by Todd Borg
“No. I’ll be in touch if I do,” Mallory said. We hung up.
Spot had opened his eyes for a few moments when he heard me talking on the phone, but any inclination he had toward waking up was obviously trumped by his desire to stay in Paco’s embrace. They were both still asleep.
I did more computer work while Paco and Spot snoozed. Paco finally woke after my third cup of coffee.
“Hungry?” I said.
He nodded. Wiped sleep from his eyes.
“You like oatmeal?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Cantaloupe and blueberries?”
“Blueberries,” he said.
“Coffee and grits?”
Paco screwed up his face, shook his head.
“What do you like?”
“Pancakes,” he said.
“I’ve got buckwheat cakes. Will that do?”
“What’s buckwheat?”
“Like buttermilk but with a little more oomph.”
“I like plain buttermilk,” he said. “With eggs and bacon,” he added.
“Tell you what. We’ll go to the Red Hut, and you can get whatever breakfast you want.”
An hour later Paco had eaten a stack of cakes soaked in butter and syrup, three scrambled eggs, and two orders of bacon. And he had downed them with two glasses of milk and a large glass of orange juice. I had a hard time reconciling the skinny kid with his appetite.
“Now what,” he said, pushing back his plate.
“Let’s go down to Stockton and see if we can find your house and school.”
“Why?”
“To get the note that Cassie left for me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And we need to find a place where you can stay.”
“I don’t think there is one,” he said.
TEN
We went back out to the Jeep where Spot waited, head out the window, panting. It looked like he was smiling again. Probably he was smiling because I’d brought a side order of pancakes in a doggie box.
“You want to feed Spot some pancake frisbees?” I asked.
Paco looked up at Spot’s head. Spot’s fangs were evident at the sides of his panting tongue. Paco took a step back and shook his head.
“Okay,” I said. “Stand back.”
Paco moved away as I pulled a pancake out and spun it toward Spot. Spot grabbed it out of the air with a click of teeth and a wag of his tail. Same for the second cake.
The third went high. Spot strained as it sailed over the top of the Jeep.
I fetched it from the parking lot, brought it back around.
“It’s probably got sand on it,” Paco said, frowning.
I held it up. It wasn’t especially dirty, but it was soggy from landing on the wet asphalt.
“Good thing Spot ain’t picky,” I said.
Spot snatched it out of the air.
“Like Jerry Rice reaching over his shoulder as he makes a running leap into the end zone,” I said.
Paco just frowned at me.
“Okay, so he didn’t leap, but it was still a good catch.” Spot kept looking at me. I could see his tail inside the Jeep, smacking back and forth between the front and back seat backs.
“Sorry, largeness. You want more to eat, you gotta settle for the sawdust chunks.”
Spot’s tail slowed.
We got in the Jeep and headed out of town. I periodically checked my rear-view mirror to watch for any possible tails.
Instead of driving down Highway 50 and the American River Canyon, I took the alternative route to the Stockton area by heading out of South Lake Tahoe on 50 and, before heading up Echo Summit, turning south on Highway 89, down Christmas Valley.
The rain clouds had dissipated somewhat, and patches of blue were visible here and there in the gray blanket that seemed to rest on the white mountaintops.
“At ten years of age, you’d be about fifth grade, right, Paco?”
“Fourth.” Paco looked out the window, his face passive. “They held me back.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because I’m dumb. I can’t go to Middle School.”
“You’re not dumb. You probably know more about tomatoes and peppers and other vegetables than most people.”
“Tomatoes and peppers are fruits,” Paco said.
“You’re kidding.”
Paco shook his head. “Tomatoes hold the seeds. That makes them a fruit.”
“But what about peppers? They have seeds.”
“Fruit,” Paco said. “You can ask a scientist.”
“Well, that seems a stretch,” I said, pleased that I’d found a subject that the reticent kid would talk about. “Squash and pumpkins are obviously vegetables, and they contain seeds.”
Paco shook his head. “Fruit.”
“Green beans?”
“Beans are called dry fruits. Like peas. Like corn and wheat and rice.”
“Okay,” I said. “If all of these are technically fruit, why do we have the word vegetable?”
“For vegetables.”
“Give me an example of a vegetable that isn’t technically a fruit.”
Paco sighed. I was so tedious.
“Vegetables are like carrots and onions. Celery. Lettuce and spinach. The parts of plants you eat that don’t hold the seeds.”
“Got it,” I said. “You want a vegetable, you eat the non-seed part of a plant.”
Paco was quiet. Eventually he said, “You can’t just eat any part of a plant. Tomato plants are poisonous. The leaves and stems. Potato plants, too.”
“Really. But the fruit is okay,” I said.
He nodded. “Unless it’s not ripe. Then it can make you sick, too. And potatoes are vegetables.”
“What would happen if you ate tomato leaves?” I said.
“Make you puke. Then paralyze you.”
“Ah,” I said. “Because the leaves of tomatoes and potatoes are both poisonous, are they related?”
“Yeah. They’re called nightshade plants. Like peppers. And tobacco.”
