Delicious Foods (24 page)

Then when I turned twelve they deported our ass so I joined a gang in Juarez. The main guy took me under his wing when I was fourteen. But that shit was too hard, man. So I came back to the U.S. by myself this time, but I had to take care of the guy who brought me back so that I wouldn’t be in all that debt. Then I was a coyote myself for a while, but this farm life, I like it better. Not so much moving around. Not as many people trying to kill you.

He continued his absentminded autobiography until he’d filled the bucket with green tomatoes and the two of them had edged a short distance down the row of plants. He looked at his watch. Shit, six forty-seven. I guess I don’t have the stuff I used to. And your mama don’t get the twenty bucks off! He stood up and handed the bucket to Eddie, waited a moment, then snatched it out of the kid’s hands.

What are you fucking kidding me, like I’m going to credit you for this one? Dream on, motherfucker. Call that a training session.

That evening, How undercounted what Eddie showed him; he did it to everybody, but with Eddie he’d blatantly lie about the count.

I picked five more bins than that, Eddie said.

Are you calling me a liar?

No, I’m calling you no good at math.

Oh, fuck you, How spat. I’m not good at math? All of your earnings goes to your crackhead mother, so why don’t you pick up what you think I owe you at the depot, okay? Your tomatoes had scratches all over them because your fingernails got too long from working up at the house every other day. And I still haven’t figured out where the jack from the truck went. I think you probably know. Don’t you break Sextus’s computer every other day so that you can keep fixing it instead of coming down here? I mean, I don’t blame you. If I could fix a computer, I wouldn’t leave that place neither.

For Eddie, interacting with How had become as unpleasant as when his coworkers had enlisted him to kill a snake or chase a rat or, once, a polecat in the living quarters during the early-morning hours. A visit with How came to mean only bad news, grueling work, or a combination of the two unique to Eddie’s days at Delicious.

D
arlene been had known that the only time that management ain’t seem to need to know exactly where you was and how to grab you back at a second notice was when they took you down the depot on Friday and Tuesday and let you wander round a li’l bit. Michelle said the reason they be letting people wander off that time was that the depot be dead center of the farm, and the chance you could get off the property alive by your lonesome got so small that they’s overconfident. Hadn’t nobody never seen no map so didn’t nobody know, but she said she had figured it out from stuff that How and Hammer said. If you gone missing at the depot, likely you gonna wind up back where you started or die from one the five zillion dangers between you and freedom. Michelle tried to piece together a map in her head based on where they had took her on different details and on things people be saying ’bout where things was, but she couldn’t never be sure. Michelle always asking Eddie to find a map on Sextus computer but he only got a map of America—Naked, he said, without no states or no names, just all green and brown from mountains and plains and rivers.

Darlene ain’t never told nobody, Michelle included, that Sirius B had probably escaped from that area and that he coulda made it out somehow. She ain’t never knew how much to trust nobody, and I suppose I convinced her that the others gonna inform on her if she said too much. I liked it there; I wanted to stay. For me the place like one them barbecues you can’t leave ’cause you gotta spend three hours saying good-bye to every last motherfucker there. Ooh, cousin Tyrone just walked in! Darlene always talking all kinda shit ’bout how she wanna leave, especially to Eddie, who really
did
wanna get out, but she ain’t never put no effective actions onto her words. That shit start to work Eddie nerves.

But every time Darlene gone to the depot, she would make a special visit to that li’l stream with the culvert Sirius had disappeared into, thinking ’bout what happened to him and how he coulda survived what mighta happened, but now she kinda sure he ain’t survived. She gone down to the opening of the culvert sometime and be looking in there and talking to it. That circle of concrete be low enough that it wasn’t no way to enter ’less you hunch your ass over, and it wasn’t no kinda underpass drain. This one turnt into a tunnel that got dark damn quick and ain’t let on where the hell it gone to. She knew Sirius done vanished into there, and she guessing that if he come back and rescue everybody, he gonna come back through that same tube. He had told her ’bout wormholes in space, where you could go through that shit and come out way the hell far away from where you started, and sometime, specially when me and her was hanging out, she be wondering if Sirius had did some crazy physics magic and teleported to New York City through that bitch.

The culvert turnt into a shrine where Darlene and I had some top-quality meetings and contemplated the meaning of life and all that, but life ain’t mean much of nothing to Darlene outside of me. She want Sirius to come back mainly ’cause she need a ally, not ’cause she think he some kinda savior. Sometime Eddie would come with us, but he getting old and angry and he ain’t want to spend as much time with the two of us. Teens, they get like that. I suppose me and her could close people out a li’l bit too, what with all our inside jokes and braindancing and what have you. I told her that she should stop keeping me and Eddie from getting to know each other, but she refused to budge on that point. I got mad behind that. On a certain level I found that shit offensive. I wanted to know why she got to judge her best friend so harsh that she ain’t want her son to know me? If somebody like me, I’ma like em back twice as much. I get off on the attention. Darlene pitched a bitch when Eddie start smoking cigarettes at fifteen—at least she
started
to say some shit, but Eddie shut her ass down by looking at her like she a palmetto bug, ’cause she ain’t had no right to tell nobody what not to smoke.

