Gabriel tried hard not to grin, but the harder he tried the worse it became, until his mother asked outright: “Did I say something funny?”
“I just had this mental picture of us sitting on a sofa. The whole family. On one side there’s a little angel, floating next to our heads. And on the other side a little red devil, just like in a cartoon.” He grinned again. “Anyway, I can imagine Victor with horns and a tail. That doesn’t take much imagination. But I just can’t come up with a Borrado—any Borrado—wearing a halo and angel wings.”
“You’re just not trying hard enough,” said Paula. “Just like when you’re out in the field.”
Gabriel was too tired to argue back. Besides, he wanted to enjoy the nice green countryside. They had not left camp until after lunch, and twice they lost their way on the unmarked country roads. By the time they arrived at the handful of stores on Main Street a few had already closed.
Their father first dropped the women off in front of the supermarket. “Get a head start on the basics. We’ll come back in a while. And remember, don’t get anything that spoils.”
“But that means we’ll have to get canned goods,” said Paula.
“So?”
“So they’ve got lots of sodium.” When their father continued to stare at her with a blank look, she added, “Salt, Dad. Canned goods have too much salt.”
“I’d rather have too much salt than food poisoning.”
“Oh, right,” murmured Gus to his brother. “Like that mayonnaise bull on the way up.”
It was hard to tell whether the auto parts store was open since there were no cars on the curb outside. Its cluttered aisles and modest assortment of merchandise reminded Gabriel of the way his father described their hometown when he was their age.
His father went to the door, then signaled them. Gabriel joined him, but Gus simply made a face that suggested a stomachache.
“Come inside, Gustavo! You might learn something.”
“What’s there to learn, Dad? We’re just getting points and plugs, something we should have done back home.”
“Plus a valve cover gasket. And whatever else I may need.”
By the time Gus finally entered, their father was already asking for a gasket. Gus noticed the confused impatience on the balding Anglo’s face, so he repeated their father’s request. While the man joined his helper in the stockroom and while their father was distracted by a ratchet wrench set, Gus said under his breath, “Why’d you let Dad open his mouth? They’ll think we’re mojados.”
Gabriel was about to say that their father sounded nothing like someone raised in Mexico when the man returned with a teenager who looked enough like him to be his son, with the same coarse eyebrows and high forehead. “This what you need?” the boy asked in a perfunctory tone.
Gus nodded, then asked the man not to ring up the sale yet. The stock boy disappeared around an aisle corner, but it was not until Gabriel noticed him watching his father on a ceiling security mirror that he understood Gus’s discomfort. Then he saw Gus looking at their father just as intensely as the stock boy, but with a seething silence.
“Hurry up, Dad,” said Gabriel. “I think they’re about to close.” He was hoping the Anglos would contradict him and encourage the browsing. Instead they seemed to agree through their silence, and the older man even reached behind his back, as if trying to untie his work apron.
The older man was adding up the items when their father asked, “You got any good mechanics around here?”
The man nodded without a word, while the younger one asked, “Why, you need one?”
“Oh, no. I’m one myself.”
The older man placed the change on the counter and slid it toward him. “We have enough here.”
“Let’s go, Dad!” said Gus. “We need some stuff from the general store across the street.”
Gabriel glanced toward the small supermarket and suspected that Gus had called it a general store to mock their town.
Gus held the door open for two Anglo women who entered the store. He gave the first girl a closer look, but the other one had already given him her own once-over and, not liking what she saw, called the girl to her side.
The balding Anglo greeted them by name, and as Gabriel neared the door he heard the older woman ask, “Were you about to close?”
“Not at all.” The man retied his apron strings. “Not for another hour at least.”
7
Gabriel spent much of that evening in a sullen mood, and it smoldered into the next day. Finally even Gus, who harbored no illusions about their predicament, offered some uplifting advice.
“I don’t know what’s bothering you, Gabi. But tomorrow we’re going back to the fields, so make the most of the weekend.”
“I’m still pissed off about that shopkeeper.”
“He’s from another generation. They’ll die off soon.”
“Yeah? His son wasn’t much better.”
“Well, you know what pisses me off even more? That two-bit town they’re from.”
“You think the other hicks who live there are just as bad?”
“That’s not the point. I mean we came all the way to California for that. What’s worse …” He stared out the screen door. “For this. No wonder the workers actually look forward to going back home. We could have stayed back in the Valley and been a lot better off. There’s movies—”
“What did you expect?”
“So now you’re siding with Dad.”
“No, Gus, I’m just saying that this is where migrants work. It’s not like we were coming to pick crops in L.A.”
“Fine. And you let go of that episode at the auto parts store. Besides, it was all Dad’s fault.”
“What’s Dad have to do with those Anglos?”
“Well, if he’d kept his mouth shut …”
“He was just there to buy stuff, Gus! If they didn’t want him there, how come they took his money?”
“Don’t worry about it. The whole thing went over his head.”
