Reaching Out (2 page)

As we entered Salinas, I remembered that this was John Steinbeck's birthplace. Miss Bell, my sophomore-year English teacher, had asked me to read
The Grapes of Wrath
after she had read an essay I wrote about Trampita. The novel was difficult to read because I was still struggling with the English language, but I could not put it down. I identified with the joad family. Their experiences were like my own family's, as well as those of other migrant workers. I was moved by their story, and for the first time I had read something in school to which I could relate.

"You're going too fast. Slow down, Panchito!" my father exclaimed, pressing his right foot against the floorboard.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not notice I was speeding. We passed through Gilroy and Morgan Hill and entered San José. It was large and cosmopolitan compared to Santa Maria, which had only 28,000 people. My heart began to beat faster as I drove north on The Alameda.

"I think we're getting closer," I said. "I believe The Alameda becomes El Camino Real, but I'm not sure."

"What do you mean, you're not sure?" my father asked. "What's the address?"

"I don't know," I said apologetically, confused. "I know it's on El Camino Real in Santa Clara." I pulled into a Texaco gas station and Trampita got out to ask for directions.
My father was upset. He was biting his lower lip and searching in his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

"We're okay," Trampita said as he slid back into the front seat next to my father. "Keep going on The Alameda for another mile until it becomes El Camino Real. El Camino Real goes right through the university."

I sighed in relief. I pulled out of the gas station and continued on The Alameda, which was lined with spruce and sycamore trees and large Spanish colonial-style homes.

"
Mira
, Panchito," my mother said. Look. "Those houses look like the ones in the rich part of Guadalajara. They're beautiful."

I looked tn the rearview mirror. My mother seamed sad. She had always wanted a house of our own, but no matter where we lived, whether it was in an old garage, a tent, or an army barrack, she always made it our home. She displayed Mexican knickknacks, like miniature ceramic dogs or birds, and placed cut wildflowers in a vase on whatever crate or box happened to serve as our table. "Nuestra casa," she would say proudly. Our house.

We arrived at the university and entered the main gate, which was lined with tall palm trees. Facing us was a large wooden cross, about twenty feet tall, in the center of a glorieta, and a few yards beyond it was the Mission Church. "Looks like one of the churches in Mexico," my mother said. "
Qué linda!
" How beautiful!

Its Spanish-style facade had carved wooden statues of
saints on both ends and two large dark brown wooden central doors, with two smaller ones on either side. To the left was a bell tower. As I drove around the glorieta, our DeSoto backfired, spewing a cloud of black smoke behind it. I quickly parked in front of a building called Dalia Walsh Halt. New cars with huge, sharp tailfins and shiny chrome fenders entered the gate. Rorra and Rubén pressed their noses against the window, trying to see them. Trampita slid lower in the seat. As I watched the passengers get out, I felt tense. They were all well dressed. Many of the men wore suits and the women dressed in colorful dresses or skirts and blouses. Most of the boys my age appeared taller than I and had crewcuts; some wore jackets. I looked at my pointed black boots and then glanced at my long hair in the rearview mirror. In its reflection, I could see my mother nervously pressing the front of her faded yellow dress with her hands, I glanced at my father. He was biting his lower lip again and his hands were clenched.

"Aren't we getting out?" Torito asked, rolling down the window.

"Not yet," I said, reaching underneath the seat and pulling out the campus map sent to me by the university. I was stalling for time, waiting for the family parked next to us to leave. "I'll be in Kenna Hall," I said. "According to this map, Kenna is on the other side, behind Walsh," I untied the rope that held the driver's door shut, got out, and went around to help my father.

"I am not getting out, Panchito," he said decisively, lighting a cigarette.

"I am not either," my mother said apologetically. "I'll stay with Rorra and your father while you and the boys unload your stuff."

I didn't argue with them; I knew how they felt. While my family waited in the car, I went looking for Kenna Hall to check in. I followed other students and their families who seemed to be headed in the right direction, though a few of them seemed as lost and confused as I was. I spotted a short line of people waiting outside the entrance to an old, gray three-story dormitory, which turned out to be Kenna Hall. The line moved quickly. When it was my turn to check in, the attendant, who was sitting behind a small table, smiled and asked politely: "What's your name?"

