad girl. She told Gabe that her father drank until he was stupid. “No,” she corrected herself. “Stupider. He was already stupid, he just got more so.” There was heat behind her words, and anger that sparked in her eyes.

  Gabe grimaced. How had they had come to be talking about fathers? He changed the subject. “I know you teach and stuff. I have a confession.” He shook his head at the memory of his own misbehavior. “I was a bad kid in third grade. I mean bad! You would have hated me.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I know so. I was a terror, just stupid!” He closed his eyes as he pictured himself pushing a crayon into a pencil sharpener. The crayon broke off, but did he care? And did he take responsibility for his actions? No way. Right there, on the granite ledge, he offered what he could: “I want to apologize for all the bad kids in the world.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah, all of them.” But immediately all the bad kids loomed up in his mind. Maybe there were too many to apologize for. He corrected himself. “Well, maybe just the ones at my school.”

  Heather tossed a little pebble over the ledge and it skipped downward. After a silence, she said, “I get one every year.”

  “One what?”

  “A Gabe.”

  “A bad kid?” He was studying his left palm, where a blister had formed from shoveling a ditch. He looked up, waiting for her to answer.

  She stared at a hawk in the distance. “No,” she finally answered when she turned her face to him. “A good kid. Teachers see things you don't see.”

  The next day, Gabe was shaken awake by his uncle. It was still dark when he dressed and stumbled outside. Moonlight gleamed against the walnut tree. The rooster seemed confused as Gabe moved toward the barn. His uncle had ordered him to retrieve boxes, wooden or cardboard, plastic ones, too—and buckets. Uncle Mathew wanted him to pick corn—and lots of it. They were going to pack produce to sell on the corner of a country road. They'd be selling corn, tomatoes, squash, chilies, eggplant, and walnuts—the cornucopia of plenty from the garden patch.

  “The early bird gets the worm,” his uncle remarked, as he slammed the door of his truck.

  Gabe was groggy. He considered it cruel to wake a teenager before the chickens themselves rustled awake. He peeled sleep from the corners of his eyes, yawned behind a hand, and hunkered down in the truck. He planned to sleep until they arrived.

  The rattling truck rolled through the dark. His uncle fiddled with the knobs of the radio. When he couldn't find the country-western station that he proclaimed the best in the valley, he snapped it off. The sky slowly began to pale into a new day. By the time they arrived—it was a favorite corner, his uncle said, where business would be good—the sun had come up beyond the grassy hills. He shook Gabe's shoulder and said, “Wake up, boy. We're here.”

  Under a fruitless mulberry tree, they set up two tables. Gabe spread newspaper on the surface. He lugged the boxes and buckets to the tables. He taped up signs, signs that were old, and poorly drawn: the corn looked like a cigar, and the tomatoes like rolledup socks.

  “Want some?” his uncle asked. He held out a fatbellied jar of ice tea. They were in the foothills, east of anything that Gabe could recognize as civilization. The landscape was dry, almost desert. Higher up, there were trees, but at their d
usty highway corner, there was only sand and brush. The only sounds were the thump of rabbits and the hiss of crickets. Broken glass gleamed like diamonds in the dirt.

  Gabe took a swig of tea.

  “Friday's a good day to sell stuff,” his uncle promised. Weekenders from Porterville and Visalia drove to the lake near Lemon Grove. They liked stopping at fruit stands and thinking they were getting something right off the tree or vine—and for a bargain.

  “We got change?” Gabe asked.

  “Glad you brought that up, Gabe. Seems like you're thinking.” Uncle Mathew hustled to the truck and came back kicking up dust.

  He handed Gabe a wrinkled paper bag of ones and a large envelope that held coins—nickels, dimes, and quarters.

  “What's two quarters and a dollar?” his uncle quizzed.

  Gabe could have yawned at this question, but not in front of his uncle. No, his uncle would have roasted his ears. This fruit and vegetable stand was about money. He answered, “A dollar fifty.”

  “What's a dollar fifty and thirty-five cents?”

