Look Me In the Eye

A Fireside Chats excerpt by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Benny Cantun hauled the Weber barbecue grill out of his pickup and set it in the empty parking space between the truck and his cargo van. While he did his macho duty, Aurelia took the younger children into Merry Market to use the toilet. If one had to go, she took them all. She said it was like a contagious disease, which always made Benny chuckle. So he laughed as he built the makeshift hearth of the temporary home they and a good number of other wildfire evacuees were creating in the market’s parking lot.

“My Aurelia, she is a good woman,” Benny murmured. He paused from his chores to remove his palm leaf hat and wipe his brow, and he took another moment to watch the growing community of those who also refused to leave town or had no place else to go, nestling in as the wildfire’s winds swirled ash across the graying asphalt. He put a fire starter on the grill, stacked a pyramid of charcoal on top and thought of his young primo, his cousin Jesus, just arrived from Teotihuacán and stubbornly camping in the barranca near the recycling center, when he could have been staying at their ranch with them.

“Where will he go now, with the fire? Foolish kid, too much pride,” Benny said to no one in particular, because no one was close enough to hear him, not that Benny was in need of an audience. In fact, even when his family was around him, he suspected his words sounded puny compared to Aurelia’s. When it came to his wife, she might as well be La Virgen de Guadalupe herself. She ruled the family, as his mother had hers. And he knew it was best, just as he knew it was his job to rail against it. The only thing Aurelia really needed him for anymore was to capture her rage when it escaped her. “Ah, bueno, as it should be. … I hope that boy joins us here — if he receives the message that our destination is this parking lot that wishes it was a campground.”

“Papi! Who are you talking to?” Benny’s oldest girl, Graciela, the one most like his Aurelia, called from inside the van.

“Nobody, nobody.”

“I bet you’re talking to yourself again, Papi, sí?” Graciela looked out the side door and twirled her finger by her temple.

“A little respect, por favor, Nena!” And they laughed together, knowing he would always talk to himself and she would always kid him about it, teasing being their common expression of love.

Benny pulled a match from the band of his hat and started the fire, noting the contradiction and sending a quick prayer to La Virgen.

“Maybe the boy won’t show; maybe he’s afraid to be seen by all the uniforms in town. La Migra, immigration, though, aren’t among them, but he won’t know that if he doesn’t pull his silly head out of that ditch. I guess we’ll find out as the night progresses.” He fanned the fire a moment with his hat, then meandered to the van to check on Graciela’s efforts to convert it into a comfortable bed for them all.

Benny admired the movements of his girl, so like her beautiful mother. She had finished high school while working her way up to checker at the market, and now she was taking her first classes at Palomar College — while she helped with the younger children and paid for half of her own education. Benny knew it was all Aurelia’s doing, but he couldn’t resist the glow of pride when he saw the girls at church who had not fared as well, coming to his youth group with swelling bellies and no papis to honor them, their babies or God. He looked into the van. “You have your Mami’s fine looks, Nena, but you did not inherit my mouth. You’ll need a lot of hot air to make those mattresses soft for us all.”

“Okay, Papi, you can blow them up with all your hot air if you want, but they come with a pump.”

“Ah, sí, sí, sí. You inherited your Mami’s smart cabeza, too. You’re a good girl, Graciela.” Benny tossed up a prayer of thanks that she was wise enough to grace Aurelia and him with sufficient ignorance to keep their hearts at ease. As best as he could tell, she put herself at little risk, swatting away the caballeros who would lead her from her path.

“Thanks, Papi.” Graciela silently re-affirmed her belief it was better not to share everything with her parents. “You’re not so bad for an old burro, but get out of my way so I can finish.”

They laughed again as Graciela pumped air mattresses and Benny turned to the cab of his truck and pulled an old portable radio from behind the passenger seat. It had only two working settings: Benny’s favorite music station and KGAP, which Benny usually avoided, but he thought tonight might be a little different. News littered with religiosidad was better than no news. He put the radio on the tailgate, turned it on to his music, and stared at the smoking charcoal. “Burn, you rotten bandits.” He poked at the briquettes, a compulsion he shared with the men of his family — it didn’t matter that their poking invariably postponed the magic moment when the coals accepted their destiny.

He hummed to the radio’s Ranchera music, contemplating the endless line of baptisms and quinceaños — much more spirited than the gringos’ cotillions — and family weddings that reached back before his conscious memory and, he well knew, would continue on far beyond the days his bones would fertilize the trees that now fed his family. He smiled as he wiped the perspiration from the back of his neck, its scars and creases, a map of his thirty years working his way through Fallbrook’s avocado groves to now owning four and managing many others.

“Most days, life is good in Fallbrook. Gracias a Dios.”

