by Gary Soto
“Did you write book?” Alma asked.
“What?” A headache was knocking on the door of my frontal lobe; it found me home. Bending down, I poured cat crunchies in a bowl.
“You did it?”
This is where I compare Shakespeare, a great author of beautifully wrought and timeless verse, with myself, author of some stuff that gets into literary magazines which last two or three issues. Alma was asking if I had really written book or if another had ghostwritten book for me. She was having trouble imagining that dunce from her childhood and adolescence producing single grammatical sentence let alone book. It didn’t seem plausible.
“That’s right, Alma,” I told her, adding that I was an author and that she should read book. I was even going to suggest an easier title of mine when she said, “My husband . . .”
That’s right, I thought, her husband had died. But why did I have to know this?
“. . . he was eaten by a shark.”
My black-and-white cat was meowing; he wanted to climb into my arms. I shoved the tuxedoed fella away.
“By a shark, he was eaten. The shark got away.”
Shark got away? I was starched with fear. Was I hearing right?
Alma told me that her husband had gone fishing and been the unfortunate victim of a shark attack. It had occurred two years ago. Had I read about it? It was in the newspaper.
My heart picked up speed, ushering blood through its many valves. The blood that ordinarily lingered near my ankles was now climbing to my heart, passing through its muscular chambers and moving on to other organs, splashing them with vital nutrients, oxygen, and other stuff I can’t claim to know about. I was wide-awake now, under the influence of a cocktail of adrenaline and fear. I looked out my window at the lake, imagining a shark cruising hungrily beneath the surface. Where was my cat? A second ago, he had wanted the warmth of my arms; now I needed him.
“Oh, Alma,” I said with sincere lament. “I’m really, really sorry.” Yes, it must be the girl with ponytails from business math. Had we learned anything except how to add the prices of items on a supermarket conveyor belt?
Then came the request. She asked if I could write her husband’s life story.
Nervously, I told her I couldn’t. It wasn’t for me.
Wasn’t for me? More crudeness!
“Why?” she asked, her voice businesslike and almost stern. “He was a nice man! He treated my boys nice. My mom is still alive. He treated her nice too.”
Again I told her how sorry I was, squeezing my eyes shut, as if in pain. In a moment of clarity, I told Alma that such a story was best circulated among family and loved ones. It was a story to share with the young people, so they could learn how unpredictable life was. Then I mumbled nonsense and became dry-mouthed. I said that her husband was without question a really nice man and that he loved life — until, I thought to myself, he’d been eaten by a shark. No matter how I tried, however, I could not compose the necessary language. I was no Shakespeare; in fact, I was hardly a B-minus poet. Words of comfort failed me.
We talked for a few more minutes. Alma told me that she had two grown children by her first husband, and a younger boy with her late husband. She now lived alone in Chandler, Arizona, near Phoenix. She said that she remembered me in a fifth-grade spelling bee, defeated by the word, “Yosemite.” (Later in life, when I began to write poetry, I would be defeated by other words.) Our conversation ended with sincere good-byes.
After we hung up, I sat, head bowed, clutching a dishtowel. I said a small prayer for Alma and her late husband. A few minutes later, I got up and looked worriedly around the kitchen, while the refrigerator hummed. Was this incident — a call from a former classmate, a person named Alma — trying to tell me something? Poor woman, she couldn’t form a proper sentence. Her first husband had been unlovable; her second was lovable but dead. Had she really been the one in fifth grade who helped me spell “Yosemite” by mouthing the letters silently from across the classroom?
Shakespeare wrote his works, every word in his own hand, while wearing that lacy collar-thing of his. In my own button-down collars, I write all my words too, even these, which may strike some as implausible — BS, let’s call it. They may even strike the reader as clumsy — but who cares? I got that call and with it the chance to reacquaint myself with a classmate from nearly fifty years ago. All the world’s a stage, but when a shark climbs aboard, every actor — or almost every actor — exits in a hurry. It’s strange out there, and sometimes this strangeness finds you hungover, early in the morning.
But, eaten by a shark?