Gabriel did not reply, but instead recalled the times his father had talked about his own childhood, when whites had run things back home. At that moment, and despite all the times he had locked horns with his father, he felt a sad, inexplicable bond between them.
He paused at the door and asked, “By the way, where is he?”
“He was headed for that open field where the kids play kickball, by that old barn. He’s got his tools on display.”
“You mean he’s setting up shop?”
“It’s more like advertising. He wants to let the camp know he works on cars.”
“Let’s hope it does the trick,” said Gabriel.
“Sounds like you have your own doubts.”
“Well, it’s not going to be a cakewalk for Dad, that’s for sure. It’ll all be uphill.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like me,” Gus sounded smug.
“I’m just being realistic. There’s a lot of stuff we didn’t think through before we made the jump.”
“I’ll say.” But Gus did not offer any points of his own. Instead he waited for his brother to explain.
“Dad was blinded by the thought of making money, just like we were blinded by a vacation at the end of the road. He heard about how much money a family could make each month here, but he didn’t realize it’s only for a few weeks. Most of these guys go back home and work on odd jobs the rest of the year or collect unemployment.”
Gus nodded seriously yet said nothing.
“Before we left, Dad and I saw this migrant worker’s pickup out in a parking lot. It was pretty impressive, like some of the trucks we see here.” Gabriel regarded their surroundings with an unsentimental eye. “But you don’t see the places they have to live in to earn the money for those fancy trucks.”
Gus nodded again, then added, “Or the hard-core houses they have back home. Jesus, Gabriel, why didn’t you tell him all this before we came up? Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe we could have stopped th
e old man in his tracks.”
Gabriel pushed against the screen door and let in a flood of light. “Like I said, I didn’t know all this until now.”
But as he stepped off the porch he knew otherwise. He had considered some of those arguments back in Texas, at least partially, but Gabriel had feared that Gus might have used his ambivalence to derail the trip. And perhaps, Gabriel now believed, Gus had wanted to be proven wrong. Maybe Gus truly wanted their father to succeed despite all the discouraging signs.
Gabriel found their van parked under a shade tree across the street from the abandoned barn. His father wore his mechanic’s overalls and had slid open the van door to showcase two large toolboxes with overlapping triple trays.
“Wow. What are you going to do, Dad, transplant a transmission?”
He guided his son’s gaze to a handful of tools he had already set aside for a tune-up. And even though no one was around, his father said in a low but excited voice, “I wanted to bring out the big guns. For show.” Then he pointed across the open field that served as camp commons.
“They say a white preacher will be here in an hour. He’s giving a sermon in that run-down barn.”
“How’s his Spanish?”
“Probably as creaky as that old barn. But you know those Anglos. They pick up a few words in Spanish and think they’re experts.”
“So while the preacher is fishing for souls—”
“I’m fishing for customers.” For once he seemed to savor the fact that his son had seen through his tricks.
Gabriel observed him for a while, then said, “You should do TV commercials, Dad. You look like a real mechanic.”
“I am a real mechanic.” He turned casually to show off the tools bulging from his back pockets. He even had on the garage cap he hated to wear because it plastered his hair in an unflattering pattern.
“What I mean is, there’s lots of mechanics out there, but they usually don’t look like the real thing.”
His father did another slow circle, then froze, like a muscle man proud of his profile. “I’m more real than the real thing. I don’t need to work in a garage to prove it.”
But despite the comings and goings of curious gawkers who wandered to and from the sermon, his efforts barely attracted a trio of men, including one who kept offering contrary advice. Gabriel became so annoyed that he whispered to his father under the hood, “Why even bother answering this idiot?”
“I’m always getting guys like him at the shop. He’s testing my expertise.”
“He’s no expert, Dad. He’s just a jerk.”
“I’m not doing this for him,” he whispered back. “This way everyone will know how much I know.”
Gabriel was not convinced but he still said, “I guess you know best. Anyway, do you need help?”
“Thanks, but I’d better do this myself. Otherwise they’ll think I pass off my work to you guys.”
After Gabriel left, a teenager with the uneasy air of a loner lingered on the fringes, saying absolutely nothing but making the father so uneasy that he did little more than check his toolbox. In the end he was left to supervise two hyperkinetic kids whose parents had sent them outside to ventilate their energy. They so tried his patience with their preschool inquiries that he finally packed up and left.
He returned to their shack as the last smudge of sunlight was fading. He never mentioned how things went, yet the manic streak in his conversation got the best of Gus, who quizzed his brother with a curious head cock.
Gabriel ignored him in order to cover his father’s charade, but he was also afraid that Gus might ask outright. Fortunately his father asked, “So is everyone ready for another workweek?”
“You obviously are,” said Paula, as she confiscated a bottle of liniment he was rubbing on his hands. “That smells nasty.”
“Fine. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“I’m saying don’t do it, period. You’re probably polluting every strawberry you pick.”
“This way whoever eats them gets a free laxative. Sort of like strawberries and prunes rolled up into one.”