  Gabe provided an answer.

  Uncle Mathew shook the envelope. “How much would you guess is in here?”

  Gabe stared at the envelope. He had once kept his stash in a sock, and a clean one, too! Before he answered, he took the envelope and jingled it. “Four dollars and fifty-five cents,” he answered.

  “Wrong, buddy. It's eight dollars in change. Now, I'm going away for a couple of hours. When I return, I want this envelope a little heavier and these veggies gone. Be nice to the customers. Don't forget to say, ‘Thank you.’”

  His uncle disappeared, his truck scattering pebbles as it peeled onto the highway blacktop. Gabe watched the truck go. His uncle had said he had errands to do. Yeah, right, Gabe thought. He was probably off to see Heather. His uncle liked her, he knew. Now and then Gabe saw him just smiling as he worked. Yeah, his uncle liked her a lot.

  Gabe stood behind the table and watched cars, RVs, and trucks pulling boats pass. At times the drivers glanced in his direction, but they mostly eyed the black highway with determination, as if they were late. But late for what? The lake wasn't going anywhere.

  Bored and a little hungry, Gabe chose a tomato for his breakfast. He fit his jaw around the ugliest one and squeezed, sending seed splattering onto the ground at his feet. He wiped his chin on his forearm, and bit again. Ugly ones taste just as good, he concluded. He then ate the next-to-ugliest tomato.

  When a van suddenly rolled in front of his stand, Gabe wiped his hands on the front of his jeans. He lit his face with a pleasing grin. He was eager for a sale—or at least something to do other than stand behind the table.

  “Morning,” Gabe said.

  A man and his wife, both dressed in shirts sporting the American flag, ambled over to the tables. They eyed the produce. The man shooed a fly from the pile of squash. The woman picked up two tomatoes and weighed them in her palms. Her shiny charm bracelet tinkled when she turned the fruit over.

  The man chose an ear of corn and peeled back part of the husk. He placed it down, wiping his hands against his pants. He winced at the poorly drawn sign. “Four for a dollar,” he mumbled. “That's not bad. OK, bag eight and some of those.” He pointed at the squash in a bucket.

  “They smell fresh,” the woman remarked. She was turning a tomato in her hands. “Are they organic?”

  “That's right,” Gabe replied. “We squash the bugs with our fingers. We don't use anything nasty. It's all good.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows, impressed.

  “Some of them are ugly, but my uncle, he grows the best,” Gabe continued. He added that there wasn't a better-tasting tomato in the county. He was surprised by his own sales pitch.

  The couple made their purchases and left. Another car stopped, and then another. Some of the cars were loud with babies and kids, some had dogs that trotted off to raise a leg against a tree, bush, or rock. The envelope began to chime like a tambourine. The produce began to disappear. The first to go were the tomatoes, followed by the corn. No one wanted the walnuts until Gabe got the idea to crack open a few and eat them while the customers were mulling over what to buy. They would see Gabe snacking on walnut meat, hear his munching sounds, and finally say, “Give me a bag of those.”

  Gabe was learning about people, and he was learning how to make a sale.

  The sun began to arc across the sky. When he and Uncle Mathew had arrived at the corner, the sun had been coming over the hill, and the morning chill Gabe felt when he first woke up had been replaced by the warmth of a new day. Now it was heating up. Flies buzzed around the dwindling stacks of produce.

  After a rush of customers, Gabe was left to himself, with no company other than the gnats and fruit flies that had found him. Business had slowed down. Then he detected a shadow behind him. When he spun around, he saw a man, who looked like he might be homeless, staring at him. For a brief moment, Gabe thought, How did Dad get here?

  “Hello there, son,” the man mumbled, without much energy.

  Gabe became suspicious at the use of the word son. Who was this man?

  The man approached the table.

  Gabe asked, not unkindly, “You want something, mister?” The stranger was hungry and homeless, a trekker or a stray, possibly a vagrant with warrants out for his arrest, or maybe just someone who had disappeared into the dry, hilly country.

