Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (3 page)

Once the room was quiet, I slowly opened my eyes. I had had them closed for so long that the sunlight coming through the windows blinded me. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands and then looked to my left at the jar. I looked for the caterpillar but could not see it. Thinking it might be hidden, I put my hand in the jar and lightly stirred the leaves. To my surprise, the caterpillar had spun itself into a cocoon and had attached itself to a small twig. It looked like a tiny cotton bulb, just like Roberto had said it would. I gently stroked it with my index finger, picturing it asleep and peaceful.

At the end of the school day, Miss Scalapino gave me a note to take home to my parents. Papá and Mamá did not know how to read, but they did not have to. As soon as they saw my swollen upper lip and the scratches on my left cheek, they knew what the note said. When I told them what happened, they were very upset but relieved that I did not disrespect the teacher.

For the next several days, going to school and facing Miss Scalapino was harder than ever. However, I slowly began to get over what happened that Friday. Once I got used to the routine in school and I picked up some English words, I felt more comfortable in class.

On Wednesday, May 23, a few days before the end of the school year, Miss Scalapino took me by surprise. After we were all sitting down and she had taken roll, she called for everyone's attention. I did not understand what she said, but I heard her say my name as she held up a blue ribbon. She then picked up my drawing of the butterfly that had disappeared weeks before and held it up for everyone to see. She walked up to me and handed me the drawing and the silk blue ribbon that had the number one printed on it in gold. I knew then I had received first prize for my drawing. I was so proud I felt like bursting out of my skin. My classmates, including Curtis, stretched their necks to see the ribbon.

That afternoon, during our free period, I went over to check on the caterpillar. I turned the jar around, trying to see the cocoon. It was beginning to crack open. I excitedly cried out, "Look, look," pointing to it. The whole class, like a swarm of bees, rushed over to the counter. Miss Scalapino took the jar and placed it on top of a desk in the middle of the classroom so everyone could see it. For the next several minutes we all stood there watching the butterfly emerge from its cocoon, in slow motion.

At the end of the day, just before the last bell, Miss Scalapino picked up the jar and took the class outside to the playground. She placed the jar on the ground and we all circled around her. I had a hard time seeing over the other kids, so Miss Scalapino called me and motioned for me to open the jar. I broke through the circle, knelt on the ground, and unscrewed the top. Like magic, the butterfly flew into the air, fluttering its wings up and down.

After school I waited in line for my bus in front of the playground. I proudly carried the blue ribbon in my right hand and the drawing in the other. Arthur and Curtis came up and stood behind me to wait for their bus. Curtis motioned for me to show him the drawing again. I held it up so he could see it.

"He really likes it, Francisco," Arthur said to me in Spanish.

"
¿Cómo se dice 'es tuyo' en inglés?
" I asked.

"It's yours," answered Arthur.

"It's yours," I repeated, handing the drawing to Curtis.

We called it Tent City. Everybody called it Tent City, although it was neither a city nor a town. It was a farm worker labor camp owned by Sheehey Strawberry Farms.

Tent City had no address; it was simply known as rural Santa Maria. It was on Main Street, about ten miles east of the center of town. Half a mile east of it were hundreds of acres of strawberries cultivated by Japanese sharecroppers and harvested by people from the camp. Behind Tent City was dry wilderness, and a mile north of it was the city dump. Many of the residents in the camp were single men, most of whom, like us, had crossed the border illegally. There were a few single women and a few families, all Mexican.

Mamá was already expecting when we moved to Tent City from Corcoran at the end of January, after the cotton season was over. By May, when the strawberry harvest started, she was only a few weeks away from giving birth, so she did not join Papá in the fields picking strawberries for Ito. She could not bend over, and picking on her knees was too hard on her.

