“I guess you’re right. If they have any souvenirs, they’re probably about strawberries.”
“Or else shrunken migrant heads. Besides, who’d want to let anyone know he’s here?”
They walked a while longer and Gabriel asked, “Don’t they have a place in Disneyland called Main Street?” When his brother shrugged, he added, “I wonder if it’s anything like this.”
“Well, don’t tell Dad. He’ll say, ‘So then why bother going out there?’”
But their conversation triggered a reaction in Gus, who began scanning the street again. “Didn’t Dad say something about calling his cousins in Anaheim?”
“You’re right, and it’s about time. Let’s find him first, then we’ll find a phone.”
Gus looked around and his gaze paused on a pack of young stag workers from another camp, with the raw and rustic look of illegals. “Wait. I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s not a good idea to tell them we’re working here. At least not yet. Let’s wait till all this is over.”
“Why?”
“Well, don’t you feel strange?”
“Strange?”
“Yeah. About working in the fields.”
“I don’t think migrant workers feel strange.”
“They don’t, because that’s what they are. But we’re not.”
“But we are, at least for now. That’s what we’ve been doing all summer, and we’ve got the sunburn to prove it.”
“We’ve been working with migrants. That doesn’t make us migrants.”
“What are you getting at? That we join a union?”
Gabriel took the teasing no further, since he himself still felt ambivalent about the label. He didn’t mind it in camp, when he was among the other workers. But around town he was conscious of it, constantly. A couple of times, among the locals, he had used a certain word or even hummed a certain tune in order to set himself apart from the herd, but then afterward he had felt a tinge of shame for having done so.
His brother, though, was ashamed, period, and rubbing his face in the reality only exacerbated the self-hate. Gabriel could only wonder how Gus would explain his rough hands to his friends, to say nothing of an erratic tan that would never pass for a summer on the beach.
He realized that back in Texas Gus had decided to go to California because everyone at school was convinced they were leaving anyway. Gabriel had assumed that Gus’s decision meant he had put the migrant issue behind him. It was obvious now that he had only buried it, and in a shallow grave at that.
“Don’t worry about the call, Gus. I don’t think Dad will tell his cousins what he’s doing either.”
“But they’ll know. Once they ask where he’s calling from, they’ll know.”
Gabriel tried to explain that their relatives would find out the moment the family showed up in Anaheim with calluses and leathery, farmworker complexions. But he could tell by the way Gus narrowed his eyes—the same way his father looked when he was cornered—that he was determined to postpone that call.
They continued walking the few downtown blocks, peeking through display windows while hoping their father wasn’t soaking his woes in a bar, until they found him inside a drugstore. He was close enough to a pay phone that Gus took no chances.
“Dad!” His yell inside the store startled not only their father but the pharmacist as well, who was probably used to a meeker type of migrant. “You haven’t called your cousin, have you?”
He must have taken the remark as a reprimand, because he put aside the heartburn medicine he was holding and started crafting an apology. “Not yet, but now that you mention it—”
“Then forget I mentioned it. Let’s wait till the season’s over. and we’re ready to hit the road.”
Gabriel thought he recognized the look that came over his father—the slight flaring of his nostrils and the cagey arch of his eyebrows—whenever he detected a chink in his opponent’s armor. “So you’re calling off the bet?”
“The bet’s still on. All I’m saying is we should hold off on that call.”
Gabriel, though, still had his doubts. “What if we miss them? They need to know ahead of time. Maybe they’re making vacation plans too. And you know it won’t be Disneyland.”
“We’ll just take our chances,” said Gus.
Their father nodded solemnly, even as a sliver of glee leaked through his mock disappointment. “Well, if you boys insist …”
Gabriel started to say that he wasn’t the one insisting, but by now his father could barely stifle his satisfaction. He looked so comical that Gabriel had to abandon his own seriousness.
“Dad, you’re cross-eyed with delight.”
“I’m happy when my boys are happy.”
Gus neither noticed his father’s smile nor his brother’s sarcasm. In fact he seemed oblivious to the outside world until their father was out the door.
“Look, Gabi! They do have postcards!”
Yet in the short time it took Gus to maneuver his brother to the souvenir rack, his tone had turned calculating. “Don’t worry. If his cousins are gone it’s even better. Then we’ll make the old man spring for rooms to make up for the shack we’re staying in. Let him pay through the nose.”
“I don’t know about that. He’s not exactly making money hand over—”
“Look,” Gus interrupted, “let me ask you something. Do you think those Borrados are any better than us?”
“The Borrados?”
“Yes, the Borrados. The same jerks cooling their butts in the town pool as we speak.”
“But what do they have to do with—?”
“Don’t get all complicated on me. Just answer my question. Do you think they deserve a better life than we do?”
“No, but—”
Once more, the moment that Gabriel tried to voice his doubts, his brother immediately interrupted him.
“Then let Dad be a real father to us. Let him pull out the wad for once, just like old Don Pilo.”
12
Gabriel felt a hand on his shoulder, rocking him awake, then heard, “Dad’s been hinting he might go into town again. Keep an eye on him.”
