We walked on in silence. I’d been taught in Sunday school that all people were created in the image of our Creator God, which made us equal and equally loved by God. I also knew it was an easier message for me to accept when I went to bed every night in a house that had indoor plumbing, a woodstove to keep me warm, and a soft bed with clean sheets and blankets, not to mention a full refrigerator.
But Mr. Pop hadn’t always had these things. He’d known hunger and hardship. He understood that doing good was more than dropping money into the offering plate on Sunday morning.
“You could be right about me and Mick,” I said. “Maybe that does need to end. Maybe it has made things worse. But you’re not right about me or Mr. Pop or even Uncle Roger. They’re trying to make things better. To change things. They’re fighting for Indian rights, and that includes the Maliseet.”
“Because we can’t do that ourselves.”
I gave up. I wasn’t sure why Mick and I had always been able to talk so easily about this stuff, but Joseph and I were at odds. I handed him his knife back at the field, never more grateful for work that would keep our hands busy and the conversation on what we were doing.
“Watch me a minute,” I said. “We need to leave about a six-inch stalk on the broccoli when you cut it. Keeps it fresh longer.”
My instructions were curt, to the point. Joseph nodded.
“And make sure to cut any heads that look like the flower could open. Tight heads are preferable, but we want to make sure we grab anything that might soon go bad. Let’s count out loud, so we know who’s cut how many and that way we won’t cut more than fifteen.”
“Okay.” Joseph gave a minimal response. He knew my reaction to his words wasn’t positive. Although I’d just conceded that he might be right about Mick and me, I was backpedaling, at least in my mind. Maybe I was a bit naive, but my feelings for Mick went beyond a teenage crush or physical attraction. I was drawn to Mick rather than Tommy because of Mick’s vision for a better future. And not just a better future for his people. He knew that if Maliseet and Whites could be treated as equals, it would transform the Maine we both loved. He didn’t like that Glenn and Marjorie had run away. Mick knew that wasn’t the way to do things, by running. Yet he understood why they did it. After all, we both wanted what Glenn and Marjorie now had: a new life in a new place with mutual respect from neighbors and equal opportunity from employers. That was a future worth working toward and praying for.
“But what if you’re wrong?” I asked.
“I just cut number seven,” Joe said.
“I have eight and nine,” I said back to him. “What if Glenn and Marjorie and me and Mick make things better ultimately?”
Joseph paused in his cutting of the broccoli but said nothing, before continuing on.
“If Mick and I can’t—if we ended our friendship, doesn’t Mr. Carmichael win?”
Joseph crawled over to the basket with two heads in his hands. “Ten and eleven,” he said, before crawling back.
“Two more each. Then we’re done. Ready for Monsieur le Chef.” I tried to pronounce it with a French accent to amuse Joe. It didn’t.
“Looks like he’s here.” Joseph lifted his chin toward the road and I stood up. Joseph handed me his last two heads and we headed over to the chef, whose big smile and outstretched hand greeted us before any words. He’d pulled up in a 1945 Plymouth Deluxe Coupe with nothing at all deluxe about it. His happy demeanor didn’t match the road-weary vehicle.
“Salvatore Barone,” he said as I shook his hand. Oops, I thought. Not French.
“I’m Mercy. This is Joseph.”
Joseph hesitated a bit when the chef’s hand reached for his, but after Chef said, “You think I bite? Food is what I bite. People, I love!” even Joseph couldn’t resist, offering both a smile and his hand.
“Now,” said Chef Barone, “where is this superb broccoli my customers have been asking for?”
Joseph turned around and pulled the basket off the counter. Chef Barone picked two off the top, turning them over and lifting one head to his nose.
I made a face.
“What?” Chef asked. “You don’t smell your broccoli?”
“I barely want to eat it,” I said.
Chef laughed, almost drowning out Joseph, who spoke suddenly. “I smelled them,” he said. “After I cut them from the ground.”
Chef Barone stared a moment at Joseph, who stepped back. When the chef didn’t appear jolly, his face settled into a grimace that, when taken in with his height and girth, made him terrifying. Until his smile broke again.
“Wonderful! Wonderful, my boy!” Chef said. “And what did they smell like?”
