Learning to See

by Elise Hooper

  “Tommy, how old are you?”

  “Almost eight. Reckon you wanna take our picture?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  Hildy smiled and wrapped an arm around Tom while pulling Bert against her hip. Her calico dress practically begged to be handed down to a smaller girl, straining as it did across her knobby shoulders. She was missing several teeth. Those that remained were gray. After I took a couple of photos, the children offered to show us around the camp. We followed them. Soon a gaggle of pale-faced children trailed us as we plodded deeper into the camp. The tents thinned. Piles of food scraps attracted flies. An unbearable stench filled the air.

  “Tommy, where are the privies?” Ed asked, wrinkling his nose.

  “Well, no one really uses ’em anymore because they got so full. Now people just go wherever.”

  I didn’t dare inspect the murky sludge squelching below my shoes. “Tommy, what do you say you introduce us to your mother?”

  “Sure, lady.”

  To my relief, we returned to the tents. Our pace slowed as we approached a tent with a roof made from thatched long dried grasses and corrugated metal siding. A woman appeared in front, pushing lank light brown hair out of her face.

  “Ma, this lady here’s takin’ pictures,” Hildy said.

  The woman said nothing, her expression wary. She took in my limp as I neared. Her guarded expression softened and she nodded at me.

  “I’m Dorothea Lange and this is Ed Rowell.”

  “Esther Crawley.”

  I could see a large bucket of water next to the front door of the tent.

  “May I have a glass of water?”

  “’Course. Set yerself down.” She pointed to a crude bench constructed out of rough boards, and I lowered myself onto it while Ed stood next to me.

  I nodded to Mrs. Crawley. “You’ve got a fine set of children here. I’ve got two boys of my own. They sure keep me on my toes.”

  She chuckled, handing me a jar with water. I lifted it to show my appreciation for her hospitality, but having no idea where the water had come from, I only dampened my lips with it.

  I thought about how Paul approached people and cleared my throat. “How long have you all been here?”

  “Three weeks, I reckon. We were down south ’round Barstow ’fore that, but nuthin’ to be found in them parts.”

  “What kind of work’s around here?”

  “Mostly pea-pickin’.”

  “And there’s enough of it for all of you?”

  “Not really. My husband’s been workin’ off and on, but ain’t been nuthin’ for me now fixin’ on a week.” She pointed at my camera. “What’s with that?”

  “I’m taking photos for the State Emergency Relief Administration. It wants to know what’s happening down here so the government can figure out how to help folks who need it.”

  “Well, if you gotta job to do, go right ’head.”

  I rose from my bench and backed up to take a wide shot of the tent before moving around. I tried to notice everything: the neatly stacked dishes by the shelter’s entrance, the limp laundry hanging on a line, the oil cans scattered next to the cooking fire pit. After a few minutes, Ed and I took our leave and headed off to find Paul. He was still talking to the same old-timer, who nodded at me by way of greeting. I took that as a signal and took a few photographs of him. After a bit longer, Paul rose and shook hands with the man.

  ONCE WE WERE back on the road, the encampment disappearing behind an outcropping of junipers, Paul got right down to business. “Tom, did you get a count on how many tents were there?”

  Tom looked at the map he had sketched in his notebook. “Twenty-eight.”

  “How many people do you think were inhabiting that camp?”

  “I’m not sure how many were off working. There were more kids than I expected, though. Babies too.”

  Paul frowned. “Rosa, did you talk to anyone?”

  “I talked to one family from Arkansas, but didn’t see any families from Mexico.”

  Paul nodded but sounded puzzled. “Neither did I. Dorothea, were you able to get any photos?”

  I nodded, but before I could say anything, Ed jumped in. “She was a natural out there. She’s got a real knack for talking with the women and children.”

  I felt my cheeks warm.

  “When do you think you’ll be able to have them developed?” Paul asked.

  “As soon as we return.”

