Pig Park

by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez

  She put her hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and shook her off like fire. “I’m not your mija,” I said.

  I knew then that the tears weren’t just about losing my friends or Felix or Pig Park. I needed my mom. I needed her advice. I needed for her to be the one asking me if I was okay. I needed it to be her hand on my shoulder. I missed her as much as my dad did.

  “I know I’m not your mom, Masi. But your mother and I both grew up here in Pig Park. She’s my oldest friend. I promised her I would look after you and your dad. I’m going to keep an eye on you no matter who hates it. ”

  “I miss her.”

  “We all miss her. Go inside and call her. You’ll feel better.”

  “I’m sorry.” My shoulders sagged with shame.

  “Nothing to feel sorry about. I would walk on nails for your mother. Go on inside now.”

  I walked inside. I picked up the phone and dialed my grandmother’s number. “Mom?”

  “Masi. I’ve called the house several times. No one answers.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I miss you. I want you to come home. There, I said it.”

  “I miss you too. And, I am coming home. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of this. I love you.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes. I love you. Get some rest, Masi. It’s late. We’ll talk later.” I put the phone back in its place and went to bed.

  I stared at the ceiling. It dawned on me that Loretta and my mom were not that different from Josefina and me. Though I had a hard time imagining that they were ever young. I pictured Loretta, age fifteen, wearing rollers as she walked to school with my mom. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

  My mom and Josefina were the type to walk away. Loretta and I were the type to care a little too much sometimes. Loretta was just trying to hold on, like me. She knew everything because my mom had asked her to look out for us. My mom talked to her. They kept each other in the loop. That meant my mom cared too. Physical distance didn’t make a person stop caring.

  I tried to focus on what mattered and numb any selfish thing inside me.

  I ran upstairs and threw myself on my bed. I knew I had to clear my mind if I wanted to figure anything out. I did what Josefina suggested. I pushed Felix out. I grasped for other thoughts and tried not to scratch at what Felix had left behind. Felix could leave—and he would leave and never come back. But Pig Park was home to the rest of us.

  I can’t say that I prayed, but it was something like it. Mostly, I wished for a miracle to save us. If a wish had brought Felix here, then maybe it could fix this. Please, please, please. I wanted Felix to be wrong.

  I tiptoed into the living room and picked up the phone again. “Josefina, let’s call all our friends and have them meet us at the park tomorrow morning. I’m going to tell them everything I know, and we’re going to figure this out together.”

  Chapter 42

  There was a loud bang and something like the soft roll of thunder. The phone rang. I stumbled out into the hallway. My dad hung the receiver up on its holster. His hands closed around my shoulders. He looked into my face.

  “Listen carefully. That was Loretta. There’s been an explosion. We have to leave right now.”

  “An explosion?” It was the middle of the night. Was I dreaming, or was good old Loretta finally making good on that promise of watching out for us?

  “At the park. Grab your shoes.”

  I slipped on my sneakers, not bothering with socks, and followed my dad into the street. My eyes opened wide. Fire licked at the pyramid like ten giant tongues lapping it up. It roared.

  “Run!” my dad yelled.

  Every sound of my body was magnified.

  Every breath.

  Every slap of rubber soles against the ground.

  We ran past the park. We ran to the American Lard Company’s north parking lot just as if it were written in a manual. It was the biggest open space away from the buildings and all their flammable parts.

  Loretta counted to make sure everyone was safe: Peregrino, Felix, Father Arturo, the Burciagas, the Nowaks, the Wongs, the Fernandez, Sanchez and Sustaita families. Colonel Franco limped in at the tail end.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not one to stand here and watch the whole neighborhood go up in flames,” Colonel Franco said. He bounced from side to side on his good leg. He was an old pitbull ready to pounce.

  “I called the fire department,” Loretta said.

  “The entire neighborhood will go up by the time they get here. Let’s head over there and see if we can do something now.”

  “Yes, they’ll probably need help getting in with those big fire trucks,” my dad said.

