Under the Same Sky (6 page)

Only seven hundred twenty-six to go.

That night I woke up to angry shouts and the honk-honk-honk of a car horn. The first word I could make out clearly sounded like, “Aliens!”

I sat up in bed thinking,
Aliens?
What the heck was going on? Had a flying saucer landed in the yard, or what? And who was doing all the yelling?

I checked the clock: One thirty-five in the morning.

Then I heard, “Hey, Pancho! This is America!” and “Go back to where you came from, beaners!” and some swear words, too.

I leapt to my feet and ran to the open window. I could see headlights from two cars that were moving in fast circles down at the end of our driveway, past the barns, right in front of where the crew lived. More shouts were accompanied by the crash of breaking glass and a rapid series of small explosions.

Lights went on in the trailers. Then one of the trailer doors opened and a lone figure appeared. It looked like Manuel. I heard him shouting something in Spanish.

Meg's frightened voice came from the hallway. “Mommy? Daddy? What's happening?”

I heard Dad's heavy footsteps on the stairs. Then our porch lights went on, illuminating the side yard, and I saw Dad running down the driveway toward the trailers and the crazily racing cars. I wanted to move, but I was riveted by the scene outside the window. And I was scared.

There were more shouts, more breaking glass, and then the cars began heading up the driveway back toward our house. I could hear the loose gravel flying from under the wheels. They were going so fast!

“Dad! Watch out!” I cried. I was vaguely aware of a terrible smell, like rotten eggs, filling the night air. Dad was standing in the middle of the driveway, facing the cars, and he wasn't moving, and they were speeding right toward him.

I screamed again, “Dad!” But he just stood where he was, right in their path. I didn't want to watch, but I couldn't look away, so I stood there, filled with dread and disbelief, until, at the very last second, when I was sure they were going to run him down, the cars veered around him onto the lawn and then back onto the driveway. Loud squeals came from their tires as they made the turn onto the paved road, and the engines roared as they zoomed away.

There followed a strange moment of quiet, and then Mom's voice came from the porch. “Jim, I'm calling the police.”

I raced down the stairs. Meg was in the kitchen crying, and LuAnn was trying to comfort her while Mom was on the phone.

“Who were those guys?” I asked as I rushed into the room.

LuAnn shrugged, looking disgusted. “Jerks. Probably drunk.”

“But what were they doing here?”

LuAnn gave me a fierce look, glanced at Meg, then back to me. Okay. Obviously, she didn't want to talk about it in front of Meg. I went out the door and ran down the driveway to where Dad and the crew were gathered outside the trailers. The rotten-egg smell was fading in the breeze but was still pretty awful. It had come, I realized, from some kind of stink bomb thrown by the guys in the cars.

As I got closer, I could see a mixture of fear and worry and anger on the faces of the crew. Luisa stood with her arms huddled around her chest, looking mostly scared. The guys were all gesturing excitedly and talking in both Spanish and English. Frank's face was grim and, I thought, frightened. Antonio and Rafael were scowling angrily, and Dad looked as mad as I'd ever seen him. He and Manuel were talking as I approached.

“You didn't happen to see any license plates, did you?” Dad asked.

Manuel shook his head. “No. But one was black pickup truck. Another was long blue car. Two men in the truck, maybe more in the car.”

“You didn't know any of 'em, I suppose?”

Manuel shook his head and turned to the others. I assumed he was asking them if they recognized anyone. They all shook their heads, too.

Manuel leaned down to pick up one of the broken bottles.

“Leave that,” Dad said sharply, adding, “I want the police to see everything.”

While we were standing around waiting, Mom, LuAnn, and Meg came out of the house and joined us. Meg went up to Luisa and hugged her, and I saw the only smile of the evening flash briefly over Luisa's face. It disappeared as a police cruiser came up the drive and stopped near us. Two uniformed men got out, looked around, and began asking Dad questions.

“You're having some kind of disturbance here, sir?” asked the younger, shorter officer.

“We were,” Dad answered. “It appears to be over for now.”

“These migrant workers are yours?”

“These people work for us, yes,” Dad corrected him.

“And where were they earlier this evening?”

Dad looked puzzled. “Right here. Why?”

The younger cop didn't answer, just asked another question. “They weren't down at the Bus Stop?”

The Bus Stop was a low-life bar and grill downtown.