HAGGLING OVER WATERMELONS
The vendor had seen me coming: a man in shoes that weren’t flip-flops, a shirt that wasn’t a T-shirt, and pants that weren’t chopped off below the knee. Big spender, he must have thought, with a leather belt even. I believe he even sniffed the air: was that cologne, or some special kind of soap they sell in San Francisco?
As if I were hearing impaired, he shouted, “Two for six bucks!” His shirt pocket was thick with bills from the day’s sales, and the thighs of his khaki pants were dark where he had wiped his juice-wet hands after cutting melons.
“Two for six dollars,” I repeated softly. Now here was a deal. In Berkeley, one slice of melon, cooling on a bed of ice at Andronico’s Market, would have cost six dollars.
“Yes, siree,” he sang. He was off his stool now, standing within inches of me. A few of the gnats behind him started orbiting my face. I stepped back. He had the smell of tobacco about his person.
“Good price,” he stated, scraping a clay residue from one of the melons.
I looked at the melons, yellow on the bottom where they’d sat in a field southeast of Fresno. June melons would have been crisp when cut open, the seeds like little black troopers embedded in the rosy flesh. But now, in August, the centers would be mealy. Nevertheless, I asked, “Are they good?”
“Are they good!” he screamed, the tendons in his neck moving like the ribs of an opening umbrella. He saw me waiting and suddenly relaxed his face, knowing that his answer could be a deal-breaker. He licked his lips and spit out a flake of tobacco. He turned to his crates of melons, his face pleading with them, Please don’t fail me. He knocked on one melon with a knuckle. His eyebrows became concerned. He listened, head slightly lowered, as he knocked on another, then another — trying to learn if the inside of the melon was firm or just one liquid mess. Then he stood up straight and scratched an ear. “Here,” he said, “you better take three for six bucks.”
The three melons rode with me, unbuckled in the passenger seat, rolling slightly as I banked onto the freeway, heading home.
MEXICAN MIGRANT
The sun and wind, the rows of beets in narrow rows of eternity, and the small cut on his thumb . . . This man’s name is Jorge. His journey to Salinas went by train, bus, and train again. In the fields, his shadow never catches up. Crows step into his footprints. A handkerchief covers his mouth, as if he were a bandit. The handkerchief muffles his song, but the singing keeps him hopeful. His story is what I hear on the radio as I drive toward Fresno, his story of work and loneliness. He’s a true bard. “I drink to drown my sorrows,” he says, “but my sorrows know how to swim.”
EXPIRATION DATE
In winter I flew six turbulent hours from Oakland to Atlanta. The first four hours got me to Houston where, penguin-like, we travelers shimmied out of the crowded and stinky plane. Only a few from the Oakland flight continued to Atlanta, on a small jet whose engines howled like hairdryers for the next two hours. During the second leg of the trip, I snagged an aisle seat next to a woman whose dog was inside a carrier with a mesh window. The dog was settled first on her lap and then between her feet, like luggage.
“Nice pooch,” I cooed at the dog, rubbing my thumb and index finger together in a show of friendship, then clicking my tongue.
The woman, in bangles as loud as tambourines, didn’t warm to my overtures either.
I got the picture.
This dog had evolved; he no longer responded to the time-honored gestures that brought man and canine together. But was that really it? After the plane lifted above the clouds, the dog sniffed and snorted at my leg. What was he assessing? Did he think I was good guy, or only a pretty good guy? Or did he by chance get a whiff of cat on my pant cuffs?
The owner had made up her mind about me too — without so much as a sniff in my direction. She turned the pages of a magazine and chilled the air with silence. She was reading — or scanning — Us Weekly, a celebrity magazine. Its pages mainly presented actors, in all shapes and ethnic colors, prepping readers on new film projects — as well as new husbands, wives, or lovers. I didn’t dare peer too closely, though I noticed one photo in which a neckline plunged so deep it reached the actress’s navel. I might have been peeking at Penthouse.
I reached my Atlanta hotel at 8:30 in the evening, my eyes bruised from exhaustion and my body in the early stages of rigor mortis. I was desperate for food and entered the small convenience store off the lobby. The store was lit by fluorescent light bulbs inches from my head, and airport music oozed from a speaker in the wall. I had made a mistake by not eating the overpriced airport food. Now I was left with the overpriced selections at the convenience store.