  “You go,” Loretta cornered us even further away from the fire like a big mother hen. “The girls and I will stay here where it’s safe.”

  “She’s right. You go ahead. I’ll stay with them and make sure everyone is safe,” Peregrino said— out to protect his own hide. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  Father Arturo dropped to his knees. He put his face to the pavement and clasped his hands together on top of his head. “Our father who art in Heaven/ hallowed be thy name…” He mumbled his prayers into the earth.

  The men and boys, with the exception of Peregrino and Father Arturo, marched into a cloud of smoke that billowed and grew. I broke away from Loretta and trudged into the cloud after them. I heard a second set of footsteps and turned around. Josefina followed close behind.

  Smoke stung my eyes and my lungs. It wasn’t the same dizzying smokiness that once drew me to Felix. It smelled of pork rinds. My belly rumbled—or maybe it was a building coming down. I closed my eyes. I held them shut for a second. I opened them. The others disappeared.

  “Do you see them?”

  “No.” Josefina’s voice quivered. “Masi, I hope they’re okay.”

  I grabbed her hand. I covered my nose and mouth with my free hand and squinted. Belinda’s dumpster lay on its side halfway across the park. There were wires and scorched drywall everywhere. The bakery’s old oven sat in the middle of the street like it’d fallen out of the sky. The pyramid had burned to a crumble of brick and cinder so that only the metal beams remained erect.

  The fire wasn’t done. It lapped at Belinda and Peregrino’s buildings. It inched toward the old school building.

  Josefina squeezed my hand. She pointed to a group of silhouettes by the train tracks. There were muffled voices. The men had gone around the west side of the park.

  Sirens sounded and flashing lights struggled through the smoke. I couldn’t help but sigh.

  “Let’s get over there,” I said.

  “We’ll have to go all the way back and around.”

  I pushed my face into the inside of my elbow. We walked in a circle. The muffled voices tried to direct the trucks in, but the trucks didn’t seem able to work their way around. American Academy folded to its knees. The firemen took a wrench to the closest hydrant and unraveled the length of their hoses. They screwed two nozzles together to reach the flames from the outside. Water gushed into the air.

  Time stampeded, and the storm finally turned the tormenter to embers.

  The smoke parted like a curtain, revealing a crowd of strangers on the other side. The commotion had woken up people in the adjacent neighborhoods. They stood there in their pajamas rubbing the eye snot from their faces.

  “There’s nothing to see here,” said a big red-bearded fireman. He stood tall and in charge. “Go on home, the fire is contained.”

  A few groans followed, but the crowd dispersed back into the shadows. The Pig Park men walked back around the cinder, puddles, and muck toward the fire truck. Josefina ran to Mr. Nowak and threw her arms around him like she was never letting go.

  Colonel Franco addressed the red-bearded firefighter. “What happened? Can you tell us anything?”

  “It looks like it started in that dumpster. There will be an official investigation, but it doesn’t look intentional. Somethi
ng someone threw away probably. Some kind of reaction,” he said.

  Reaction? That was chemistry talk.

  My dad’s face was darkened by smoke and fatigue. Felix, on the other hand, was all teeth. I walked up to him and whispered. “Did you have something to do with this? Did you set that fire?” It wasn’t bad enough about everything else. He’d turned arsonist and criminal.

  “Shh, I’m trying to listen.”

  “Someone could’ve gotten hurt.”

  “Everyone is fine.”

  “There is quite a bit of property damage,” the fireman said. His men packed up the hoses.

  “Well, we’re just glad everyone’s okay. We are very grateful to you.” My dad extended his hand. He moved from firefighter to firefighter wrapping their palms into his. The group followed suit.

  The firefighters loaded into the truck and backed up out of Pig Park, their exit having been made easier by the devastation of several buildings.

  “I guess that’s that,” Mr. Nowak said.

  “We’ll see what tomorrow brings,” my dad said. “I hope this doesn’t affect your grade, Felix.” My dad patted Felix on the back. Felix smiled even wider.

