Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (6 page)

She used a twelve-inch lead pipe to roll the dough on a flat piece of board atop the wooden boxes that served as our dining table. As she pressed and rolled the dough, she kept turning it until it was perfectly round and about a quarter of an inch thick. Mamá then cooked the tortilla on a
comal
on one of the two burners of our small kerosene stove. She usually cooked a pot of beans on the other burner.

After we ate the freshly cooked tortillas and beans for breakfast, I helped Roberto wash the dishes in the aluminum tub, which Mamá also used for bathing Torito, Rubén, and Rorra and for washing clothes. And while Mamá mended Papá's shirt, he drove in our
Carcachita
to the nearest gas station to fill the one-gallon bottle with drinking water and to get more kerosene for the stove. When Papá returned, he smoked another cigarette, took two aspirins, and went to bed. Trampita and I sat on the mattress and played guessing games and then listened to Roberto's ghost stories. Mamá told us to be very quiet because Papá was not feeling well. "Remember, he does not like noise," she said.

For the next few days it rained off and on. By Friday, when the sun finally came out, Papá's aspirin bottle was empty and a pile of cigarette butts covered the floor by his side of the bed.

Like an alarm clock, the honking of the horn woke me with a start on Saturday morning. It was the
contratista,
the labor contractor, who drove around in his beat-up red Ford truck, honking the horn to let us know that the cotton was dry and ready to pick. Leaning on the horn, and trying to avoid the potholes full of water, he drove up and down the muddy paths, slow as a snail, between rows and rows of perfectly aligned one-room cabins. After finishing the round, which took about twenty minutes, he started again just in case some had fallen back asleep or had not heard him the first time.

On days when I was not in school, the honking of the horn was for me like the final bell on the last day of school. It meant I had to go to work. But for Papá, who usually hated any kind of noise, this loud sound was a tonic. It perked him up.

By the time the
contratista
finished the second round, Mamá had made the lunches and Papá was warming up the
Carcachita.
We loaded the sacks, climbed in, and lined up the car behind the
contratista's
red pickup truck, waiting for him to lead us to the cotton field that was to be picked. Loaded with workers who did not own cars, the pickup sluggishly pulled out, followed by the caravan of old battered cars and trucks.

After driving for about five miles, the
contratista
pulled over to the side of the road and motioned us to park behind him. He got out and pointed to the cotton field. It stretched from the shoulder of the road as far as the eye could see. Papá, Mamá, Roberto, and I got out of the car. Trampita stayed behind to take care of Torito, Rubén, and Rorra. We followed Papá, who walked over to the cotton plants to get a closer look. The other pickers did the same. Papá said it was a good crop.

The plants were about three feet tall, and partly hidden between their dry brown leaves were many cotton bolls. A few smaller plants had yellow and red flowers and green bulbs that looked like small avocados. Papá explained that the flowers would close and form hard green bulbs, which, in turn, would open to become cotton bolls. "But remember," he said firmly, "cotton bolls are like roses. They are pretty but they can hurt you."

"Yes, I know; the shell is like a cat's claw," I answered, remembering the numerous scratches I had gotten on my hands and wrists the year before.

After feeling the cotton to make sure it was completely dry, the
contratista
told us to start working. All the pickers, except me, had their own sacks and their own rows to harvest. I went a few yards ahead of Mamá and picked cotton from her row and piled it on the ground. When she reached the pile, she picked it up and put it in her sack. I then moved over to Papá's row and did the same for him so that he and Mamá could move up their rows evenly. Roberto did not need my help. He was a faster picker than either Papá or Mamá. After picking for two long hours, Roberto helped Mamá make more room in her sack by lifting it upright and shaking it several times up and down, compacting the cotton to the bottom.