"Frank Jiménez." Ar home I preferred being called Panchito. But my first grade teacher, Miss Scalapino, had called me Frank because she said it was easier to pronounce. The name Frank stayed with me throughout elementary school. In junior high and high school I was called Frankie, which I favored over Frank because it was closer to the English translation of the name Panchito.

"You're not on our list," he said, running his index finger on a long list of names beginning with the letter H.

"It's under the J's," I said, spelling it out for him. He gave me a puzzled look as he checked off my name with his red pencil.

"It's a five-dollar deposit for the key; sign here, next to your name," he said.

I handed him a five-dollar bill and signed. He inspected my signature, shook his head, and handed mc the key in a small white envelope. I rushed back to the car, keeping my head down and not looking at anyone.

Trampita and I unloaded the boxes out of the trunk and placed them on the sidewalk in front of the DeSoto. I glanced over and noticed the bulge underneath his striped blue shirt. When he was an infant, Trampita had gotten a hernia. We were living in a migrant labor camp in Santa Rosa that winter. Our parents worked at night in an apple cannery and left Roberto to take care of Trampita and me while they were gone. One cold night, after Roberto and I had fallen asleep, Trampita rolled oft the mattress that was on the dirt floor and landed outside the tent and cried so much that he had ruptured his navel.

"Why can't I go with them?" Rorra whined.

"I want to go with them, too," said Rubén.

"
Ya, pues
!" my father said impatiently. Enough. "Do you understand?"

My sister stomped her feet, turned around, away from my father, and made a bad face. Adjusting his soiled cap, my father said, "Torito, you take Rubén with you and help Panchito and Trampita with the boxes."

"I'll take care of Rubén," Torito said proudly.

"Better behave,
mijo,
" my mother said, gently warning
Rubén as be jumped out of the car. Trampita, Torito, and I headed to Kenna Hall, each one of us carrying a box. Rubén skipped along to keep up.

We walked up a narrow stairway to the second floor of Kenna, following other students carrying suitcases, stereos, and boxes. They squeezed past others who were coming down the stairs empty-handed and on their way to get more of their belongings. The dimly lit hallway with dark brown vinyl floors looked like a long tunnel. Loud banging noises echoed in the corridor as students slammed room doors shut. A quarter of the way down the hall we found my room, 218. I buttressed the box on my knee and balanced it with my left hand while I unlocked the door. A ray of light coming from the room's window pierced through and burst into the hallway. Trampita and Torito, who were huffing and puffing, dropped the boxes on one of the two empty beds. I set down my box on the other empty one. The rectangular room had identical worn furniture on both sides: a tall, narrow closet by the entrance, a twin bed with a blue and white striped mattress, and a light brown wooden desk and chair to match and an adjustable desk lamp. "This looks like the one-room cabins we used to live in when we picked cotton in Corcoran," Trampita said, "only it's a little smaller." Noticing my sadness, he quickly added, "But at least it doesn't have holes on the walls!"

"Okay, let's get going. Our parents are waiting for us." I pushed them lightly out of the room. We headed back to the car.

"
Ya era tiempo,
" said my father, irritated. It's about time. "What took you so long?"

"I am sorry," I responded. "It was very crowded." I hugged Trampita, Torito, and Rubén and said goodbye to them. I opened the back car door and kissed Rorra and my mother.

"
Que Dios
te
bendiga, mijo,
" my mother said, giving me a blessing. I felt my throat tighten and I tried to hold back my tears. My father put out his cigarette and patted me on the back. He reached into his wallet and took out a card with a faded picture of the Virgen de Guadalupe and handed it to me.

"
Cuídate, mijo,
" he said. Take care of yourself, son. His lower lip quivered. "Remember ... be respectful. If you respect others, they will respect you."

