Peaches

Today I indulge myself on La Bloga by posting a story I wrote many years ago. The story is otherwise unpublished; I couldn't find the right place for it. The plot, such as it is, deals with innocence, childhood, family. Thus, it's fairly low-key, not crime fiction or noir. I am surprised that I wrote it, that these really are my words. but, as I said, I wrote it years ago. I am fairly confident that other writers have a similar reaction to stuff they wrote in the distant past. It's a strange but, somehow, comforting feeling that my writing can surprise me.

When I wrote this story I was developing my writer voice. Back then, I wrote whatever popped from my imagination. I traveled through a writer's universe of surprise and adventure. I explored style, tone, place, and genre. Writing made me complete. Many years ago.

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PEACHES

©Manuel Ramos

Florence, Colorado, 1959

"We used to work in the fields when we were kids, you know that." 

Talk of money or the family brought out the deadly serious side of Marie. She cleaned beans and threw handfuls of them into a pot of water for soaking. Marie and her sisters had gathered at their mother's house to prepare the food for Cecilia's wedding. 

"Dad dragged us around the farms for years before he settled down and bought the house. We can still do it, people do it every year. Joselito and Pancha went last year and they made two hundred in two weeks, just the two of them. Think what we could make if we all went together. It'll only be for a week, maybe two. Nicky and your Abel are old enough, they can go, maybe a few of the others. We can take Mom, she ain't got nothing to do, not with Dad gone."

Virginia had doubts. "A few extra bucks would come in handy, Joe's not getting any overtime at the mill. But he won't let me go, you know how he is." She peeled potatoes and dropped the naked vegetables into another pot for mashing.

"Oh, shit on Joe. Tom'll talk to him and it'll be all right. God, that man acts like he can't let you out of his sight for five minutes. He's worse than that old dog that follows Mom into the toilet. Tom'll fix it for you."

And so they planned the great peach-picking odyssey. Tom convinced Joe that the separation would benefit his marriage and, not to be overlooked, there was plenty the two brothers-in-law could do to pass the time. Marie and Virginia coerced Nicky and Abel, they loaded a pickup with the grandmother, suitcases of clothes and bags of food, and off they went across the state in search of extra money for the family.

The camp was an amazing place for Nicky. There were kids in every cabin, all ages, and everybody worked, except for the babies. Nicky didn't know what happened to them during the day. The growers' trucks came for the workers before the sun rose and he didn't see the camp again until after the weighing of picked fruit and balancing of workers' accounts were finished, and by then it was dark.

The nights were warm and clear and beautiful with classic Western sunsets and a moon that lit up the camp. The people congregated in loud groups, talking, laughing and singing. They were old friends or relatives in large, extended families. Cooking smells floated around the camp. Old men played Mexican songs on guitars while packs of young men roamed the camp looking for trouble or girls. The boys were showered and wore fresh clothes, their dark skins burned from hours in the orchards. They slicked back their hair, fastened every button on their shirts and let their pants hang loosely around their hips. They mixed English and Spanish, and Nicky saw shiny metal crosses hanging from chains around their necks.

Nicky's work was basic to the harvest. The pickers called him a boxer. He dragged wooden crates to the trees ahead of the workers and he fetched boxes for the pickers who needed more. The workers were paid by the box, and Nicky saw himself as an important cog in the process. He had to stay ahead of the pace. If he was slow, or couldn't find a box when it was needed, the worker wasted time and lost money. His mother emphasized his responsibility and pointed out that he was one of the few workers paid by the hour, that's how important he was. Nicky earned every penny of his fifteen cents an hour.

Peach fuzz covered his clothes, stuck to his hair, and crept down his throat. After the first few days he didn't notice it and he quit scratching. It lay like fine, white dust on his skin.

Nicky worked hard that summer. He learned who among the workers were friendly or slow, and who needed more boxes than the others. He sweated with the pickers, laughed at their crude jokes, and relished the lunches his mother made for him. He would sit in the shade of a fruit tree picked clean and eat tortillas stuffed with beans, eggs and wieners and gulp down ice water from the cooler near his boxes. His skinny frame filled out and he took pride in the hardened muscles in his arms. He combed his hair in a ducktail. The two weeks extended into three, the crop was good, and Nicky pocketed his money for his return home.

