Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  I’m not entirely certain. I thought this class was supposed to be about sonnets, but Sims is always springing something on us.

  “He means war,” Rabbit whispers. “You know, fighting for what you think is right?”

  “Why else would you be fighting?” Cruz says.

  Any ism makes me think of Bobby. Only I’m not sure how different communism is from the Nazism or the fascism he was fighting. Maybe they all just mean hating and fighting and getting yourself killed.

  Sims moves through the center aisle like he’s searching for prey. He’s acting a whole lot different than when he’s talking about Shakespeare. “America has become the ism battleground of the world. If we could simply scratch it to make it go away,” he says, squatting to go eye to eye with Pratty, “don’t you think we would have done that a long time ago? The fact is, communists have been here since the First World War.”

  “There’s Russians in this classroom?” Cruz says. “All I see is Red.”

  Penny giggles and Sims swerves to look at Cruz.

  “Mr. Villanueva,” he says, “how would you like to be told where to work? Or how much you shall make? And if you refused, they’d send you to the mines?”

  Cruz shrugs. “We’re already there.”

  That gets the whole class laughing, and Sims’s chin breaks into blotchy little stains.

  “I was referring to the salt mines, not Eureka Copper,” Sims says. “As a slave for no wages.” He tries to get the pointer behind his back, weaving it between his elbows like a pool cue—though I doubt he’s ever played—and it falls to the floor.

  “He wouldn’t last a minute shooting pool at the Copper Star,” Cruz whispers.

  “Of course, they could also deny you the right to go to school,” Sims says, picking up the pointer. He’s by Lupe Diaz, our halfback. “Decide that you aren’t intelligent enough.”

  “They’re not.”

  It comes from somewhere in the middle of the class—but I can’t tell for sure—stabbing the air with an invisible sting, just like those sulfur explosions. Nobody laughs, and Sims lets it hang there, all knotted and tense. Then he splays out his hand and says, “Five people from this very community voted for the Communist Party.”

  Some kids look surprised, and it’s news to me, too, but I have my doubts. Rabbit nods, and that’s not like him.

  “We know these people. We may even have lunch with these communist spies,” Sims says, watching the kids watching each other.

  “Wake me up when it’s time for practice,” Cruz jokes, closing his eyes.

  “This is more important than winning at Muckers football,” Sims says, a bit more sharply.

  “Didn’t your father take All-Northern … with Mr. Mac?” Cruz asks. “He was the first Sims, no?”

  Sims looks like the A-bomb just hit but quickly regains his composure and starts rattling on about how we should preserve our ideals by practicing good citizenship.

  “He means white citizenship,” Cruz whispers. And I wish Cruz would know when to stop.

  “Did I hear someone willing to tell us about good citizenship? Did I?” Sims asks.

  “I still don’t know who we’re fighting.” Cruz is really asking for it. “Except for those Cottonville Wolves.”

  The guys laugh, but Sims shakes his head.

  “Ah, you can be cheeky all you want,” he says. “You’ve become complacent—that means smug, Mr. Villanueva—playing football and not worrying about Korea because you’re not old enough to be called. But when we’re complacent”—Sims dashes to the blackboard, changing the ISM to IST, the chalk crumbling into spray when he stabs an S onto the end, then the number 5 in front—“that’s when the enemy strikes,” he says. “It only takes a handful to start a revolution.”

  “They’re always stirring things up.”

  Rudy Kovacs. That’s who it is. He turned when he said it, tilting his shoulder and aiming it at Cruz.

  Cruz’s jaw tightens and flexes, but he doesn’t say anything because it’s Rudy. His father’s a company man that the E.C. brought in from Bisbee last month to decide which mining men to keep and which ones to cut.

  Everybody eyes Cruz and Rudy, but I can’t tell which one they think might be the enemy.

  Sims turns to face the blackboard, but I caught the smile. He underlines 5 COMMUNISTS, then taps a prop on his desk with the pointer. Not the bust of Shakespeare, but the metal box in front. It looks like a tackle box, except there’s a slit cut into the lid, and he gives it a shake.

  “Part of good citizenship means identifying those who don’t share our democratic ideals,” he says. “Let’s put their names in this box.”