Dad said somewhat impatiently, “I told you, they've been here all night. You ought to be asking about the idiots who came joyriding through here.”

“So you know who they were, sir?”

Dad scowled. “I've a pretty good idea,” he said. “It was some of our so-called ‘neighbors.' But they'd never admit it, the cowards. And I can't prove anything.”

“Jim,” said Mom, looking worried. She reached out to touch Dad's shoulder.

He turned to her. “Well, Vivian, I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened right after the zoning board meeting, do you?”

Mom sighed and murmured, “No.”

Dad said to the older, taller officer, “I'll bet if you talk to Tom Matthews—he's a farmer down the road—you'll find he had some visitors tonight, too.”

“We'll check on that, sir. Now, why is it you think these neighbors of yours came here tonight?”

“To make a protest,” Dad said. “To harass my crew. To try and scare them back to Mexico.”

The older cop appeared to think about that for a minute before saying, “I'm just wondering why they would do that, unless your men provoked them in some way.”

“Because they're ignorant jackasses!” Dad exploded. “Tom Matthews has applied to build more housing for his workers, and it's got the local rednecks all riled up. They say they want to protect their families from the likes of my crew. Well, what I want to know is, who's going to protect my family and my crew from
them?
”

Dad's face was flushed, and he glared back and forth at the policemen, waiting for an answer.

“So you're saying they don't like your men because they're Mexicans, sir?” the young cop asked.

Dad looked at him with exasperation, and I almost felt sorry for the guy. Dad took a deep breath and said in a low voice, “Well, officer, let me think. They came through here yelling ugly names like ‘spic,' ‘illegal alien,' ‘greaser,' ‘beaner'—let's see, what else?—‘wetback.' Saying ‘Go back where you came from' and making their point with cherry bombs, broken bottles, and stink bombs. Now you tell me, do
you
think they like Mexicans?”

“Jim,” Mom murmured again.

“We had a report of some Mexicans being drunk and disorderly down on Exchange Street earlier, sir,” said the older cop.

Dad spoke very slowly and softly then, which made his words even more forceful than before. “Well, now you have another report, officer, of a bunch of drunken, disorderly local men coming onto my property to harass decent, sober people who are minding their own business, trying to get a good night's sleep so they can get up in the morning and work harder than that trash ever worked in their miserable lives.” He stopped to catch his breath, and I looked at the officers to see how they were reacting.

The younger cop flushed with embarrassment and looked down at his shoes. The older one, his face absolutely blank, took over, pulling out a notebook and pen and getting down to business. “So the vehicles were a pickup truck and a sedan, you say?”

Dad's expression grew a little less tight, and I felt myself relax some. Mom and the girls left while the questioning continued, but I stayed and listened, not wanting to miss a single word. Dad didn't say anything to me, but at least he didn't send me back to the house.

Long after the police left and I was back in my bed, my brain continued to whirl. I kept seeing Luisa's frightened face, hearing the crashing glass, and smelling the stink bomb, and trying to make sense of it.

I'd heard the word
spic
before. Randy had used it on the last day of school, I remembered uncomfortably.
Greaser
, too.
Wetback
, I knew, referred to the way some Mexicans swam across the Rio Grande River to get to America.
Beaners
, I guessed, was because of Mexicans liking to eat beans. And
aliens
meant foreigners. But why had those guys called our crew “illegal” aliens? Mom and Dad went strictly by the book. They wouldn't allow anything illegal to go on at the farm.

But I was beginning to realize there were a lot of things happening at the farm that I didn't understand.

When I walked down the driveway the next morning, I saw that the crew members were all outside, cleaning up the mess left by last night's joyriders. Watching them, I thought about how scary it had all seemed to me, even though I hadn't actually been the target of the attack. I tried to imagine what it must feel like to have that kind of meanness pointed right at you.

Manuel was raking gravel off the grass, where it had been tossed by the cars' wheels. David was holding a big trash bag in his good arm, and some of the other guys were tossing in broken bottles and the shells left behind from cherry bombs. “At least it wasn't the
migra
,” he said.

Rafael, who wasn't doing much, just muttering and gesturing at the debris, nodded in agreement.

But Frank looked worried. “Yes,” he said, “but something like this could call the attention of the
migra
to us.”

