The Tequila Worm (9 page)

The PaCKinG SheD

The door slammed. “It feels strange doing math so early,” Berta said, throwing her book on the kitchen table. I measured coffee into the pot. “Please make it extra strong. I have my final tomorrow. God, how I
hate
math. But, Sofia, it doesn’t take a math whiz to know that you have a big zero toward that four hundred dollars you still need.”

“Yes, I know. But let’s get cracking on your math.” I sat next to Berta and opened her book.

Berta shut it. “I can’t even look at numbers without a ton of coffee. So what are we going to do to get your four hundred dollars?”

“I’ll get a job.”

“What job? You know how things are around here, with so many people unemployed. And you don’t have any experience.”

“I know. . . .”

“Why don’t we get family and friends to sponsor you, to be your school
padrinos
?”

“That’s the same idea you had with the dresses. Papa said he’d take on some extra work. But I told him I want to earn this money myself.”

“I’m helping Mom with some sewing projects this summer. You can help, and we’ll—”

I started to laugh. “Berta, you’re so sweet. No wonder Jamie’s crazy about you.
Me,
sew? No, I’ll just go downtown and find a job.”

“But
how
?”

“I’ll just get out there and figure it out.”

“Sofia, you
are
a mule. At least let me drive you there.”

“I’ll be fine.” I jumped up. “Coffee’s ready! Now open that book.”

The next day I woke early, dressed, and then walked toward Main Street in downtown McAllen. Summer had just started but it was already sweltering, with temperatures over a hundred by noon. It was about a three-mile walk.

When I got to Main Street, I dusted off my shoes, straightened my skirt and my shirt, and double-checked that all my buttons were buttoned straight. I stared at the stores. I had no idea how one went about asking for a job, what I’d say if they asked if I’d ever worked before, or been a saleslady or cashier or anything.

When I opened the glass door to the Popular, a women’s dress shop, I froze. Salesladies were buzzing around, waiting on customers. And they all wore makeup and earrings and high heels and stockings. My flat brown shoes and bare legs seemed terribly out of place. Why in the world would any woman want me to wait on her, I thought, much less ask me for any fashion advice?

I walked around in a daze and then pretended to be looking at some blouses. I jumped when I heard a woman’s voice behind me, asking if I wanted any help. I mumbled that I was only looking. The next minute, I was out the door.

I walked farther down Main Street. Most of the stores were either dress shops or clothing stores. In Woolworth’s, I could see myself unboxing toys, sticking plastic flowers into those green Styrofoam squares, even folding towels. And, maybe, if I was really lucky, they’d let me serve scoops of ice cream and glasses of Coca-Cola at the long red food counter.

“Excuse me. Who do I see . . . to apply for a job?” I finally asked a lady wearing a name tag.

She looked me up and down. “Aren’t you a little young? Back there.” She pointed. “Go ask for an application.”

I took the two long pages and struggled through the application.

When I went to hand it in, I was embarrassed by the cross-outs and scribbling in the margins. But I made sure to smile and thank the woman who finally took it.

I spent the next five hours walking into every business on Main Street, even the dress shops, and filling out applications.

But when I started back home, I dragged my feet. I probably wouldn’t get a single call. I had absolutely no experience, and the unemployment rate in McAllen was one of the highest in the nation. But if I didn’t make the four hundred dollars, I wouldn’t be able to go to Saint Luke’s.

As I crossed the 18th Street canal and then the railroad tracks, I heard machines. I looked up and saw that I was near the two packing sheds four blocks from my house.

I had always seen and known about the packing sheds, but I had never given them much thought. All I knew was that they were open and busy during the summer picking season. This was when we’d get knocks on the front screen door and find young boys selling bags and bunches of carrots, onions, bell peppers, cantaloupes, cucumbers— whatever extra fruit or vegetables were being cleaned and packed in the packing sheds that day. The rest was boxed, loaded, and shipped on the railroad that ran right in front of the sheds.

I walked to the packing shed and up the wooden stairs. Inside I saw a whole army of well-dressed Mexicans working. Men were operating noisy machines that dumped loads and loads of green cucumbers on a moving conveyor belt. A row of women stood on wooden pallets by the moving belt and tossed the cucumbers into large wooden bins. Another row of women stood on the other side of the belt and packed the cucumbers into white cardboard boxes. Young boys worked at one end of the shed making boxes. Forklifts moved full boxes to the far end of the shed, near the railroad tracks.

