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Miguel’s memories of growing up in migrant camps come back to him like snippets of a movie he saw long ago. He thinks back and sees his younger self running barefoot around unpaved roads with the other kids of the camp, or watching his mother from the edge of a Texan cotton field because she absolutely refused to have her little boy working next to her. Sometimes the cotton plants would bite at her, leaving scratches and tears at her skirt. But she never complained.
And she never complained when she came home at night with red lines marking her brown skin. Her back seemed permanently sloped by the heavy bags she carried every day, but she never said anything about it. Most nights the most she could muster was a quiet “gracias, mi’jo” as Miguel draped a blanket over her after making her a sad excuse for a dinner. Even after she married his blanquito of a stepdad and they moved out of the camps and into a one-story house just outside the suburbs, her body never really recovered. She seemed smaller, older than she should have.
Miguel saw music as an escape. As he learned the various fingerings on his first guitar, he thought about his mother’s stiff fingers trying to husk corn even after he insisted on doing it for her. He didn’t want that for his future. Ever since he first heard Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, he felt a spark within himself that made him so restless that he would do anything to break out of small-town Texas.
And now, he’s in a shoddy beach house with his friends in California, staring at a half-empty jar of jelly and a few cold cuts in an otherwise empty refrigerator.
He thinks about the street corner downtown, and how adamant Migí was about avoiding the crowd there. He said they could do better than that.
But Los Monos hadn’t had a gig in almost a month, and Peter had lost his bookstore job after some Malibu mom found out he was the one who suggested Malcolm X’s autobiography to her young and impressionable blue-eyed son.
Miguel had spent so much of his adult life trying to run away from his childhood, away from the life his mother had lived.
But now it all seemed to have caught up with him, and he could find no other choice but to embrace it.
***
Miguel leaves a note that morning, telling the guys that he had gone job-searching and not to worry about him. He doesn’t want to leave them without transportation for themselves, so he walks from the beach to downtown. It was a long walk, but not as long as he was expecting. Just enough to really wake him up.
There’s already a decent number of guys on the corner, Miguel guesses a dozen or so. He wonders if anyone had already been picked up, if he had missed a good job. He notices some of the guys have genuine work boots, and Miguel is suddenly very self-conscious of his old canvas high-tops.
He crosses the street and stands under the street sign. Some guys nod to acknowledge his existence, and that makes him relax a little.
A new man appears, taller and more solid than anyone else in the crowd. He hands out little paper cups of coffee from a nearby diner and takes change. He sees Miguel watching the steam rise out of the cups. Miguel looks away, tries not to look as hungry and nervous as he truly feels. But the giant man is making his way over, and Miguel is already dreading getting kicked from the corner.
A bear-like hand holds a cup of coffee out to Miguel. “It’s free, man. No te preocupes.” He introduces himself as Jaime, and engulfs Miguel’s thin fingers with a tight, calloused handshake.
Miguel has just enough time to finish his cup when the first truck pulls up. An old white guy rolls his window down and holds up three fingers. “Trays. Trays om-brays.” Miguel wants to laugh at the pathetic attempt at Spanish but then he’s knocked to the side as six guys try to shove into the pickup’s bed.
“Trays, dammit! I just want three of ya!” He eyeballs the guys around him, points out three and signals them into the truck bed. It’s still early in the morning, so Miguel isn’t too concerned.
A blue Cadillac pulls up, and everyone’s attention is piqued. The car looks fresh off the lot, so clearly this must be someone with a thick wallet. The window comes down, and a white man with a grey crew-cut and eyes made owlish by thick glasses holds up four fingers. “That’s all I can fit, fellas. Who’s in?”
Before Miguel is fully aware of what’s happening, Jaime has him by the shoulder and practically tosses him in the backseat. Jaime takes the front passenger seat, and they’re joined by two other men. Miguel turns and watches the street corner shrink and vanish in the rear window.
***
The owl is named Mr. Gray, and he lives in one of the biggest houses Miguel has ever seen at the end of the longest driveway. The drive starts at the road at the bottom of a hill and winds all the way to the top. Both sides of the drive are lined with brown, dried-up bushes.
Mr. Gray gathers them around his car. “Alright boys. My wife is coming back tomorrow evening from her summer trip with her friends in Europe, and if she knew I completely forgot about her blasted roses, she’d have my head. So I want you guys to take as much of these out as you can and bag them for the garbage truck tomorrow morning. I’m going to tell her they got hit by some…blight, or something. You guys got that? You all know English, right?”
Miguel turns and sees that Jaime seems to have it all processed, but the other two are completely lost. He leans toward them. He wants us to take the dead roses out so his wife doesn’t find out they’re dead.
The others hear him translating for them, and smile in gratitude.