  There’s rumbling and a few anxious whispers. Even a hiss.

  “Bet there won’t be one Anglo name in there,” Cruz mumbles.

  “Anyone can be a commie,” Rabbit says.

  “Like who, Rabbit? Name me one.” Cruz punches Rabbit in the arm with a knuckle.

  Sims has really lost his brain, thinking your neighbor could be a spy. As if Lee Fong’s plotting to overthrow the government while he’s fixing you a dish at the Chinese Kitchen.

  And I’m surprised at Rudy—he’s on our team. He should know by now Hatley’s made up of everything. But Rudy’s just a scrub, practicing drills with Wallinger. He won’t play much.

  “You mean students, or teachers, too?” Margaret Menary asks.

  “None of us is immune,” Sims adds. “Teachers. Men of high office. We’ll hand the box over to the school superintendent before the November election.”

  He gets us to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, in case we forgot about those freedoms.

  Cruz jabs me in the ribs. “We’ll never pass senior English,” he says. “Goodbye, graduation.”

  “Sims never failed anyone yet,” I say. “He just likes scaring people.”

  “It’s gonna be nice picturing Sims’s mug on that tackling dummy at practice,” Cruz says.

  Still, I press my hand against my heart, thinking, He’s done it. Sims has let the kind of hatred you read about down in Phoenix slip into our classroom. The kind where Mexicans go to the Indian schools and Negroes go to Carver. Charlie may be our only Negro, but I saw what segregation does when the bus rolled in from Carver High last year.

  Those boys stared out the window, heading up to our field with eyes as empty as the open pit. Until they saw the Mexican players on our team. They must have figured we’d be civil, and I thought so, too. Then Wallinger hollered, “You gonna let those niggers beat us?” loud enough for everyone to hear, including Charlie. Coach Hansen and Wallinger went at it, yelling and arguing about it so much that the officials asked if we wanted to forfeit the game.

  “I know what an ism is,” Cruz whispers to me. “It’s Sims’s name, all twisted around and screwy, but it’s there.”

  MID-WEEK EDITION

  Hatley Muckers Gridiron Bound

  The Hatley Muckers head to the gridiron Friday for their opening game against Rim Valley and their final attempt at a state championship as the school prepares to shut down.

  Attendance records are unlikely to be broken, with the mine cutting back shifts, but are certain to exceed last year’s turnout, when the Valley’s polio outbreak shortened the season.

  The final Muckers team is definitely on the bantam side, averaging 135 pounds. They will have to depend on speed, deception, and passing for offensive punch from the 14 players Coach Hansen has on his team. When told his squad could be the lightest in all of Arizona, Hansen shook his head. “Footballs don’t know how much you weigh,” he said. “They only go where they’re thrown.”

  WANT ADS

  (Minimum charge, 25 cents.)

  PIANO INSTRUCTION—Harmony included. Your home or mine. See or write Mrs. Featherhoff, Upper Main.

  WANTED—Babysitting, day or night. Mrs. Ricardo Sanchez. Gulch. Phone 143-H.

  HEAVY RED FRYERS—50c lb., 15c extra for eviscerating. S.T. Hayes, Fifth house on 8th St., Cottonville.

>   COME IN & COOL OFF! DR. A. C. BROWN SAYS OUR POOL POLIO SAFE

  AMERICAN HOURS: Th–Sun, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.

  MEXICAN HOURS: Mon–Wed, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. (5 p.m. close for water change on Wed).

  Chapter 5

  GAME NIGHT

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

  4:15 P.M.

  “JUST DO LIKE I TOLD ya, Red, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Remember, get the ball to Managlia,” another helmeted miner says, “and he’ll light it up.”

  They’ve come off shift—the four o’clock bell rang about fifteen minutes ago—and the miners who just worked the morning are headed along the catwalk across from the high school when I make the turn for home.

  They’re the mining men with seniority: the foremen and steam-shovel operators carrying empty lunch pails and grime-faced grins, heading home to get washed up and guzzle down dinner their wives have made them. Then they’ll hike up to the field at least an hour before kickoff.