  The stranger set his blackened, root-like fingers on the edge of the table, mouthed an unintelligible word, and gazed at the produce. He picked up the last bunch of baby carrots, and then a single squash. He took a walnut into his hand and then set it back down like a chess piece.

  “Are you from around here?” Gabe asked, although he was already sure the man wasn't. He was a drifter—or a hobo. He had no place to call home. His bed was grass, cardboard, or a dirty blanket. He was a wanderer who held up a wet finger to decide the direction he would take for the day. He was closer to dust than any man Gabe had ever seen. He could see a fine trail in the lines on his face.

  “No, I'm not,” the man answered. He had picked up the tomato again and bit into it. He chewed slowly, as if he didn't have the strength to munch it into a pulp and swallow.

  “You want something to eat?”

  A tear shone in the stranger's eye.

  “I got a sandwich,” Gabe said. “It's just cheese and tomato. But I have some crackers, too.”

  “That would be nice,” the man answered plainly.

  The two broke bread next to the table with its horn of plenty.

  The night crackled. Wind raked the corn patch, rattling the leaves. Lightning flashed in the east. Gabe made exploding sounds.

  “Give it a rest,” his uncle suggested. He was shaving the insulation from copper wire. Copper wire, he explained, was as good as gold—no, it was even better, because it was attainable. He had found a spool of the copper wire in an old truck with its nose in a ditch. The truck was probably stolen years ago, or maybe it had just been driven there for its death. Uncle Mathew had sifted through all the stuff in the truck's bed—rusty tools, corroded chrome rims, and a broken saw horse—and decided the only thing worth hauling away was the copper.

  “The wind feels good,” Gabe remarked, with a grin. He stood on the porch with his arms outstretched and let the wind hit his face and rustle his T-shirt. He imagined himself flying.

  The wind was warm, but at least it moved, not like the heavy air that had sagged all around them earlier in the day. It stirred the garden and forced the galvanized roof to almost dance. The chickens in the barn squawked and screamed after each flash of lightning. The horses in the far pasture neighed.

  “Get over here and help,” his uncle ordered.

  Gabe did as he was told. He sat on an overturned bucket and began removing the insulation from the copper wire. They worked in silence. Since Gabe's fingers were nimble, not work-worn like his uncle's, he was able to strip off the insulation more quickly. While his uncle grumbled, Gabe whistled as he
worked. It was a cinch.

  “How's your mom?” his uncle asked, when he stopped to rest.

  Gabe wasn't sure how to answer, or how to supply the details of his everyday life in Fresno. His uncle had never really asked about his own sister. He replied, “Oh, she's fine.”

  “She like her job?”

  “No.”

  “I'm glad that she doesn't like her job. Shows she's smart upstairs.” Uncle Mathew sucked his thumb where the end of a copper wire had bit it. “She told me you saw your father.”

  Gabe nodded. His uncle waited for Gabe to say something about his father. When he didn't, his uncle remarked, “Families can be messed up, including ours. Or should I say, especially ours.”

  Gabe had heard how his grandfather drank too much, and how he was killed when he drove his car into a traffic light. Gabe never mentioned his grandfather to his mother. In the photos Gabe had seen, his grandfather was tall, and he resembled his uncles more than his mom.

  “I never knew Grandfather,” Gabe remarked.

  “We never knew him either—or saw a whole lot of him. He worked in construction all over the country.” His uncle examined his injured thumb. He sucked it again and counted on his good fingers the states where his father had worked: Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and Arizona. “I also think he worked in Puerto Rico, but I can't be sure. He was a really smart electrician.”

  Lightning cut across the sky like scissors. It outlined the trees and brought the rows of corn into view, then pitched them back into darkness. Thunder rolled through the air.

  Gabe risked asking, “Uncle, how did you end up living here?” “Here” was the small ranch, close to the Sierras but far from any town.

  “How did I end up here? Sounds like you think this is the end of the world.”

  Gabe wasn't about to mention the absence of a television. For him—for his friends, and for Heather, too—no television was the end of the world.