I considered potato chips (new Hispanic flavor), then beef jerky the color of a farmer’s old leather belt.Not for me. Next I looked at the bananas; they were the right color at least, and the apples seemed healthy too. Trail mix and pretzels hung from a metal rack. But I was after a meal.
I proceeded to an open refrigerator and its pale-white sandwich wraps, which could have been Greek or Mediterranean — or Mexican fusion. They were snugly wrapped in clear plastic and looked bulky, like middle-aged men in jogging suits. I picked one up and turned it over: $6.75. I lowered it back into place then picked up another and sniffed it — the scent of plastic wrap and a faint whiff of tomato. How long had it sat in this cool morgue?
“My friend,” I called to the clerk behind the counter.
He gazed up, mirthless. His eyes were red.
“Are these fresh?” I inquired, holding up one of the fatso wraps.
He blinked at me and scooted forward on his swivel stool. He appeared to be calculating something in his mind, then asked: “Is there a checkmark?”
“A what?” I asked, approaching the counter.
“Is there a checkmark? By the price.”
Without my reading glasses, I couldn’t exactly tell. I examined the wrap and found a small inky halo over the price. “Why?” I asked, now at the counter.
“If there is no checkmark, then the sandwich is from yesterday.” The clerk also was reading Us, a different issue than the one the woman on the plane had been reading, but with similarly plunging necklines. “If there is a checkmark, then it’s from . . . maybe two days ago.”
I returned the wrap to the refrigerator. The two others there also were distinguished with the almost invisible checkmarks. I picked up one of these and sniffed, gently at first, and then with a little snort, like a bull. I couldn’t smell anything, not even the earlier tomato scent. As I lowered that wrap, an image from the flight appeared to me: the dog, the dog in the carrier. Had he been sniffing me to judge whether I was old? Despite my wool pants and socks, my polished shoes with their own oily smell, and the scent of our cat, could that dog tell that I was nearing my expiration date? The dog had exhibited no tail-wagging love, no friendliness at all. But why bother to become friends with someone who was not going to be around much longer?
WORK FORCE
This Saturday a crew of nine students from Cal has arrived to work alongside the regular volunteer group that I established at the Berkeley Rose Garden. Built by the WPA in 1932, this five-acre garden is the gem of Berkeley, with a vista of two of our three bridges, plus the sailboats circling Alcatraz Island like sharks. The garden is a popular site for weddings; romance occurs naturally here because of the flowers.
It’s October, and the weather is still warm. Roses continue to unfurl their scented beauty and the breeze scatters the spent blossoms from the thorny stems. Bolstered by rain the week before, weeds stand soldier-straight but soon will be whacked down by hoes, if I get my way. Bees pitch themselves among the shrubs, and sparrows flit around the bark-covered beds.
“I’m tired,” says Wei-Chi, also called Rachel, one of the Cal volunteers.
How is this possible? I wonder. She has been raking leaves for only twenty minutes. That is, twenty minutes since I took her rake and flipped it so the prongs faced downward. From mainland China, Rachel is unfamiliar with this sort of work, which is fine by me. She’s delightful and super smart. Her major is molecular biology, a subject far removed from my daily orbit of thought.
“Would you like to rest?” I ask.
Rachel nods her head. Her face is pinkish and the glow on her brow may foreshadow the makings of sweat. She pulls a cell phone from her pocket and sits on the bench. I see that she’s wearing a pair of Hello Kitty socks.
When the students first arrived, I’d shown them an array of tools. They had looked at the rakes, brooms, and wide-mouthed shovels as if they’d never seen such objects before. Then they’d circled the motorized cart. One asked, “Is that a tractor?” Minutes later, as we walked down a stone path, another spotted a California poppy. She sang brightly, “That rose is so cute.”
I leave Rachel scrolling her cell phone and hurry off to see about Larry, a sophomore from Indonesia, and his coworker, a freshman from Egypt who calls himself Sam. They are hauling plastic trash cans of leaves up the stone stairs, their free hands clutching cell phones.
“Boys,” I cry.
