From my recently published collection This Kind of Man: here’s an instance where an entire story derived from a line from a song (the call-and-response chorus, “No Tengo a Nadie,” which translates as “I have no one,” and showcases how Carlos Santana and Neal Schon, in their prime, could shred like cheese graters). This is a story informed by many years in the service industry where, among many other things, I saw ample evidence of how impossibly hard many of the folks who are ostensibly unwelcome in this country (filled with able-bodied folks happily accepting assistance from the government they claim to despise) will work, just to survive, much less aspire to some humble version of the American Dream. I’m proud of this piece because it explores politics without being political (not that our art can’t and shouldn’t go there or, as the always-reliable George Orwell reminds us: “the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude”). This one is dedicated to the myriad, tax-paying folks without whom the machinery of American commerce would cease to function.
Listen:
An excerpt from the story (originally featured, with my gratitude, in The Coachella Review), below.
***
(Always, he has been running. He ran with pleasure as a child, faster than the others, his speed compensating for the brawn he lacked. He ran with his bare feet through the sharp, sun-scorched grass and the dusty red dirt, always familiar and warm, pulsating and alive on his skin.
Later, he ran to avoid pain. As he grew older, peligro presented itself in so many semblances it was impossible to confront head on. It was wiser, and safer, to learn quickly the necessity of running from things instead of toward them. Sometimes he ran from the other boys, who knew he had no older brother to protect him; other times he ran from his father, who, he knew, was simply transferring the aggression and frustrations that were siphoned onto him out in the coffee fields, where fists ended disputes and settled grievances.
He ran and would fancy himself running, over the hills of his countryside, away from the shacks and the unhappy adults tending their land—away from everything.)
***
The first fear, of course, involves the papers: an ID, a social security number. These things can be arranged, must be arranged. All taken care of by other people whom you do not need to know. You do need to know someone who can help negotiate with these people, all of whom operate underground. No promises are given, only the knowledge that others have come before you, gotten what they needed. Then one day, a green card appears. To the untrained or unsuspecting eye, it all looks autentico, a license to work anywhere they’re willing to hire you. Many of these wizards make their living exclusively from this practice, resulting in a product that’s efficient and effective. And expensive. The amount a successful transaction costs is unimaginable, out of the realm of reasonable possibility. Nevertheless, you find a way to secure the resources, aware it means the difference between a decent job and picking strawberries in a sweltering field for $2.50 an hour, or whatever the hijo de puta can get away with paying. (Washing dishes, for instance, is a good job, particularly in light of the alternative options, such as the uncertainties involved with construction work, or moving furniture, or washing windows two hundred feet above ground, all outdoors, all day, in summer and winter).
With your papeles you have no voice and you are no one. Without them you are less than that.
***
Two jobs, the same job. The same work at two workplaces. A necessary and normal routine, because none of the employers are interested in paying overtime. The better jobs, in the better restaurants (where they provide you with plastic gloves, an apron, and a free meal each shift), do not come easily. Even if you’re fortunate enough to find one, or make the connections necessary to get considered for one, there’s always the fear of being replaced: you are easily expendable since the supply often outweighs the demand. So you work.
The day he became dizzy after sweating through two shirts and began coughing up the congealed phlegm in his chest (one was constantly battling head colds and flu-bugs, among the variety of ailments so easily exchanged in a restaurant, particularly when handling contaminated utensils and dishes, effectively becoming human fly-paper), he swallowed aspirin until he was able to convince himself the fever had subsided. And the time he cut his fingers while attempting to unclog the drain (an incident that might have resulted in legitimate compensation if he’d had the interest or inclination to pursue it, which he did not), he was obliged to wrap both hands, like a boxer, before putting on his industrial-strength gloves to ensure that the highly concentrated cleaning solutions didn’t seep into his sores.
He even washes dishes while he sleeps.
Of all the dreams, this one is most persistent: struggling to keep pace, he hears the clatter of plates being stacked, one pile atop another, and the harsh voices of the pendejo waiters, who relentlessly bring armful after armful, cursing him for moving too slowly. The faster he works, the more there is, impossibly, each time he turns around. Mas. Always, mas.
Or else he’s vexed by recurring memories of the random brutalities he’d grown too accustomed to witnessing in his country. Frequently it is the singular image of a face disappearing in an explosion of gunfire. Sometimes this face is his wife’s, or his son’s. Mostly it’s no one in particular. Just another face.
***
He doesn’t understand, or exert any effort attempting to make sense of, the money removed from his paychecks every other week. Taxes, he knows, are neither fair nor unfair—they simply are. He is oblivious, or indifferent, to the fact that the waiters, who make more than three times his salary, manage to pay almost none of the taxes.
He does understand, and is grateful for, the air conditioning that comes without question, like a door or a toilet, witheach workplace. This is one of the miracles of the new country that one needed to experience in order to appreciate. Of course, there’s little comfort in the oppressive air of the kitchen, but simply knowing this frigid relief exists makes it easy—and imperative—to remember a world without such wonders.
He doesn’t understand how the towering wooden poles, standing guard over every street, are capable of harnessing and generating such impossible energy. This invisible mystery—providing light and power able to transport peoples’ voices from one place to the next—represents a crucible of communication that’s impenetrable and, for him, inaccessible. He does not question this.
He understands that in America, for him, Monday equals Tuesday equals Wednesday equals Thursday equals Friday equals Saturday.
He understands—and it didn’t take long for him to realize—that here, appearance counts for so much. It’s everything. And like money and muscle, it’s power, serving to separate those that have it from those who do not. The waiters are a constant reminder of this: all thin, clean with perfect white teeth. If there’s occasion for interaction, none of them—even the usually affable ones—are able to completely conceal their mostly vague, sometimes palpable, discomfort. When they shake his hand, they do so lightly, rarely looking him in the eye. They never stand close to him, as they do amongst each other. The gringas especially, always smiling and talking loud and slow, the way one would speak with a small child. Also, the way they seem aware of their bodies and proceed cautiously around the kitchen staff, “the back of the house,” as they’re all called. At these times, he is conscious of himself and the knowledge that he’s not an attractive man. Ill-luck, circumstance, and the strains of life have conspired to make him appear older than he is. The choices he’s forced himself to make have given him the chance for a real life but in return have robbed him of his youth.
And, above all, he understands this: no tengo a nadie—I have no one.
Read the rest, here, and buy my book This Kind of Man, here.