Now Is the Hour (19 page)

So I shut the engine off, opened the door, and asked Acho to come with me. Flaco gave Acho a push and said something fast in Spanish. At the gate, I showed Acho how to lean into the top of the end post, which stretches the wire of the gate and lets the pressure off. I flipped up the oval piece of wire, pulled the end post out at the bottom, then arched the gate out of the way. After I drove the truck through the gate, I got out and showed Acho how to close the gate.

At the next gate, Acho realized it wasn't advantageous riding shotgun. After a bunch of fast Spanish, Flaco got out of the truck, and I showed Flaco how to open and close the gate.

Mostly what was happening with the gate was I knew how it felt to be out there wrestling with something you didn't have a clue about while the old man sat in the truck and found new ways to humiliate you.

And you know, that's no way to treat other people.

In the hay field, I made another decision: we'd take turns with lifting and stacking. Two of us would lift while one of us stacked. And then I hit on something that was the best idea I had that summer.

The truck was pulled up next to the first stack of hay at the bottom end of the field. First field, first stack of hay, first everything. The three of us sat inside the truck cab. I didn't know exactly how to start, so I took a Viceroy and matches out of my shirt pocket, stuck the cigarette in my mouth, lit the cigarette. Both Flaco and Acho, their faces were so surprised looking at me. They took the cigarettes from behind their ears. I lit their cigarettes too. Three on a match.

We all took drags on the cigarettes. I kept the smoke in my lungs for an extra-long time. I was waiting to say the something that I had to say. When I exhaled, the words came out with the exhale.

I said: We'll take turns driving.

That's what did it. That's how Flaco and Acho and I became such close friends. That summer they learned how to drive.

After two weeks of hauling hay, we'd all learned a lot about one another. Acho liked to clown around, Flaco stacked the tighter stack, and I could go all day without peeing. In the mornings, it took Flaco and Acho and I awhile to get used to one another. I mean, Christ, after all, who wants to be cheery and perspicacious at seven o'clock in the morning? First thing, after they argued in fast Spanish about who was going to ride shotgun, we'd just look at one another and say morning or hi or
hola.
Acho always said hello how are you when he got in the truck, and after that none of us said anything, and one of us lit a cigarette, and we'd share the cigarette. In the cab, just the cigarette smoke, our three bodies. The smell of soap, sweat, tortillas, tobacco, and instant coffee, the roar of the truck inside the cab. Outside the cab was the new day. The sun still pink and blue and cool shadows lying around on everything.

We got a good routine going. In the hay fields, we took turns driving the truck from stack to stack. This was some good practice for Flaco and Acho because, although they were driving in an open field and not out on a public road, they still had to do some precision driving. They had to back up close to the stack, make three-point turns, use the mirrors, plus the general steering, gear shifting, clutch, and brake.

Two of us threw bales onto the truck, and one of us stacked. Again we took turns.

We took turns driving back and forth from the feedlot, we took turns opening and closing the two gates, and at the stacks we took turns throwing bales off the truck, turns at stacking. Which wasn't without incident. Especially Acho. I can't tell you how many times I was laughing so hard I couldn't even think or stand up the way Acho gunned the gas, then popped the clutch. The truck would take off like on a drag strip, hay bales flying every which way and the truck bumping over corrugations, finally coming to rest in the middle of the field.

It
is
tricky getting the gas right and the clutch right. It took me months to get it down right. Flaco caught on pretty quick, but for some reason Acho just couldn't get it. Then I realized something. Acho was like me. He couldn't do things while people were watching, so I just left him alone. Soon as I left him alone, Acho was letting out the clutch, easing on the gas, in no time at all.

One thing in particular I learned about Flaco and Acho was how they liked to cuss. Especially Acho.
Chinga
and
chingada,
I think meant “fuck,” and
puta
was “whore,” and
Chingada tu puta madre
meant something like “fuck your whore mother.” There was also
cabrón,
which meant “son of a bitch” or “bastard.”