How well dressed the workers were: the women wore nice dresses and makeup; the men, good shirts and trousers—even though the shed was dank and dirty, its floors were completely covered with water, and the greasy machines ground away incessantly.

As I stood staring, a man wearing a white hat and shirt and crisp blue jeans walked up to me. He squinted. “Are you looking for a job?”

“Yes!”

He led me to his tiny office and told me to fill out a slip of paper. “Good. You can start working this minute.”

The man took me, stunned, to where the women stood in front of the moving conveyor belt. Hundreds upon hundreds of cucumbers kept moving on it. The man said, “Stand on the pallet, just like the women. Your job is to sort the cucumbers into large, medium, and small, by tossing them into one of the three bins on the other side of the belt. Toss the large ones into the first bin, the medium into the second, and the smallest into the third. The women on the other side will pack them into boxes.”

I now stood on the wooden pallet, working at my very first job. I didn’t feel grown-up and proud, as I thought I would, but completely overwhelmed and panicky, for the cucumbers moved down the conveyor belt like a furious green river. And they all seemed to be about the same size.

As I stood before the rushing river, I quickly glanced at the women to my right and to my left. They looked like wild windmills, tossing cucumbers left and right. Slowly, I started to pick and throw one cucumber and then another, still confused about the sizes.

After thirty minutes and then a whole hour, I was tired, and the cucumbers just kept coming faster and faster. When I looked down at the wet floor underneath the pallet, I noticed that the women on each side of me were wearing pumps. How could they manage to stand here all day?

During a ten-minute break, the belt stopped and the women got together and talked. Some of the men went out to smoke. I found a pay phone and called home.

“Papa, I found a job! I’m working at the packing shed down the street—the big one.”

“Ay, mi’ja, that’s really hard work. Come home. I’ll find a way to raise the money,” Papa said.

“No, Papa,
please
. I want to earn the money myself.”

“You’re too much like me, mi’ja. That’s not always a good thing. Come home. Relax. Spend the summer with Lucy and Berta. Go visit the school.”

“I’d rather work, Papa. We have a late shipment, so I’ll be late tonight.”

I worked until ten o’clock that night. When Papa came to pick me up, I was dizzy and could hardly feel my legs. I climbed into the car and sank into the seat. “Papa, the Mexican workers are all dressed up as if going to church, even though it’s so dark and dirty and noisy in there. And we all stand on wooden pallets because the floor is completely covered with water.”

The next day Papa came to get me at midnight. Mama was still up when we arrived home, but I was so exhausted that I didn’t eat the dinner she’d warmed up for me. I just fell into bed, wearing the wet jeans and T-shirt I’d worn all day.

The days and then the weeks all seemed to blur together into a haze. All I knew was that I’d somehow gotten through the ten- or twelve-hour days. But I also knew that the cucumbers were making me crazy. I dreamed about cucumbers: walls of them falling on top of me as they sprouted faces and screamed at me.

Then they started to attack me during the day. I caught myself squeezing Papa’s tube of hair gel onto my toothbrush, or putting the coffeepot inside the refrigerator, and seeing green cucumbers everywhere. I saw them on walls, on faces, even in the sky.

After a month, I stood there at my post, shifting from one foot to the other and doing my best to sort, when the man with the white hat appeared next to me and said loudly, “If you don’t work much, much faster, I’ll have to let you go.”

He walked back to his tiny office, and the woman to my right leaned over. “Don’t worry,” she said in Spanish. “He always does this—picks on somebody or other, thinking this will just scare everybody into working even harder.” I smiled but kept my eyes on my flying hands. Faster!
Faster!

At the ten-minute break, I asked her, “How long have you been working here?”

“Five years,” she said. “I come from a little village in Mexico, near the border.”

I so wanted to ask why she and the others dressed up to come work in this wet and dirty place, but I didn’t.

By my last month at the packing shed, I knew I hated cucumbers above anything else in the whole world, and vowed to never, ever eat another one.

But that last month of my first job, I also received my first proposal. I was sitting on the steps during a break, trying to bring my stiff legs back to life, when a young man in a nice pair of black trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt walked up to me. I knew he drove a forklift. He smiled at me and then bowed his head politely. He said, “My name is Miguel. And I think you’re really pretty.” He paused, cleared his throat, and asked, “Would you be interested in marrying me?”

