Honestly Kid

Friday, September 29th, 2006 | Part 1, People, premature fiction

The first sea­son he picked black­ber­ries he was eight years old. He worked hard and talked lit­tle. He wanted the farmer to know he was seri­ous and use­ful, not like most of the older, white kids who laughed and ate as many berries as they boxed. He decided to be like his older broth­ers who picked more berries, faster than any­one except the most dili­gent women whose hands seemed never to grow tired and didn’t seem to notice the scratch of the thorns and branches. Women like his mother, who did not help their sons as they picked, only smiled occa­sion­ally and told them to keep work­ing if they passed them car­ry­ing boxes to the end of a row.

“The faster you pick, the more they pay. And they always notice when they pay.” His brother Emiliano told him. His third sea­son, jefe and the farmer both noticed the boy with strong hands. He picked fast and never over loaded his boxes, keep­ing the best berries on the top. Jefe asked him to fill in on a crew of grape pick­ers, then work pick­ing a late field of straw­ber­ries, and then more grapes.

By summer’s end he had earned almost as much money as Emiliano. His mother cried when his father said, “Gabriel’s becom­ing a man already.”

“No. He should be a boy a while longer.”

“Why? He’ll only get into trou­ble like we did. More work, less trou­ble.” Emiliano had told jefe that Gabriel would work this fall.

“No more work this sea­son. Play soc­cer. Go have fun. And use your money for new clothes.”

Gabriel reached across the small old kitchen table to put his hand over his mother’s. “I want to work, mama. Maybe we can stay here in this house another year.”

His father smiled at him. “We will be here more than one year. Jose has a good job here. His boss owns this house. He wants us to stay. He has work for me, some­day he may have work for you too.” Jose, his eldest brother, had worked for Trot Sneed for the last two and a half years. Earlier this sum­mer, Jose had moved his fam­ily to this old house, deep in the peach orchards.

“And you go to school this year.”

“No, mama.” Emiliano said it more quickly than he meant to.

“Yes, you bring him there. And tell jefe that he’s going to learn some things. Yes, I know what you told him, Emiliano. Don’t let your brother be your lit­tle jefe, Gabriel.”

“Okay.” Gabriel sat back in his chair, a lit­tle ner­vous about not work­ing, about the American kids, and about going back to school. “When does it start?”

And his mother smiled, reach­ing to take his small strong hands in hers. With new tears bring­ing light to her dark eyes, she said, “Mi bien chico. Mi muy muy bien mucha­cho.“

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