  Everyone broke off in their respective directions. My dad and I slumped home. He put his arm around my shoulder. “Everyone’s safe, that’s all that matters. Oh, and let’s not worry your mom with this business of the fire. We don’t want her blood sugar going up,” he said.

  “Okay.” I was too exhausted to voice an opinion. I didn’t even bother washing off the soot and smell of pork rinds. I didn’t give Felix a single additional thought. I dropped on the couch and sat there until the nightmare turned to darkness.

  Chapter 43

  It wasn’t a dream. People trickled in to behold the devastation. They arrived walking, on the train and in cars. The fire had left a gaping hole, and opened Pig Park like a giant wound for everyone to stare at.

  The alien faces trekked in cautiously. They stuck close to the park and what could best be described as the pyramid ruins. They weren’t exactly the kind of visitors we were promised, but it was something.

  “What now?” I asked my dad

  “We start again. We rise from the ashes.” He was right. Pig Park had seen worse.

  Everything else went back to normal. It was like the pyramid had never existed. My dad baked. I scrubbed the kitchen clean and manned the counter.

  “Dad. Maybe we can cut up some bread into tiny squares and put them out as samples for the people out there.” I pointed toward the train stop. “If people like it, they’ll buy the bread from us.”

  “Sure. We can give it a try. Your mom put out samples of bread every morning when we first got married,” he said. I smiled. It was nice to learn something new about her. She had really cared about this place once. Maybe she could again.

  I took a large permanent marker and wrote ‘free taste samples’ on a piece of paper. I taped it to the door. I cut up a couple of ginger pigs into two-inch squares and set them on a tray with a folded card that read ‘try.’ I waited for people to come. No one ventured further than the park. I picked at the ginger pig squares. I rose, and headed out into the park with my tray.

  I stumbled into a lady carrying a legal pad just outside the door. “Hi there,” she said. “Nice shirt.”

  I looked down and smoothed out my fuchsia shirt. “Thanks. It’s kind of my uniform.” I didn’t have to wear it now that the pyramid was gone, but I didn’t mind so much anymore. I was running out of clean clothes again.

  I held the door open for her. “Come in.”

  “My name is Wendy Jones.”

  “Do you live on the other side? I mean, on the other side of the tracks.”

  “I live over by Eastside High. I teach there too.” Eastside was the big school one mile east of Pig Park.

  “I’m Masi.”

  “I looked up at the sky and noticed the tip of your pyramid sticking out above the trees a couple of days ago when I was setting up my classroom. I drove in this morning and saw immediately that something had happened. The popsicle man that rides by after school every day told me about the fire. I got curious. I didn’t even know there were people still living back here,” she said.

  “There’s still a few of us out here. The American Lard Company’s buildings just blocked us from everyone until they burned down.” I paused. Our school situation had suffered the worst of it. There was no going back for sure now. “Our school was one of the other buildings that burned down. They’d closed it down at the end of spring. They’re busing us to Eastside this fall. I’ll be a sophomore.”

  “I teach junior English. Maybe you’ll be in one of my classes in a couple of years.”

  She smiled. She was nice enough. If Eastside had more teachers like her then maybe it didn’t matter that American Academy was gone for good.

  “Would you like to try some bread?” I asked.

  “Yes, I was walking around, and I saw your sign. I thought, why not? This could be an adventure.” Mrs. Jones grabbed a sample and put it in her mouth. I studied her as her lips curved with approval. Her smile broadened with genuine gusto. “These are absolutely fantastic!”

  “Everything is made fresh daily,” I said.

  “What are they called?” she asked.

  “Ginger pigs or marranitos. There’s no ginger in the recipe. The name is a reference to the color.”

  “Ginger or no ginger, give me a couple of them,” she said. I put on a glove and dropped a pair of ginger pigs in a paper bag. She handed me a five-dollar bill, and I rang her up. “This can’t be good for my diet.”

