A So-Called Vacation (21 page)

Don Pilo slowly pulled out several plain, hard-shell treats, along with two small, bright-red hearts. They reminded Gabriel of the cheap Valentine candy he exchanged in grade school.

“First your vitamins.”

In his eagerness the boy grabbed both hearts at once but dropped one. Before he could reach for it, his father covered it with his heel and clucked a warning. “The Devil kissed it already.” Then he ground it underfoot until it disappeared in the dirt.

The boy gobbled the remaining one at once and waited silently for the replacement. He crunched and swallowed the hard-shell treat in no time, asked for seconds and got his wish. All that sugar must have dried his throat, because he started to cough. He tried to stifle the cough by washing down the residue with the soft drink, but the carbonation only made the coughing fit worse. He must have found his predicament amusing, because he suddenly giggled in the middle of his drinking. But the cola's fizz forced him to spew it through his nostrils, which started another fit.

By the time the boy unbuttoned his shirt, the spilled drink had added a gooey gloss to his chest. Gabriel caught a glimpse of his rib cage, even pastier than how he had described it to Paula. The translucent skin, with its tiny, spidery veins reminded him of the gecko lizards that clung to the shack's ceiling and that sometimes fell in his hair. For a second or two he even thought he could make out the purple, opaque outline of his hyperactive heart.

Don Pilo began murmuring to his son in a low, soothing lull, then he peeled off his cotton gloves. They were cut off at the middle knuckle and were ostensibly for picking, but Don Pilo wore them mostly for show. He wadded one into a ball, soaked it with his canteen, and gently
wiped off the grime from his son's chest. Then he used the other glove to pat him dry. The gesture almost seemed maternal, as the soft strokes pacified his son's coughing.

But the serenity was short-lived. Once the Borrado was back to normal he ran past Gabriel and Gus again with that unbridled energy that everyone envied.

“Don't forget,” Don Pilo shouted, “I still have half your sandwich in the cooler. And no more Superman vitamins or candy for today! You need real food from now on.” He winked at Gabriel and Gus as if they shared an inside joke.

Gabriel trailed behind him for a while, intrigued by the gentleness of his gestures. He tried to imagine his own father tending to him, until he finally gave up.

The next morning a steady rain blotted out the dawn, allowing everyone to stay home.

“At least I can rest my weary bones,” Gabriel heard his father say.

“But then the dampness makes them stiff. Still, I'll gladly take some time off any day,” answered his mother.

Gabriel was still in bed when he heard his father step out to the porch. He greeted Don Pilo, who said, “If this keeps up, I don't know how I'll keep my boys inside. They've been ready to go since six.”

“Mine opened one eye long enough to look out the window, then went back to dreamland.”

Don Pilo laughed. “That's what I like about you, Señor. You don't go around bragging about your kids.”

“I would if I had something to brag about.”

“See, there you go again. After all, they're well educated. Next to the other kids, their English is impeccable.”

“That's because that's all they speak. Besides, good grades don't make you a good picker. I'd rather have them bouncing off the walls like yours.”

Don Pilo's soft laughter covered Gus's muffled obscenity under the blanket.

Gabriel, unlike his brother, did not really mind their father's faint praise. Even when he teased them in public there was undeniable intimacy, because in a way he was putting himself down too. He was the opposite of parents who praised their kids with inflated superlatives in order to claim some of the credit.

The rain began to fall harder, creating a chaotic racket on the tin roof and forcing Don Pilo to raise his voice in the downpour. “Your boys told mine they were going to … that place with the flying fairy.”

His father paused, then returned to peek inside before answering. Convinced they were still asleep, he tiptoed back along the porch, made creakier by the rain.

“Only in their dreams, Don Pilo. Only in their dreams.”

Even though Gabriel's eyes were shut to feign sleep, he could still imagine his father's grin.

“Let him laugh his ass off,” whispered Gus. “We won't be here much longer.” He smiled too, not in the way that Gabriel had imagined his father would have but with a vengeful edge.

“What's
that
mean?”

Gus took his time answering. “Remember how the old man figured he wouldn't spend much time in the fields? How instead of stoop labor he'd be lying on his back, fixing cars in camp?”

“He hasn't worked on one yet.”

“And he won't, not as long as I have a say in the matter.”

“I don't get it.”

“When I went to visit Victor at the barracks, a few of the guys asked how good a mechanic Dad was.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Same thing he says about us. ‘Nothing to brag about.'”

“You really said that?”

“Actually, I told them what Mom said. ‘What kind of mechanic has to work in the fields for a living? Not a very good one, I'll bet.'”

Gabriel had to hold down his voice. “But she never said that!”

“No, but I said she did. And that's what counts.” He half-covered his face with his pillow. “Look, do you want to leave here or not?”

“Not like this. Not by burning him with the other workers. Besides, what if he does plan to take us to Disneyland?”

“Yeah, right. Someday. And maybe when we're forty we'll fly like Peter Pan.” He raised the pillow from his mouth to make sure his advice sank in. “Just forget it.”

“We can't. We've already worked too hard.

“Forget it. It's like Paula says. It's time we opened our eyes and grew up.”

They did not work that day or the following two. The fourth day dawned with a slight break in the cloud cover, but it soon became a replay of the previous three, down to the familiar sight of their father as he paced the gloom, his cigarette glowing like an anxious firefly.

“When do you figure this will be over?” he asked Don Pilo that evening.

“I'm not God. This deluge could last for days.”

