I ask Amelio and Jorge, “How does that compare to places you’ve seen?”
“The main difference is the pay and exploitation immigrants experience,” Jorge says. “If you have a work visa it’s specific to one farm, and you can’t legally leave to work someplace else.”
“That sounds like the days of indentured servants and slavery here,” I say.
Jorge nods. “The boss treats people badly, withholding from their pay, say, $200 per week for horrible housing on the farm, five people to a bedroom. The workers make minimum wage, which after deductions is not enough to pay off the money they borrowed to get to this country. Many do not speak English and have no idea what their rights are. Most end up leaving to work somewhere else.”
“Sounds like a real change in farming is going to require changes in laws for immigrants and farm workers,” Sean says.
I heave a sigh. While I know Sean’s right, this all seems overwhelming to me right now.
Our labor each day is physically hard, and sometimes we have to work long hours to be a step ahead of things like coming rain. Other days, we hang out in the greenhouse together, waiting for the rain to pass, even though I tell the guys they’re off the clock during the down time and can leave. Nobody gets antsy or anxious about our lack of control over the weather. Instead, we accept and adapt to what Mother Nature sends our way. Sean and I are learning a lot from the spontaneous activities Amelio and Jorge engage in. We’ve all become pretty good at hacky sack. I’m the worst with my gangly frame, providing much laughter at my expense. If the humiliation gets too bad, I suggest the serious game where I excel—poker.
Sometimes friends drop in, rolling up their sleeves to help us weed or move irrigation drip hoses or whatever. Farmers in this area have a strong connection to the land from past farming days, but little present activity, maybe just a small herd of cows and a few chickens. My FFA friend, Will, from over the hill at Blacks Creek is our most consistent drop-in. Sean says he seems more like my dad than I do. I think, but don’t say, Except Will is black and my dad doesn’t have any personal relations with blacks. That’s a battle Dad and I have had over and over again. I refuse to let any instance of his racism go by unnamed. He doesn’t even get offended anymore, just says, “You’re damned straight.”
The other day, Daniel stopped in to do a story for the summer edition of the school newspaper. He recently wrapped up his stay at the group home.
“Chicos!” he boomed to Amelio and Jorge when he arrived.
“Daniel!” Both guys went over to shake his hand. They got to know each other pretty well after the start-of-the-year soccer fiasco was over.
Daniel was blown away by photographs Sean had taken of both our serious work and our antics. To add to the antic photos, he took a shot of Sean on top of a pile of hay bales in surfing stance—knees bent, arms spread to the side, his very sun-bleached hair gleaming in the sun.
Today I get a text from Daniel telling me to look at the spread on the school website. I show it to the guys on my tablet. In youthful style, the story on the website is more about our antics than it is a serious discussion of what we were up to. There are already dozens of comments from students about the story and photos. The photo of surfer Sean has a caption that reads, “Recognize this surf farmer?” A bunch of the responses to the photos of Sean, Amelio, and Jorge are emojis for things like “hot.”
Amelio blushes when he sees the comments. Jorge looks smug.
“Of course, my strong brown body should be appreciated,” he says, flexing.
The rest of us groan and then burst out laughing.
I think I should take Jorge to the farmers market with me next week. Maybe his outgoing personality will help me sell more vegetables.
Mid-July we celebrate Cora joining our ranks with an evening around the fire pit. She seems unusually quiet and reflective, not telling us much of anything about her month at Howard.
“That’s just how Cora is,” Sean whispers to me. “She needs alone time to think things through.”
She’s giving our get-together a very different aura than the silly days of our past month have had.
With the fire blazing heat in the cool night, after all of us have adjusted our mood to hers, Cora says, “I am so glad to be away from the hustle of civilization and back to the comfort of the country.”
“What about the longing for big-city life?” Sean asks.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I definitely did not feel afraid in DC, mostly out on Howard-sponsored activities. But I also did not feel independent and confident like I do here. Right now, I just feel exhausted.”
I hope the exhaustion doesn’t last too long. We’ve got work to do.
It came as no surprise that it didn’t take Cora long these past few days to begin responding to the fun-loving Jorge and his sidekick Amelio, with Sean and me as their biggest fans.
Our regular late-afternoon guest is Chelsea. She and her dogs walk down the hill from her house just about the time the others are headed home. That timing works for me, because then I don’t have to share her, particularly with Sean. He seems to get it and does not hang around or strike up one-on-one conversations with Chelsea, which is a relief.
The weeks before Cora returned, nobody said much about me and Chelsea hanging out. But Cora, not the silent type, asked on day one if Chelsea and I are an item now. I didn’t have to say anything: Chelsea answers Cora through her daily appearances. My answer is a lightness of being whenever Chelsea is around. She and I have spent many evenings, and a few nights, together these past couple months. Of course my dad has no comment.
Chelsea’s folks are traveling abroad for most of the summer. Chelsea says better them than her. She loves being home and answering only to herself and her girls, Ayla and Lily.
A couple of weeks ago she told me, “I am still so angry at my parents for separating us as kids, not taking our feelings for each other seriously.”
In a strange way, her anger made me feel proud, like she would fight to keep us together now.