When Mamá's sack was too heavy to drag behind her, Roberto took it to the weigh station to be emptied. The station was at the end of the field, about a quarter of a mile ahead. With my help, he flipped the sack over his left shoulder and held it in place with his right hand. I walked behind him, lifting the back end to lighten the load. The front end grazed the sides of the furrow as we made our way to the station. He stopped to rest a few times, and to wipe the sweat from his brow with the red and blue handkerchief tied around his collar. As we approached the weigh station, the
contratista
there said to Roberto, "You are really strong for such a little guy. How old are you?"

"Fourteen, almost fifteen," answered Roberto proudly and out of breath.

"No fooling," replied the
contratista,
adjusting the scale that hung from a tripod about three feet in front of the cotton trailer. After weighing Mamá's sack, the
contratista
jotted in a notebook "ninety pounds" after our last name, which he asked Roberto to spell. Teasingly he asked me, "Where is your sack,
mocoso?
" I pretended not to hear him and quickly walked around to the side of the trailer, which was about the size of our cabin. Its frame was covered by chicken wire, and it had no roof. It looked like a large bird cage. I held the ladder steady for Roberto while he climbed it carrying the sack. When he got to the top, he carefully walked to the middle of a plank that was laid across the trailer and emptied the cotton sack. Papá carried his own sack to the weigh station, but Roberto emptied it because Papá had a bad back.

At the end of the day, the
contratista
checked his notebook and handed my father eighteen dollars. "Not bad, six hundred pounds," Papá said grinning.
We could have done better if I had my own sack,
I thought to myself.

By the middle of November the cotton fields had been picked. The
contratista
informed Papá that we could stay in the cabin, which was owned by the company who owned the fields, until the end of the second picking, or
la bola,
as it was called in Spanish.
La bola
was messy and dirty. It involved harvesting everything left on the plants after the first picking, including cotton bulbs, shells, and leaves. The pay was one and a half cents per pound. The
contratista
told Papá that we could pick cotton for other ranchers until
la bola
would start, which was in two or three weeks.

For the next few days, when it did not rain, Papá, Mamá, and Roberto left the cabin early in the morning to look for work. They took Torito, Rubén, and Rorra with them. Trampita and I went to school and joined them in the fields on weekends and holidays.

At dawn on Thanksgiving Day, Papá, Roberto, and I drove in our Carcachita for miles, looking for cotton fields that were being picked. During that four-day weekend, I was determined to prove to Papá that I should get my own sack.

On both sides of the road we passed endless fields of harvested cotton plants. From their dry branches dangled cotton fibers left during the first picking. They were frozen from the cold. In the distance ahead of us, Papá spotted a white speck and a cloud of thick black smoke. "Allá," he said cheerfully, pointing with his finger. He stepped on the gas. As we approached the cotton field, Papá slowed down and parked our sputtering
Carcachita
on the roadside, near the cotton trailer. A few feet from it, around a burning tire, stood several men and women trying to keep warm.

Papá asked the Mexican foreman for work. He told Papá we could start anytime we wanted, but he suggested waiting until it got warmer. He invited us to join the others around the fire. Papá did not want to waste time. He told Roberto and me we could wait, but he was going to pick. Seeing this as an opportunity to prove to Papá that I was grown-up enough for my own cotton sack, I followed him and Roberto into the field.

They each took a row. I went ahead about a quarter of the way into Papá's row. I took my hands out of my pockets and started picking and piling the cotton in the furrow. Within seconds my toes were numb and I could hardly move my fingers. My hands were turning red and purple. I kept blowing on them, trying to keep warm. Then I felt the urge to relieve myself. I turned around to make sure no one was looking. The workers, warming themselves by the fire, were too far away to see me. I cupped my left hand and caught the warm, yellowish stream in it and rubbed my hands together. Instantly, I felt fire as the salt stung the scratches on my skin. Then as the liquid quickly cooled, my hands felt like ice. I could not go on. Frustrated and disappointed, I walked over to Papá. He straightened up and looked down at me. His eyes were red and watery from the cold. Before I said anything, he looked at Roberto, who bravely kept on picking, and told me to go over to the fire. I knew then I had not yet earned my own cotton sack.