  He turned the car off the dusty road and onto the highway. We stopped at several more camps, each as dismal as the first. By late afternoon, I’d eaten some crackers but was ravenous. We hadn’t stopped for a single meal all day. Low grumbles emanated from everyone’s stomachs. When we arrived in San Luis Obispo, folks practically fell out of the car, eager for a closer look at a menu posted in a window advertising a $1.95 rib-eye dinner. We were each on a daily stipend of four dollars. The idea of spending so much money on a fancy dinner when we’d spent the day among people who could barely get a pan of cornbread out to their families left me cold. In the thickening dusk, I could make out a sign for a diner farther down the street.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m heading over there,” I said, sliding my camera bag higher onto my arm.

  Paul frowned. “Don’t you want to eat?”

  “I do, but honestly, I just can’t stomach eating at a place like that after all I’ve seen today. I’ll meet you all back here in a bit.” I gave a polite nod and walked toward the diner. After a moment, the sound of footsteps echoed behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Paul fell into step next to me, grinning sheepishly. I nodded, surprised at how pleased I felt to find him beside me. “Tomorrow morning we should get some food to take with us in the cars. You’ve got to figure in some time to feed everyone in between stops at the camps,” I said. I was overstepping, but Paul nodded, unfazed by my directness.

  “You’re right, sorry, I sometimes forget.”

  The ease with which he apologized surprised me and I looked away at the shuttered storefronts we were passing. “It’s all right. It’s obvious you’ve got other things on your mind. I’ll remind you in the morning.” I looked over at him, expecting to see annoyance, but he smiled.

  By the time we arrived at the diner, the rest of the group followed behind. We entered and slid into a couple of booths to order plates of mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, and stew for sixty-five cents. As I pierced a carrot with my fork, I tried to picture one of the nearby fields. Where had this carrot come from? Who picked it? I’d never wondered about these things before. My appetite sputtered, but I continued eating, not wanting anyone’s labor to go to waste. Throughout the meal, I could feel Paul studying me. Every time I caught his eye, he gave me a small smile, his dark eyes warm and kind.

  Chapter 25

  After several days of driving along the fields of San Luis Obispo County, the group met up with another vehicle of state officials and some headed back to San Francisco. Only Paul and I pressed on. We headed farther south to the Coachella Valley, where Tom Vasey and Irving Wood planned to meet us again the following week with Maynard. When Paul and I stopped at an auto court in Santa Maria for the night, I walked down the street to a pharmacy to purchase a small notebook so I could write down what I was photographing, where we went, and my expenses. When I spoke with lettuce pickers outside of Indio, I wrote that they made fourteen cents for picking a crate and could make seventy cents a day if things went well. They were permitted to sleep in between the rows of plants at night for sixty cents. It didn’t take a mathematician to see how this was going to work out.

  I also began to note what people were saying. Their words captured their situation better than anything I could dream up. When one grizzled old man leaning up against his broken-down jalopy said, “This life is simplicity, boiled down. Seems like God’s forsaken us back in Arkansas,” I nodded, repeating his words to myself until I got back to the car and wrote them. I started developing my photographs in the bathtubs of the auto courts
and the old cabins where we stayed. Grimy, grim faces peered out of my images, daring me to look away.

  Irving, Tom, and Maynard met us at a camp outside of Blythe. Maynard’s face froze as he took in the squalor surrounding us. He remained silent as we walked through the camp. Even though it was just after six o’clock and the sun was on the wane, the temperature still hovered around the mid-nineties. Beads of sweat rolled down my back, even though I was standing still, not even lifting a finger. At one point, an old truck belched its way into the snaggle of tents. A couple of men and four boys slid off the empty truck bed, their faces weary, their clothes filthy from a long day working in a nearby field. Two of the boys appeared to be about ten years old, the others couldn’t have been more than thirteen. After the group trudged past us, Maynard let out a low whistle. “What the hell kind of country are we living in? Those young boys have been out there in the sun all day working?” He shook his head as he spoke.

  “I guess I’d better get my camera. There’s still enough light to get some work done.”

  As I brushed by him on my way to the car, he reached out and held on to my arm. “When we get back, let’s get Dan and John. That money I made from the murals for the Department of the Interior and the money from this report should see us through the next several months.”

