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Writing ARCHIVE |
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Blind Man Watching |
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Short Stories / Short Story Vignettes This examines how we succumb, without knowing the consequences, to blind rage & ignorance. BLIND MAN WATCHING
It was
nighttime in Wenatchee, and the migrant labor camp was
alive with music. We had gathered along the Columbia
River as workers and vagabonds in our mutual safe haven.
The Friendship Center was a place where we could shower
and get an occasional sandwich along with referrals for
work in the orchards.
While spending the entire summer on the road, Washington State was my final destination before returning to New York. I was hungry and needed work for both food and a bus ticket home. It was the time of the annual fall harvest of apples. It seemed like a quick way of making honest money, while for some it was a way of life. Most of the laborers had come up the coast from Mexico, working their way north since early spring and culminating their journey at the apple harvests before returning home. No one, not even the town officials, doubted that many of those workers were there illegally. Nevertheless, since the growers could hire them at depressed wages, most everyone profited from this arrangement, even the migrants, as they could continue to work without harassment. After the Center’s buildings and its adjacent main office, a one-story ranch house with few amenities beyond a phone and a clankety piano, had closed for the evening, a din of hollering and laughter permeated the smoke and the dry summer's air. An eclectic mix of country, folk-rock and mariachi music separated us among three groups with distinctly different backgrounds. There were the younger roadies who, like me, were tramping around for escape and adventure. The Chicanos from Mexico made up most of the Hispanics who came either directly from south of the border or by way of some of the larger U.S. cities, all of whom rarely strayed from their families and friends. Likewise, the older "Anglos," as the Hispanics referred to them, or “rednecks,” as my colleagues and I knew them, avoided the rest of us as much as possible. The entire encampment shared one lone fire, which was contained in a rusted oil drum, topped by a blackened grill. That summer's extreme drought affected even the Pacific Northwest's normally plush vegetation. The hazardous quilt of parched lawns throughout the town compelled the local officials to enforce strict ordinances for the use of fires at backyard barbecues and other gatherings such as ours. While we would assemble among our respective groups to use the fire for cooking, warmth or idle chat, neither I nor my young colleagues paid much attention to this informal segregation, as we simply believed that it was for comfort and common interests rather than for our safety in numbers. That was, however, until that night when an older man came around and was hell-bent on reminding us otherwise. "You boys fixing to join us for some wetback head-bashing in the orchards tomorrow?" he asked, leaning over us on a thick wooden pole that stood above his head. Although none of us seemed quite certain on how to respond, somehow, after glancing over to the Hispanic group nearby, I managed to come out with, "Hey, they're OK. There's plenty of work for all of us." "Well, hell, boy, those wetbacks come on up against our laws and take away our jobs as if they belong to them. The growers aren't stopping it. They pay the police and the town officials to look the other way. It's high time something gets done about it." Nearby, a drunken man stumbled over his companion and began to curse in Spanish. "What do you mean?" I asked, trying to redirect the older man’s attention, but the ruckus quickly sidetracked him as well. "Well, howdy-do!" he exclaimed, as he approached the hapless drunks with his pole brandished across his chest. Leaning over the man who was fighting a losing battle at getting back up onto his feet, he prodded, "Hey, boy, you a wetback?" The response was a string of drunken gibberish, barely recognizable as Spanish words mumbled out in fragments. "Boy, I'm talking to you," he challenged, raising the pole above his shoulders. "Don't you go giving me none of that wetback mumbo-jumbo. Where you from, boy? You got papers?" "Hey! He's drunk, man," I interjected, not sure of how I would balance my anger with my fear of reprisal. "Leave him alone. He's not hurting any one. Besides," I added, "those guys are Americans!" This only slowed him down long enough to reply, "You stay out of this." Then, mockingly, he retorted, "Americans, huh? We'll see about that. You'll be eating crow in a minute, boy. You just watch." Regaining his pace, he approached the inebriated men and barked, "ID, boys! I wanna see some, now!" The drunken man, still visibly confused, looked up and started to take notice of his challenger while his companion, who was lying beside him, continued to sleep, oblivious to their impending danger. "Where you from, boy? Answer me!" the older man demanded as he poked the stick against his quarry's boot heels. "What are you, Gestapo?" I asked. “Leave the man alone! He can't hurt any one." My fear gave way as I imagined my defenses against the man's hard weapon, perhaps throwing the drum full of smoldering coals and ashes, but only if I could grasp and release it before burning the flesh on my hands completely to the bone. "I just want to see if he's an American or not," he explained as he slowed a bit and sized up the group of incredulous bystanders who had gathered around. "By the looks of him, I doubt it." He backed up a bit as he barked, "Get up, boy!" The drunken man finally took full notice as he leaned back and tried to grope for something in his back pocket. At that, the older man stepped back still further, drew up his pole and shouted, "You go for it! You got a knife back there? Let's see it." The heightened commotion must have awakened the other man, as he rustled about on the ground, sat up and interjected, "El-lay...We from El-lay." "That's right!” I said. “He and his friends, they're all from Los Angeles. They're just too drunk to talk." Then, as the older man seemed to relax his grip and lower the pole, I embellished my lie. "I talked to them this afternoon. They're not wetbacks at all. They're citizens, just like you and me." By then, some of my colleagues had gathered behind me for support as I offered, "I'll...we'll just help them back to their car." The older man backed off at this and returned the pole to its vertical position, planting it onto the ground between his boots. With a subdued voice, he tilted his head back and furrowed his brow as he asked, "L.A., huh? What part?" I stepped between them and reminded him that they were too drunk to speak clearly. I helped the two men onto their feet, reassuring them with my tone of voice and the universal, "OK...OK," as my hand rested firmly on the elbow of the man who was still reaching behind him. As he relaxed his arm, his hand fell away and revealed a bright yellow-handled switchblade protruding from his hip pocket. He shored up his drinking partner and said, "Gracias" as he handed me a bottle of Thunderbird. "De nada," I replied as I returned it to him and gestured my polite refusal. Then, knowing that they would not understand, yet wanting the older man to overhear me, I added, "I'm sorry for all of this." "Why should you be apologizing to them for anything?" he asked in disapproval. They probably have fifty cousins back in L.A. who are wetbacks. You just tell them to keep them away from here." After leaving the drunken men to sleep it off in the safety of their locked car, I approached the older man, who had returned to our group by the fire as if all was well, and I asked him, "Well, will you be picking any apples tomorrow, or what?" "Shoot! I don't need to pick any of them rotten apples for nothin’," he replied. "The wife sends me money any time I need it." As we roused to the laden question, I asked, "Just what is it that you do for a living?" "Why," he responded as his chest swelled to his chin, "I'm an aeronautical engineer. I design airplanes in Everett. I come down here once a year for the fresh air and to get away from the wife and the kids." Then, after an extended moment of silence and incredulous looks, he quickly departed as he shouted back, "Later, boys!" Although most soon retired for the evening, a few of us remained to regain our composure, and before long someone asked, "Anybody got some crow to eat?" "Sure!" I replied, as we broke the night air with nervous laughter. "I'm starved." * * *
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