Heritage of Smoke

by Josip Novakovich

  “Yes, of course I am. What are you talking about?” said Peter.

  Several border officials interrogated Peter. He asked to be allowed to call his mother in Cleveland, but when he came to dial, he couldn’t recall her number. He had to call information, and only then did he get his mother’s number. His mother’s voice said, “You’ve got the wrong number.”

  “Bot, Modher, dhis is Pete…” A dial tone cut in.

  He dialed again. Same thing. He dialed again. His father’s voice shouted: “Can’t you dumb Puerto Ricans dial right? Can’t you at least read numbers?”

  A cop said, “Enough of this circus. We could jail you or fine you, but since our jails are too full and you’re a poor bum, we’ll just let you go.” The cop winked at him leniently. “You better steal a passport with a Hispanic name, or forge better. This one’s on our records and so is your picture, so if you try again…” The officer spoke slowly as if Peter was too estupido to understand English.

  A week later Peter entered the States in the hay of a truck along with three Mexicans. In Texas he looked for work in toma to fields. He began dreaming of going into the oil fields in Wyoming. He was confused, wondering what had gone wrong, and wished to start his self-analysis from his childhood, but though he had prided himself on vivid childhood memories, he could recall nothing concrete of Cleveland. Instead of images of suburban hedges with tricycles, aluminum trash cans, ovoid football, his mind produced images of llamas and women in black skirts under which children’s heads lurk, little fingers picking noses.

  After four weeks of work, on a day off Peter drove with several Mexicans in a mufflerless pickup to Benville. They bought beer at a 7-Eleven, and as they were about to enter their beat-up pickup, two police cars pulled up, flooding them with strong beams of light. Peter…but it would be better to call him Francisco from here on. Here we’ll make a full stop because what would follow sería una repetición de lo que había occurido tiempo ha; la entrada illegal de Francisco en los Estados Unidos, explotación en el trabajo, terror de la migra y…

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  These stories appeared, sometimes in different form, in the following publications:

  “White Moustache”—Tin House

  “Wino”—Narrative Magazine

  “Dutch Treat”—Witness

  “Be Patient”—Narrative Magazine

  “Rasputin’s Awakening”—St. Petersburg Review

  “Crossbar”—Zagreb Noir Anthology (Akashic Press), and, in a longer form, Guernica

  “Acorns”—Narrative Magazine

  “When the Saints Come”—Bridge 8

  “Heritage of Smoke”—Exile Quarterly Review (Toronto)

  “Eclipse Near Golgotha”—Barcelona Review

  “Wanderer”—Narrative Magazine

  “Ideal Goalie”—Barcelona Review

  “Strings”—Literal Latte and Exile Quarterly Review

  “Remote Love”—Blackbird

  “In the Same Boat”—New Directions Anthology #55

  Many of the stories also appeared in a limited Canadian edition entitled Ex-YU, Esplanade Books/Vehicule Press.

  I am grateful to the editors of the journals and anthologies for reprint rights, and to Guy Intoci, Dimitri Nassralah, and Michelle Dotter for additional editing on the stories in this book, as well as to John Goldbach, Tim O’Brien, Jeanette Novakovich, Bukem Reitmeyer, Jeff Parker, and Sasa Drach for reading some of the stories in progress.

  I would also like to thank the Canada Arts Council, Yaddo, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and National Endowment for the Arts for the time to write the stories.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Josip Novakovich is a Croatian-American writer who resides in Canada. His work has been translated into Croatian, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Russian, Japanese, Italian, and French, among other languages. He was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013 and also received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Whiting Writer’s Award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Fiction, as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Threepenny, Ploughshares, and many other journals, and has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He teaches English at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.