  “We make a healthy version too. It tastes just the same, but we don’t have any today. We call them Skinny Pigs. Here’s our phone number. If you give us a head’s up, my dad can bake them to order. Then you can also visit some of the other businesses while you’re here.”

  “Oh, I’d love that. You certainly haven’t seen the last of me. I have a big mouth. Good for eating—and also good for telling everyone I know about this place,” she said.

  I saw her to the door and hung up the Closed sign. I wiped down the counters. The phone rang.

  “Masi? This is Mrs. Jones. My husband and I’d like to come back tomorrow to try some of that special order bread.”

  “That’s great. I’ll let me dad know.” I ran upstairs. I couldn’t wait to tell my dad how well my sample idea had worked out.

  Chapter 44

  “The wet ingredients are ready,” I said. My dad rolled up his sleeves. He sifted together the shortening, baking soda, and cinnamon. He poured in the vanilla, yacón syrup, egg and milk mixture. He added the flour, mixed it all until it came together and rolled out the masa. I pressed down with the pig-shaped cookie cutters. I peeled off the cuttings and laid out the pigs on a baking sheet. My dad brushed them with the egg wash and popped them into the oven.

  The smell of butter and cinnamon escaped into the air after a few minutes. I peeked through the fancy new oven’s window and watched as the pigs plumped under the heat.

  “Set them out to cool and put them in the display case with the rest of the bread I made this morning when they’re done,” my dad said. He took off his apron.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Upstairs.”

  “Don’t you want to meet them?”

  “This is your show.”

  My dad disappeared. I took out the bread and slid the tray into the rack for them to cool. I sorted the junk mail. It was all I could do to keep myself from breaking a ginger pig in half and inhaling it. An hour passed before the Joneses arrived. I ran to the door and held it open for them. “This is my husband,” Mrs. Jones said. The mustached man in shorts and a baseball cap grabbed my hand and shook it.

  “What is that?” He pointed to the window.

  “It’s an altar for the Day of the Dead. All of the Pig Park businesses set them up before the fire. This particular altar is for my abuelita Carmelita who started this bakery with my dad.
” I walked to the window and picked up the picture of her. “Day of the Dead is like All Souls Day. Every year at the beginning of November, people celebrate their loved ones who have died. They go to cemeteries with flowers, candles, food and music. They also put up altars at home for them.”

  “Very interesting,” Mr. Jones said.

  “Masi is going to be a student at Eastside next year. Maybe she can get a Day of the Dead celebration going there. She can bring in some bread,” Mrs. Jones said to him. She winked at me. I liked her more and more.

  “Is this your summer job?” Mr. Jones asked.

  “Something like that. It’s a family business. All of the businesses in Pig Park are family businesses.”

  “So tell me about this array you have here.”

  I told Mr. Jones all about the conchas, cuernitos, bolillos and marranitos. “Try some. The bread will speak for itself,” I said, remembering something my dad had said to Felix an eternity ago.

  Mr. Jones bit into a ginger pig. He closed his eyes when he bit down and savored each bite. “Give me a dozen each of whatever you have, in addition to my wife’s order. I’m taking these to work later this afternoon,” he said.

  It was everything we had. I put on a glove and threw the bread in a paper bag. It was more than we’d sold all summer. I took off the glove and rung the order up. Mr. Jones handed me three twenty-dollar bills. I gave him his change and the Joneses headed out. “Thank you so much. I hope you’ll come again, or maybe I’ll see you at school.” I waved goodbye.

  I locked the front door and ran upstairs. “Can we close early? There’s nothing left,” I said. The corners of my mouth pushed against my cheeks like my face was gonna split in two.

  “Nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should have you working sales exclusively from now on.”

  “Just luck. So can we close?”

  “No. Someone else might still walk in and place an order,” he said.

  I sat by the counter all day. No else walked in, but it didn’t matter. Rise from the ashes, that’s what my dad had said. Or maybe from the bread crumbs.