  The sun had ignited two red splotches on his cheeks, but he was still pale, even with the flush of the day’s heat. He swallowed, twitching the rough, loose skin of his neck, and pushed back his cowboy hat to rub away some sweat. His hair, once jet black and thick, now hung stringy and gray.

  I nodded. He let go of my arm and turned the other direction to cough. At sixty years old, his health was worsening. I went to the car to retrieve my camera and, hidden from view, I bent down, closed my eyes, and rested my forehead against the hot black leather of the seat, wincing at the sound of Maynard’s hacking cough. The thought of our boys working all day in a field in this heat made me sick to my stomach, but unlike Maynard, I didn’t yearn to race home. Instead, I wanted to do more. Of course I longed to hold my boys in my arms, but how could I turn my back and return to San Francisco and resume my portrait business after photographing scabby-kneed children poking reeds into a muddy culvert looking for critters to eat? I needed to help these people if I could. As soon as this thought flickered through my mind, guilt washed over me. What kind of a mother didn’t put her children above everything else? What was wrong with me? Without looking backward, I hurried toward the tents, pushing thoughts of Maynard and the boys away.

  THAT NIGHT AS we turned off the lamp in our musty auto court room and settled upon the lumpy mattress, Maynard pressed himself to my side and caressed my shoulder. I rolled over to look at him, trying to make out the outline of his face next to mine, but his expression was lost in the shadows. He eased me onto my back and settled on top of me, his bony hips pushing against me. His fingers combed through my hair and held my head in place while his dark eyes searched my face as if he was preparing to ask a question. Instead he placed his lips atop mine and ran his hands down to my ribs. Relieved not to speak, I arched to meet him and sighed as he pushed into me.

  Afterward, I pulled the sheet over my breasts and stared into the darkness. Next to me, Maynard’s breathing steadied into sleep, but I was awake, my mind restless. A shaft of brightness from the bare electric bulb outside our doorway lit a sliver through the curtains, creating a stripe of light on the wall next to me. I reached out to pick at a chip of flaking oatmeal-colored paint, thinking of Paul in the room next door. Was he asleep? The plaster wall felt flimsy underneath the pressure of my fingers, as if I could peel a hole right through it and see him looking back at me. I pulled my hand back and tucked it under the thin sheet. My cheeks burned to think of him so nearby. I hoped he hadn’t heard me with Maynard.

  Was Paul lonesome? All of these nights in different rooms, day after day immersed in the dreariness of the migrant camps—did it wear on him? I squeezed my eyes shut as if it would stop my questions. Why was I thinking about Paul? He wasn’t thinking about me.

  With Maynard snoring beside me, I climbed out of bed and knelt at one of the smeary windows to pull back the curtain and see a line of parked automobiles outside. A battered red truck loomed in front of me, a NO RIDERS sign stuck to the windshield. I lifted my eyes from the line of vehicles to look at the stars gleaming overhead. How many times had I seen Orion and the Big Dipper over Maynard’s shoulders as he lay atop me, our bodies entwined under the night sky? We once had such passion. Now we were stuck in this little fleabag, making love resignedly under a water-stained ceiling. What had happened to us?

  I searched the northern corner of the inky night sky, thinking of Dan and John sleeping in someone else’s house. I pictured the dark fringe of Dan’s eyelashes resting on his soft cheeks as he slept, how John tended to sleep with his limbs sprawled wide like the arms of a starfish. When I thought about them, a void cracked open inside me. I missed everything about them, the feeling of their smooth, warm hands in my own and the gritty smell they carried on their skin after a long day of playing outdoors. But they were safe and healthy while so many others were not. Out here, in the fields and on the streets, not only was I earning a paycheck, but I felt useful. Maybe our work could lead to some help for these migrants. Was this grandiose? Could some photographs make that much of a difference? Paul seemed to think so. Maybe I could help families who were not as fortunate as us. I had to try.

