Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Like a Broken Wheel
Like a Broken Wheel
“Olivia, I’m through up here. Lupe will give me a ride to Brownsville. He will stay a little while longer. I have enough for the bus to Tampico,
then I’ll walk, hitchhike and use the train until I get back down to Tuxpan. We drive south in the morning so look for me in about three or four
days.”
When she hung up the phone she didn’t know what she would tell her son Armando. She would have to tell him the truth that his father was coming
home.
She thought. “He will be like a girl at her quinceanera, jumping and dancing and singing with joy. He cannot know that it is not a time for
celebration but a time to admit defeat. A time to get used to eating like birds, like we did two years ago before Ramon went north to work with his
cousin Lupe with the blocks and the trowel in Austin, Texas”.
“Ramon will not be celebrating. He will not be happy when he sees the lines of young men at the gate to the docks, at the Veracruz Roadways Projects
office, all waiting for a chance to work for nothing, enough for food but not enough for food and rent, enough for rent but not enough for rent and
food. Will it never end? He will not be happy with the small amount I have saved. It seems he sent so much, tens of thousands of pesos, but I had to
help my sister and her family, buy school things and clothes for Armando, pay the doctor when he got the gripe, when he cut his foot. Surely he
can’t expect I could save that much.”
Olivia Ortiz was filled with so many emotions she sat there, holding the phone, unable or unwilling to move – so conflicted by fear and shame and
helplessness. She was afraid Ramon would go into a rage about how much money was left, how much she spent. Shamed because he had risked everything to
make the money, send it home, that he had worked so hard for so long and perhaps it really was her fault they had little to show for it now. She
shared the hopeless, empty feeling with all the poor people of Tuxpan who could not envision a better tomorrow.
And what about the boy? She remembered taking Ramon’s old tattered, plaid shirt from his sack before he left. Armando found it; made it his own,
slept with it and sometimes would wear it like a robe. She would often see the quick wiry boy, now seven years old, stalking through the platano, his
small feet encased in red mud, mimicking his beloved father; cursing, spitting, slashing out at the thick, green stalks and fronds with a stick. In
the boy’s mouth, a small piece of wood, a prop cigarette to finish the picture. Sometimes the little man of the house went too far in his efforts to
help his Mami. Olivia could not count the times she had go to the neighbors, pay them for the chickens and eggs he stole and brought home with a grin.
He considered all chickens near his fence as free range stock. To Armando it was a simple Civil Rights question. The answer being that eggs produced
are the products of patently free peckers and scratchers who got food from not just the streets but also the Ortiz property and the small yards and
gardens of all of Armando’s neighbors.
His bravery was never more evident as the day his father was packing to leave. His five year old heart was beating with more than childish resolve.
“Papi, don’t leave, stay here with us. I will make the money. Show me how to make the money. Show me what to do and I can help. I will make the
money.” His eyes welled up but he turned away to hide the tears, then tried again and again until his father pulled away from his frantic grasp then
disappeared like a ghost into the early morning mist.
Lonely are the brave. The boy would not show his tears to his mother. She could hear his muffled sobs smothered by his pillow and bedding. He did not
care about the new shoes, the bright and handy school backpack – he missed his father, the man who had doted on the boy every minute he spent at
home. Armando knew nothing of the girl child who died for him in the birthing bed; he could never know how much his father was thankful for a
replacement, a boy, a beautiful boy to love, to hold, to teach.
For a while Armando will not notice poverty’s return to the Ortiz household – he will be so filled with love and adoration for his father that his
own very private celebration will continue for months to come. Olivia wonders what Ramon will remember after two long years. Will he ask about the new
bed, the rug, the pretty curtain for the shower? She hopes he will be anxious for the lovemaking, be anything but accusative, then, hopefully, he’ll
be totally involved in finding work, making some money after being idle for more than three months. She wonders what he will think about the weight
she’s gained; thirty pounds in about twenty months, then losing about ten of it in the last four months since the money began to trickle in, and
then stop altogether.
One thing for sure - she will not give him all the money that’s left. Some of it she will hide in a special place outside, near the big guymuchil
tree. No one knows what the future may hold. He could decide not to stay, again.
It only took him two days to get home. A trucker gave him a ride all the way from Tampico to Xalapa, he got another ride from there to Veracruz and he
walked the rest of the way to his little pink house.
It turned out that Olivia’s fears were for nothing. Ramon had put on some weight himself. There was no way to tell how much money he kept for
himself, how he lived while in EEUU. Armando was beside himself in joy but he knew his father needed some space for the reunion. After Ramon had all
the necessary drinks and food and shower and sex there would be a lifetime to catch up on all that had happened while he was gone. Olivia was right
about Ramon being disappointed about the tens of thousands of Mexicans out of work in the state of Veracruz.
Ramon knew a couple of guys who were in the Gulf Cartel. He thought “If only they would let you in for a short while. They know better – once you
have pledged, that’s for you and your family forever. You can’t get out. I could do it. I could kill to save my family from starvation. Maybe
it’s hard to kill that first time. Maybe after that you know everything is written in steel and the rest would come without conscience, without
guilt. Perhaps my family would have money, be left alone if I died for the brotherhood.”
He knew that somehow he must find work around Tuxpan or Veracruz while he waited for Lupe’s call; while he waited for word that the housing thing
was going again. Could he hold on here that long? Olivia did not save much of the money.
“It’s so hard to know what to do. It seems my life is like a broken wheel that speeds along until it locks up, then everything comes to a
deathlike standstill where all you can do is wait until it gets fixed. Then maybe it speeds up again, smooth again until the next breakdown. The
truckers will have many young men to keep them awake on the road. Some will be headed north, some south; the thing I fear the most is not having those
options and in my heart I know that day will surely come. Then it will be the Cartels or nothing. Seems Mexicans were born to be always on the road,
always in trucks, one way or another. I think it’s in our blood. Maybe I was a bad man in another life – maybe I deserve the accident of being
born in this rough place and growing up to be a proud Mexican at a time when we can find, en otro lado, only those things which sustain but do not
fulfill or satisfy.”
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AKgringo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 5820
Registered: 9-20-2014
Location: Anchorage, AK (no mas!)
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Thank you Osprey for an essay that is thought provoking on several levels! It should be required reading for anyone concerned about border issues.
From what I understand, there are quite a large number of families in central America that would be envious of what Olivia and Ramon have.
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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woody with a view
PITA Nomad
Posts: 15938
Registered: 11-8-2004
Location: Looking at the Coronado Islands
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Mood: Everchangin'
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I like the kid’s attitude! I waited 16 years for my dad to come back. What a disappointment that was!
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DanO
Super Nomad
Posts: 1923
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: Not far from the Pacific
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I learned to manage my expectations, downwards.
Nicely turned, Jorge.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64507
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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It is so very nice to see your creative writing again, here on Nomad. Thank you, Osprey!
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