"I'll buy a cross when we go home so I can wear it to school," he told his mother one day in the orchards.

Marie shook her head. "A crucifix, hijo, it's called a crucifix, but they won't let you wear it to school, no matter how much the girls like it."

"Oh, Mom, cripes." He rushed off to another tree.

At last, the peaches were gone, loaded on trucks for the cities, and the pickers prepared to move on. Every cabin celebrated the end of the season, the time to drive south, back home to Texas or Mexico, the chance to find work for the winter with the rest of the family.

Nicky stood near his family's shack. Chato and Jesse, teenagers, walked past him, then, when he thought they had ignored him, they looked back and Chato said, "Hey, Nicky, come on man. Let's check out the party. Last night to dance with the rucas. Need to tell your ganga how you partied with the migrantes, how we showed you how to be cool." Nicky ran to them in response to their greeting, but he caught himself and slowed his feet, his run changed to a saunter, and he tried to tone down his smile.

"Yeah, man, let's check out the party."

They walked to the camp hall, the largest cabin, used for church and meetings, and the party at the end of the season. The women carried in pots of beans, rice and mole, and three men played loud and fast on a guitar, accordion and drum.

Nicky heard the songs his grandmother listened to back home on her ancient record player, but now he understood some of the words, he thought he knew why she cried or laughed or smiled, and Nicky wanted her to know he liked the songs, too. He saw her clapping her hands, standing with the other old women, urging on the musicians, telling the young girls it was acceptable to dance with the boys, this was the end of the season.

Nicky bumped into Abel near the food table, drinking homemade punch. Abel's lips were red.

"Hey, Abe, where's my mom? It's hot, huh?"

"Yeah, it's hot for sure. She's at the cabin. She didn't want to come. Packing for the trip home or something. She said for you to stay with Grandma. She'll come later."

"You know, I can almost understand this Mexican stuff. It's not like at home where you can't even make out one word. But I don't know, it's something about here. I can't say it." 

He shook his head and hoped he hadn't embarrassed himself. He pushed his brand-new black plastic comb through his hair, then patted the finished product to make sure everything was in place. He felt loose-jointed, giddy. Maybe he was drunk from the punch, or from listening to Chato and Jesse talk about the girls, or from the long day that finished the crop.

"Crap, Nicky, we are Mexicans. You understand Grandma and she only talks Mexican. Your mom and my mom are Mexicans, so are our dads. Don't you know nothin’, man?"

"I know that, I'm not saying that. It's just that, you know, it's different somehow, it's not the same. Oh hell, forget it."

Abel laughed and thumped Nicky on the back. "That sun got to you today, ese. Your brain's been fried, you lost it, man, out here in the boonies, picking peaches. You better hope you get it back before school starts." 

Abel almost shouted into Nicky's ear. The music roared over the crowd. Feet and legs and waving arms brushed by Nicky. He spun with the dancers, laughing and hollering, stamping his feet to the beat of the drum.

His eyes pounded with the rhythm and the sounds and the smells and he could feel his stomach rumbling. Three weeks of sun, sweat and labor caught up with the boy. He thought about the long trip home, and then back to the school where no one except Abel would know about the camp, would even understand what he had seen and heard. Something rushed up his throat and he clamped his jaws tight.

His queasiness caught him off guard. He ran through the crowd of dancing people, ignoring the shouts of family and friends. He heard someone laughing.

He streaked out of the hall, stopped at the entrance, and threw up over the side of the wooden steps. When he finished, he stumbled down the steps, sat in the dirt and thought about going back to school.

"Nicky, is that you? What are you doing? God, you're sick. Oh, poor baby." Marie picked him up and hugged him. "It must have been the sun, pobrecito. We worked you too hard, eh boy? But you did fine, boy, fine. You worked as hard as the others, harder even. The workers asked me about you, they couldn't believe you were only ten. A real man, they said. I must be proud, they said, and I told them I was, I was proud, Nicky. Now we can go home."

Nicky held onto his mother for an instant, then he pushed away and started walking back to the cabin. "Yeah, mom, we got to go early. School starts next week. You think the teachers will want to hear about how to pick peaches, about being a boxer?"

"I hope so Nicky, I hope so. But even if they don't, you can tell your father, and your sisters, and the cousins, and you can always tell me, niño, always."

Later.

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Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction. His latest novel is Angels in the Wind.