Joseph looked across the road, over the fields, and up toward Mt. Katahdin as he thought. “Smells like the trees. After the rain.” Joseph smiled again. “If a moose has pooped nearby.”
Chef Barone’s sharp, hard laugh made me jump in my boots.
“Joseph, you are something else. And dead-on. I’ve always thought broccoli smelled like wet trees, but I knew I was missing something else. Moose poop it is! Though I come from New York, and not too many moose in Brooklyn, so who can blame me?”
“Rat poop, maybe, then?” Joseph asked, desperate for more laughter at his jokes. I wondered where this personable boy came from and where the sullen one had gone.
Chef obliged Joseph, offering a hearty laugh before saying, “No rat poop. That’s one of the many things I will not miss about New York. Right up there with the crime and the crowds. Moose poop is a small price to pay for the second chance Hiram Nelson is giving me. Speaking of which, I’m looking for someone who could help with prep work in the kitchen. If your parents agree, would you be interested in giving it a shot?” He looked directly at Joseph when he said this. Joseph made no response and Chef Barone spoke again. “I know your smell is something else, but how’s your hearing young man? I was talking to you.”
Joseph continued to stare at the chef, stunned. I can’t say I wasn’t stunned myself. Chef Barone continued. “I can’t leave a boy who cares about broccoli enough to smell it out here in these fields.” He stared at Joseph for a moment, then said, “I think quick and I act quick. I have decided—a love of food like that can’t be taught. I need your nose in my kitchen. Will you come?”
Chef Barone spoke in full animation, his hands punctuating each of his words.
Joseph had practically been rendered mute.
“Joe,” I said, with a poke to his ribs, “answer Mr. Barone.”
I saw Joseph’s chest heaving a bit. His breathing had come so easy all morning, even as we rushed between the stand and the fields. After one deep breath, Joseph finally squeaked out a few words. “Sir, I’m here through the afternoon. I live near town and can come by the restaurant tomorrow if that’s okay.”
“Perfect! How about 10 a.m.? You can help prep for lunch, which is what I must now be off to do. I’m in a rush today. Two of my workers could not be here and we’re short-staffed.”
With one smooth motion for such a large man, Chef Barone was in his car, broccoli nicely bagged and in his backseat. He honked and waved as he drove away.
Joseph and I stood with our eyes watching the car disappear down the road.
“What just happened, Joseph?”
“I’m not really sure, but I think I just got a reason to leave the Flats every day.”
“I think you did,” I said. “But if we don’t get at least a bushel of peas to sell, Mr. Pop might not let you leave here. Ever.”
I laughed at my own attempt at a joke, hoping Joseph’s mood would carry over. But it didn’t. Joseph just turned and walked toward the pea field. I followed, eager to get back to the work, hoping Joe would talk more once we were set in the peace and rhythm of the middle of a row of peas. Molly and I had spent hours in conversation in this very place: unlike broccoli, picking peas meant no numbers to shout out, no precision cutting required. Just sitting across from each other picking and tossing the peas into the bushel basket.
“Mercy, you don’t understand,” Joseph said, surprising me. Sullen Joseph had returned. “As much as you think you do, you can’t understand. You’ve never woken up in the morning to find your father passed out drunk on the kitchen floor or on the lawn outside or didn’t even come home at night and you wondered where he was or what’d happened to him.”
“But—”
“Wait. There are some things you need to know if you can’t be talked into walking away from Mick.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously.
“I know my dad comes to work on the farm. He really appreciates the work. He tells us Mr. Pop is always fair, and when he pays, he rounds up for Maliseet workers. Not all the farmers do that. I know I just said he’d probably cheat me today, but I didn’t mean it. I’ve always heard Dad say that Paul Millar is always fair. Sorry, Mercy.”
I had heard that from Mick. I remember telling Mr. Pop about the way some other farmers cheated the Maliseet, but Mr. Pop didn’t even flinch. He said, “Mercy, what other people do isn’t any of our business. We must do what we know to be right in God’s eyes.”
I had gotten so angry. I fumed and sputtered, “How can people do this?”
Mr. Pop had let me grumble on a bit until he said, “Mercy, we can only control the way we do things on our farm. As long as we know we are living right and doing right by others and before God, then we can sleep in peace each night.”