Even into the following morning Gus was still worried that their father might try to contact his cousin. Gabriel tried rubbing the sleep from his eyes but it only made the drowsiness worse. “Why can’t you watch him?”
“I have. I just need to go see if Victor’s around.”
Gabriel did not agree until he felt alert enough. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. Maybe we should encourage him to call his relatives. If he commits to seeing them, then we’re locked into the trip.”
“Maybe. But if he does call and they give him the runaround, that’ll be his excuse for not going.”
“But he already agreed, Gus. Now it’s up to us to beat one of the Borrados.”
“I guess I just want to close all the loopholes. You know Dad. Even Paula calls him the Hispanic Houdini.”
“Gus, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve been doing too much thinking lately. Imagine if you’d done that—”
“Yeah, yeah, imagine if I’d done all that thinking during the school year. You’re starting to sound like Dad.”
Gabriel knew better than to argue. It had become a battle of wills for Gus, even though their father was unaware of their duel.
Gus returned shortly with the news that the white preacher was organizing another open-air service. “You should go down there, Dad.”
“What for? I have nothing to confess.”
“Fine. It’s just that I heard a couple of guys asking if you planned to show up like last time.”
Their father pondered his options, including the likelihood of drumming up clients, then slowly made his way to the van. “Do you two want to come along?”
“We’ve got other plans,” said Gus. “And it’s like you just said. My soul is spotless, so why waste my time anywhere close to a preacher.”
Gabriel was in the dark as to their plans, but he
backed Gus. “Besides, if they see us fumbling next to you, it’ll drive everyone away.”
After most of the camp had trickled off in the direction of the sermon, Gus told his brother, “Get your trunks. Victor said he’d take us to the canal.”
But after it became obvious that Victor would not be there to guide them, they decided to make their own way to the canal. After backtracking twice, they eventually reached a high clearing that gave them a better glimpse of the terrain. They then followed a faint path that cut through the underbrush and wild vines and up the canal bank.
As they stripped to their new trunks, they assumed they were alone until a male voice called out, “Who’s there?”
“The tejanos.” Gabriel shielded his eyes and squinted into the water’s reflection to identify the voice.
“That’s not saying much. There are tons of tejanos in camp.”
“We’re the brothers from the border. From McAllen.” Noticing a head beside a patch of river sedge, Gabriel quickly added, “But we’re not the Borrado brothers.”
The young man showed the rest of his face and shoulders, dark and shiny as a wet seal, as he swam toward the gunnysack rope. “Hell, everyone knows those guys never swim here.”
When he pulled himself onto the bank, Gabriel recognized him as one of the bachelors from the stag barracks, yet he didn’t quite know what to call him. Some of the other bachelors called him Shorty behind his back and Chorizo to his face. The latter sounded too personal, even vulgar, yet Gabriel did not want to offend him with Shorty either, so he decided to draw him out.
“I’m Gabriel, and this is my brother Gus.”
He introduced himself as Chori, a blend of both nicknames.
Physically he had an even more imposing presence than Victor. Despite being shorter than either Victor or Gus, he was even stockier and more muscular, with dark skin that seemed to compress his height while at the same time augmenting his bulk. And whereas Victor always made an effort to be the center of attention, Chori stood out naturally.
Having already heard that they had been kicked out of the pool, he asked for a firsthand account, listened quietly, and then asked, “So what happens now?”
Gabriel answered, “Now we just hang around here, I guess.”
“You could go sneak back in next Saturday. We all look alike to that lifeguard.”
Gabriel shrugged indifferently, but he could tell that the incident at the swimming pool still bothered Gus, who said, “In that case I’ll go back and slip something in his Coke.”
“Whoa! I just meant go back and behave. That includes keeping away from the local Delilahs.”
“Or maybe I’ll go rip off a store or two.”
Chori said nothing and simply shook his head to suggest that some people never learn. When Gus saw this, he repeated the threat with a more menacing undertone, as if someone had called his bluff.
The idea frightened Gabriel a bit but also intrigued him. “That’s one place I wouldn’t mind picking.”
But the instant Gabriel mimed a swift grabbing motion, Chori made an even quicker one, cuffing his wrist with a thumb and forefinger. “Sure, and you know what they’d love? To pack you and put you away in the freezer section.”
“I heard it’s not that hard,” said Gus.
“Being in the shade for a season or two?” Chori sounded like someone who knew a thing or two about jail time.
“No, stealing. You make eye contact with the clerk until he gets uncomfortable and looks away.”
Chori made a timeout sign with his hands. “Whoa! First of all … did you hear that from your buddy Victor?”
“Why?” Gus’s tone was tantamount to an outright admission.
“Because looking at clerks and managers just gives them an excuse to get you into a conversation, hoping to trip you up.”
“But Victor said—”
Chori nodded immediately. “I knew it was him! I’ll bet he said that if you look a salesclerk in the eye he’ll figure you have nothing to hide.”
“It makes sense.”
“Maybe, but that’s also why so many people get popped. Besides, that doesn’t work on a good store manager.”
“So what do you do?” asked Gabriel. “Avoid looking?”
