The Brave, page 7
Some time before he died Morgan sold off the hundreds of acres behind the gas station-store.
That dry land was turned into a dump.
A limited-access ramp was arranged off the highway in the flats a quarter mile from Morgantown. An unpaved road led from the ramp through the main gate of the dump. A chain-link fence surrounding the dump now ran for miles. One section of the fence ran twenty meters behind the store. Old Morgan’s double-wide almost backed onto it. Day by day by day for years now trucks of all kinds, pick-ups, dump trucks, even tankers had pulled off the highway, shifted along the unpaved road into the dump. If the weather was dry, as usual, each truck raised an enormous cloud of dust. Together the trucks dumped probably every kind of refuse under the sun into that dump.
Just as the barriers the authorities built across the road from the highway down to Morgantown did not keep the people in, the chain-link fence around the dump did not keep the people out.
Holes were cut in the fence. The men, the women, the children of Morgantown scavenged the dump for anything they could turn into cash money.
Although sometimes someone might get a few days of real work, at a real job, the dump was the main source of cash money for the people of Morgantown.
When Morgan died, no one knew who owned the gas station-store. No one seemed to care. The cement block building remained. When Rafael’s brother’s truck, or the other, bigger truck brought scrap metal into the junk yard in Big Dry Lake, it returned with boxes of cereal, sometimes fresh fruits and vegetables, baloney, hamburger, milk, beer, vodka, cigarettes and whatever cash money remained to be dispersed to the people who had collected the scrap metal from the dump and loaded the truck that time. The foodstuffs would be put in the cement block building. It looked more like a warehouse than a store. People would take what they needed and put about the right amount of money, more or less, into the always open drawer of the cash register on the counter. That money, too, would be brought to town and used to purchase food the next trip. There was no accounting. Some people in Morgantown, like Mama, had no source of money and therefore could never put money in the register but still had to eat. Occasionally a few people, especially a few men who had been thought to take more vodka and cigarettes than they had contributed to the register, had to be spoken to, urged, even dragged along on scavenge trips to make up the difference. For the most part, this imprecise economy worked without much acrimony.
After Morgan died, no one ever had come along to put the people off this land, to claim it as his own. After a while, the electricity was turned off. No one had ever received a bill. Always before they had paid what they owed to Morgan. Unsuccessful efforts were made to collect the money to pay the electricity bill and to have electricity turned on again. Never enough money was collected to satisfy the bill and the electric company had no patience with these people. So the gas pumps and the water pumps no longer worked.
From that point forward, the gas station-store was just “the store.”
“Morgantown” was the name the people in Big Dry Lake and its environs gave the gully. The people in the gully seldom referred to the place as such. Morgan had died a long time before. They had a cemetery in the gully and sometimes the Roman Catholic priest from Big Dry Lake dropped by to see them but the people in the gully knew they weren’t a town.
People around there also referred to the people living in the gully as “homeless”. Sometimes drifters showed up hitch-hiking or in cars that could not go another mile, or could not make it up the hillside highway, and some of these stayed until they found a way to go. Some stayed until they died.
The people in the gully did not consider themselves homeless. Three families lived in what was left of Morgan’s double wide. Other combinations of people lived in the other trailers or in vans which sat on the earth flat on their wheels. There were plenty of abandoned cars in the gully which could shelter a drifter for a night or a week. For example, Rafael and Rita, very young, moved into a single axle travel trailer which had been pulled into the gully by an old man one storming night. The old man had never gotten out of the car during the storm and no one had gone to see about him and once the storm was over, the next afternoon, he was found dead held up in the driver’s seat by his seat belt. He was buried and his ancient car sold in parts. For another example, when it was noticed Mama smelled too awful to continue living where she was, a huge packing crate had been emptied and gotten over the dump fence somehow and set up for her near the store. Her big, soft bed with the brass bedstead was set up first, and a bedside table. The packing crate then was turned over to cover the bed and table. A door was cut in one corner away from the bed. Over the bed a big window was cut so Mama could sit up in the bed and see everybody in the gully, watch the children play, talk with people who came by. Heavy, sliding curtains were arranged for both the bed and the window. A cardboard picture with a small cut in it of a lake among snow-capped mountains found in the dump was nailed onto the wall facing her bed. Stencils on four sides of the outside of the crate said URBINE, UR INE, TURBINE and TUR INE. Both Rafael and Rita, perhaps cousins, had been born in that gully.
There were homes in the gully between the highway and the dump.
Rita reached the soft shoulder of the highway. Brushing her hair wet with sweat away from her face, she looked at Rafael’s purchases on the ground, his new jeans and shirt. She looked into his face.
She said, “What?”
Rafael smiled. He hugged her neck.
She stepped back. “You’re not drunk.”
“Not very.”
“You’re always drunk when you get off the bus,” she said. “What happened to your hair?”
“It was cut.”
“Who cut it?”
Rafael made his fingers work like a scissors. “Barbershop. I went to a barbershop.”
“How much did that cost?”
He answered honestly, in a way. “Nothing.”