A rusty, rattling RV pulled alongside Benny’s van and stopped with a chorus of squeaks and groans and rattles, drowning out a taunt from Graciela for talking to himself again. A slim woman in a paint-smudged shirt slipped down from the driver’s seat, walked toward the market and met Benny’s glance. He looked away, but she smiled and said, “Ah, Monjaras, one of my favorite singers.” He returned to face her, all sad eyes and darkened beauty, an olivewood sculpture abandoned to the weather, and he tipped his hat. She continued toward the market, saying over her shoulder, “Buenas tardes, Señor.”

“Buenas tardes, Señora.” Benny was contemplating her knowledge of his music in contrast to the American twang of her Spanish, when Nacho, one of his older cousins, pulled into the next row.

Nacho waved to Benny and unloaded an ice chest and some lawn chairs. “Your family is safe?” he called to Benny as he brushed his hands on his jeans and headed over with the chest.

“Oh, sure — as long as you’ve brought the beer. Otherwise, one of us is not so safe.” They shook hands and gave each other a quick embrace. “Aurelia and the little ones are just in the market. And your family?”

“María went to Escondido this afternoon to stay with her mother in her apartment, in case she needs help.” Nacho pulled a bottle from the chest, uncapped it with a pocketknife and handed it to Benny, and then repeated the process for himself. “Alejandro and Flora got stuck at Cal State San Marcos — couldn’t get back into town — so they’re staying with my cousin and his wife in Vista. And, hmmm, Mario took Cati to stay with Cati’s cousins in Oceanside. That knucklehead took his surfboard with him, too! It’s time he got serious about settling down, making a family, but his head is always in a wave.” Nacho poured a soothing wash of rich brown Negra Modelo down his gullet.

“Mario’s a good boy, Nacho.” Benny thought of his own youthful sins, wondering where he would be now were it not for his Aurelia. She was his anchor, his horsefly and the source of his life’s purpose. “His head could be in worse places, Nacho. We both know that. Surfing’s not so bad.”

“Maybe so, but rarely does a wave wash in gold with the seaweed, and when he’s not in the water, that Cati will keep his head where babies pass. He needs to pull up his pants and start making his path.”

They both paused to say a prayer for Mario and the family they were confident Cati’s beneficent breasts and persuasive hips would surely inspire in him — and they added a prayer for their pueblo, besieged by a heartless inferno they knew they could only outwait, like much of the malevolence that had threatened their people.

Sounds of delight turned their heads and they saw four children in graduated sizes happily lapping every drop of their melting popsicles and struggling to keep up with Aurelia, whose long strides belied her petite stature.

The two men nodded appreciatively and drank their sweet beer, as Aurelia approached in cycling shorts and a T-shirt and the confidence of a well-loved woman.

“She still coaches soccer after school?” Nacho asked, admiring Aurelia’s shapely legs and firm arms.

“Yes, for the kids’ competitive league and her women’s league. They won last year.”

“Who, the kids or the women?”

“Both.”

“You are a lucky man, Benny.”

“Si, si.” And another prayer of gratitude wafted from Benny to the heavens on the smoky wings of Santa Ana.

Aurelia handed the men the last two popsicles, pulled the buzzing cell phone from her belt clip and sat on the pickup’s tailgate. “¡Hola, Estela! Are you okay? ¿Estás bien, chica? … ¿Dónde estás? Where are you? … Ah, sí, sí, sí. …”

As Aurelia talked, another RV appeared, a grandiose model, equipped with a satellite dish and an air conditioning unit that, combined, were bigger than Benny’s van. The Cadillac of campers parked near his truck, taking up three spaces and extending into the next row. Benny and Nacho licked their popsicles and watched the driver, a large man of obviously large appetite, get out, adjust his cajones and snarl in Aurelia’s direction without bothering to look at her. “Why don’t you people learn to speak English?” he growled as he walked to the market’s entrance.

Aurelia rolled her eyes and continued her conversation with her sister.

Benny and Nacho muttered in profane unison, “Pendejo,” finished their popsicles, and washed them down with beer.

Aurelia returned her phone to the clip and gave Benny a small kiss. “Hola, Nacho. Where’s María?”

“She figured she’d better stay with her mother, in case the fire blows to Escondido.”

“Ah, and you prefer the parking lot to your mother-in-law’s apartment, Nacho?”

“No, I prefer the smell of the cars’ gas to that of my dear, sainted mother-in-law.”

They laughed and Aurelia jabbed at Nacho affectionately. “That was Estela on the phone,” she said. “She evacuated with the hospital patients and she’s staying with them up in Wildomar. My poor sister: She lost one during the evacuation. The ancient one, Mr. Johnson. Remember him, Benny?”

“Sí, si, the señor who knows old Fallbrook. Knew. Didn’t you and the girls take him cookies?”