“That looks just as guilty. You act like someone else caught your attention. Zoom in on a nice girl and pretend to check her out. I’ll bet even the manager looks in her direction. And once he looks, he’s locked. The window’s open for just a few seconds.”
“What about hidden cameras?”
“In that two-bit town? They’d be lucky to have the old-fashioned kind. I mean, the really old-fashioned kind, the ones with the gunpowder flash.”
By now Gabriel wanted to examine every angle. “What if the clerk’s a girl?”
“Then you pretend you’re gay and check out a guy, I guess.”
“But how do you know she’ll find the guy good-looking?”
“Jesus, Gabi, do you want a detailed map for every possibility? Can’t you see what he’s getting at? Just don’t steal anything.”
“Listen to your brother, instead of that neighbor of yours.” Chori gazed absently at the horizon to let them know he was done with the topic.
“Come to think of it,” said Gabriel, “we haven’t seen Victor lately. I don’t think he’s even our neighbor anymore. I mean, his old man still gives a serenade or two, but I haven’t heard Victor going out to bring him inside.”
“He stayed at our barracks for a while,” said Chori. “But he missed his mommy’s tortillas.”
“I heard a contagious disease was going around the barracks. Is that why he left?”
“He moved in right in the thick of it. Naturally we couldn’t let him leave until he was cured. Otherwise he would have brought the damn plague to his own house.”
Their eyes widened as Gus asked, “Was it that bad?”
“Was it contagious?” Gabriel added.
“You mean you didn’t know?” Chori started to approach them but then deliberated. After a moment he continued cautiously until he stood inches from their faces. Then he exhaled audibly.
Gus tried his best not to flinch, while Gabriel was simply too terrified to breathe.
Chori finally broke the tension with a good-natured laugh. “Yeah, something went around, and everyone caught it. It was crabs. They swept through like a flu bug, except these bugs had real legs.”
“Crabs!” said Gabriel. “Wow!” Around Victor he might have masked his amazement to appear unfazed, but he felt more spontaneous around Chori. “Who got it first?”
“Who knows. That herd stampeded through those barracks so fast we couldn’t keep track.”
He described the bachelors’ routine of taking turns on the cots by the windows. The rotation assured everyone of an occasional breeze, but it had also fanned the wildfire. Anyone whose standards of hygiene went beyond changing the sheets was teased as a señorita, and the next evening he might find a mint and a feminine napkin on top of his cot.
“I think a son picked it up at a whorehouse and passed it on to his father. Then it was brother to brother, until finally it was every man for himself. There was even this old-timer who had checked in his equipment, put it in mothballs ages ago, well, he got it! At least with him those chatos were easier to track down, what with his white hair.”
He went behind a sapling and pretended to hide behind it. Its bark, as pale as a poplar, was a striking contrast to his dark skin, and Gabriel had to laugh at his pantomime of fugitive pubic lice.
“So that’s why Victor’s going back to his parents’ place?” asked Gus.
“Actually, it’s because he ended up as the exterminator. He was the new guy, so we handed him the flit can.” He pretended to pump a bug sprayer. “We stole some pesticide from the grower and diluted it, but it was still potent stuff. Then each night we stripped and lined up while Victor sat on a chair and sprayed us.”
“Did it work?” Gus asked.
“Wiped them
out, along with every last sperm in every swinging chorizo. The old-timer even suggested we shouldn’t crank out kids for a year or two. Otherwise they might end up half my height and with extra arms.” Chori grinned. “They’d probably make great pickers, though.”
“No wonder Victor hasn’t told us what happened,” said Gabriel.
“If you had to spray other guy’s crotches up close, would you?”
“It must have been embarrassing.”
“He was the low man on the totem pole. Besides, a little humility never hurt anyone, especially him.”
“I don’t know much about humility,” said Gus as he pulled up the gunny sack, placed a few rocks and empties inside, and then lowered the rope for an unsuspecting sucker. “But if it’s about embarrassment, I’m your man. I’ll tell you all you need to know.”
13
Victor showed up at their shack that same day with an enticing offer for Gus. “I just saw a couple of college girls on the other end of the camp,” he said through the screen. “Let’s go check them out.”
Gus and Gabriel both stepped out and walked away from the porch, where Paula was gossiping with a friend.
“I can’t go right now,” explained Gus. “My folks left a while ago on an errand. I promised them I’d look after my kid sister until they get back.”
Victor gave Gabriel a cold-blooded look. “Why can’t he do it?”
“He was napping when they left, so they asked me.”
He turned toward Paula, pretending he was confused. “But why do you have to look after her? Is she handicapped or something?”
Gabriel did not appreciate the sarcasm in Victor’s voice, and he felt a cold anger wash over him. He was not that fond of Paula, but she was his sister.
“Listen, dude …” Gabriel knew Victor hated being called that. “Out in the fields she might not give the Borrados a run for their money. But get her on a basketball court and she can run circles around you.”
Victor was about to say something when Gus agreed with his brother. “Yeah. If you ever want to lose that beer belly, just go one-on-one with her some day.”
A So-Called Vacation Page 10