Mr. Gray gets them shovels and trash bags from his Cadillac’s massive trunk and says he’ll be back to check their progress on his lunch break.
Miguel looks up at the hill. Mrs. Gray must have planted every type of rose she could find in the state of California. It was eight o’clock. This job was going to take hours to do, if not all day.
Miguel takes a deep breath and grabs a shovel.
***
Mr. Gray had given them good strong shovels and heavy garbage bags, but he had forgotten about gloves. At least, Miguel hoped he had them in mind at one time. In any case, hell had no fury quite like a dead rosebush. The guys had made just a dent in the line of bushes and already everyone had scratches lining their arms and angry thorns sticking into their jeans. But no one said anything about it. So long as they got paid in the end, it would be worth a few scrapes.
Jaime was a machine. His big, flat foot and heavy work boots made it easy for him to get a hole right down to cut into the thick, stubborn roots. He said he had come up from Mexico during the war to take advantage of the job program the US had set up. He had managed enough money to bring his wife and daughter into the country, but they still hadn’t made enough to move into their own place. Jaime’s jaw tightened when he talked about their living situation with Jaime’s brother and his young family. He didn’t move to the States for his daughter to be a live-in nanny.
Facundo and Javier were brothers who had only been in the country for a few months. They were about the same age as Miguel. Facundo’s wife was pregnant, and he wanted to get his new family into the States for what he hoped would be a better life. Javier had been following his older brother all his life, and even though he had no family back home, following Facundo into a new country was no different. They figured that maybe once Facundo’s wife and kid made it across the border, they could convince their mother to come along as well.
And then there was Miguel, but the others had nicknamed him, ‘Flaco’ when they saw how scrawny he was. “You’re so skinny, I bet we could use you as an extra shovel, man!” Jaime said to him. They were surprised at Miguel’s story. A kid with twelve years of school, had lived in the ‘burbs for a bit, and had a beach house with his friends. Life seemed pretty smooth sailing for him. What was he doing that morning on la esquina?
Miguel shrugged. “My friends and I, we need money. And a job is a job, y’know?” He could feel his tongue catching on a few words, and every so often he had to pause himself to dig for an almost-lost word. He hadn’t spoken this much Spanish in a long time.
Jaime looked at Miguel, his eyebrows furrowed like he was taking in a work of art. After just enough time being scrutinized for Miguel to get uncomfortable, Jaime nodded his approval. “You’re a good kid, Flaco. A good kid.”
Miguel couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.
***
It was one o’clock and the hot California sun felt like it was only six inches away. Miguel had rolled up his sleeves and stuffed his wool hat into his back pocket, but sweat still ran like rivers down his back. They were more than halfway done, though. Hopefully they’d be finished with Mrs. Gray’s rosebushes before dark.
True to his word, Mr. Gray pulled in to appraise their progress on his afternoon break. He came bearing four bags of burgers, fries and flimsy paper cups of blessedly cold soda. It took every shred of self-restraint Miguel had not to devour his lunch like a starved animal.
“Don’t worry, fellas. I’ll pay you in cash too at the end of the day.” Mr. Gray whistled, impressed by the group’s progress. “I love you Mexicans. I tell ya, you’re like machines. Amazing what can happen when you skip the siesta, eh fellas?” Mr. Gray laughed to himself. “Anyway, there’s a hose next to the house if you get thirsty again. Keep up the good work, guys. I’ll be back at four.”
Facundo and Javier asked for a translation. Miguel only told them about the hose and the cash at the end of the day. Javier sneered at the thought of drinking like a dog. “What’s he think we are, man?” he asked Miguel.
Miguel didn’t know how to respond.
***
They finished the bushes at three-thirty, giving them a half-hour to rest under a nearby oak tree. Every muscle in Miguel’s body felt like frayed twine, and his jeans had changed from blue to a dusty brown. There was a hole in the bottom of one of his high-tops that wasn’t there when he started out that morning. Miguel, Facundo, Javier and Jaime had all succumbed to the lure of the hose. Thirst had conquered dignity. They looked at the patches of dirt where the roses had once been as if they were soldiers taking the aftermath of a battle.
“I’m gonna use this money to get my daughter a dozen long-stemmed roses.” Jaime said to no one in particular. “She turns fifteen in two weeks, and if that’s the best I can get for her…well, she deserves something. Even though I am sick of seeing roses.”
“What? No quinceñera?” Facundo asked.
Jaime looked at Facundo, and for the first time that day Miguel saw the look of stoic optimism fade from Jaime’s face. “You think I got enough money for all that? A party, a dress, music?” Facundo fell silent, looking away in embarrassment.
But Miguel had a thought…
“Jaime? I um…well, my friends and I are in a band. We could pull something together for your daughter. We don’t do any traditional stuff, we’re more like the stuff on the radio, but my friend does play the maracas, so--”
“You wouldn’t get paid much, but Aracely would love you guys. I know I like you guys already.” Jaime smiled, held his work-hardened hand out to Miguel.