They stop and pocket their cell phones.
When I catch up, I tell them to toss the leaves in the yard, where the tools and machinery are kept. I point up the incline and walk with them up the uneven stone steps, a workout for your quads. When the climb becomes arduous, they use both hands to grip the trash cans. Their youthful faces become lined with the strain. They too come from households where physical work is unknown. I learn later that they are double majoring in computer science and molecular and cell biology.
Three other students, all female, are pushing brooms so gently you would think they are trying not to hurt the leaves. The brooms nudge leaves, weeds, and broken stems into little piles. (I learn later that all three are science majors from Taiwan.) Like Rachel, they are pink-cheeked and overheated. This work is unusual and strenuous for them. When one cries out from the pain of a miniscule sliver in her finger, the two others hover over the wound. I scrutinize the invisible puncture too, and declare that the best first aid is for her to suck the digit. This she does — after she realizes I am serious — turning away so that the others will not see her.
I approach a neglected rose bush and begin to deadhead the plant while the three continue working. On the sly, I study the small piles and the broom action. I feel tender toward these young people, who have been wired upstairs for other kinds of work. I have no doubt that they’ll conquer their classes. Even in my youth, I couldn’t have chosen their majors — something like biology but not exactly biology, something like physics but not exactly physics, something like chemistry but not exactly chemistry. Their college majors were unavailable thirty years ago, fields of study not yet known.
“Oh,” one utters, as the leaves lift and dance in a gust of wind. The volunteers stare at the swirling leaves and, as one reaches in her back pocket for a cell phone, I am convinced that she intends to take a picture of the dance. But no, she just looks at the glowing image and pockets the phone — no messages.
As part of the Berkeley Project, these students have been randomly assigned to the rose garden. Other Cal students went to soup kitchens, non-profit schools, or other sites. Most of the volunteers don’t know each other, except for the three Egyptian students, all Coptic Christians. (My heart leapt when I discovered this piece of news about them, for I know their plight in Egypt and the terror they face in their ho
meland.)
By noon, the sun is nickel bright. My volunteers, an uncomplaining lot, sweat, glow, and shed their sweatshirts. They smile because they possess happiness at their core. A little after twelve, I’m the taskmaster who calls for a lunch break.
Under a tall cedar, I line them up. One student spurts antibacterial soap as I pour water into their cupped hands. As they scrub, the foam builds. I pour more water until the foam disappears. The last to have his dirty paws washed, I flick the excess water from my fingertips, then pick up a long bread knife and cut a two-foot-long sandwich into edible chunks. Next, I peel the plastic from some Mediterranean wraps. Then the volunteers do something for themselves: they choose their own chips — cheesy Doritos, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Chili-Cheese Fritos, regular Fritos, or barbecue-flavored potato chips.
“We got homemade cookies too,” I inform them, pointing to a plastic container of coconut cookies. When I say that I made them, one says, “Really, Gary?” Her hand is already reaching for them.
While we chow, a male student examines the clipboard holding the signed release forms. My name is at the top of the form, and he studies my face. “You’re not, like, Gary Soto, the writer, are you?”
“Depends if you have anything against him,” I answer, with a smirk. Then I open a bag of Chili-Cheese Fritos and say, “Yes, that’s me.”
“You were my favorite writer in junior high,” the student says. Mario is Chicano. His parents are farm workers from Delano, the epicenter of the farm-labor struggles of the 1960s and ’70s. He’s the first in his family to go to college.
The eight others look at me in a fresh light. One asks, “Did you write . . .”
When she can’t finish the question, I say, “Do you mean Too Many Tamales?”
“No . . .” Her head is bowed in thought. She stamps her feet as she attempts to recall the title of a poem, story, or book. I supply a few more, but she shakes her head — and the ponytails too. She knows she has read something of mine, though perhaps she’s thinking of the other Gary — Gary Paulsen, author of the fabulously successful Hatchet. I don’t mention him. Then she opens her eyes and stops stamping her feet. She has recognized me as a writer from her childhood. But what is it, what is it? She scolds herself as her hand dips into the bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Giddily, she gives up trying to remember. She says, “Can I get a photo?”