  I’m getting hungry, too, only I know what usually happens to me if I eat before a game. Especially meat. Not that there’s much to chow on at our house. So I forget about raiding the kitchen and go right for the banister, dashing up and down the stairs and missing every other one for a pregame sprint. I usually do a couple hundred push-ups in between the beds right after, but I need to save my shoulder for tonight and it looks like I need a shave.

  There’s a crack in the bowl on the washstand between Bobby’s bed and mine, but it can still hold water. It rinsed the blood off my father’s razor and maybe a few fathers before him, too. And the mirror above it from the old country has seen generations of O’Sullivans scrape themselves clean. Including Bobby.

  I shared this room with him. Wait, that’s not right. Bobby shared it with me. He was six foot two with broad shoulders and a lean waist, forming that all-important V that makes you a great athlete and the kind of fellow girls fawn over, though Bobby only cared about one girl—Faye Miller. Me, I’m five foot seven … with wingtips on. I form the letter i, in lowercase only.

  I was the kid brother in fourth grade and nowhere near puberty in ’42 when Bobby went to war. Now he’ll miss another birthday. Tomorrow.

  I’m still waiting for Bobby to walk through that door, hand me the football, and slap me on the back, chanting, “Red-ee.” But all I have left are the things I’d taken for granted. Like how he threw rockets on the field and just smiled, watching the touchdown, not making a fuss or anything. Then he’d talk about it with his gang after—holding on to Faye on the cushioned seats in the front window at the diner.

  Me and Rabbit and Cruz would be walking by, so I’d look back like something had distracted me, giving Bobby just enough time to see me—or at least recognize his old Hatley High sweater I’d practically slept in. He’d knock on the glass with a knuckle for us to come in, then put up three fingers for Benny behind the counter, signaling chocolate malts for us.

  I look at the photos from the Mucker annuals I tacked above my bed. They’re of Mr. Mac’s team and Bobby’s. You can’t miss Bobby smiling and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the front row after handing young Teddy, their mascot, the football to hold.

  That’s how it was with Bobby, never wanting it to be about him, but making others feel puffed up and proud. I remember the day that snapshot was taken and going to the field with Bobby right after, tossing the football he’d thrown against Tucson. He showed me the best way to grip the pigskin before you release it: not too tight, but as if you were holding something you’d never want to let go of—like a baby—while still giving it room to breathe. And when I first managed to do it, I felt all puffed up and proud.

  Even Pop wasn’t so angry when we came home after and Bobby told him how well I’d thrown. Then he asked to see Pop’s rock collection. Pop told us about every one of those rocks and where he’d found them, before there was an open pit. He held those rocks like they were babies, too, cradling them in his palm like downy chicks so fragile you forgot that they were stone.

  I don’t look like much in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot, and Angie was right: they do look sad. But then they get mad, seeing the letter that’s been clinging to the mirror. I keep it there because it still gets me P.O.’d, and somehow being sore about it helps keep Bobby’s memory alive. I kicked in the bedroom wall the first night I read it, and almost let the notice go up in flames in a bonfire down in the Gulch. But Cruz was there and held out his arm, grabbing my wrist just in time.

  It’s not even on official stationery or anything, those cheap army bastards. It looks just like the stuff Mrs. Normand hands out for us to fool around with in typing class. Anybody could have typed it from here. That’s why it’s still so hard to believe:

  HEADQUARTERS, 2nd BATTALION, 28th MARINES, 5th MARINE DIVISION, FLEET MARINE FORCE, c/o FLEET POST OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  May 2, 1945

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. O’Sullivan:

  It was my sad duty to notify the Commandant of the Marine Corps regarding the death of your son, Robert.

  Your son, Robert, met his death on Iwo Jima, in the following manner: He began the operation as a rifleman, but because of his capabilities Robert was made a radioman, a position which requires a man of courage and clear thinking while under fire. Your son had these qualities and accepted this position, which he knew to be dangerous.

  It was while he was carrying out his duties in a most commendable manner that he was struck by enemy small-arms fire. Robert died instantly and suffered no pain. You may be assured your son gave his life as a true marine, gloriously, fearlessly, and proudly.

  As his commanding officer, I wish you to know that Robert was a man of whom we were all proud and with whom we were all honored to serve.