To make ends meet, Mamá cooked for twenty farm workers who lived in Tent City. She made their lunches and had supper ready for them when they returned from picking strawberries at the end of the day. She would get up at four o'clock every morning, seven days a week, to make the tortillas for both meals. On weekends and all during the summer, Roberto and I helped her. Once Papá left for work, Roberto rolled the tacos while I wrapped them in wax paper and put them in lunch bags. At eleven-thirty, Roberto carried the twenty lunches in a box and delivered them, on foot, to the workers, who were given half an hour for lunch. When he returned, he and I washed dishes in a large aluminum tub. We then took care of our younger brother, Trampita, while Mamá took a nap. Around three o'clock she would start cooking dinner, which was served from six to seven. After supper, Roberto and I again cleaned the pots and washed dishes while Mamá fed Trampita. On Saturdays, she did all of the grocery shopping for the week. Because we did not have an icebox, Papá made one. Every three days, he went into town to buy a large block of ice, which he wrapped in burlap and placed inside a hole he dug in the ground by the entrance to our tent. The hole was twice as large as the block of ice, leaving room on all four sides and on top for things to be kept cold.

Even though Mamá was always tired from all the work she did, she made sure everything was ready for the new baby. She asked Papá to seal the base of the tent by piling extra dirt, about six inches high, all around it outside so that animals, especially snakes, could not crawl underneath during the night. When Papá had finished, Mamá pleaded with him to build a floor. He agreed, and every evening after he came home from work, he sent Roberto and me to the city dump to look for discarded lumber to build a floor inside our tent.

Our trip to the dump was always an adventure. We waited until dusk, after the dump caretaker left, before raiding for treasures because we had no money to buy them. When he went home in the evenings, the caretaker locked the more valuable items, such as used clothing, car parts, and broken lamps, in a makeshift shed. The larger pieces—mattresses, box springs, broken pieces of furniture—he left outside, leaning against the storehouse. Besides lumber, I collected books, hoping to read them once I learned how. My favorites were those with pictures.

Late one evening, thinking the caretaker had left, Roberto and I sneaked into the dump. The dump keeper, who had hidden behind one of the mounds of rubbish, took us by surprise. He chased us, yelling and cursing in broken Spanish. We were scared and went home empty-handed that night, but we went back several more times until we got enough lumber to complete Mamá's floor. We also found pieces of linoleum and laid them over the wood to cover the holes and slivers. The different shapes and colors made the floor look like a quilt.

On one of our trips we found a large wooden box that became the crib for the new baby. Mamá took an old green army blanket, tore it in half, and lined the box with it. She made a little pillow with stuffing from an old mattress and cloth from a white flour sack.

Mamá also made sure the entrance to our tent was always closed to keep out the smoke and odor from the camp's garbage dump, located directly in front of our tent, twenty yards away. It was a large rectangular hole dug in the dirt, about six feet long by four feet wide and three feet deep. On windy days, the foul smell of the city dump competed with the stench of the Tent City dump. The older neighborhood kids killed snakes and threw them in the garbage hole when it was burning and watched them sizzle and squirm. I could not figure out why they twisted and turned in the fire after they were dead. It was as though the fire brought them back to life. Once Trampita got too close to the garbage hole and fell in. Roberto pulled him out. Luckily it was not burning. From then on, Papá did not let us play near it.

When the baby was finally born, Roberto, Trampita, and I were excited to see him, especially because we had worked so hard to get things ready for him. Papá and Mamá named him Juan Manuel, but we all called him Torito, or little bull, because he weighed ten pounds at birth. He had a chubby, round face and curly brown hair. I thought the nickname Torito fitted him because he had a strong grip. I would put two of my fingers in his tiny hand, and when I tried pulling away, he would not let go and would kick with both feet. When Mamá nursed him, he closed his eyes and played with her hair. Whenever I changed his diaper, I made him laugh by tickling his stomach.

I liked playing with Torito because he was always cheerful, and because he helped me forget about the report card I got in early June, a few days before he was born. Miss Scalapino, my first-grade teacher, said I had to repeat her class because I did not know English.

About two months after he was born, Torito got sick. I knew there was something wrong with him when he cried off and on all during the night. The next morning when I tickled him he did not even smile. He looked pale. Mamá, who had not slept much that night either, touched his forehead.

"I think Torito has a fever," she said, a bit flustered. "Please look after him while Roberto and 1 prepare the lunches."