Luisa was stooping down to pick up little pieces of glass, so I knelt down beside her to help. “What—or who—are the
migra?
” I asked.

Looking tired, Luisa shook her head and waved my question away.

I tried again. “Those guys who came here, they're a bunch of idiots,” I said.

“Mmmm,” she answered.

“Well, at least they're gone,” I said, which was pretty stupid, but, as usual, I found myself tongue-tied around Luisa.

It wasn't only that she was a girl and pretty, and Manuel's cousin. For some reason, I felt like apologizing to her for what had happened, even though I wasn't one of the jerks who had come ripping through the yard the night before. I wanted her to know all gringos weren't the same, but how do you say a thing like that?

There was a silence that felt long to me. Then she said softly, “Maybe yes. But probably not.”

Startled, I asked, “What?”

She looked at me then, and once again I had the odd feeling that she was older than I was. She seemed to be seeing past me to another time or place. Wherever or whenever it was, it made her eyes dark with sadness.

She stood up, brushed the hair from her face, and forced a weak smile. “I hope you are right, Joe.”

I wanted to ask what she meant by that, but Dad came out then. He and Manuel talked a little bit about what had happened the night before. Dad said, “If those guys show up while you're working, or if anything odd happens, come right back here and tell me about it, okay? If anybody hassles you, ignore 'em and walk away. Don't get into it with them.”

“We don't want no trouble, Señor Jim,” said Manuel.

“We may not be able to avoid it,” Dad said grimly. “I talked to Tom Matthews this morning, and our visitors stopped at his place last night, too.”

Manuel nodded.

Dad straightened up then and turned businesslike. “Okay,” he said, “so you'll be picking strawberries today, out in the far field.”

“Sí.”

“When you've got a full load, bring 'em back here. I've got a truck coming to pick up the morning's haul, and Tip-Top wants a delivery later on this afternoon.”

Dad started for the barn, but Manuel said, “Boss?”

Dad stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

“You pay like before, by the basket?”

“Oh, right. Yes. Same as last year. A dollar-eighty for an eight-quart basket. Sorry, I guess I'm a little distracted.”

“Okay, good.” Then Manuel cocked his head in my direction, his eyebrows lifted in a question. “Little Boss, same thing?”

Dad hesitated.

I didn't like the way they were talking about me as if I wasn't standing right in front of them. “What are you guys talking about?” I asked.

“Well, Joe,” Dad explained, “the crew gets paid differently, depending on the job. For picking, we pay by the basket or the bag or whatever it is, instead of by the hour. With strawberries, how much you make depends on how many of those you fill up.” He pointed to the back of the truck, where stacks of quart-sized square berry cartons were piled. “Eight of those to a basket.”

“How come the pay's different for picking?” I asked.

“Strawberries have to be harvested just so. You've got to know which berries to pick and which to leave for another day, and you can't bruise 'em or squash 'em, and you've got to work fast. I need to get those strawberries to market when they're at their peak, or I take a beating. These guys get the job done. It works out well for them because the more they pick, the more they make. And it works for me because the berries come in quickly.”

That made sense. “Okay,” I said. “So why wouldn't I get paid the same way as everybody else?”

Dad hesitated again. Manuel looked away, and I thought I saw a little smile cross his face, which ticked me off. What was so darned funny?

“Manuel was probably thinking you might make out better if you stick to the hourly wage. Not being an experienced picker, you might make less than you're making by the hour. Right, Manuel?”

Manuel shrugged. “Is possible.”

“Up to you, though,” Dad said to me.

I didn't even have to think about it. Why should I slave away at minimum wage while everybody else made more? “I'll go by the basket,” I said.

“Fair enough,” said Dad. “Manuel will show you the ropes.”

Oh, goody.

The mood was pretty subdued that morning as we rode out to the strawberry field. I missed the lighthearted, carefree fooling around I'd begun to share with the crew. But once we started picking, I forgot all about that.

First, Manuel asked Gilberto to “show me the ropes,” as Dad had put it. I'd have preferred Luisa for a teacher, but there wasn't much chance of Manuel suggesting
that
. Gilberto was a really fast worker. He talked quickly, too, his gold teeth flashing, in a combination of Spanish and English. It was pretty hard to follow, so I concentrated on watching his hands and picking up what I could of his spoken instructions.