With the culvert, I told her that when motherfuckers spend they life looking in one direction for a specific thing, some other shit always come from another direction. So one day Darlene and em end up on detail at the citrus grove. It always seem like that citrus-grove detail what they put motherfuckers on when it wasn’t nothing else to do with them, or they too crazy on drugs. They was down in the part with the limes that day. Hannibal, who had worked on big farms before Delicious, thought they maybe planted the wrong kinda lime. He said, See these thorns? Thesyer’s key limes, and key limes don’t bear no fruit too far outside Florida. So maybe we not in Florida? Plus it’s April. I don’t get these folks at all.

That morning, Darlene thinking that her stash of me be down to the last, so she borrowed some off TT, but then when she stuck her hands in her pockets she found a nice-size rock there and smoked that too. You could say that me and her started up a braindancing tango right then.

When she got up on her five-step ladder, she ain’t found nothing in them lime trees, not a single hint of a lime, but everybody know that if you got supervisors expecting to see work happening, you best make it look like you working. Me and her decide to dance, so that them branches would shake, maybe shake out a lime, but mostly we wanna prove somebody up in that tree tryna get some produce going. And Darlene could see out over the green of them trees across the grove and down the far distant part of that particular road to where How had parked the minibus. He had stationed hisself in a different grove some distance away. Darlene kept shaking them branches, not finding no limes, getting stuck with thorns. In her head, we start getting down to that jam “In the Bush” from the disco days.
Damn
we was high—you know you high when you hanging out with Scotty and Scotty high as you is. She start singing,
Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Do you like it? Do you like it like this?

Then Darlene thought she seen a white car she ain’t recognize going down a dirt road she ain’t known about. She thinking she could run down there without nobody seeing her and get there just in time to flag it down that car. Mostly she thinking that she bored and that she want contact with outside folks, not that she herself want to go nowhere with em. And after, she could tell Eddie that she done tried to bolt but that it ain’t worked out and maybe that would shut his ass up. Or if the driver be a good person and not a serial killer or a Fusilier, she could put Eddie in the car and he could drive away with em and leave Delicious like he want to so bad now that he think he a grown man. She wave her hands, tryna flag down the sedan, and then she come down that ladder. Darlene ain’t really wanna leave Delicious, she just wanna
be able to
leave, and that notion plus the idea that she could report to Eddie ’bout it had the power to get her running.

When Darlene got to the side of the road, she still seen that car coming. Wasn’t no mirage. She tried not to make no noise ’cause she knew that How gon hear and come to get her, but quiet as she could, she raise her arms in the air back and forth and kinda bounce on her knees. For a second she thinking ’bout leaping out into the road to make sure the car ain’t pass by, but then she seen it slowing down. She hopped over to it through some short dry grass by the side the road, thinking ’bout how she gonna explain to the white folks inside what she want from em.

The car pulled off onto the same grass where she standing and the window roll down on the driver side, and that remind her of turning a trick. She looked for the car type on the car and broke into a smile when she seen a bunch of li’l stars and the word
Subaru.
She remembered the star Sirius done talked about, the star that was a diamond. She’s like, Maybe it really does exist.

When she get up to that car window, she seen a white dude with a couple days’ beard and thick black glasses sitting in the driver seat, and a heavyset guy with a electronic box and a microphone in his lap in the passenger seat.

Dude one stick his hand out the window for Darlene to shake and goes, My name’s Jarvis Arrow and we’re with the
Chronicle
—like the
Chronicle
be something famous we musta heard of before, like if somebody said, I’m with
Sandwiches,
or I’m with
Money.
He go, Are you one of the farmworkers for Delicious Foods? We’re wondering if you would speak to us on the record for a piece I’m doing. He pointed to the other guy. This is Frankie, he’s recording sound. Frankie wave with his fingers. Jarvis got a handheld video camera in his lap; Darlene took a cautious li’l peek at it and Jarvis went, That’s in case I decide to make a documentary.

Darlene shook Jarvis’s hand, then her eyes gone to the backseat ’cause she thinking ’bout hopping in and just
going
. But out of all the damn cars on the road, this one would have to be a two-door and not a four-door so she couldn’t make the decision herself real fast and force em into it. And then what Eddie gonna do?