Miguel shook it. “A job is a job, sir.”
Facundo rubbed the back of his neck, thinking something over in his head. “Mr. Jaime? My wife, she held on to her quinceñera dress in case she ever had a daughter. She’s kinda short though. I could have her send it here, but it might not fit.”
Jaime looked genuinely stunned. “You don’t have to do that, kid. I just met you today and you’re trying to give away your wife’s dress.”
Facundo shrugged. “Every girl deserves a quinceñera, sir.”
Javier twirled a long blade of grass in his teeth. “Well, I guess that leaves me with the cake, right? Our neighbor is this old lady that can come up with something. I mean, I don’t know much about food, but I guess I oughta do something.” Javier looked at Facundo for approval. Facundo looked at Jaime.
Jaime set his head back against the tree’s sturdy trunk and closed his eyes. Miguel recognized the look. His mom did the same thing when she debated whether or not she should accept an offering from someone else.
When Jaime opened his eyes again, they were softer than before, and maybe just a little wet.
“You’re right, Facundo. She deserves an actual quineñera. Just, maybe get a cake from a store or something. It’d be easier for Javier. Flaco, you guys play that weird psche-whatever music?”
Miguel laughed. “No sir, nothing too weird. We try to sound like The Beatles.”
“That’s good.” Jaime says softly. “She likes them.”
They sit in a friendly silence until a blue Cadillac pulls up the drive.
***
Mr. Gray gave them all a decent pay for their work, and drives them back to the street corner where they started. As the four of them go their separate ways, Jaime lets them know he’ll see them at la esquina tomorrow, and that he thinks they should stick together as a team.
Miguel hadn't thought about that. He had assumed this would be a one-time deal. But Jaime had a good point about working as a unit. He reminds himself that a job is a job as he walks back to La Casa, even as every muscle in his legs groans in protest.
Miguel would have been perfectly content to have passed out on the living room sofa, dead to the world until the next morning to hit la esquina again.
Unfortunately, Migí had other plans.
He meets Miguel at the door like an uptight mother. “Where the hell did you go, man? You can’t just evaporate like that!”
Miguel tries to wave him off and tells him he has a headache. Migí sees the dirty jeans and holed-up shoes, puts everything together and loses his mind.
“You hit the street corner, didn’t you?” Migí is ranting in Spanish to keep Davy and Peter from eavesdropping. “Is that what you want people to think of you? That you can’t do anything better than sit on the street corner and wait for some gringo to tell you what to do? What next, Miguel? You want to get Peter shining shoes on the sidewalk? Maybe put a turban on Davy and get him to charm snakes at the zoo?”
Miguel is struggling to keep his aching head upright. Peter and Davy stare nervously from the top of the spiral staircase. All they’ve been able to understand so far are their own names. Miguel is thankful for that. “Look, Migí. We had no gigs and nothing in the fridge. Why is it such a big deal?”
“Because we’re supposed to have gotten beyond that, Miguel! We’re musicians, we’re not supposed to be out mowing people’s lawns or trimming trees or any of that. I’ve got some pamphlets from some group in the Haight pushing for el Movimiento. You need to educate yourself, man. We gotta get above all this.”
“Sure, Migí. And the next time we run out of food, we’ll just eat pamphlets!” It wasn’t supposed to come out as a shout, but Miguel is just so tired and frustrated and he doesn’t want to talk about el Movimiento and race issues. He just wants to close his eyes and be done with the day.
Migí flops into a chair in the living room. His shoulders finally relax, but there’s still fire in his eyes. “Miguel, listen. When those guys pick you up, they don’t see a person. They see a mowed lawn. They see a painted shed. They see an errand checked off their to-do list. I want them to actually see us, y’know? See and hear us performing. They’d actually respect us then. I want that. For all of us.” Migí goes quiet. The weight of he said hangs in the air for a moment.
“I got us a gig.”
Migí looks up. “Really? How?”
“This guy I was working with today. His daughter’s quinceñera is coming up, and I offered our services as a band.”
“He knows we don’t do mariachi, right?”
“She wants a band like The Beatles.”
Migí chuckled. “She’ll love Davy, then. Maybe we can teach him some Spanish, yeah?”
There’s no response.
Miguel has finally surrendered to the call of sleep, slumped on his side on the sofa.
Migí grabs the old quilt in a nearby rocking chair and covers his friend with it. He sees the red marks on Miguel’s hands, and the scratches running up and down his arms like lines on a map.
Davy and Peter are still hovering at the top of the stairs. Migí tells them to go to sleep, and that everything is fine.
He’s told them the truth, more or less.