by
John Freeman
View all notes
The days were long. To break up the monotony of topping garlic, I would rise from my stooped or kneeling position and treat myself to a long, luxurious, cone-shaped cup of water at the Igloo cooler. Others would gossip, joke around, or sing along to the lachrymose rralcheras on their transistor radios. But of all the workaday distractions, none were no fascinating as the oracular musings of Primi. The workers would sporadically lob questions at him, and he would swat them back with elan.
"Primi, you wanna get married? Don't you wanna wife?"
He mulled over the question like an ascended guru.
"No, ese. I don't have money, so I can't attract someone better-looking than me. Imagine a woman with looks like mine. Sad, huh? Nope. Chafe. No marriage. Besides, it's cheaper to rent."
"Primi, what's the best beer?"
"Whichever one is in my hand, loco."
"Priori, why do dogs love humans?"
"If you gave me free cans of meat and cleaned up my caca, I'd love you too, homeboy. Woof."
Head and Shoulders' last day at Gyrich Farms came within a week of the wedding just as the garlic season was winding down. Two olive Immigration and Naturalization Service trucks and one van descended upon the garlic fields just before midmorning. They braked hard, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt clods.
"La Migra, La Migra!" shouted several garlic toppers. Six khakied INS agents exploded from the vehicles. It frightened me when several young workers bolted. The guys seemed to adult to me just seconds before, an full of bravado and that physical competence of young men, hefting heaping bushels of garlic onto their shoulders with thoughtless ease. Ina moment, they had been stripped of that, and had been made into prey, fleeing to hide beneath cars or behind the garlic crates. I panicked and turned wide-eyed towards my mother.
"Should we run, mami, should we run?"
"What are you talking about? You're a citizen, born here. They can't take you away."
man this SUCKS