I was still marveling at Paco’s sudden loquaciousness. “Why are they called nightshade plants?”
“’Cause they’re like each other, I guess,” he said.
I couldn’t think of more questions.
We rode in silence.
We had climbed the incline at the south end of Christmas Valley, crested Luther Pass, and headed down toward the floor of Hope Valley, which sits at 7000 feet. We turned right at Pickett’s Junction and climbed up toward Carson Pass at 8600 feet.
As we approached the crest, we drove above the snow level from the recent precipitation. The high forest already had a foot of snow, the beginning of what usually turns out to be a huge snowpack by the end of the season.
The plows had been busy, and the road, while slushy, was easily passable.
“Where do Europeans live?” Paco suddenly said.
“Europe. If you go east across this country, you get to the Atlantic Ocean. Europe is a bunch of countries on the other side of the Atlantic. Why do you ask?”
“Cassie says that tomatoes are the most popular fruit in the world. She says that Europeans made them popular. Spaghetti sauce and stuff.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“But Europeans got tomatoes from the Indians,” Paco said.
“You mean, our Indians? Our Native Americans?”
“Yeah.”
“You know any Indians?”
“I have an Indian friend named Yoku. He’s from the Miwok Tribe.”
“He a tomato expert?”
Paco shook his head. “He knows all about acorns.”
“And you know about tomatoes.”
Paco nodded.
I added, “And you know lots about fruits and vegetables. That proves you’re smart. You just know different stuff than what other people know.”
Paco turned away and stared out the window. “Any farmer knows that stuff. I still can’t read.”
“You’ll l
earn to read,” I said.
Paco didn’t react. He still faced the window glass, but I didn’t think he was seeing anything outside.
“What do you do with the Field-To-Fridge deliveries?”
Paco was still staring out the side window. “I sort the bags and baskets. Then we take them inside. I count out the fruit for each client. Cassie makes the arrangements in the baskets. She says it’s an art like with flowers. She says I can start doing arrangements when I’m older. But now she’s shot. So I guess I won’t be helping.”
I didn’t want him to focus on what happened to Cassie. “You help grow the tomatoes and peppers, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Are the crops all done by the time school starts? Or does Cassie take over after you go back to school?”
“Hothouse crops go until Thanksgiving. I still have to do my chores. Before school. After school, too.”
“So you have a lot of work to do while you’re going to school,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Must make it kinda hard to focus on learning to read,” I said, “when you’ve got all those chores to do.”
Paco stared out the window. “Sometimes I skip school.”
“To goof off with your friends? Or do the farm chores.”
“Chores. That’s how I make money.”
From the top of Carson pass, we wound down past Caples Lake to Kirkwood Ski Resort, on out to Silver Lake, and then followed the long, high ridge down out of the snow to the foothills and the Gold Country town of Jackson. By the time we got to the Central Valley floor, what had seemed like low clouds were now high in the sky and made a general gray blanket far above us. The roads were moist, but the rain had stopped. The sun poked through in places and made the roads steam.
“What are your responsibilities in growing the tomatoes and peppers?”
It was a bit before he spoke. “Just all the planting stuff.”
“Like?”
“I plant the seeds for the starter plants. In the hothouse. I set the timers on the grow lights.”
“That all?” I said.
“I replant the starters in the spring. Usually, some of the drip lines break during winter. I have to fix them. I use Cassie’s secret chart to fertilize the plants. I set the irrigation settings as the seedlings grow.”
“Wait. What does that mean? Cassie’s secret chart?”
“She says it’s her secret weapon.”
“How does it work?” I asked.
“The chart says how much water and grow lights to use based on weather. I measure the size of the starter plants. Then I use her chart to tell how many drops of her fertilizer to use. She calls it the secret sauce.”
“Sounds like Cassie has lots of secrets,” I said.
Paco nodded. “Our organic tomatoes are the best in the valley. Our Cassie’s Amazements are the best of the best.”
“Is that what Cassie says? Best of the best?”
“Yeah. It’s true. And our Cassie’s Vipers are the hottest peppers in the world.”
“How do you know what pepper is hotter than another? Do you just taste it?”
Paco shook his head. “They measure it. Scoville Units. They put the pepper stuff into sugar water. And tasters try to taste it. You can put ours with over a million times as much water, and you can still taste it.”
“Ah,” I said. “So you measure it by diluting it. The more dilution it can take, the hotter the pepper.”
Paco shrugged.
We took 88 across the Central Valley. The two-lane highway crawled through dense orchards and fields of vegetables and vineyards and small farm towns. The world thinks of California as beaches and L.A., Disneyland and Hollywood, San Francisco and Silicon Valley. But it is also the most productive agricultural state, and this huge expanse of flat farmland is its quiet epicenter.
To pass the time, I put in a CD of Oscar Peterson’s Night Train. As the evocative piano jazz came on, Paco sighed.
“What’sa matter?” I said. “You don’t like jazz?”
“Ol’ man music,” Paco said.
I switched out the CD for Mozart’s Oboe Concerto. As the opening lines began, I said, “Classical music has enchanted people for centuries. Hard not to like, right?”