“Yes, a few times. He has a daughter somewhere in town, but she’s old herself and she couldn’t visit him. We never saw any other family when we were there, but I hope someone stopped by. It’s a shame when families can’t stay together. We have to pray it doesn’t happen to our family — and we have to get dinner started! Nacho, you’ll eat with us. Graciela!” Graciela emerged from the van with her younger siblings clinging to her. “Take the kids to the bank parking lot and run some drills with them. That’ll tire them out.”

“Sí, Mami.”

As the children headed off, dribbling soccer balls around the increasing number of vehicles and campsites, the men headed for more beer in Nacho’s ice chest and saw the Spanish-speaking gringa returning to her RV. Benny looked over his shoulder at Aurelia and nodded toward the woman.

Aurelia caught his message and approached the stranger with her hand extended. “Hi, I’m Aurelia, Aurelia Cantun. Are you here alone?”

“Oh, hi, I’m Franny. No, well, yes.” She rubbed her eyes. “I guess I am alone. My husband won’t leave our house. He stayed in case, well, in case the fire reaches us — to fight it. He made me leave. He…”

“¡Ah, pobrecita!” Aurelia took Franny’s hand in hers and Franny concentrated on containing her tears. “You poor thing. You’ll have dinner with us. We have rice and beans and we’re grilling carne asada. We have more than enough. Please eat with us.”

“Well — I don’t — I, well, you know, I would really like that. Thank you. Thank you. Aurelia.”

“¡Maravilloso!” Aurelia hugged her and Franny almost skipped to her RV, relieved to have an evening ahead of her with kind people and her favorite foods, a welcome distraction from the lonely anticipation of something dreadful. She gave a final thought to the possibility of losing her home, and then pulled a folding chair from her RV’s storage compartment and returned to the warmth of Aurelia and Benny’s enclave.

“Please let me contribute what would have been my dinner. It’s not much, but it’s all comfort food.” Franny emptied her grocery bag of cheese and bread, grapes and four kinds of chocolate onto Benny’s tailgate. “Hi, I’m Franny,” she said to the men.

“I’m Benny. This is my primo, Nacho.”

They all shook hands, and Benny handed Franny a beer and one to Aurelia, who lifted hers to the east. “To Santa Ana. I pray her hunger will be satisfied and her righteous anger calmed before more is lost than we can bear.”

Nacho spat. “¡Maldito fuego!”

“Nacho!” Aurelia shook her finger at his swearing.

“Está bien, la gringa no habla español,” Nacho swigged his beer.

“Yes, I think the gringa does, too, speak Spanish,” Benny said while Franny laughed and Aurelia scolded Nacho in the language of her ancestors, hoping the Indian tongue would skip past Franny’s ears.

“Well, yes, I do speak Spanish,” Franny said. “This is Southern California and I —.”

“Not all people would agree that that is reason enough,” Aurelia said with a hint of bitterness, “not in this town. But I have to admit, it’s a challenge just to teach kids their mother tongue.”

Franny looked quizzically at Aurelia.

“Oh, I teach English at the high school. When I get them, my students can’t parse a sentence to save their souls. I’m lucky if they can identify a noun.”

“But she knows how to teach them,” Benny said. “By the time they leave her class, her students have learned to love their language, and they love my Aurelia.” He squeezed his wife around the waist and tried to kiss her cheek as she pushed him away with pleasure.

Benny’s admiration for his wife touched and stabbed Franny, who longed for such recognition from her own husband — or if not for her, at least for her paintings.

“Yes, I can teach them English,” Aurelia said, “but it’s a shame I can’t encourage more students to learn a second language, any second language. All of our kids are bilingual. It will serve them well when they apply for college.” She pulled a wooden crate to the edge of the truck bed and began removing its contents. She spread a tablecloth and arranged a buffet on the tailgate.

Benny poked again at the coals. “Even my cousin— ”

“Nacho?” Franny asked.

“No, another primo. He’s much older. He came to the U.S. not many years ago, but he spoke good English before he got here, and now it’s even better.”

“How many cousins do you have here?”

“I don’t know. Many, I have many cousins, muchos, muchos primos.”

“Sí, we have many cousins,” Nacho chuckled, “and they all know how to multiply, so their number is growing.” He sipped his beer.

“This cousin,” Benny continued, “his wife makes the most delicious tamales in all of Fallbrook. She makes them and he sells them door-to-door, in perfect English. Do you know what he did in Mexico?”

“No, she doesn’t know,” Nacho said, “but you’re going to tell her, right?”

“Drink your beer, Nacho. So, in Mexico, my primo sang opera. He was no Placido Domingo, but he was good. He sang in a fancy restaurante in Mexico City. And on Sundays he sang God’s songs in the cathedral. The voice of an angel. And now, now he sells tamales. Do you know why?”

“No, but —.” Nacho began.

