Hector Beltran and his carnal Mando Tafolla, both seventh-graders from East Los Angeles, stepped off the train. Each held a suitcase in one hand and their shoulders were weighed down with backpacks. It was February, cold, and fog had smothered Fresno like a white shroud. Fog hung between the telephone lines and over parked cars and trucks. Fog dimmed the traffic lights. Fog blew down the empty streets of the Santa Fe depot. Fog lived in the very bones of each passenger who stepped off the train.
“Hace mucho frío,” Mando said as he dropped his suitcases and rubbed his cold hands. He was tall for a boy of thirteen, with hair the color of wet coal. “Where’s your tío?”
“No sé,” Hector said, straining to see through the fog. He put down his suitcase and breathed into his hands, which were pink as the underside of a starfish. Like Mando, he was tall, with thick, black hair, and beneath his clothes, his body was hardened with muscle from playing sports, mostly soccer.
The two boys had been sent to Fresno for a three-day weekend, an idea spawned by Hector’s mother, who said they should see another part of the world.
“You and Mando should travel,” Hector’s mother suggested one night when she saw that they were so bored they were counting the hairs on their knuckles and arguing about who had more.
Hector had imagined Paris or Madrid, and Mando had imagined Acapulco where he could take a blow-up raft and ride the large white-tipped waves until they sputtered into fingers of foam. They saw themselves sporting sunglasses propped on their heads. They saw themselves asking for directions, and then giving directions. They saw themselves eating in fancy restaurants with white napkins under their chins.
That was in October, when a few herds of leaves were scuttling through the streets in “East Los.” Now it was February, and they were standing like two lone birds at the train station waiting for Hector’s uncle, Julio, a photographer. Hector hadn’t seen him in two years, since the time Uncle Julio visited and treated him to Disneyland. Later they rented two surfboards to crack the waves at Malibu Beach. Neither of them was any good at surfing, but the crashing waves worked up an appetite that was solved by a huge dinner on Olvera Street.
Hector and Mando were looking nervously at each other, wondering if anyone would pick them up when they heard through the fog, “Hey, you little vatos.”
Hector and Mando turned to see a man approach them with two cameras hanging on his shoulders. He was tall, mustached, and walking with a cane. He had a kind face, and was dressed casually in khakis and an overcoat. He resembled a detective, rumpled and a bit worn.
“You’ve grown,” Uncle Julio said, ruffling Hector’s hair.
“It’s Mom’s cooking!” Hector said with a smile. “What happened to your leg?”
“I fell out of an airplane.” He hooked the cane in the crook of his arm and gave his nephew a hug.
“An airplane!” Hector said with surprise.
“The airplane was parked. On the ground. And lucky for me, ’cause I wasn’t wearing a parachute.” He shrugged one of the cameras off his shoulder and took off the lens cap. “This is your amigo Mando?”
“Yeah, this is Mando.”
“Hey, Mando, welcome,” the uncle said. They shook hands raza style.
“Mucho gusto, Mr. Silva. Me and Hector are glad you’re gonna let us stay with you.”
“No problem. Call me Julio, Mando,” Uncle said. He raised one of his cameras to his eye and snapped the shutter. The lens blinked at them three times before Uncle capped the lens and shrugged the camera back onto his shoulder. He took a suitcase from Hector. “So how was the trip?”
“Long,” Hector answered. “We saw nothin’ but fog.”
“We saw a crash,” Mando interrupted.
“Nah, Mando, the guy was just parked weird.”
“Nah, I saw his front fender. It was all smashed up.”
“That was an ole’ wreck. You need glasses.”
“You’re the one who needs glasses!”
The two argued as they left the train station. They got into Uncle’s Ford Escort station wagon and cooled their argument as the car started through the fog that would claim Fresno until a wind blew it away, or a cloud let loose its cargo of rain.
“You still taking pictures, Uncle?” Hector asked after a while. A cold shudder ran up Hector’s back as the car’s warm air stirred among them.
When Julio was in the Air Force, he had learned photography. He kept busy snapping pictures of generals and colonels, and wreckage of jets that went down, mostly from mechanical problems but sometimes from pilot error. After he got out of the service, he worked in Los Angeles for a popular magazine. He decided to move from L.A. when the smog and traffic worked on his nerves. He was also being pestered by an old girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s new boyfriend, a man with tattoos of snakes that slithered down his arm.
“That’s my job. That’s what I do,” Uncle said. He hit the radio with the flat of his palm, and country music started to vibrate from the speaker. “I’m going to take you to work with me right now.”
“Where?” Hector asked.
“You’ll see.” Uncle flicked on the windshield wipers, which cleared away the mist.
They drove from Fresno to an orange grove. Uncle stopped the car and put on the emergency blinkers. The three of them piled out of the car and, camera raised, Uncle took a rapid succession of pictures of a tree that was knocked down. Its trunk was split and the white meat of tree flesh showed.
“Why are you taking pictures of the tree?” Hector asked.
“A guy got drunk and ran into it. Believe it or not, a tree like this is mucho dinero.”
“You get paid for taking pictures of orange trees?” Mando asked. He was confused. He thought that photographers only took pictures of brides, families, and cute babies with sausage-like arms and legs.