“They made me doubt myself,” she said, “like I was wrong that our friendship was special. Eventually, I came to not trust their judgment, or mine, about anything.”
Fortunately, I’ve seen a change in her spirit now that she’s started working from mid-morning to early afternoon as a cook’s assistant at a Quaker camp for teenagers. She told me a few nights ago, “My life was transformed today. A Sufi, who is also a whirling dervish dancer, taught ‘turning’ to the kids and me.”
I must have looked confused, because she said, “It’s like dancing meditation. Obviously, I have to practice and practice, like any art. But today was enough to give me a glimpse of an inner me I’ve never felt before.”
Since then, she’s been spending all her free time watching videos of whirling dervish dancers, practicing, and researching teachers who might come through our area.
“Is this like a cult?” I ask as we’re walking to her house this evening.
“Just the opposite. It’s all about connection to others, the world, from an authentic me.”
Her words don’t dispel my worry about this new interest. But when we have sex tonight, the way we fit together absolutely confirms Chelsea’s opening up to the world and a budding, joyful spark.
Our idyllic pastoral life has been abruptly interrupted today by a surprising event: a category-five hurricane that’s bearing down on the western Virginia mountains from the eastern coast. It’s unusual for a hurricane to head so far inland. True, the strength and winds have died down some as it’s crossed overland, but its swift movement during the middle of the night means that we’ll have only this one frantic morning to try to harvest as much as we can before the damaging rain and flooding hit.
Before sunrise, I text media-wise Daniel and ask him to post a help request in every way he can think of, for people to come ASAP to the farm to harvest crops. My dad uses a more traditional approach, communicating through the local volunteer firehouse sys
tem to round up help.
Huge numbers of young people show up looking like they just rolled out of bed. The country folks who heard about our need through the firehouse show up with their whole families, and tools also. For a very long second I just stare at the onslaught of people jumping out of trucks, cars, and one school bus. I hear soft-spoken Amelio whisper, “Milagro.”
Clearly, organization has to happen immediately. I start creating teams, pairing experienced farmers with green young people, to work here in the east uphill field. I turn to Jorge and Amelio and ask them to each take one of the downhill fields, form teams of workers for their field, and direct them to what needs to be done. They stare at me like I am nuts.
“Just do it,” I plead.
Jorge and Amelio look at each other, shrug, and walk to their appointed fields. I yell to newly arrived people to follow Amelio and Jorge. They do.
A group of Blacks Creek farmers who heard me head off for the lower fields; one pats me on the back as he walks by and says, “Good call, Jake.”
Another group of young, muscular white guys look at me as if daring me to ask them to mix with people “not of their kind.” These are guys who stayed in the county after high school, spending a good bit of their time in the parking lot of the local bar, leaning on their confederate flag–draped pickups. Low-key Sean seems just the thing for them.
“Sean, would you show these guys where we left off yesterday up here in the west field?”
Just as I expected, walking determinedly along with Sean and the toughs is Cora. That’s my idea of a compromise.
Dad’s buddies take orders from him, hurrying off to collect tools to distribute to all the fields.
In the upper large field, I organize smaller kids to carry baskets for the produce to the pickers who need them. Young teens serve as runners, hauling baskets of picked produce to the greenhouse, where they will be protected in the storm.
While time flies by with the wind, the storm slows a bit when it hits the Blue Ridge Mountains. Seems the national forecasters aren’t too used to a hurricane path like this one.
We pick for hours, until we can hardly feel the tips of our hands. Early drizzle has created mud that attaches to our boots and requires more effort from already exhausted leg muscles. I’m one of the fittest people here, and I have to hold back the tears of exhaustion and force myself to go on.
And now it happens: I can hear the storm bearing down on us. There’s only enough time to make an all-out run for the house. And the closeness of the storm, signaled by screeching wind and the pop of limbs breaking, makes even the house destination questionable. Adults are quick to grab up youngsters, hold them close, and comfort their fear of the power of the wind. Strong young adults hang back to assist older workers, making sure everyone is accounted for. Just as the rain begins to come down in large drops, making vision almost impossible, the last of us tumble in through the basement doors.
Fortunately, our large, finished basement can accommodate the crowd of more than fifty exhausted bodies. The young collapse to the floor, leaving the furniture for their elders.
Dad’s friends seem most at ease in this scenario. One of his buddies shouts to him, “Hey, old man, empty out the refrigerator and food cabinets.”
Laughing, Dad obliges with quick reconnaissance missions up the basement stairs to the kitchen. Me, Sean, Amelio, and Jorge help bring the food and drinks he finds downstairs and start handing it all out.
Teenagers who live in town are super interested in our sturdy, built-by-hand log home. Not a speck of rain or wind pierces the exterior. I see a couple of them asking Dad questions about how he built it when he comes back down from the kitchen.
Then the ritual storytelling starts among the quiet of people gratefully chewing. The oldest farmers compete in “top me” stories of storms gone by. Kids ask lots of questions, egging on the stretching rights of the storytellers. Pretty soon, an entire history of the area, recounted through the storm theme, is cast.