  We wrote and assembled the report back in my studio in San Francisco, Paul on his typewriter, me curating photos, Maynard creating pen and ink maps. I obtained heavy cardboard to make covers, waxed them to look professional, and used a wire spiral binding for the pages to reveal the crisis we had seen unfolding firsthand.

  “Gosh, fifty-seven photos are in here.” I needed both hands to lift the report from the table. “Think it’s too much?”

  Paul shook his head. “No, they make this problem real. Don’t you think, Maynard?”

  Maynard nodded without any of his usual wisecracks, his eyes trained on the finished report resting on the table. “I won’t lie, I’ve been dubious of the government’s help,” he said, pulling on the corner of his mustache. “But I sure hope this damned thing works.”

  His words raised goose bumps on my arms. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never been one to throw around the word hope before. The three of us nodded in silence. But how could a pile of paper change any of the misery we’d seen?

  LATER THAT WEEK, Paul telephoned my studio to tell me about his meeting with the SERA officials. He described how the director of the agency tore five pages of my photographs out of the report and handed them around the group as he read my captions aloud.

  “Wait, they ruined my binding?” I bristled. “It cost me an extra three dollars to make it that way.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Easy for you to say. I messed up my fingers on that darned binding.”

  “Listen to me: SERA’s allocated two hundred thousand dollars to build twenty camps for migrant workers in California.”

  My breath stopped. I slid my back down the wall until I was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  “Dorothea? You still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “It was amazing. I’ve never seen government types get so riled up. It was all because of your photos. They made the difference. You made the difference.”

  I laughed to cover up the tears seeping from the corners of my eyes. Paul continued talking, outlining our next project, but I only smiled, not hearing a word of what he said. For now, I just wanted to close my eyes and enjoy the sense of joy spreading through me.

  Chapter 26

  Our next assignment was in the Imperial Valley, a hot and dry stretch of land in Southern California, patched with fields. When Paul told me to pack for a three-week trip, I almost balked. How could I be gone for so long? I rarely went for more than five days without spending time with Dan and John. I visited Maynar
d in his studio to plan for my absence and found him sitting on a stool staring at a canvas resting on the ground in front of him. Piles of papers cluttered the tables in the room. The air was tart with the smell of linseed oil and turpentine, but also still and warm like a rarely visited attic. As I crossed the room, I picked up a small Hopi pot and blew on it, raising my eyebrows at him as a cloud of dust spread through the hazy air. The studio’s usual sense of energy and vibrancy seemed extinguished. “Ever heard of a feather duster?”

  “I’ve been busy, woman,” he growled.

  I picked up a painted board from a small table and studied the brown expanses surrounding a woman standing next to a tarp tent and parked car. “Is this from your trip to San Joaquin Valley last month?”

  Maynard grunted a sound of assent. “Yep, part of my Forgotten Man series,” he said. “So, I’m assuming you’re here to tell me that you’re leaving for somewhere?”

  I told him about the assignment with Paul.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Almost a month.”

  “And you’ve got everything you need.”

  I started to answer, to list off all of the things I was packing—film, tripods, my cameras, tools, notebooks—but he interrupted me. “I wasn’t asking for a packing list. It wasn’t a question. I simply observed that you always seem to have everything you need.”

  “Well, I spend a lot of time planning.”

  “Have you ever wondered if you spend all that time planning so you don’t think about what you’re leaving behind?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing emerged. What was I leaving behind? I hated leaving the boys, but what about my marriage? I once felt such passion for the man in front of me, but now could barely summon anything other than concern for him. He had once radiated such charm and virility, creativity and humor. The old man slumped in front of me was a mere shell of that character.

  He coughed. “Bender came by with a commission for me and said he’s got a client who’s willing to rent his house on Vallejo for cheap. I told him I’ll use money from the new project and take it. When you get back, we can all move in. Together at last.” Even as he spoke about what we had both hoped would happen—our being reunited under one roof—he didn’t look me in the eye. What could I say? He noted my silence and rose, thrusting his hand out to me. “Well, have a safe trip, pard.”