The song lyrics we sung was still in her head and we was still braindancing, and kinda letting it spill out her mouth, she went,
I want to do the things you want to do, so baby, let’s get to it, do it.
And she laughed.

It’s okay, then? Jarvis asked. He frown, looking confused, and turnt off the car. Frankie got out with that sound equipment, and after checking behind him for traffic, he gone around the back of the car and put the gear on top the trunk. Darlene looked over her shoulder down them rows of non-limes and ain’t seen nothing, but she knew that ain’t mean wasn’t nothing coming for her. She still thinking she might have to perform sexually if she wanna convince em to take folks outta there.

Jarvis slide out the car and ask her name and vitals, then Frankie hand him the mic and kept fiddling with the knobs. Darlene ain’t had the best information on her vitals, so she just said some bullshit. She moved her hips into Jarvis personal space, but he sidestepped to a comfortable distance without making no comments on her.

He goes, So can you just give me a general picture of what the working conditions are like at Delicious Foods?

It’s good, she said, forcing a smile. That’s when we realized that these motherfuckers probably worked for the Fusiliers in real life, like they had set all this shit up, so she said, I mean it’s great! I guess it’s great. And if it’s not, I brought that on myself, you know. Like the song goes, only got myself to blame. I signed the contract, so—She shrugged. My son and I work here…it’s a family business…religious folks…so that’s good. I need to pay my whole debt back, which they told me is up there, and plus the book said you have to think positive to get positive things. I admit I haven’t always thought things of a positive nature, so that might take a while. She struggling to stay focused on what she saying.

So what are the living conditions like here? We’ve heard reports. A guy named Melvin Jenkins told us some things that shocked us. Do you know him?

No, I don’t know anybody named Melvin…The two of them locked eyes; look like he expecting her to say some more.
So baby, let’s get to it,
she said.

Jarvis turnt his head for a second and then goes, Are the working and living conditions fair here? Are you fed well? Are you paid well?

Darlene ain’t wanna answer none of them questions on account of the shame it brung her, a certain kinda shame she wouldna even noticed ’less he asked her to tell the realities to the world. Quickest way out would be to seduce him and they could get into the car. I ain’t really care that much, I mostly wanted to stay, but I knew Miss Darlene wasn’t going nowhere without me no more. I thought maybe if she done a li’l dance and he heard her sing it might get past that straitlaced news-guy mask he be wearing, so she start singing the song.
How ’bout if we could go push push in the bush?

Jarvis shared a frightened look with Frankie. He stepped out of Darlene’s way. Ma’am, I’m trying to conduct an interview here. Are you okay?

Darlene tickled Jarvis’s stubble with her fingers and kept dancing.
You know you want to go push push in the bush. Get down get down do it do it.
Me and Darlene let out a giant laugh.

At that moment feet start coming down them rows of citrus trees right toward em, on through the dry grass and leaves. Darlene grabbed the car door handle but it’s locked and she stumbled backward. When she got done stumbling, her shoulders fell onto a stiff tough thing that coulda been a tree stump but turnt out as How shiny cowboy boots. His cold andouille-sausage fingers lifted her up by her armpits and pushed her behind his bigness. He stomped over to get up in Jarvis and Frankie face.

Hello, sir, Jarvis said, raising his microphone and putting out his handshake. I’m interviewing the workers at Delicious Foods.

No, you’re not.

Uh, yes. I am. I’m with the
Chronicle.
The, um,
Houston Chronicle.

What is that, a newspaper?

Jarvis goes, Yes, it is. It’s got a circulation of—

I don’t read. And I’m sorry, we’re not currently talking to the press.

Currently? You mean, at this time? Well, when—

No, I mean ever. He took the mic out Jarvis hand and ripped apart the connection and threw that sucker into the road and it made a little cloud when it hit the dirt. Then somewhere outta him he unleashed the harsh bellowing of a demon. Now get the fuck off our
private property!
He reached behind his back and Jarvis and Frankie must have got the idea. Maybe they seen that he had a weapon on him and he ’bout to turn em into a human watering can.

Frankie rushed into the road tryna save that mic; he chucked it into the backseat with the tape recorder, and then got in the passenger side. Jarvis ducked as he leapt into the driver seat, and the two of them motherfuckers was a mile down the road, tires left a couple of divots right there by the grass.

With some kinda kung fu move, How switch his hand from Darlene waist to her wrist, curled her arm behind her back like a barbecue chicken wing, then frog-marched her into a part of the groves where wouldn’t nobody see.

The fuck is wrong with you, he said. He kept smacking the base of her skull with his palm to move her forward. You want the world to know you’re a crackhead hooker? You want your picture in the paper as a whore?