“If you’re worried about pollution,” Gabriel told his sister, “you don’t have to go further than the bug killers they use on the crops. Birth defects, cancer, high blood pressure …”
Gus gave an exaggerated shudder to make sure he caught their father’s attention. Then he added for good measure: “There’s no need to continue the list. None of that stuff worries Dad.”
“Why should it? If pesticides don’t get you, something else will.”
“What about your kids?”
“I’m not planning to crank out any more.”
“What about the ones you already cranked out?”
“I want to make sure they’re survivors. And what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“No,” said Gabriel, “it just makes you sicker.”
“So anyway,” said his father, “is everyone ready for tomorrow?”
“I guess so,” said Gabriel.
Yet the following day the aches and pains that he had accumulated and that the weekend had dulled temporarily now returned stronger. Still, Gabriel took some pride in the fact that his body was coping better. And now, aware of his limits, he paced himself more efficiently. Although still exhausted at the end of the day, he came out after dinner to watch Paula practice tumbling with two other girls.
“Look at her,” he told Gus. “She still has energy at the end of the day.”
“I’m looking, but I’m not impressed.”
“But she never complains. Even Mom’s started to bitch a bit, now that she’s out in the fields.”
“Well, Dad doesn’t push Paula as much.”
“That’s because she’s the youngest,” said Gabriel.
“No, it’s because she’s his favorite.”
“Still, just standing in the field all day can tire you out.”
“You win.” Gus stood abruptly and brushed the rust stain that the porch chair had left on his pants seat. “I’ll have to congratulate Dad for hiring such a good attorney.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re starting to turn into his mouthpiece. Come on, Gabi, I thought we were in this together.”
“We are. That’s why I’m trying to put you in a more positive place.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling you’re trying to put me in my place, period. Just like Dad does.”
“This whole conversation wasn’t even about Dad. It was about Paula.”
Gus noticed Victor returning from the bachelor’s quarters, and as he stood to meet him, he put a work shirt over his undershirt to guard against the evening chill. “In this place, everything’s about Dad.”
The following evening, the Anglo minister returned with several members of his church. The group included some teens scheduled to put on a variety show, and, despite the transparent proselytizing, the skits and songs offered the camp a welcomed break from the rural monotony. Even Gus seemed excited, as he pointed to the makeshift stage. “Look, Gabi. Honest-to-goodness college girls!”
For the younger teens like Gabriel, that meant fantasies, but little else. Still, girls in clean, well-pressed clothes made him yearn for home, even school. But for the older boys, the potential for something more was there, however remote, and for those like Gus, who had already dated an Anglo girl, the odds were not astronomical.
A few of the girls were attractive, and one in particular stood out. Although pale, she had a healthy, freckled complexion, unlike the pastiness of the Borrados, who were in fact clustered a short distance from Gabriel. He considered going over and taunting them that it was past their bedtime. He even took a few steps in their direction, when suddenly the oldest brother started observing him intently with those strange eyes, as if intuiting his intentions. If anything, the staring made Gabriel even more determined to carry out the teasing. But then it occurred to him that the other teens might mistake the gesture for friendship, so he held back. Th
e Borrado smiled, but with the same glacial gaze, as if he had stared down an enemy.
By now someone else had noticed the Borrados. Every so often the pale girl glanced their way and smiled as if they were old acquaintances. Her green summer dress, at once clingy and carefree, moved in magic synchrony with her long auburn hair. The effect was not lost on the Borrados, who grew more nervous.
“She’s an absolute angel,” said Gus.
Señor Serenata’s son gestured toward the Borrados. “And she’s friendly to animals.”
An older boy whose acne had been aggravated by fieldwork agreed with Victor. “If she gave those guys a second look, we’ve all got a shot.”
After the show several of the older guys tripped over each other trying to impress her. They let Gus break the ice, which led Paula to shake her head as she joined her other brother. “Wow, I’d never thought I’d see the day when my brother, the jock, would end up as a spokesman.”
“I guess it’s because he doesn’t have such an accent.”
She gave an indifferent shrug. “Or else he’s rehearsing for when he endorses sportswear.”
Gabriel, standing some distance from the group of older teens, remained at the sidelines of their fantasy, with his feet anchored in the real world enough to put things in perspective. He soon realized that the girl was not so much angelic as amicable, with a fresh charm that the church chaperones encouraged. She also had an obvious and unfair advantage over the girls in camp—stylish clothes, fastidious grooming and a perkiness that was not eroded by the daily grind of fieldwork.
In fact, no sooner did the church girls leave than the fantasy started to fade. An older boy wearing an oversized Virgin of Guadalupe medallion outside his shirt commented with a sour-grapes voice that the group was just looking for converts.
“Then sign me up!” said Gus.
Victor agreed. “If that’s how they want us to imagine their little corner of heaven, I’m all for that.”
Paula, still standing beside Gabriel, described in sobering detail how the young men had undercut each other in front of the Anglo girls.
A So-Called Vacation Page 6