There was another word. Flaco and Acho also called each other
negro,
but
negro
was not a cuss word.
Negro
is pronounced “nay-gro” with the emphasis on
nay. Negro
means “black” in Spanish, and
negro
was a cool thing to say to someone, like you'd say,
Hey, buddy,
or
pal,
or
chum.

Flaco and Acho liked it when I cussed in Spanish, so right off I started cussing in Spanish and pretty much preceded and ended everything I said with
chingada
or
puta madre
or
cabrón
or a mixture of all of the above.

I didn't use
negro
with them, though. Although
negro
was a good
thing, only Flaco and Acho used
negro.
I wasn't sure why. I figured it was because I was white and American and I was differnt. I could call Flaco and Acho
cabrón,
or
chingada tu puta madre,
but I couldn't call them
negro.

And another word.
Gringo.

When Flaco and Acho were going at it in Spanish, that's what they called me,
gringo, gringo loco,
crazy gringo. I took it to mean they liked me.

As fate would have it, my birthday was our last day of hauling hay. What a day. It's only looking back on it now that I understand all that went on. It was the first time friends had ever asked me to do something with them, except for the time Scardino asked me to stay at his house and I said his mother's Parmesan cheese smelled like farts, and except for Allen Price the day we played Poison, and except for Sis when she invited me to go shopping so I could spend my allowance on her school clothes.

My birthday started out like any other day. The door to the truck opened, and Flaco got in first. He smiled at me as he slid to the middle of the seat. I said, Morning. Flaco just bobbed his head, then Acho got in and slammed the door. Flaco reached into his pocket, pulled a cigarette out, struck a matchstick against the bottom of the dash, lit the cigarette.

Morning cigarettes made me dizzy, still do, and although I didn't know it then, now that I look back on it, I always smoked anyway because I wanted to press my lips around what their lips had pressed around. When I went to third gear is when I handed the cigarette to Flaco. Same as ever, I turned the truck left over the cattle guard, drove past the boxcars. When Acho got back in the truck from closing the first gate, I couldn't stand it any longer.

I had the cigarette. I inhaled first, blew smoke out my nose, said: Today is my birthday.

Both Flaco and Acho said: Birthday! And just like that, it was like a whole differnt world. Funny how you don't know how things are always the same until they're differnt. Just like that. I saw it in Flaco and Acho's eyes. A whole new differnt world in their eyes. Then what was in their eyes got in my eyes too. It was still the old hay truck, it was still the same old hot-boxed cigarette, it was still right after the
first gate was closed, it was still seven fucking
A.M.
, it was still hay and Idaho and cheap labor, but everything was differnt. Differnt and bright. A whole day lit up ahead of us in our eyes, and in no time at all we were throwing our bodies around in the cab, clapping, cheering, and whistling, pounding on one another. Acho was speaking Spanish so fast it sounded like a machine gun. He started beating the dashboard like a drum.

Flaco said, This is a great day! It is our last day hauling hay, and it is your birthday. We must celebrate!

Acho said,
Aaii,
Reegbeejoan!
Chingada tu puta madre!

Acho picked up the first bale of hay, and as he bent over he let out the longest, loudest fart I'd ever heard.
Puta madre,
Acho said, then Flaco said,
Cabrón
something or other in Spanish, and they were laughing hard, and I didn't need to know what Flaco said to laugh hard too. That started it. After that, every bale of hay that day was something funny, a new way to make us laugh. Funny all morning, funny into the afternoon.

That afternoon, at the top end of the field, on the last load of hay in the field, Acho popped the clutch and the truck lurched ahead. Flaco was standing on the back of the truck. He tried to keep his balance as the truck bounced over the corrugations, but it was too much. Wasn't long, and Flaco and the half load of hay we had on the back of the truck went flying ass over teakettle. Good thing we didn't break any bales, but it wouldn't have mattered. Acho,
cabrón, puta madre,
his driving not worth one
chingada.

The field where we were loading hay that day was the hay field next to the swimming hole. The truck, when Acho finally got it stopped, was right next to the gate to the canal.