I shot up and squinted, bewildered. He smiled and repeated,
“Would you be interested in marrying me?”
This time less shyly. I looked down at my faded wet jeans and my torn sneakers.

“I don’t even know you.”

He shook his head. “The picking season is almost over, and I’m afraid I’ll never see you again. That’s why I’m proposing to you now, before I have to go back to Mexico.”

“I’m just fourteen and haven’t even thought of marriage. . . . Actually, I’m going away to school.”

“What is your name?”

Just then the break ended—the conveyor belt started moving again—and we returned to our jobs.

I tossed cucumber after cucumber into bins, and I thought I finally understood why they all dressed up in their best. I
needed
—not just wanted—more than this.

When I got home that night, I sat down at the kitchen table.

“I made your favorite dish,” Mama said. “Cheese enchiladas!”

“I know, Mama, but I’m just not hungry.” I laughed and told her about my first marriage proposal.

“That’s
sad,
Sofia.” Mama shook her head. “And things are only getting crazier. Young people used to meet in plazas, at dances, at church, under the safe eyes of the community. But now everything is changing so fast. I just heard La Plaza hotel is putting a pool in the courtyard where your papa and I met.

“And I’m especially worried about Lucy, now that you’re going away. Things will
really
get crazy by the time
she
grows up.”

I nodded. For the first time ever, I detected a sense of fear in Mama, that even her web of
comadres
was no match against these changes. And maybe, I thought, going away to school might help me help her someday.

The CaniCuLa

IT was Sunday, August first, my birthday. And best of all, I didn’t have to go to the packing shed today.

We had all just returned from Sunday Mass. Papa was on the porch carving something with his knife. “Mi’ja, I’ll barbecue some fajitas for your birthday dinner tonight. Invite Berta over.”

I called Berta.

“Sofia? Aren’t you
boiling
? And it’s only ten in the morning!” I laughed, thinking that I was simply so happy not to be working with those crazy cucumbers that I hadn’t even noticed the heat.

“How about we drive around in my car, in the air-conditioning?”

“Great!”

Mama walked into the kitchen and started opening all the drawers, then the cupboards.

“What are you looking for?” I said.

“The keys to the cedar chest,” she said, opening the stove.

“You’re looking in the
stove
?”

“It’s the
canicula,
” she said as she opened the refrigerator door.

“The
what
?”

“The
canicula
.”

“What’s that?” I’d heard the word before.

“The forty days between July fourteenth and August twenty-fourth, which are the hottest days of the year and when the cotton gets picked.”

“But what does that have to do with losing your keys?”

“Everything, mi’ja, because the craziest things happen during the
canicula
. But to this day, I still don’t know whether the
canicula
makes people crazy so they do crazy things, or whether it makes things crazy to make
them
crazy.”

“Mama, now,
that’s
crazy,” I said.

“See, the
canicula
is getting to you, too! Your eyes are rolling like a
loca
’s.” Lucy and I started helping her look for the keys, sweat dripping down our faces. “Mama, what do you want from the chest?” I asked.

“That’s a
secret
!” she said, and then she and Lucy started laughing.

The air conditioner in Papa’s Ford had broken down on Monday. He had taken it to the garage, left it there for four hours, and then picked it up. It broke down the very next day. He took it back and they told him that it was the radiator now. They fixed that. But when it broke down for the third time, the garage manager blamed it on the
canicula,
saying that these dog days were killing cars like crazy. I worried whether Papa’s Ford would even make it all the way to Austin and back when it finally came time to take me to school.

I kept looking for Mama’s keys while Lucy left to buy
pan dulce
at the
panadería
.

She came home with a big bag. She opened it, peered inside, and then frowned.

“What!” she said, taking out gingerbread
cochinito
after
cochinito
.

“Why did you buy so many pigs?” I said.

“That’s the thing. I didn’t even pick
one
. I picked everyone’s favorite
pan dulce
. And look here, fifteen
cochinitos
!”

“The
canicula
!” Mama said. “Don’t even bother going back to exchange them.”

After Berta found Mama’s keys under a carton of eggs on top of the refrigerator, we dropped Mama off at the
abuelitos
’ even hotter house, and then Berta, Lucy, and I kept driving around, just to keep cool.