“Yeah, that’s my job, that’s what I do,” Uncle answered. He pulled two oranges from the fallen tree and tossed them to Hector and Mando, who clawed their fingers into the skin. Then Uncle plucked three more oranges and started juggling them. “I learned this in the Air Force, too.” The oranges stayed in the air for a few seconds before dropping into the mud. Breathing hard but feeling good, Uncle quipped, “If the photography biz ever gets really lousy, I’ll join the circus.”
From the orange grove, they returned to town and Uncle’s apartment over a garage. The garage held three cars that belonged to Uncle’s landlord, a chiropractor. Sometimes they traded services. Uncle would take pictures of the chiropractor’s patients, and the doctor would crack and realign Uncle’s spine.
The boys piled out, happy that they had finally arrived.
“Wow, Uncle Julio, you got a nice crib,” Hector said, jerking his head at the low ranch style house.
“Nah, that’s Dr. Femur’s place. I live over the garage,” Uncle said, pointing his cane at the two-story structure.
Hector shrugged. They climbed the steps to the apartment, with Uncle in tow. He moved slowly with his hurt leg, cane tapping the ground.
“This is where you guys are gonna stay,” Uncle said. With his cane, he pointed to the couch. “It pulls out.”
Hector put down his suitcases and looked around the apartment, which held a brown couch, brown chairs, brown desk and lamp, and a brown-looking cat sleeping by the heater. The cat raised its head and blinked its sleepy eyes at the boys.
“I guess you like brown, Mr. Silva,” Mando said. He looked down at his blue pants, then fingered the cuffs of his shirt. It was blue. “I like blue, I guess.”
“Actually, this is the furniture my ex-wife left,” Uncle said. “I’m divorced.” His mustache lifted in a smile.
“Uncle, Mom said that I should give this to you.”
“Is that right?” Uncle said.
Hector bent down, unlocked the suitcase, and it sprang open like a jack-in-the-box. Wrapped in a pair of faded corduroy bell-bottoms were phonograph records from the 60’s and 70’s—Santana, Otis Redding, The Chamber Brothers, The Stones…
“Oh, wow, my records!” Uncle yelled happily. He told Hector, “Your Mom was always stealing my records and taking them to parties. I finally get them back.”
“Mom was a party animal?”
“Pues sí. She was a frisky girl. A filly.”
Hector couldn’t quite picture his mother dancing at a party. To Hector, she seemed conservative. She was always complaining about his rap music.
Uncle took one record from its worn album cover. Santana. He grimaced. “It’s all scratched. And what’s this stuff? Looks like peanut butter.” He rubbed his thumb over some caked food and flakes fell like snow.
When the telephone rang, Uncle tossed the record album on the couch and answered it. “I’m telling you,” he said into the receiver, “Rick don’t live here.” He looked at the boys, the phone in the crook of his neck. He whispered, “Crank call. I think it’s my ex-roommate’s girlfriend.”
He hung up, giggling. He returned to the suitcase. He hoisted a pair of bell-bottom pants to his waist. “They might still fit.”
“Uncle, you wore these?” a startled Hector asked.
“That was the style, ese,” Uncle said. He tossed the pants on the couch. “I’ll show you two.” He pointed to the bulletin board in the kitchen. They walked over and Hector and Mando gazed at a creased snapshot. It was a group of college students with raised fists of defiance.
“That was when I was in MEChA,” Uncle explained. “That’s me, a groovy Mechista.” He poked a finger at a guy with long hair and sunglasses.
“That was you, Uncle?” Hector asked in disbelief. “Wow, you look like a criminal.”
“Hey, man, I was radical. I was a heavy-duty Chicano. Still am, ese. I even got a Mexican flag hanging in the bedroom.” He had to laugh at his nephew’s comment. He had to laugh at himself. He did have long hair and an angry look on his face. “Come on, let’s eat.”
That first night they grubbed on canned soup and tuna on hard bread. They shared one puny tomato. They also shared a thorny pickle floating in cloudy juice. For dessert, they had candy and oranges from the tree that was struck and left for dead. Uncle then said, “I’m gonna teach you vatos how to make the best salad in all of Fresno. Betty Crocker don’t know this recipe.”
“A salad?” Mando asked.
“Simón,” Uncle answered.
Hector shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay.”
“It’s more than ‘okay,’ homes. It’s good for you.”
They prepared what Uncle called the Super Bowl salad. He buttered a large bowl and pressed peas around the sides into neat rows: these were the spectators. Then he leveled the bottom with cottage cheese: this was the snowy playing field. He added toothpicks for the goals and black and green olives for the teams. The cherries were cheerleaders. The peppercorns were referees. The football was an olive pit.
“¡Órale!” Uncle said. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and, stepping back and arms out, bragged, “Check it out!”
“Where did you learn how to make this?” Hector asked.
“College, of course. We’ll eat it tomorrow. Let’s get ready for bed.”
Hector showered first, then Mando. Uncle flipped out the bed. Inside was an old magazine, a broken pencil, and a gym sock. He slapped them away and smoothed the brown-printed sheets. “Let’s hit the sack.”
Hector and Mando rolled into bed.
“Ouch,” Hector complained. A spring pushed into the small of his back. “This bed hurts.”
“Simón,” Mando agreed. “I think I hurt my pitching arm.”
They rolled toward the center. They pushed each other and Mando yelled, “Gimme some room. You’re hogging all the space.”
“You’re taking it all. Give me my pillow back.”
“It’s my pillow, Hector.”
All night they flopped like fishes from back to stomach. They couldn’t find a perfect position. It was the first of two nights of fitful sleep.