Next thing I know, the sun is coming out. I guess that’s the nature of a hurricane: fast and furious.
It was Sean’s idea to call Chief and ask if we could haul all the vegetables to the high school cafeteria and set up a sort of farm stand there. I’m grateful for his quick thinking; I was too overwhelmed by the sight of all the pummeled produce remaining in the fields to come up with my own plan.
All our volunteer helpers load up produce and truck it to the high school.
When we’re through organizing the produce on cafeteria tables, our presentation couldn’t compare to something you’d see at Whole Foods or the local groceries, yet, to me the squash, corn, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, and greens of many varieties are an array of inherent beauty.
Shopping at our unusual farm stand becomes the after-hurricane thing to do. Word gets out to the university communities thanks to Sean’s dad, and my dad lets the firehouses across the county know. Daniel, mister master organizer, even manages to get musicians to show up for an impromptu jam session.
Near the end of the evening the manager of the healthy foods co-op approaches me.
“Would you like us to take what’s left of all this produce to the co-op store and sell them tomorrow?” she asks. “We’ll pass along the money to you for the sales.”
“Thanks, neighbor,” I say. “You really live the cooperative spirit.”
I get home late night, but despite the hour—and my total exhaustion (of the worry kind, not the physical kind)—I force myself to calculate total sales for the summer. My strategy for distribution and sales over the summer has been a weekly farmers market and also selling to the permanent produce stand guy, who pushes my vegetables as “local” but does not pay me close to what I charge at the weekly farmers market. The loss from the hurricane isn’t going to mean so much since people buying vegetables at the school were very generous, many saying “keep the change” as they paid with large bills. And the free picking will help as well.
Dad has not been forthcoming with costs for supplies. I think it’s his way of being supportive, not pressuring me to factor in that cost. It must have been very hard for him to shell out money for wages every week with nothing coming in.
I’ve been pretty tight with the labor costs, telling everyone not to come in on rainy days and saying they can leave early for afternoon rains, even though they usually hang around for free and hacky sack or poker. Now, the hurricane means they’re losing the chance to get paid for the last two weeks of the summer. They seem to be okay with all that; it helps that they know they are being paid a higher salary than other farm workers (except the subsidized CSA). Also, they’ve all told me they felt respected in the day-to-day work, involved in the decision-making process. They also respect the fact I work so hard, including on weekends. They tease me that it’s just an excuse to spend time with Chelsea, who was often my weekend free helper this summer, but really they know I’m busting butt. Cora’s getting the worst deal of anyone, since she has only worked two weeks, but her mind seems to be elsewhere, and she probably won’t care about not working these next two weeks.
I find Dad to go over the results of my calculations.
“Not good news,” I tell him with a sigh. “Through today, it seems I’m short about $2,000, subtracting sales receipts from what you’ve paid out in wages. If I had been paid $10 per hour, that would be another $4,000. And I owe you for seed and other supplies.”
“Well, Jake, you’re out $4,000 of labor you don’t get paid for. I’m out $2,000 in excess wages paid to your workers and about another $2,000 in supplies. Seems to me we’re even. Both our losses are not too high a cost for you to learn, before you get in way over your head, that farming today is a losing proposition, money-wise, for a small farmer. Make going to college an attractive alternative?”
My calm, businesslike start to this conversation is punctured by Dad jabbing at the heart of the matter for me: my future. My only defense is to make clear what’s at stake.
“N
o,” I say, trying to control my temper. “I loved farming all summer. Not to make money. It’s just … it’s just who I am. Hard physical work, figuring out problems as they come up, making decisions with help from you and the guys, getting up early and watching the first rays of sun bringing everything to life, plants popping through the soil, getting to know how they’re all different in the way they grow, feeling like this land is where I belong, and realizing I can count on a community to help me when I get into trouble—in part because of your friends and their respect for you.”
“I hear how you feel about farming,” Dad says. “I felt the same when I was your age. But time has passed us by. We have to adapt.”
I can’t just adapt to a life that kills my dream. I can’t even imagine that, I can’t even …
“Dad, there must be ways I can do things differently.” Please help me Dad, instead of just saying it’s all over. “My biggest problem was what to do with all the produce after it was picked. That’s when things left my control. Small farmers have no system for easily selling their stuff. That’s another whole part of the process that’s messed up. Like, people are making money off selling the turnip greens I grow.”
Dad gets a sharp edge to his voice. “You’re talking about losing money on turnip greens. I lose $500 on every cow I take to market because it is shipped off somewhere and fattened up with stuff none of us should eat, and by the time it gets back to town I’m paying the store for all that stuff that happened in between.”
“But if we expand into food distribution like the sustainable farmers are doing—selling directly to restaurants, buying clubs, and members of CSAs—then we’re in a whole new business of marketing I don’t want to do,” I say, shaking my head. “There has to be another way, Dad. We need a more direct connection to consumers where we don’t take on more responsibility. Something that’s just as convenient as grocery stores for the buyers. Like, how many working people have time to go to a farmers market at a set time one day a week to buy fresh food? And how many farmers can take the time to go to the farmers market to sell their food?”
School Tales Page 24