I pointed to a temperature sign flashing 114 degrees. We drove two blocks and I pointed to another, flashing 118 degrees.

“Two blocks and there’s a difference of four whole degrees. Is that crazy or what?” I said, now rubbing my eyes and thinking of the green fields at Saint Luke’s.

“Do you want to keep driving around or do you want to go to Wal-Mart?” asked Berta as she turned the corner.

“Wal-Mart? We went there last night!”

“Sofia, you know people here don’t go to Wal-Mart to buy things. It’s an extension of their homes, but with cool air and colorful things to see. And that’s where the
comadres
have started going to meet and talk. Like you go to the library for books, they go to Wal-Mart.”

“Yeah!” agreed Lucy, suddenly poking her head between Berta and me.

“Well, I’ll tell you both what
I
want. Pull over and let me drive.”

“You don’t even have a driver’s license.”

“
Berta,
Papa taught me everything. Now, come on. It’s my birthday.” She shook her head and then pulled over. We switched sides.

Papa had taught me to drive his Ford, but that was a standard. This would be my first try at an automatic. But I had been studying Berta, and it looked like a piece of cake—with only two pedals and just shifting from park to drive, and sometimes reverse.
A piece of cake!

I turned the ignition on, shifted to D, and then kicked off.

“Not bad,” said Berta.

I headed toward the high school, feeling a little sad that I’d never get to go there. Was it smart to be passing up graduating with my class, my friends? What if I
did
crash and burn at Saint Luke’s? Was it crazy to take the plunge into an unknown world? Was I being a mule?

Berta started laughing.

“What are you laughing at?” I said as we passed McHi and then the purple and gold water tower with the fierce McHi bulldog painted on it.

“The other day Beto told me about how he used to drive his friends around in that old car of his. And when it was over a hundred degrees outside, right when he caught sight of McHi, he’d give a sharp whistle and everyone would roll up their windows.”

“Why?”

“So that people would think they were so cool with the air-conditioner on.”

“That jalopy that jerked and cracked like a firecracker?”

“The very same one. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Beto told me he thinks you’re pretty!” Lucy started making kissing sounds.

“
God
! I’m
so
glad I’m getting away from here and especially from you two
locas
!” I said as I headed down Twenty-third Street toward the church. We could see waves of heat rising up from the hot asphalt like smoke.

“Do you remember your idea, Sofia, of wetting towels and draping them over our legs to keep cool at night?” Berta said.

“
Remember?
Lucy and I still do it. And now that we’re
comadres,
Berta, we have to get some of those paper fans that are stapled to those wooden sticks that the doctor uses to choke you, and start fanning ourselves as we gossip and gossip,” I said, driving past Navarro School, where Berta and I had gone as kids.

“Can I do that too?” asked Lucy, her head still between Berta and me.

I was going to say something funny or sarcastic, but then I caught a glimpse of Lucy’s big bright eyes and realized that she was serious. “Do what?”

“Be a
comadre
with you and Berta?” I looked at Berta and winked.

“Of course,” I said, smiling. “And your new
comadres
have a surprise for you.”

“What?” Lucy said. She almost climbed into the front with us. Berta looked at me, wondering.

I pulled the car into the church parking grounds and turned it off. I leaned over and whispered into Berta’s ear. She smiled. I pulled my seat back. I gently felt the pedals.

“Lucy, come sit with me. You’re going to help me drive Berta around.” Lucy beamed. As we went around the church’s parking lot for the tenth time, with Lucy at the helm, she lit up more and more.

“She drives
way
better than you!” Berta said.

Then Berta went back to driving, but now with our new
comadre
Lucy sitting between us. Something so simple as letting Lucy steer meant the whole world to her. I had to remember to jot that down in the notebook Tía Petra had given me.

“Hey,” said Lucy, “will you and Berta help me plan my
quinceañeara
?”

“You’re barely
ten
!” I said.

“Hooray, Lucy!” said Berta. “It’s
never
too early to start.
Of course
I’ll help you. And here’s some important advice: forget getting any help from Sofia on this. She’s great at bugs, books, soccer, and crazy things, but—”

“But I want Sofia to be my maid of honor,” Lucy said.

“Whatever you want. Do you have a boyfriend too?” I said.

“Maybe I can get Noe to be my boyfriend.” Berta and I started laughing.