"
Sí, Papá,
" I said, kissing lightly his scarred and leathery hands, Trampita slid into the driver's seat, fastened the door with the rope, starred the motor, and slowly backed out of the parking space. The car sputtered as they drove away, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind. I stood alone on the sidewalk and waved goodbye, following the DeSoto with my eyes until it turned right onto El Camino Real and disappeared.

When I got back to my room, I closed the door and locked it. The image of my family driving away kept flashing in my mind. I sat on the bed, staring at the empty wall and fighting back the urge to cry.
I have to be tough,
I thought.
This is the opportunity I worked so hard for.
When my father hurt his back and could no longer work, my family stopped following seasonal crops. To help support our family, Roberto and I got janitorial jobs, each one of us working thirty-five hours a week while going to school. My brother worked for the Santa Maria Unified School District, and I was employed by the Santa Maria Window Cleaners, cleaning commercial offices. All during high school, I worked in the mornings before school, in the evenings, and on weekends, sweeping and dusting offices, cleaning windows and toilets, and washing and waxing floors. And although my father taught me that all work was noble, I did not want to pick crops or labor as a janitor all of my life. I studied every night, after work, seven days a week. My efforts paid off. I made the California Scholarship Federation every semester
for four years, which earned me several scholarships and a federal loan for one thousand dollars to pay for my first year of college. With the help of Mr. Penney, my high school counselor, I was admitted at the University of Santa Clara.

I picked up the three boxes from the beds and placed them on the floor, near the closet. A wave of sadness came over me as I began unpacking the new clothes my mother had bought for me as a surprise gift for college: two pairs of pants, one navy blue, one black; a couple of short-sleeved shirts; three pairs of white underwear. She saved from her grocery money every week to buy them at a back-to-school sale at JC Penney, as well as my pointed black boots. I smiled to myself as I recalled Trampita's telling me that I could kill cockroaches in corners with them. I taped the card from my father of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall above my desk and placed my worn-out pocket dictionary and thesaurus on the top shelf and pencils and pen in the desk drawer.

I finally had a desk I could call my own. All during high school, I had done my homework at the public library and at the gas company after I finished cleaning it in the late evening. As I was sitting at my desk trying to get a feel for it, I heard someone unlocking the door. I jumped up, wiped my eyes, and opened it. Before me stood a tall, athletic, blue-eyed student with a crewcut. Behind him were two women. "Hi, I am Smokey Murphy," he said, looking down at me with a broad, friendly smile and shaking my hand.

People call me Frank or Frankie," I said. "My last name is Jiménez."

"I guess we're roommates. Hey, I want you to meet my mother, Lois, and Kathy Griffith, my girlfriend."

"Glad to meet you," I said, admiring Kathy's pretty round face and pageboy hairstyle. His mother was short and thin and had a raspy voice.

"I see you have already staked your claim," Smokey said, rolling up his shirt sleeves and checking out the stuff I had brought.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Don't be silly—of course I don't mind." He plopped himself on his bed, which was on the right side of the room, against the wall. "Hey, these beds are pretty good." He lay down on it and stretched. His big feet hung a couple of inches over the foot of the bed. "I wish they were a bit longer, though."

"I don't have that problem."

"Yeah, I guess you don't," he said, turning over and scanning my size. I measured five feet seven inches. We both laughed.

"Kathy and I will go get your stuff, Smokey, while you rest," his mother said in a friendly but sarcastic tone.

Smokey leaped out of bed and put his arm around her. "Now, Mom, no need to get riled. We'll bring our stuff up in no time at all."

"I'll give you a hand," I said, following them out the door.

After we hauled Smokey's things into the room, his mom and girlfriend said goodbye and drove away. I was surprised to see how calm and happy Smokey appeared to be as we walked back to our room. The first thing he did as he began unpacking was to put a framed picture of Kathy on his desk.

"Where is she going to college?" I asked.

"Oh, she's not going to college yet. She's a senior at Woodland High School; that's where we met. She's a year behind me."

"Where's Woodland?"

"Near Sacramento; that's where I grew up. Where's your hometown?"

"Santa Maria."

"Never heard of it."

"It's a small agricultural town about two hundred miles south of here."