It was that time of year again. Ito, the strawberry sharecropper, did not smile. It was natural. The peak of the strawberry season was over, and in the last few days the workers, most of them
braceros
, were not picking as many boxes as they had during June and July.

As the last days of August disappeared, so did the number of
braceros.
Sunday, only one—the best picker—came to work. I liked him. Sometimes we talked during our half-hour lunch break. That is how I found out he was from Jalisco, the same state in Mexico my family was from. That Sunday was the last time I saw him.

When the sun had tired and sunk behind the mountains, Ito signaled us that it was time to go home. "
Ya esora,
" he yelled in his broken Spanish. Those were the words I waited for twelve hours a day, every day, seven days a week, week after week. And the thought of not hearing them again saddened me.

As we drove home Papá did not say a word. With both hands on the wheel, he stared at the dirt road. My older brother, Roberto, was also silent. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Once in a while he cleared from his throat the dust that blew in from outside.

Yes, it was that time of year. When I opened the front door to the shack, I stopped. Everything we owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes. Suddenly I felt even more the weight of hours, days, weeks, and months of work. I sat down on a box. The thought of having to move to Fresno and knowing what was in store for me there brought tears to my eyes.

That night I could not sleep. I lay in bed thinking about how much I hated this move.

A little before five o'clock in the morning, Papá woke everyone up. A few minutes later, the yelling and screaming of my little brothers and sister, for whom the move was a great adventure, broke the silence of dawn. Soon after, the barking of the dogs accompanied them.

While we packed the breakfast dishes, Papá went outside to start the
Carcachita.
That was the name Papá gave his old black Plymouth. He had bought it in a used-car lot in Santa Rosa. Papá was very proud of his little jalopy. He had a right to be proud of it. He had spent a lot of time looking at other cars before buying this one. When he finally chose the
Carcachita,
he checked it thoroughly before driving it out of the car lot. He examined every inch of the car. He listened to the motor, tilting his head from side to side like a parrot, trying to detect any noises that spelled car trouble. After being satisfied with the looks and sounds of the car, Papá then insisted on knowing who the original owner was. He never did find out from the car salesman, but he bought the car anyway. Papá figured the original owner must have been an important man because behind the rear seat of the car he found a blue necktie.

Papá parked the car out in front and left the motor running. "
Listo,
" he yelled. Without saying a word Roberto and I began to carry the boxes out to the car. Roberto carried the two big boxes, and I carried the two smaller ones. Papá then threw the mattress on top of the car roof and tied it with ropes to the front and rear bumpers.

Everything was packed except Mamá's pot. It was an old large galvanized pot she had picked up at an army surplus store in Santa Maria. The pot had many dents and nicks, and the more dents and nicks it acquired the more Mamá liked it. "
Mi olla,
" she used to say proudly.

I held the front door open as Mamá carefully carried out her pot by both handles, making sure not to spill the cooked beans. When she got to the car, Papá reached out to help her with it. Roberto opened the rear car door, and Papá gently placed it on the floor behind the front seat. All of us then climbed in. Papá sighed, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and said wearily, "
Es todo.
"

As we drove away, I felt a lump in my throat. I turned around and looked at our little shack for the last time.

At sunset we drove into a labor camp near Fresno. Since Papá did not speak English, Mamá asked the camp foreman if he needed any more workers. "We don't need no more," said the foreman, scratching his head. "Check with Sullivan down the road. Can't miss him. He lives in a big white house with a fence around it."

When we got there, Mamá walked up to the house. She went through a white gate, past a row of rosebushes, up the stairs to the house. She rang the doorbell. The porch light went on and a tall, husky man came out. They exchanged a few words. After the man went in, Mamá clasped her hands and hurried back to the car. "We have work! Mr. Sullivan said we can stay there the whole season," she said, gasping and pointing to an old garage near the stables.

The garage was worn out by the years. It had no windows. The walls, eaten by termites, strained to support the roof full of holes. The dirt floor, populated by earthworms, looked like a gray road map.