Muckers (5 page)

“It gives you a shriveled-up pecker like Sims, that’s what it does to you, Ugly,” Cruz says, throwing his smoke in the ivy.

“It just makes you go to the bathroom,” I tell Rabbit. I’m not any good at lying.

“Dammit, now I have to take a piss, you idiot,” Cruz moans, jiggling on one foot while me and Rabbit laugh our faces off. He’ll have to hurry not to miss our class with Sims. Being late for him just isn’t worth it.

* * *

Sims has on a striped necktie knotted tightly below his Adam’s apple. He’s got his arms folded like he’s hiding something, and looks up at the three letters written in yellow chalk on the blackboard:
ISM
.

Sims is always putting on a show. Monday it was about
“mulligatawny-as-in-the-stew.”
He had the girls so confused at the opening-assembly spelling bee, saying the word so fast that it tripped up most of them. Except Angie.

She looked calm—especially for a sophomore—her brown eyes staring into space like she was taking in more of the word. Not intimidated at all by Sims’s sloppy delivery. She reached for the microphone and it made that loud, eardrum-breaking sound. But Angie just waited for the shrill to stop and spelled out the word.

“M-U-L-L-I-G-A-T-A-W-N-Y.”

There was a long pause. Then Sims pulled in his microphone and announced, “That is correct, Miss Villanueva.”

Cruz gave me a nudge and whispered, “Damn straight she’s correct, Mr. Ass-in-the-Hole.” Cruz sure was fired up. “You might be able to kick me around in English class, but you can’t stump my sister.” Smart-assy, too.

It’s true that even if you try in Sims’s class and screw up, he can make you feel small. That’s when Cruz’s ego erupts. He’ll either sulk in his chair or march over to Mr. Mackenzie’s office. Cruz says Mr. Mac’s about the only Anglo teacher who thinks like a Mexican or maybe even Jesus. But I think that’s too much to expect out of anyone. Even Mr. Mackenzie.

It’s a funny thing about our town. Despite Sims having a pickle up his butt, everyone’s got the spirit of good ol’ Hatley High. They rally on the sidelines at our football games, but if you want to go for a swim or, say, get married, it better be “with” or “to” your own kind. We come together during the day, but we all head home to our places on the hill. And whichever way you go lets people know who you are. If you climb up from Main to Company Ridge—Gringo Ridge, Cruz likes to remind me—you’re rich and help run the mine your house overlooks.

If you stay on Main and follow it to the city limits, just before it curves around toward Hatley High, you could be Rabbit’s dad, Vince Palermo, heading to a clapboard in the middle of Little Italy. If you walk down the hill in either direction from the pool hall that fits your nationality, chances are you work
in
the mine.

If it’s the Copper Star and your legs are draped over a burro laden with firewood, you’re Mexican, maybe Santiago, Cruz’s father, working your way down the switchbacks to the bottom of the Gulch and a little wooden shanty in the Barrio.

And if you just left Pete’s Tavern, you’re either a Slav or Irish and you live down the hill, too—in the Hogback section like we do—or maybe even in the Gulch, but high enough and far enough away from the Barrio. “Because we speak English,” justifies Pop, knowing that’s a definite advantage.
After all, he does shout orders to Santiago in the pit every shift—the way Sims does with us in English.

“What is an ism?” Sims asks, scanning the classroom for an answer. “Anybody?”

“An awful itch you can’t get to?” Clem Pratty says. A few of us laugh, and Sims shoots an accusatory look in our direction, since Pratty’s sitting behind us in the last row.

“It looks innocuous enough, doesn’t it?” Sims says, tapping the letters with the tip of the wooden pointer. “Just three letters that sound odd and look even more peculiar.” He tugs at the ring of the projector screen and the screen snaps and coils, rattling Penny Bruzzi in the front row. “But once you put another term in front, it’s not so harmless, is it?”

It spells
COMMUNISM
now that the screen’s up.

“What’s the jerk going on about this time?” Cruz asks me.