I knew Mr. Pop was right, but it didn’t take the burn in my belly away.
Now I tossed a few pods in the bushel and threw a shriveled one right at Joseph.
“This is what I mean,” I said. “I’ve always known this about the other farmers. I see that life isn’t fair just because you look different than we do. I know money is always an issue, and that sometimes it gets really tough for your family to make it through the winter. And it’s horrible that other folks don’t pay you what’s fair.”
Joseph shook his head and threw the shriveled pod back at me.
“You’re not even on the right track,” he said. “Everyone knows about that stuff and still does nothing about, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about things no one sees.”
My palms began to sweat. I ran them against the stiff denim of my jeans before pulling a few more pods. Picking peas certainly causes a person to break a sweat. But today was a perfect July day with temperatures in the seventies and a downright coastal breeze. If I hadn’t known Maine better, I could’ve closed my eyes and believed we were sitting on that pier in Bar Harbor where Mother and Mr. Pop once took me. I knew I couldn’t blame the sweat that once again formed on my palms.
As Joseph began to talk, he quit picking peas altogether.
“Did you ever notice Mick’s expression every morning when I begged to go with him to your father’s farm? He knew I couldn’t handle a whole day of farmwork, not with my asthma, but he also knew what would happen by leaving me in the Flats.”
I was fascinated but almost didn’t want to hear. “Merce, when you grow up with less than nothing, bad things start to happen. When you go through the deep kinds of losses like the Maliseet have experienced, the soul of a people starts to die. We lost our land and our dignity … and in a way we lost our identity. Common decency went out the window a long time ago. It’s not only the way Whites treat us, but it’s how we treat each other.” Joe stared at me, but I was silent. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“We don’t get along with other redskins either. All the tribes in Maine are at odds with each other. Look at how the Maliseets hate the Micmacs. Lots of bad blood there and I can’t even tell you why. Probably something that happened a long time ago. Anyway, this is why your father only brings Maliseet to work on his farm. He knows there’d be trouble if he brought workers from both tribes.”
I still said nothing. Though I wanted to contest and offer the reasons I knew Mr. Pop invited the Maliseet, and though I wanted to tell Joseph it’d all be okay, I simply gave in to the sense that my tongue should stay still and kept my eyes and fingers trained on the peas.
Joseph was silent too, for a few moments, as he pulled another handful of pods off the plants and tossed them into the bushel basket. He ran his fingers along its weave and then asked, “Ever wonder why there aren’t piles of baskets to sell when you see my mom and other Maliseet women weaving every day when you come? They don’t weave all day. They put on a good show for you or Ellery or your father or whoever comes to pick up the men to work, but they don’t spend much time weaving anything besides potato baskets that farmers order for harvest season. Why bother? Watsonville isn’t that big. Who’s gonna buy the baskets? We don’t buy them from each other. Pretty much it’s only your mother who buys the things anyway.”
A smile escaped as I thought of her pantry, piled high with baskets, delicately balanced but ready to topple at the slightest push. My smile faded as I remembered the note, hidden in the baskets, delivered by a man said to be dying because of Mick. I closed my eyes tight. Not sure I could hear any more of what Joseph had to say, let alone face all that was to come with Mick.
Joseph took two quick breaths and started again.
“When you have nothing to live for, you change. When we heard that the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy were getting voting rights and the Maliseet weren’t getting smack, it was another slap in the face of the Maliseet. It was one more time that we’d been passed over. Dad thinks it maybe was our last chance.” He paused before going on. “It was like another part of us, of the whole tribe, died the day that Dad and Mr. Socoby heard that news. They kept on working, whenever someone came to get them, but I’m telling you, the anger grew and it keeps growing. I know I feel it. Something’s gotta give. I keep wondering what the tipping point is.”
I stifled a shudder. Mr. Pop had been right to notice Joseph’s anger. But he had noticed it far too late. I’d read the stories in history class of violent clashes between Indian tribes and the settlers in the old days. I wondered if that could happen even here and now. My blood chilled within me, and I couldn’t hide my shiver this time as the cold ran from my head down through my body.