“But it's already the fifth.”

“Oh, one year it poured for an entire week. That was the record, though. I doubt it'll go that long.”

“Well, even if it does I won't stick around to see the old record broken.”

“I wouldn't blame you,” said Don Pilo. “But you see, even if God cleared up the heavens this instant, we'd have to let the fields dry out. I just hope there are enough berries to make it worth the picking. Good thing I have another grower lined up down south, just in case. I take it you do too.” Don Pilo carefully opened the door of his own shack and peeked into the quiet gloom. “It took a flood, but they're getting some much-needed rest.”

The following day the rain tapered into drizzle but refused to leave completely. Gabriel stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and was faced with a stifling dankness. He had somehow expected the rain to wash the area sparkling clean and leave the vegetation a lush green. Instead everything appeared muddy and flattened, as the camp was transformed into a third-world shantytown where sewage trickled alongside the road.

His father joined him, assessed the situation without a word, and then took out his toolboxes and opened them. The tools remained as clean and as neatly arranged as the day they had arrived. He closed the boxes carefully, aware that by now the entire family was watching.

“Let's get ready,” he said.

“Dad, that field's like a sponge cake,” said Paula.

Gabriel agreed. “We'll be walking around with Frankenstein shoes.”

“We're going back home.”

“You mean to Texas?” Gus asked incredulously. “You're joking, right?” He stared hard at their father for a long while, until he told the others, “He's serious!”

“Look at the road,” said their mother. “I doubt we can even get out.”

“Hell,” said Gus, “I'll push the damn van if I have to.”

“Then let's get ready,” their father repeated. “We're going back home.”

G
abriel spent the next eight years following his sister's advice: growing up and slowly putting the past in perspective. Gus, however, moved out immediately after graduation, first to Houston, then to California, and never looked back.

Gabriel tried to contact him several times, but the terse replies were few and far between. During that time the people he had met eight summers ago rarely crossed his mind or his path, until the autumn of their father's funeral.

Their father's death came as abruptly as one of those blunt remarks when he had to have the last word. Indeed, his final anecdote involved a pesky customer whose brakes he had serviced that afternoon. “He was one of those in-your-face idiots who pester you around the shop,” he was telling his wife, “the kind who wants to know everything. At one point I had his car under the lift and he followed me underneath.”

“Wait a minute. Can they do that?”

“Of course not, and I told him so. I even pointed to a couple of signs on the wall.”

“So then what?”

“So then he looks up at his car and asks. ‘Have any of these ever fallen on you?'”

Paula, talking to Gabriel in the living room, could not help but overhear. “Let me get this straight, Dad,” she
said as she entered the kitchen. “The guy wanted to know if the hydraulic lift had ever crashed down on you?”

“Exactly! So I said, ‘Well, if it did I wouldn't be here, would I?' I walked away, but he stayed underneath his car, looking up like he still doesn't get it. So I stroll over to the hydraulic controls—”

“Oh, crap,” said Gabriel, already anticipating the next part. “Dad, you didn't.”

By now his father could barely contain his glee. “And I tell him, ‘But there's always a first time.' And at that instant I pushed the ‘on' button that makes the lift shudder. You should have seen him leap out from under there! I think he even screamed!”

“Dad,” said Paula, “you're a mean old man! And totally insane! What if something terrible had happened?”

He was laughing so hard that twice he had to catch his breath. “I had to get rid of him.”

“Yeah,” said Gabriel, “but not permanently.”

“What's so bad about weeding out the idiots in this world?”

Gabriel got ready to drive back to his apartment when his father stretched and said, “I guess I'll punch the clock too.”

The next morning, although barely daybreak in California, Paula was on the phone with Gus for a second time in as many hours. “I know,” she explained again, “it's a total shock for us too … No, he seemed okay. He told us about some incident at work and then went to bed … Mom said he'd been going to bed early the last few days … Yes, she's taking it hard. But this morning she insisted on calling you herself, even though I had to place the call for her. She wanted to know when you were getting in, but then she took some tranquilizers. Now she's out like a light … No, we got them across the border, so we didn't
need a prescription … No, they're not from Javier. In fact Gabi's seeing Javier tomorrow. He volunteered to pick up Aunt Lupe and drive her down here … Yes, in his semi … Well, I assume he's just taking the tractor part, but with him who knows.” She glanced at Gabriel to make sure he took note. “So you're getting in tomorrow morning on the 10:40 flight from Houston? Fine, Gabi will be there.”

“So how did he take it?”

“Okay, I guess. I didn't expect him to break down or anything. But I also didn't expect him to sound so … serene.” She swept a palm over her face as if erasing all emotion.

“Well, he hasn't seen us since he moved to California.”

“All the more reason, considering how long it's been.”

“It works both ways, Paula. We could have gone to visit him one summer.”

“He never invited us, Gabi! Not even after Dad found out about his heart condition.” She said nothing more until she was herself again. “Anyway, you think you'll recognize him at the airport tomorrow?”

“You're not coming along?”

“I'll let you soften him up first, then I'll work on him here.”

“Sure, I'll go. I hope I recognize him. I haven't seen him in years.”

“We have that picture he sent one Christmas.”

“I mean face to face.”

That evening, even though Paula still lived at their parents' house, Gabriel spent the night and helped look after their mother. He slept in the bedroom he had once shared with Gus and that later became his until college. After that his father, aware that his nocturnal tossing and turning was taking a toll on his wife, had moved in.