I’m not entirely certain. I thought this class was supposed to be about sonnets, but Sims is always springing something on us.

“He means war,” Rabbit whispers. “You know, fighting for what you think is right?”

“Why else would you be fighting?” Cruz says.

Any ism makes me think of Bobby. Only I’m not sure how different communism is from the Nazism or the fascism he was fighting. Maybe they all just mean hating and fighting and getting yourself killed.

Sims moves through the center aisle like he’s searching for prey. He’s acting a whole lot different than when he’s talking about Shakespeare. “America has become the ism battleground of the world. If we could simply scratch it to make it go away,” he says, squatting to go eye to eye with Pratty, “don’t you think we would have done that a long time ago? The fact is, communists have been here since the First World War.”

“There’s Russians in this classroom?” Cruz says. “All I see is Red.”

Penny giggles and Sims swerves to look at Cruz.

“Mr. Villanueva,” he says, “how would you like to be told where to work? Or how much you shall make? And if you refused, they’d send you to the mines?”

Cruz shrugs. “We’re already there.”

That gets the whole class laughing, and Sims’s chin breaks into blotchy little stains.

“I was referring to the salt mines, not Eureka Copper,” Sims says. “As a slave for no wages.” He tries to get the pointer behind his back, weaving it between his elbows like a pool cue—though I doubt he’s ever played—and it falls to the floor.

“He wouldn’t last a minute shooting pool at the Copper Star,” Cruz whispers.

“Of course, they could also deny you the right to go to school,” Sims says, picking up the pointer. He’s by Lupe Diaz, our halfback. “Decide that you aren’t intelligent enough.”

“They’re not.”

It comes from somewhere in the middle of the class—but I can’t tell for sure—stabbing the air with an invisible sting, just like those sulfur explosions. Nobody laughs, and Sims lets it hang there, all knotted and tense. Then he splays out his hand and says, “Five people from this very community voted for the Communist Party.”

Some kids look surprised, and it’s news to me, too, but I have my doubts. Rabbit nods, and that’s not like him.

“We know these people. We may even have lunch with these communist spies,” Sims says, watching the kids watching each other.

“Wake me up when it’s time for practice,” Cruz jokes, closing his eyes.

“This is more important than winning at Muckers football,” Sims says, a bit more sharply.

“Didn’t your father take All-Northern … with Mr. Mac?” Cruz asks. “He was the first Sims, no?”

Sims looks like the A-bomb just hit but quickly regains his composure and starts rattling on about how we should preserve our ideals by practicing good citizenship.

“He means white citizenship,” Cruz whispers. And I wish Cruz would know when to stop.

“Did I hear someone willing to tell us about good citizenship? Did I?” Sims asks.

“I still don’t know who we’re fighting.” Cruz is really asking for it. “Except for those Cottonville Wolves.”

The guys laugh, but Sims shakes his head.

“Ah, you can be cheeky all you want,” he says. “You’ve become complacent—that means smug, Mr. Villanueva—playing football and not worrying about Korea because you’re not old enough to be called. But when we’re complacent”—Sims dashes to the blackboard, changing the
ISM
to
IST
, the chalk crumbling into spray when he stabs an
S
onto the end, then the number
5
in front—“that’s when the enemy strikes,” he says. “It only takes a handful to start a revolution.”

“They’re always stirring things up.”

Rudy Kovacs. That’s who it is. He turned when he said it, tilting his shoulder and aiming it at Cruz.

Cruz’s jaw tightens and flexes, but he doesn’t say anything because it’s Rudy. His father’s a company man that the E.C. brought in from Bisbee last month to decide which mining men to keep and which ones to cut.

Everybody eyes Cruz and Rudy, but I can’t tell which one they think might be the enemy.

Sims turns to face the blackboard, but I caught the smile. He underlines
5 COMMUNISTS
, then taps a prop on his
desk with the pointer. Not the bust of Shakespeare, but the metal box in front. It looks like a tackle box, except there’s a slit cut into the lid, and he gives it a shake.