It didn't take me long to figure out that harvesting strawberries makes hoeing cabbage seem like a day at Disney World. At least when you're hoeing, you're more or less standing up straight. When you pick berries, you're crouched right down on your haunches, which is a
killer
position.

I couldn't believe it, but it didn't seem to bother Gilberto. He even had a way of scooting down the row in a crouch, without getting up at all. How his knees and thighs could take it, I'll never know. Just looking at him made mine scream with pain. He gave a quiet little groan whenever he had to rise to his feet, but other than that, he seemed not to notice that he was bent into a position that would cause most people to confess to crimes they'd never even thought about.

There were long rows of mounded dirt, with the plants surrounded by a thick bed of straw to keep the fruit dry and clean. Gilberto seemed to size up each plant in a quick glance, knowing which berries to pick and which to leave. I didn't quite get the distinction. They all looked pretty much the same to me, except for a few that were obviously still white. He began to hold up the ones he picked, showing me their even, red color. Gently, he turned over the ones he left behind, showing me that the underside was still pale and unripe. A few berries, the ones that were mushy or showed signs of having been munched on by some critter or another, he tossed into the dirt between the rows.

He showed me how high to fill each little carton before adding it to a basket that held eight cartons, or eight quarts. At the end of a row, I learned, you went back, picked up your full baskets, counted them, and put them in the truck, making a little mark next to your name on Manuel's clipboard to show how many you'd completed.

I can say right now that this was the worst day of my working career, maybe the worst day of my entire life up to that point. The pain involved in picking strawberries is simply excruciating, there's no other way to put it. Maybe someday I'd be able to scoot merrily along like Gilberto and the others, but I had a hard time picturing it.

When I couldn't stand crouching any longer, I'd try bending over and picking, until my back and the backs of my thighs hurt so much I'd have to search for a new position. It didn't take long to run out of positions. Every inch of every muscle, every tendon, and every bone in my body hurt.

The physical misery was bad enough, but the humiliation of my situation was worse. Now I understood why Dad—and everyone else—had thought I'd be better off sticking to my hourly wage. Compared with the rest of the crew, my pace was pathetic, and so was my haul. As the morning wore on, I watched the check marks next to their names pile up, while mine barely seemed to increase at all.

At a dollar eighty a basket, we were making…twenty-two and a half cents a quart. That couldn't be right. I did the math over in my head to make sure.
Man
. It didn't seem like nearly enough. I was beginning to think of each quart of berries as a small carton of gold. What did strawberries sell for in the supermarket, anyway? I had no idea. But in my opinion, judging by the labor involved in picking them, each quart ought to cost a small fortune.

When we broke for lunch, I multiplied one-eighty times the eight check marks next to my name and realized that I had worked five hours for less than fifteen dollars. I felt like a fool. If I'd stuck with my hourly wage, at least I'd have made twenty-five bucks and change. Luisa's sympathetic smile only made me feel like more of an idiot.

After lunch, Manuel and I ended up side by side at the beginning of adjacent rows. He began moving up his row at a fast, even pace, listening to his stupid headphones again. I saw that I was quickly going to be left in the dust. Joe the Tortoise, Manuel the Hare: Ha-ha-ha.

I decided there was no way
that
was going to happen. Ignoring the pain ripping through my legs and back, I crouched down and started picking like a madman. Okay, I might have grabbed some berries that weren't exactly ripe. Here and there, maybe a rotten one or two ended up in the carton. It's possible that some straw and a few leaves got tossed into the mix. But I caught up to Manuel about two-thirds of the way down the row and stayed neck and neck with him the rest of the way.

If he realized there was a competition going on, he gave no sign of it. He gathered his full baskets and carried them to the truck, and I raced to do the same.

That's the way the next two hours went. Then, as he had done halfway through the morning, Manuel left the field to drive the full baskets back to the barn. I was so relieved to see him go, I might have cried if I'd had the energy. The minute the truck was out of sight, I could feel every last ounce of strength leak out of my body, just as if a valve had been opened. I melted onto the ground and stayed there, unable to move.

I felt a shadow come between me and the sun, and looked up to see Carlos's tall form standing over me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded and waved him away. Maybe I actually fell asleep, maybe I just lay there in a stupor. All I know is that by the time I heard the sound of the truck's engine and opened my eyes, it was too late. Manuel was back, and behind the big flatbed truck was a smaller pickup.

Dad's.