  The Marine Corps and the nation can ill afford to lose the valuable services of such a person as your son.

  Please accept my sincerest sympathies on your recent bereavement. I remain,

  Sincerely yours,

  J. D. Hutterfield

  Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps,

  Commanding Second Battalion, 28th Marines,

  5th Marine Division

  * * *

  5:54 P.M.

  The screen door whams shut and then there’s a thump, like a big juicy cantaloupe’s rolled off the counter and onto the floor. But I’m always thinking about food when it’s supposed to be suppertime. With Maw not here anymore, Pop eats wherever he feels like it: Duvall’s Service Station one night, the diner, even the Copper Star—whatever can get delivered to the doghouse during meal break over at the mine.

  He has Maggie Juniper, the widowed squaw living in an old gypsy caravan down in the Gulch, come in once a week to clean the place up a bit, and sometimes she’ll make us food. That’s on Mondays. Now that it’s Friday there’s nothing left to speak of in the way of nourishment.

  That’s how come I know it’s Cruz in the kitchen instead of anything to eat, like a ripe-heavy cantaloupe that’s gone rolling. He must’ve dropped his helmet on the floor. Cruz is always stuffing way too much in his gym bag.

  “Hey, Ugly. Aren’t you ready yet?” he hollers up the stairs. Cruz sure is fired up if he’s at my house this early. The game’s not until eight.

  “What’d you do, eat up all the food on the shelves and then chomp on the ice, too?” he says. I can hear him in front of the Frigidaire, scratching up Maw’s linoleum floor with his cleats.

  “I’m not hungry,” I tell him. Cruz is getting on my nerves already, walking around the kitchen as if he owns it.

  “Whaddya mean, you’re not hungry? You eat already? Better not be meat. ¡Ave María Purísima! You know what happens if you eat meat.”

  “I said I’m not hungry. Comprendes?” I sprint down the stairs and shove Cruz and his yapper out of the way, swinging the refrigerator door shut. It’s nobody’s business how much food is in there.

  He plugs his nose and shifts a pile of my dirty laundry onto the step stool.

  “Good thing you’r
e not hungry.” Cruz starts pulling out a red bandanna from his bag but he doesn’t even have to untie it. I caught a whiff. I know it’s a burrito. Smells all fresh and full of those Mexican spices Mrs. V grinds up with her mortar and pestle.

  “Frijoles. That’s what you need … beans,” he says, poking the bandanna at me.

  “I said … I ain’t hungry.” I try not to lick my lips or swallow or anything. But the scent’s all over the kitchen and my mouth sure is watering.

  “I thought you said your pop leaves leftovers every night, no?” Cruz tugs on a cupboard handle. “That your fridge is so full you can’t even close it.”

  “Threw all that stuff away on account it was turning sour,” I tell him. Which is true: the one rotted-out tomato covered in fuzz that I scraped off the butter dish.

  Once in a while Pop’ll remember to bring me something home, but I can fend for myself. Ernie still keeps me on the payroll two days a week, though there’s not much to do at the garage, and if Mrs. Slubetz has anything left in the cafeteria, she lets anyone take it, so I’ll bring stuff home and mix it up with some hot sauce.

  Cruz takes out a plate, wiping off the dust with his elbow. It’s the orange china dish with the little grooved lines around the edges that was Maw’s favorite.

  Pop acts like Maw will walk right down from the miners’ hospital and start making us an Ulster fry like nothing ever happened. Like everything’s all right.

  “If you don’t eat something fresh, Ugly, you’ll pass out, and I don’t want us losing the game on account of you.” Cruz is acting cocky, as if he’s got the upper hand. Like he’s better off because his mother’s still at home making enchiladas and taking care of ten kids, three of them snot-nosed and barely potty-trained. They run around the Barrio with mud-covered feet, their painted-pony-colored hair flapping in the wind.

  “You still have a rusty ol’ icebox, Cruz. What do you know about keeping food fresh?” I tell him.

  He cuts the burrito in two with a bottle opener he found in the sink, but it’s not an even half. He slides the plate in my direction, leaving me the bigger piece, before wiping his forehead with the bandanna because of the heat.