Lina was still struggling up the slope from the gully.
“What are all these things?” Rita asked.
Rafael picked up the two dresses he had folded carefully over his other purchases on the ground.
“For you. You like them?”
Her fingers touched one dress and then the other. “Very. They have price tags on them.”
“I bought them.”
“How?”
“I have a job.”
“Then why aren’t you working at it?”
“Thursday,” Rafael said. “I have to go back to the city Thursday.”
“Rafael,” Rita said. “They did not pay you for work you have not yet done.”
“I did some work today,” Rafael said. “It was very difficult.”
“Doing what?”
“In a warehouse. The boss liked me. He paid me a lot because he wants me to come back Thursday.”
Rita looked at all the things on the ground Rafael had brought with him and laughed. “A turkey?”
“Yes.” Rafael laughed, too. “I bought a turkey.”
“It’s so big!”
Rafael handed his wife the dresses.
He crouched. As Lina toddled to him, he hugged her. “Lina, Lina, Lina.” Then he said, “Look what I have for Lina!” He took the play doctor box and showed Lina the picture on it of the stethoscope, tongue depressors, unbreakable thermometer.
Lina looked closely at the small picture at a corner of the box of a boy with a stethoscope around his neck and a reflector on his forehead.
Still crouching, Rafael watched his wife holding the dresses against her body, admiring them. In the gully two or three people had stopped whatever they were doing to watch frankly Rafael and Rita and Lina beside the highway.
Rita smiled at him. Her eyes were wet. “You’re crazy,” she said.
“Come on.” Standing up, leaning over, Rafael picked up the other two boxes, the turkey, the half-gallon bottle of vodka. He started down the slope.
Rita followed him, carrying the two dresses in her hand shoulder high, away from her body.
Halfway down the slope, Lina slipped and fell. Her chest landed on the play doctor box.
Rafael looked around at her. “Come on, Lina!”
The first person they met was Rafael’s brother, Nito. Nito had a beer can in his hand and blood in his eyes. He focused on the vodka bottle dangling from one of Rafael’s fingers. He said, “Hermanito…”
Rafael laughed. “Later, Nito!”
A woman they passed, one who lived in the double wide, stood silently. Her eyes examined the dresses Rita was carrying.
Rafael’s father sat in the shade of the store with another old man. They sat in bent, torn lawn chairs from the dump. Empty pint vodka bottles were at their feet. His father’s eyes and cheeks were wet. His nose was running. He said, “My teeth, Rafael.”
Rafael hesitated. “Maybe we’ll get them fixed.”
“Just to be rid of them, Rafael,” his father said. “To have them out.”
Rafael smiled. “I tell you: I’ll do that.”
“It’s no good unless you can get out the roots,” the other old man said. “It’s the roots that hurt. Can you do that, Rafael? Can you take out the roots of your father’s teeth?”
Rafael shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Did you find work, Rafael?” The other old man ran his eyes over all the new things.
Rafael nodded. “In the city. I have to go back Thursday.”
“How much they payin’ you?”
“In a warehouse,” Rafael said. “A special kind of warehouse.”
“They have any more jobs to give out?”
“Not right now,” Rafael said. “I asked.”
While he was moving away, Rafael heard the old man notify Rafael’s father, “Rafael’s found work.”
“Eh,” Rafael’s father said. “The young can do anything.”
“Lina! What have you there?” In her packing crate, Mama was sitting up in her bed looking and calling through her window.
Lina held her box up as high as she could so Mama could see the pictures on the box.
“Did Lina get a present?”
Lina nodded energetically.
Walking backward in the dust, Rafael watched and listened to them. He should have brought Mama a present, too. He could have afforded a present for Rita’s grandmother.
Outside his own trailer, Marta sat in the dust. Looking no higher than his knees, she watched her father approach. She hummed a little song.
Rafael put the baseball glove box, the turkey, the bottle of vodka on the floor just inside the opened door of the trailer.
Crouching, Rafael put the biggest box flat in the dust in front of Marta so she could see the picture.
Looking at the size of the box, then at the oversized picture on the box, the little girl’s eyes grew wide.
“Marta gets a present, too,” Rafael said.
Looking over Rafael’s shoulder, Rita asked “What is it?”
“It makes music,” Rafael said. “You should hear it.”
Rita laughed. “You’re crazy,” she said.
Marta put the fingers of one hand onto the edge of the box. Then she lifted her hand. She put her fingers onto the box again, fitting the tips of them to the keys of the keyboard. She raised her hand again, slowly, and refitted her fingers to different keys. Her finger tips left dust on the box.
Rafael laughed. He tousled Marta’s hair with his fingers. Then he stood up.
He glanced at Rita. Never had he seen more light coming from her face.
Frankie was asleep on the rags built up in his orange crate in the place nearest the trailer where there was shade all day except for earliest light. The rags just under the mid-section of his naked body were stained with fresh urine and defecation and stank. The baby had a light frown. He seemed to be concentrating on his sleep.
Rafael balanced the smallest box on one corner of the crate nearest Frankie’s feet.