“Ol’ lady music,” he said.
I hit eject and put on The Beatles Sgt. Pepper and hit random play. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds started playing. “Not ol’ man and not ol’ lady,” I said. “Just right, right?”
“Just old,” Paco said.
I pointed at my CD box. “You’re welcome to find something you like.”
Paco ejected the CD, hit the radio button, and dialed a rap station. He turned it up loud, and we listened to a young man shout out a stream of angry words that were a mix of Marxist rage about the oppressor class and misogynist rants about ‘emasculating bitches.’ If there were a test for music like there is for peppers, it would be as hot as Cassie’s Vipers. I had to roll down my window to dilute it with wind noise.
Paco didn’t nod to the beat or show any other sign of connection to the music, but I could understand how a driving beat and angry lyrics could permeate a young boy’s consciousness. It didn’t seem like healthy inputs. But even as I had the thought, I realized that there was a time when adults fretted about all those long-haired groups that were polluting the minds of kids in the ’60s, groups that are now the gold standards of classic rock.
After the rap rage was over, I turned down the radio and asked, “You get paid for your work on the farm?”
Paco nodded. “Cassie pays me eighty bucks a week if I do all my chores.”
“What do you spend it on?”
“Cassie will only let me spend twenty-five bucks a week. I have to save the rest.”
“So you’re saving fifty-five bucks a week. That’s over two hundred bucks a month which is, what, pushing three grand a year.”
Paco shrugged.
“How long have you been working like this?”
“Since I started living with her. But she only paid me sixty-five a week back in the beginning.”
“That means you’ve been getting merit raises. Good job. Your bank account must be pretty fat by now.”
“I don’t have a bank account. Cassie says banks aren’t safe.”
“Ah,” I said. “Where do you put your money?”
“In a hiding place. You could never find it.” Paco said it with pride.
Outside the Jeep window was a stretch of what seemed like endless orchards. Then came endless vineyards. I remembered the statistic that Napa, Sonoma, and other famous-appellation wines only made up a small percentage of California wines. The majority of the state’s production came from the Central Valley.
“I’ve always wondered something about organic tomatoes,” I said.
Paco didn’t respond.
“How do you keep the bugs off of them when you don’t use pesticides?”
“Beneficials,” Paco said.
“What’s that?”
“Cassie has books. When we find aphids and other bad stuff that eats the fruit, we look it up in her books. Once we know what it is, then we look up what beneficials eat them.”
“Like what?”
“Like Lady beetles. Praying mantises eat caterpillars. But they’re kind of scary. Sometimes they eat the Lady beetles, too.”
“That’s why you didn’t want to go in Street’s bug lab.”
Paco nodded. “Once, Cassie got Assassin bugs ’cause they eat everything, just like Praying mantises. But they bite bad. I told her I won’t do chores if she gets them again. At least, Praying mantises don’t bite me. I still don’t like them.”
“I’m not much of a bug person myself.”
“Cassie grinds up dried Viper peppers and sprinkles the powder in the hothouse. That keeps a lot of bugs away.”
“And all this saves the tomatoes without using any chemicals.”
“Yeah. It’s in Cassie’s book.”
“How do you look
stuff up in her books, if you don’t read?”
Paco paused. “I can read those books. Lots of pictures,” he said.
“Sounds to me like you can read when you want to earn money but not so much when you need to for school.”
Paco didn’t answer.
“Do the other kids in school know this stuff?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t that make you smart?”
“Tomato stuff isn’t smart stuff. Other kids know smart stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Computers and stuff.”
When I got in the vicinity of St. Agatha’s Elementary school, Paco suddenly sat up straight in his seat.
“This next turn to the right is my school,” he said.
“Okay if we stop there?”
“I guess.”
I turned.
We drove several blocks through a residential area. The small houses were painted turquoise and green and pink and red and yellow like a neighborhood in a small Mexican town. Pointy Cypress trees stabbed the sky. Mature oaks shaded dirt yards. Old cars in good condition – mostly Chevrolets and Fords – were parked in the tree-shade circles. An occasional California fan palm stood tall above the oaks, showing off its grand circular explosion of clacking palm fronds. The air was thick with aromas of fall flowers mixing with the smells of harvest in the fields.
“Turn left,” Paco said.
I turned. One block down was a commercial district.
“That’s the McDonald’s,” Paco said, pointing. “Turn right.”
I followed his instructions.
Three blocks later, Paco pointed at a light-blue concrete block building, one-story, not much larger than the Chevron station across the street. Around it was a rough shape of green grass.
“That’s Aggie’s Green,” he said.
I pulled into the school parking lot and parked.
“Let’s go in,” I said.
“I don’t want to. My teachers will be mad that I missed school.”
“Not to worry,” I said, aware that I had no idea of what Paco was up against, missing school, believing that he was the dumb kid, maybe considered the dumb kid by the administration and teachers who held him back. “Come with me. I’ll explain to them.”
Paco held back. I had to open his door, take his scratchy little hand once again.