“Quiet, Cousin, drink,” Benny scolded. “He sells tamales because he supported the wrong political party in Mexico and he refused to support the other, and he became afraid for himself and his family. He wants his children to live in a country where the government is not corrupt, where they can work hard and turn their hard work into success, no matter what party they support.” Benny’s face changed and Aurelia walked over to put her arms around him. “But here he can only sell tamales and work for me when I need him.”

“They have a better life here, and he knows it, mi amor.” Aurelia patted his belly and whispered comforting things in his ear.

Nacho tossed his empty bottle into the truck bed. “Come on, now. No sadness. ¡Cerveza para todos mis familiares y amigos!” He opened more bottles for everyone.

“¡Inglés, Nacho, inglés!” Aurelia demanded, returning to her preparations.

As the group sipped their beers and considered the fire approaching from the east, the large man with the large RV returned from the market and paused near them. Nacho reached for a beer to offer him, but the look on the man’s face stopped him mid-reach.

“Turn down that damn wetback music,” the man growled. “You illegals come here and ruin our town. You just want our health care and our education and our social services. You send your money back to Mexico, and you won’t even learn the language. And now you want to own the whole fucking parking lot. Go back where you came from!”

Her family, rooted in place and tradition, didn’t move, but Aurelia turned to face the man, and she seemed to grow large right before him. Benny put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off and stepped boldly toward the hostile evacuee, her hands clenched, darkness blown over her pretty face and her mouth fueled with rage.

“We come from Fallbrook,” she said, taking another firm step toward the man, who was riveted to the pavement by her glare. “In fact, I’m a third generation Fallbrook native.” She took another step. “I have a master’s in English and I teach it at the high school.” And she took one last step, placing herself just under the flabby chins of the object of her scorn, who leaned away from her as far as he could without falling backward. “And you most obviously have consumed a far greater portion of our resources than is your fair share, you gargantuan glutton! And you ended your sentence with a proposition!”” She looked past his sputtering mouth, into his porcine eyes and threw her final punch. “Now you move your fat fanny and your fat RV away from my family or I will make you one fat, miserable gabacho!”

The large man backed awkwardly to the door of his RV, Nacho did not try very hard to stifle his cackle, and Benny put his arms around Aurelia, pleased to be needed. He kissed the back of her neck as he rocked her and together they watched the Cadillac RV squeal from the Merry Market lot.

“Wow!” Franny mustered in a whisper. “What’s a gabacho?”

“Worse than a gringo,” Nacho laughed, applauding Aurelia. “Much worse.”

Aurelia turned and dried the anger from her eyes on Benny’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay, the children heard none of it.” He wiped her nose with the tail of his shirt. “Good thing he left before Jesus shows up, though, if he shows up.”

“Si, eso es bueno.” Aurelia squeezed him and returned to her graceful work of making dinner.

Benny walked back to his beer, nodding at Franny. “My oldest,” he said to her, “Graciela — you’ll meet her at dinner — she went to a fiesta this summer in Salinas for the great gringo writer from California.”

“Which one?”

“There is only the one, the one great one, the one who wrote about our beautiful sea, about Mexicans, about tortillas.”

“Tortillas?”

“Tortillas and flat things or something.”

“Oh, Benny, come on! It’s John Steinbeck,” Aurelia called from the grill. “You’re talking about Tortilla Flat.”

“Ah, si, but that’s not the point. So Graciela came home from Salinas and we wanted to hear all she learned about our great gringo writer and his books. But do you know what she told us?” He shot a look at Nacho to assure his silence. “She told us how Salinas is different from Fallbrook.”

“How is it different?” Franny asked.

“‘In Salinas, the Latinos, they walk with their heads up,’ she told us. ‘They look in the eyes of the gringos they pass and they greet each other. In Fallbrook, we look down. We greet no gringos and no gringos greet us.’ That’s what my Graciela said. They don’t even see us, who we are, here,” he pounded his fist to his chest — and it’s all because of a line on a map.”

Franny thought of her unfinished painting in the RV, a dark depiction of an immigrant gnawing through the sinew of her calf to free herself from the jagged jaws of the border’s trap, a painting she would never show in Fallbrook.

“You know, I don’t want anything more than is right,” Benny said. “It’s a simple thing, really, a human thing that I want. You know what I want?”

Nacho knew better than to intercept this question and satisfied himself with attending to his beer, while Franny held back tears, waiting for Benny to answer himself.

“I want our children to walk through Fallbrook looking straight ahead, not down. I want them to look into the eyes of everyone and be greeted as they greet them. That’s what I want.”

Nacho freed a loud belch, and for a moment they all contemplated their Negra Modelos. Then a teenager appeared. He was obviously a recent crosser — his clothing weathered, his face gaunt and sunburned — and seemingly too much a child still for the primordial trek. He walked straight to Benny, who wrapped his arms around his young cousin and welcomed Jesus to dinner.