“Is chat a baseball glove?” Rita asked.
“Yes.”
“No one ’round here plays baseball.”
“Sure they do.”
Smiling, Rita said, “You’re crazy.”
She went up the steps and into the trailer.
Picking up the turkey, Rafael followed her. Inside the trailer, he put the turkey into the empty, aluminum sink basin in the kitchenette.
“What am I supposed to do with that thing?” Rita asked.
“Cook it.”
“How am I to cook it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rafael, there’s nothing big enough in this whole place to cook that thing.”
“Give some of it out,” Rafael said.
“We’ll have to fry pieces of it,” Rita said.
“I’m not sure.”
Turning, he held her to him. He kissed her face. For a long moment, he kissed her mouth, deeply.
With the heel of her hand, she pushed against his shoulder. She freed her mouth from his. “Will you get me buckets of water?”
At the bottom of the gully along the chain link fence that surrounded the dump there was a sluggish creek that was the source of all the water for the people of that place, for their washing, their bathing, their cooking, their drinking.
“How many buckets?” he asked.
“Four.”
Four buckets of water at that hour meant Rita planned to wash the children and herself earlier than usual.
“Want to go watch the sun set tonight?” Rafael asked.
Rita grinned. “Might.”
Rafael let go of her. “I’ll get six buckets.”
Outside the trailer, holding an empty plastic pail in each hand, Rafael turned back, stopped and stood looking at the trailer a moment. Lina sat on the steps of the trailer, taking things out of the play doctor box, dropping most of them in the dust. Marta sat on the ground as she was before, humming, admiring her box. Rafael wondered if Marta thought the box itself and not its contents was her present. The box with the baseball glove had tipped. One corner of it stood in Frankie’s orange crate crib. The baby was silent. Inside the trailer, Rita coughed. On the steps, Lina coughed and rubbed her nose and eyes. Marta sneezed. Rafael took a deep breath.
Being able to do things for his family filled his heart with love for them.
j
WHEN RAFAEL entered, the people sitting around in the store fell silent. Never before in his life had that happened.
Rafael said, “I’m buyin.”
There was a stirring of feet. Still no one said anything.
He put a five and two one dollar bills into the open drawer of the register.
He had brought six buckets of water to the trailer, filling the bottom of the aluminum shower stall, first stoppering the drain with a small rubber mat. Kneeling on the floor, Rita would bathe the children in the water at the bottom of the stall. Then, sitting in the water, knees up to her chin, she would bathe herself. She would leave the water in the stall for Rafael to use. He poured another bucket of water into the kitchenette sink, first removing the turkey to the sideboard, and stoppering that drain.
While she was bathing the children, he walked to the store.
The silence suggested to Rafael the people in the store had been talking about him before he entered. That made him feel important.
109
Buying them all beer made him feel important, too.
He handed out four cans of beer. Taking one himself, opening it, drinking some of it, he sat on an upturned metal crate. A six-pack collar with one beer left in it, plus the full six-pack he placed on the floor at his feet.
The others sat on sufficiently mended chairs, mostly lawn chairs, from the dump. Rafael’s father sat in a torn, broken overstuffed brown chair. He appeared more sober than he had before. In shorts, the boy, Ninja, sat on a box he had placed atop another box. His dirt stained legs dangled.
With all the windows removed, the store was cooler and less dusty than the outside in the late afternoons.
With mock pleasure in her voice, Marie said, “You have a job, Rafael?” Years before, Marie had worked as a chambermaid at a motel this side of Big Dry Lake. She had walked to her job along the highway before dawn every morning and back in the heat of early afternoon. She had five small children then and no husband. Finally the alcohol she drank made going to work every morning impossible. Except at dump picking, she had not worked since.
Rafael nodded.
Nito asked, “What’s this about working in a warehouse, Rafael?”
“A warehouse,” Rafael said.
“What do they handle there?”
Rafael answered, “Film.”
“Film? Is that heavy work?”
“Yes,” Rafael said. “The heaviest.”
“How did you hear about this job, Rafael?” his father asked.
“A bartender. In the city.”
“You never mentioned it,” his father said.
“There wasn’t time,” Rafael said. “I went right over.”
“Someone hired you after you had been drinking?” Marie asked.
“And you say there are no other jobs there?” Nito asked.
“Not right now.”
“No one ever hired me after I had been drinking,” Marie said.
“The boss even gave me a drink,” Rafael said.
“He drinks himself.”
His father asked, “What’s this boss’s name, Rafael?”
“McCarthy,” Rafael said. “His nephew, Larry, helps him run the place.”
“You say the warehouse handles film?” Nito asked.
“Yes. For the movies.”
“Would that be much film?” Nito asked.
Rafael shrugged. “It’s a big loft.”
“The movies,” Ninja said.
Alessandro’s voice was loud. “You’re telling us this boss paid you before you ever did work? He gave you a drink and paid you?”
Rafael sipped from his can of beer. “I did work today. It was very hard.”
“How long did you work today?” Nito asked.
“Two, three hours.”
“How much an hour?”
“The boss advanced me some money.”