“Okay,” I said, “you work on that. And while I’m away at school, I want you to spend time with your
comadre
planning
,
and be sure to write me about it.”

“Okay. Can we make our
quinceañera
dresses, just like you and Berta made your school dresses?”

“Sure, sure, whatever you want,” I said, kissing Lucy’s forehead.

“Sofia, when are you planning to pack? You leave soon!” said Berta.

I sighed. “I know. I know.” The thought of packing scared me. I just didn’t feel ready to go.

When we finally returned to the
abuelitos’
house, we found Mama and Abuelita sitting at the big round kitchen table drinking hot coffee and admiring a blue ceramic whale. “It’s for the Christmas
nacimiento
this year,” Abuelita said. “And Sofia, you will be the Christmas
madrina
.” It was too hot to pay attention.

“Mama, how can you stand this heat?” I said, opening the freezer door and sticking my head inside. “Do you think it’ll ever rain?”

“As a child,” Mama said, “I’d stand saints on their heads to try making it rain. But the best thing for keeping cool was getting my father to buy a big block of ice at the ice store. I used the metal ice scraper we bought in Mexico to go back and forth, back and forth on the ice block until I got enough shaved ice for ten
raspas
. For syrup, I used an extra-sweet pitcher of red hibiscus water.”

We kissed the
abuelitos
good-bye, got back into Berta’s car, and headed to the
raspa
stand on Twenty-third Street.

As we sat outside the stand at a lime green table under a bright blue tarp, the sun slowly began to set. The rainbow
raspa
felt cool and refreshing on my tongue.

“Girls, the
canicula
isn’t really that bad, and it’s only for forty days,” Mama said. “And sitting here, eating an ice-cold
raspa,
watching the sun set, is actually rather nice, especially compared to what the
canicula
meant when I was your age.

“Then, it was being out in the blazing sun, picking cotton. Your papa and I did that for many years growing up.”

A young boy dropped his three just-bought cherry
raspas
on the hot pavement. “It’s the
canicula,
” I said, and gave him a crisp dollar for new ones—a cucumber dollar I’d earned at the packing shed.

When we got home, we found Papa out in the back-yard standing beside his grill. Nobody could beat Papa’s fajitas.

Mama went into the kitchen and started conjuring up a stack of flour tortillas and chili salsa. She made a batch of refried beans and saved a bowl of whole beans for Papa and me.

After a glorious fajita feast, Lucy came in carrying a round chocolate cake with fifteen candles blazing. She and Berta had secretly baked it at Berta’s house. Papa grabbed his guitar and they all stood around me singing
“Las Mañanitas.”
I closed my eyes, made my secret wish, and then blew out all the candles with one big puff.

After the clapping and double servings of cake, Mama reached on top of the refrigerator and grabbed the carton of eggs.

“Here, Sofia! This is your birthday present from all of us!”

“Eh . . . thank you,” I said as I took the carton. Everybody started laughing.

“Open it,
Comadre
Sofia!” Lucy said, kneeling on her chair.

Papa and Mama were standing next to me, their arms around each other.

Inside I found twelve
cascarones
.

“Well, thank you,” I said, smiling.

“Sofia,” Lucy pointed. “Look at those four. Those are your presents. Open them!”

I took the one at the corner. It was bright yellow with a drawing of two people at a sewing machine. I turned the egg and found a drawing of five stick people in a car. “That’s from me!” said Berta, smiling.

“Do you want me to crack it on your head?” I asked, remembering the mustard-filled
cascarone
she had smashed on my head many Easters before.

“No!” They were all laughing. “Break it over your cake plate, but carefully.”

I took the egg, cracked it around the top, hitting it on the edge of the plate. I pulled off the shell pieces.

A small plastic box on a key chain fell into the plate. I picked it up. “Look inside! But point it at the light!” Berta said. I took the box and peered through the small hole at the end, pointing the other end at the lightbulb. I started to laugh. It was the picture of Mama and me dancing at Berta’s
quinceañera
.

“It’s like you and your mama dancing on the big drive-in screen!” said Berta. “And do you know what the two drawings on the
cascarone
are?” I smiled and shook my head. “One is of you and me at the sewing machine, making your school dresses. The other . . . well . . . I finally got your papa and mama to agree to use my car to take you up to Austin. And I’m going too!”