Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (37 page)

They rotated me between three farms. On my bicycle, with the buche on my back, I’d pedal through Albion, or on the tow path along the Erie Canal to the different orchards. The tow path was my favorite. Sometimes I’d go out of my way to take that route.

The only Mexicans that seemed interested in having anything to do with me were Chooey and Juan. All the others would wave and smile when they saw me. Aside from that, they kept their distance, and there was one who acted like he hated me.

“Why do you say that?” Chooey asked as he handed me a Bud Lite. I had just given Della her evening feed, when he walked into the barn with the beer.

“Every time I wave at Alex he turns the other way. And when he delivers bins to me, instead of spreading them down the rows like he does for everybody else, he just drops them beside the road and takes off. I don’t get it. What did I do to him?”

“You’re picking apples.”

“So?”

Chooey swallowed a swig of beer. “He doesn’t think it’s right that you’re picking apples. Alex says it’s a Mexican job, not American. You should get an American job and leave the Mexican jobs alone.”

If I hadn’t had a mouth full of beer, I probably would have yelled, “What are you talking about? This is America! So this is an American job! He’s probably illegal anyway.”

But I didn’t. Instead I swallowed the beer and asked, “What do you think?”

That little boy grin bloomed on his face as Chooey aimed the beer bottle at his lips. “Are you having fun yet?”

You make more money when you pick bigger apples because it takes less of them to fill the bin. How I wish I’d had a chance to pick Courtlands, some were the size of grapefruit. How I hated picking Fuji. It took forever to fill a bin. I was tickled when they sent me to pick Ida Reds. They weren’t Courtlands, but they’re still a good sized apple.

It was a couple days after Thanksgiving, and apple picking was nearly over. By noon I had filled three and a half bins. I was proud of myself. It would be a banner day for Loco Gringo.

I had just sat down to eat my sandwich, when Juan pulled into the row with his tractor and dropped off a stack of bins at the other end. Less than a minute later, an old white sedan pulled up and stopped by the bins. I had seen this car several times. It always had two men and a woman in it. One of the men was as tall as me. The other was about six inches shorter, and the woman was so short she was almost a midget.

Chooey had told me the tall man and woman were married. The other guy was her brother. They worked as a team and were something to watch. Between the three of them they could strip a tree in a matter of minutes. The woman and her brother worked the bottom branches, while her husband picked the top of the tree. Then, after they picked two or three trees, she would go back and pick the ones off the ground. Scurrying around under the trees, her arms moved so fast they were a blur as she raked apples into the buche.

Chooey said, “They make more money than anybody.”

And now they were in my row of trees. My first chance to make some decent money, and here they were. While I ate my sandwich I could hear them rolling the bins down the aisle. They were positioning themselves to strip me of a decent day’s wages. It had been cloudy all morning, but now it was downright gloomy. When I stashed the empty sandwich bag in my bike packs, I found myself muttering, “Damn wet-backs! Why don’t they go back where they belong.”

When I stopped for lunch, I had a bin in the aisle that was half filled. After lunch, by the time I had finished filling it, they had filled five bins and were working on their sixth. And there were only three trees left to be picked.

While I stood surveying the situation, it began to snow. I was so angry the snow must have sizzled when it landed on me. What was I going to do? Start another bin?

I had one empty left, and was rolling it toward the three remaining trees, when I noticed they had no more empties. What did this mean? Should I relinquish my empty to them? No way!

The snow was really coming down when I waddled out from under a tree with my full bucket. When I got to my empty bin I could see theirs was about three quarters full. I paused for a moment and watched the flakes float down into the orchard. What a beautiful sight. The trees, the grass, the bins, me and my fellow workers were being adorned with this soft winter lace. It seems trite to say that the scene was becoming a winter wonderland, but it was. And my anger was tainting it.

Right then, something comfortable inside took control and propelled me past my bin toward theirs. The woman had just emptied her buche, when she looked up and saw me approach. Fear was on her face, and she took a few steps back. While I emptied my load into their bin, she turned and babbled something to the men. Her husband replied “Yo que se?” (How should I know?)

At that moment, I felt downright giddy. This was going to be fun. Astonishment was on the woman’s face when I winked at her, and as I turned back toward my tree she began chatter at her husband. Repeatedly the word “dinero” (money) was in her sentences.