“Honestly, I don’t know why Mick even gets up in the morning,” Joseph said. “Who cares if there’s no food? We barely have shelter. I still don’t understand why he doesn’t drink his life away like half the other men. Dad fights it, you know. He tries hard to not to give in to the lures of whiskey, but he’s only human. A human with a broken spirit. Some mornings he’s passed out on the floor, and you can’t raise him no matter how hard you yell or try to shake him awake. You know he’s not just a heavy sleeper, right?”
I nodded.
“I hate that he drinks,” Joseph said. “I hate that they all do. But I don’t blame them. Not if their lives have been like mine and Mick’s. Not if they had to go through what we do.”
I was reeling from the barrage of words, trying to escape the meaning accompanying the words Joseph was spewing. “What else do you endure?”
Joseph shook his head and closed his eyes tight. By the time he opened them and met mine, his tanned face had reddened. His shoulders heaved as he tried to get better breaths.
“Another day, Mercy. Another day. Maybe Mick should tell you.”
Joseph and I continued picking in silence. At lunch, he told Bud and Ellery and Mr. Pop about his new job offer and apologized for not being able to come back for a while. Mr. Pop stood to shake Joseph’s hand and pat his back and then insisted that we set down our forks and offer a thanks to God.
Joseph would later tell me that day was the first and second time he’d prayed. Certainly, the first time he’d ever been prayed for. Definitely the first time anyone had thanked a god for him and his God-given talents. It was the first time anyone’s family made him feel worthy.
But Joseph didn’t let on about this as we worked that afternoon in the farm stand, though he did manage a bit of goofing off, making me laugh with his dead-on mimicry of every last customer we had that day.
As we walked back toward Ellery’s waiting truck—the truck that would drive Joseph back home to the Flats and whatever horror really awaited him there—Joseph apologized.
“For what?” I asked.
“For being harsh about your dad. He is a good man. It’s just hard.”
I looped my arm through his and stopped short of telling him I knew. Instead, I said, “I love Mick and Mr. Pop does too. ‘Like a son,’ Mr. Pop told me just before we saw him and Old Man Stringer, just before this whole mess.”
Joseph’s boyish bicep tightened under my grip. The anger rising once again.
“So you know what that means?” I asked.
“That you’ll work hard to get him out of jail.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Pop will, Uncle Roger will, we all will. But it means something else.”
Joseph and I stopped on the gravel, just shy of where the rounded, white potato truck waited with its hood up. Ellery was clanging on something.
“It means I love you and Mr. Pop loves you. If Mick is like a son to Mr. Pop, then so is his brother.”
Joseph smiled the tiniest bit.
“And I know that Mr. Pop is far from the perfect father. I mean, half the time he loves me like a son and forgets I’m his daughter!”
Joseph laughed.
“But when Mr. Pop loves someone, it means he’s for them. Never against them. He’s for you, on your side.”
Joseph nodded. “And I’m sorry I was mean about your uncle,” he said. “If he wasn’t coming up, honest, I don’t know what we’d do. Nobody has money to hire a lawyer. I mean, besides Glenn, maybe, and he’s gone. So we all appreciate your uncle Roger, no matter what I said earlier. I want Mick out of jail. Whatever it takes. I want this mess over. And I don’t want Old Man Stringer to die.”
Joseph’s eyes watered up a bit. “Old Man is my friend,” he said. “He’d come take me out during the day. Did you know that? It was like he understood. Of course, he did. Mick would never have hurt him.”
I hugged Joseph. “I know that. We all do. And when Uncle Roger gets here, he’ll make sure the police and the judge do too.”
“Ready to go there, Joe?” Ellery said, adding the slam of the hood for punctuation. “Turns out that rumble we heard this morning was nothing at all. Tightened a few screws and she’s good to go. Like eating pie.”
“I’m ready,” Joseph said. “But now I’m in the mood for pie.” He turned to me and put up a hand.
“’Bye, Joe. Thanks for your help today. Say hi to the chef for me tomorrow.”
Joseph smiled, a smile I now recognized as being so like his brother’s. Though I’d loved the pristine porcelain smile that so often emanated from Mick whenever I saw him, seeing it echoed in Joseph made me realize behind that smile was the reality that all was not quite right in Mick’s world. Once I’d thought if he’d come with me to college, if we’d get married, and get him off the Flats, all would be okay. But in Joseph’s same smile, I saw how wrong I’d been.