I touched my forehead and then Torito's to see if I could tell the difference. His felt a lot hotter. I then changed his soiled diaper. It smelled terrible. That afternoon, Mamá had to change him often. His thighs and bottom got as red as the back of Papá's sunburned neck. By the afternoon of the following day, the aluminum tub was almost filled with soiled diapers. To rinse them, I got water in a bucket from the faucet, which was located a few feet from the outhouse in the middle of the camp. Luckily, I did not have to wait in line too long. Only one woman, with two buckets, was ahead of me. Once she finished, I filled my bucket and carried it back to our tent. I poured the water in the diaper tub and rinsed the diapers with my right hand while I held my nose with my left. Mamá then heated water in a pot, poured it into another tub, washed the diapers on a washboard, and hung them up to dry outside on a clothesline Papá made.

Mamá bathed Torito in cold water several times a day, trying to bring his fever down, but it did not do any good. In the evenings we prayed for him in front of a faded picture of the
Virgen de Guadalupe,
which was tied with string to the canvas wall above the mattress.

One night as we were praying, Torito got worse. He stiffened and clenched his arms and legs, and his eyes rolled back. Saliva dribbled from both sides of his mouth. His lips turned purple. He stopped breathing. Thinking he was dead, I started crying hysterically. Roberto and Mamá did too. Trampita got scared and began to whimper. Papá tried to pry open Torito's mouth but could not. His jaws were locked. Mamá picked him up from the box and held him tightly against her chest. "Please God, don't take him away, please," Mamá repeated over and over again. Torito slowly began to breathe. His arms and legs relaxed. I could see the brown color of his eyes again. We all sighed with relief, wiping our tears with the backs of our hands and crying and laughing at the same time.

No one slept well that night. Torito woke up crying several times. The next morning, Mamá's eyes were puffy and red. She took a lot longer than usual to make the tortillas and the lunches. After Papá left for work, and Roberto and I washed the dishes, Mamá kept her eyes glued on Torito. She gave him water and tried to nurse him, but she was not producing enough milk, so she prepared him a bottle. By the afternoon, she could hardly keep her head up. Roberto and I convinced her to take a nap while we took care of Torito.

Mamá had trouble falling asleep. When she finally did, Torito started crying. She jumped out of bed, picked him up in her arms, and rocked him, trying to calm him. Once he quieted down, she asked Roberto and me to clean the beans to cook for supper. "That's all we'll have tonight," she said apologetically, "
frijoles de la olla.
I hope the boarders won't mind."

"They won't," I responded, placing the bean pot on the kerosene stove.

That evening, after supper, Mamá laid Torito on the mattress to change him. When she pulled the front of the soiled diaper off and saw blood, she screamed at Papá, "
Viejo,
he is getting worse! Look, there's blood in his stool!"

Papá rushed over and knelt on the mattress next to Torito, who started to moan. He felt Torito's forehead and stomach. "He still has a fever," Papá said pensively. "His stomach feels hard. Maybe it's something he ate. If he doesn't get better soon, we'll have to take him to the hospital."

"But we don't have any money," Mamá responded, sobbing and looking sadly at Torito.

"We'll borrow, or ... something," Papá said, putting his right arm around Mamá's shoulder.

Papá was about to continue when Doña María, our next door neighbor, interrupted him. "Can I come in?" she asked, poking her head in the entrance to our tent.

Doña María was known in Tent City as
la curandera
because she had a gift for curing people using different herbs and chants. She was tall and slender and always wore black dresses that matched the color of her straight, long hair. Her skin was ruddy and pockmarked, and her eyes were deep set and light green. Tied around her waist was a small, purple velvet bag that jingled when she walked.

"Come in," Papá answered.

"I've been hearing your baby cry," Doña María continued. "What's wrong with him?"

"We don't know," Mamá answered.

"Could it be the evil eye?" asked Doña María, holding the velvet bag in the palm of her left hand. "He is a very handsome child."

"
¿El mal de ojo?
No, I think it's his stomach. It's as hard as a rock. Feel it," Papá responded, bringing the kerosene lamp closer to Torito so she could get a better look at him.