When I dumped my apples into their bin the second time, the husband walked up to me and said, “Hombre, we share the work, eh?”

“You mean the money?” I could see the woman anxiously waiting behind her husband for an answer. So I looked at her and said, “Dinero? No amigo. This is all yours.”

She tugged on her husband’s sweat shirt and simply asked, “Que?”

Before he could reply, I said, “It’s getting cold out here. Comprende?”

He nodded his head. “Si.”

“Let’s get these apples picked so we can go get warm. You keep the money.”

Snow was piling up on the hood of his sweat shirt as a big grin spread across his face. “Gracias, hombre.”

When I turned toward my tree, she started interrogating him. While I didn’t know what was being said, I could tell it didn’t make any sense to her. Why would Loco Gringo pick apples for them?

Even if we had spoken the same language, how could I explain myself? Sure, I needed the money as much as they did. But that’s not the only reason I was in the orchard. No more than getting to Maine was the only reason we were walking. We were on the road to truly experience America in her own neighborhoods. I was in the orchard to savor the magic of work that hasn’t changed in more than a hundred years. I wanted to be one of the champions who brings the fruit in before winter ruins it.

For us, the best part of traveling was when a community included us as if we were part of it. Like the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. In the orchard, a real bonus for me would have been to be accepted as part of the team that brought in the harvest. Up till now, it had just been me picking for me. I’d been filling bins with my number on it so that come Friday, I got a decent paycheck–but it felt like something was missing. And now, hauling buche after buche to their bins, I found it. Camaraderie. The joy of working
with
them, rather than beside them. Albeit I forced myself onto their team, I was still part of it, and it felt good.

How could I explain that to this woman? I couldn’t. So I just returned her nods and smiles, and kept on picking.

By the time we got to the last tree, the snow had slowed to flurries. So much had fallen that the entire orchard was blanketed in white. The husband and I were on ladders at the top of the tree, when I stopped to gaze around us. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hombre, it’s really beautiful, eh?”

He looked around us for a few moments, then turned back to me and said, “Si, es muy hermoso. Muy bonito!”

Suddenly, without thinking, I started singing, “Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way . . . .”

He started laughing, and I could hear the other two laughing below us. When I looked down, the woman was standing next to the bin clapping to the rhythm of my singing. Her husband reached over, patted me on the shoulder and started humming along. Later, as I emptied my last load into the bin, I heard her under the tree humming the melody to, “Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh . . . .”

When the day’s picking was done, we were supposed to take our ladders to the end of the row and lay them under the last tree. The husband and I had just done that, when he turned to me and said, “Hombre, the money. We share work, we share–”

I held up my hand. “You keep the money. Let’s go home and get warm.”

“Gracias.”

The snow had started again, and I was zipping closed the packs on my bicycle, when they drove by me at the end of the row. The woman was leaning out the back window with a pretty smile on her round Mexican face. “Adios amigo. Gracias.”

That was my finest day of apple picking.

Bud’s last day of apple picking.

CHAPTER 15

W
INTER
I
N
T
HE
S
NOW
B
ELT

I Love Snow!

A
ND NOT JUST ITS BEAUTY
, I like the inconvenience. What else can completely disrupt everything–schedules, traffic, life, society–and yet, make the world look prettier than it really is? Nothing harkens adults back to their childhood like snow. It calls them to slopes with skis, sleds or pieces of cardboard. Parents pack it into balls to throw at their children and each other. Mature grownups will lay down in it on their backs then move their arms up and down making snow angels. Then they’ll urge their children to do it too. Nothing is so magical as snow!

“I’m glad you like snow so much,” Chris grumbled, as he shook some off a Christmas tree I had just cut for the farm market. “Because I’ve got a feeling we’re in for a hell of a lot of it!”

Albion, New York is halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, right in the middle of the snow belt. Chris’s forecast was right. We got more than 170 inches that winter–the most ever. And, according to the weather service, it was one of the coldest winters on record. It seemed like the wind was always blowing. Usually it was a westerly, with either a southern or northern tack. They were Canadian winds that blustered across Lake Erie, which was forty miles to our west, or over Lake Ontario–eight miles to the north.

By the end of the first week in December, all of the migrants had gone home to Mexico. The night Patricia and I moved into the Harding House,
a storm off Lake Erie and an Arctic blast from Ontario, collided at the Watt Farm.