“Part of good citizenship means identifying those who don’t share our democratic ideals,” he says. “Let’s put their names in this box.”

There’s rumbling and a few anxious whispers. Even a hiss.

“Bet there won’t be one Anglo name in there,” Cruz mumbles.

“Anyone can be a commie,” Rabbit says.

“Like who, Rabbit? Name me one.” Cruz punches Rabbit in the arm with a knuckle.

Sims has really lost his brain, thinking your neighbor could be a spy. As if Lee Fong’s plotting to overthrow the government while he’s fixing you a dish at the Chinese Kitchen.

And I’m surprised at Rudy—he’s on our team. He should know by now Hatley’s made up of everything. But Rudy’s just a scrub, practicing drills with Wallinger. He won’t play much.

“You mean students, or teachers, too?” Margaret Menary asks.

“None of us is immune,” Sims adds. “Teachers. Men of high office. We’ll hand the box over to the school superintendent before the November election.”

He gets us to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, in case we forgot about those freedoms.

Cruz jabs me in the ribs. “We’ll never pass senior English,” he says. “Goodbye, graduation.”

“Sims never failed anyone yet,” I say. “He just likes scaring people.”

“It’s gonna be nice picturing Sims’s mug on that tackling dummy at practice,” Cruz says.

Still, I press my hand against my heart, thinking,
He’s done it
. Sims has let the kind of hatred you read about down in Phoenix slip into our classroom. The kind where Mexicans go to the Indian schools and Negroes go to Carver. Charlie may be our only Negro, but I saw what segregation does when the bus rolled in from Carver High last year.

Those boys stared out the window, heading up to our field with eyes as empty as the open pit. Until they saw the Mexican players on our team. They must have figured we’d be civil, and I thought so, too. Then Wallinger hollered, “You gonna let those niggers beat us?” loud enough for everyone to hear, including Charlie. Coach Hansen and Wallinger went at it, yelling and arguing about it so much that the officials asked if we wanted to forfeit the game.

“I know what an ism is,” Cruz whispers to me. “It’s Sims’s name, all twisted around and screwy, but it’s there.”

MID-WEEK EDITION

Hatley Muckers Gridiron Bound

The Hatley Muckers head to the gridiron Friday for their opening game against Rim Valley and their final attempt at a state championship as the school prepares to shut down.

Attendance records are unlikely to be broken, with the mine cutting back shifts, but are certain to exceed last year’s turnout, when the Valley’s polio outbreak shortened the season.

The final Muckers team is definitely on the bantam side, averaging 135 pounds. They will have to depend on speed, deception, and passing for offensive
punch from the 14 players Coach Hansen has on his team. When told his squad could be the lightest in all of Arizona, Hansen shook his head. “Footballs don’t know how much you weigh,” he said. “They only go where they’re thrown.”

WANT ADS

(Minimum charge, 25 cents.)

PIANO INSTRUCTION—
Harmony included. Your home or mine. See or write Mrs. Featherhoff, Upper Main.

WANTED
—Babysitting, day or night. Mrs. Ricardo Sanchez. Gulch. Phone 143-H.

HEAVY RED FRYERS—
50c lb., 15c extra for eviscerating. S.T. Hayes, Fifth house on 8th St., Cottonville.

COME IN & COOL OFF! DR. A. C. BROWN SAYS OUR POOL POLIO SAFE

AMERICAN HOURS: Th–Sun, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.
MEXICAN HOURS: Mon–Wed, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. (5 p.m. close for water change on Wed).

“
JUST DO LIKE I TOLD
ya, Red, and you’ll be fine.”

“Remember, get the ball to Managlia,” another helmeted miner says, “and he’ll light it up.”

They’ve come off shift—the four o’clock bell rang about fifteen minutes ago—and the miners who just worked the morning are headed along the catwalk across from the high school when I make the turn for home.

They’re the mining men with seniority: the foremen and steam-shovel operators carrying empty lunch pails and grime-faced grins, heading home to get washed up and guzzle down dinner their wives have made them. Then they’ll hike up to the field at least an hour before kickoff.