It was about three o'clock. Flaco was lying on the ground, his head propped up against a hay bale. Acho sat in the cab of the truck, the door open, smoking a cigarette. I'd just jumped up and was sitting at the back end of the truck, my legs dangling over the side. After laughing, all that was left was the high, hot sun, heat, and hay dust, flies buzzing, and half a load of hay to restack.

That's when we heard it. The most beautiful sound.

The waterfall.

Spontaneous combustion inside of us all at once.

Flaco leaped up like some wild animal. He said: Let's go swimming!

Acho didn't have to think about it. He was in midair, puffing on his cigarette,
puta madre negro!

Flaco and Acho were halfway climbing over to the fence before they looked back at me.

I was still sitting on the back of the truck. In fact, my butt was welded to the back of the truck. The air inside my chest trying hard to breathe.

Come, Rigby John! Flaco said, come. Let's us swim. It is your birthday.

The feeling in my arms that means I am helpless.

You guys go ahead, I said. I'll restack the hay.

Ay! Cabrón chingada tu puta madre,
Reegbeejoan! Acho said.

Just leave the hay, Flaco said. We will swim and then we stack the hay.

No, I said. You guys go ahead.

Cabrón?
Flaco said.

Flaco's dark eyes trying to look inside me all the way from over on the fence.

Let's swim! Flaco said.

How do you say something you don't even know.

I can't, I said. My dad will catch us. You go ahead swimming and I'll watch out for my dad.

It wasn't long, and Flaco and Acho were standing behind the truck. Flaco had his hands around one of my legs, Acho had his hands around the other. They were looking up at me, the
gringo loco.
How could I help it, being from my family? I mean, now that I look back on it, it's true I was worried about getting caught by Dad, but, really, that day, my birthday, I could have risked that. What was scaring me, what was welding my ass to the flatbed, was something else.

I don't have a swimming suit, I said.

I mean to tell you. I have never seen two people laugh so hard so fast. The both of them, Flaco and Acho, were squirming around on the ground, in the hay stubble, yelling and screaming, beating their hats against their legs, holding their guts. Like to die laughing, those two.

And no towel, I said. I don't have a towel.

I was one fucking funny gringo, all right. I can laugh at it now, but believe me, sitting on the back of the truck that day, my ass welded to
the flatbed, my hands curled around inside the slots where you stick in the sideboards, the prospect of swimming naked with Flaco and Acho was another life away from me.

So what did Flaco and Acho do? They did what any good friends would do. They helped their friend not to be afraid.

Don't get me wrong. They didn't hold my hand and say, It's OK, Rigby John, you don't have to be afraid, you're among friends. In fact just the opposite. Acho grabbed me around the middle and threw me over his shoulder. Such a surprising feeling. I am a big guy, wasn't as big then, but I was five foot ten and one hundred and sixty pounds, easy, and there I was up in the air, a sack of potatoes hanging over Acho's shoulder. I must tell you, I didn't like it. Every time someone has grabbed me like that, it meant I was nothing. It was my father or Scardino, and I wasn't considered, I was just something to throw around, to stick a yellow tulip up my ass. The fear was great in me, and I was having trouble breathing. The feeling in my arms that meant I was helpless and everything started to go black.

Flaco and Acho didn't know how scared I was. I mean, I don't think they knew. Acho didn't know for sure, he just carried me kicking and screaming like a girl to the gate. He opened the gate even with me on his shoulder. It wasn't until we got to the canal, just before Acho set me down, that my eyes happened to look over to Flaco. That moment. Something in Flaco's eyes was like Jesus. I don't know what you'd call it. His long black eyelashes, his black eyes, something in them, whatever it was, when I looked, down inside me, and quick I felt sure I was not alone. After that glance, just like that, I quit kicking and screaming. Acho put me down on the ground.

The ground, my feet were on the ground, and up through the ground some kind of solid sucked up into my legs. Flaco's eyes were still Jesus, and I got my breath back, and I was standing on my own two feet, and I was with my friends, and we were all laughing like before.