Sometimes things happen that make you wonder if there’s even a God or if we’re all just here to be miserable and that’s it. I mean it. We were having so much fun, and Santos had his arm pulled back like a baseball pitcher, ready to throw a whole handful of some spices we were gonna put in the pickles. The most horrible thing possible happened. I guess Eli’s tools didn’t take as long to sharpen as my mom thought. We didn’t hear his truck pull up. I was right in front of the door, but I saw Santos was gonna throw some spices so I got out of the way right in time for Eli to open the door.
There are some people who can laugh about things like a face full of pickling spices. I bet you guessed Eli wasn’t one of them. His face turned red, his shoulders went almost as high as his ears. He shouted, “Who was it?”
There was no good answer to that question. And poor Santos didn’t really know Eli yet, except that he wasn’t a nice guy. So he stammered for a bit and then just repeated lo siento like a million times. He was already at the sink getting some paper towels wet when Eli grabbed the back of his collar. Santos was even bigger than me and Eli picked him right up half a foot off the ground by the back of his collar and marched right down the hall with him. A door slammed and my mom cringed every time she heard a thud, always followed right after with a lo siento or sometimes a por favor that you could almost hear over Eli’s swearing. I wish everyone had as good a soul as my mom. I really do.
A door slammed again and Eli walked back into the kitchen, shoulders high as ever and the tightest fists I ever saw. “I told you these illegals are trouble. Nothing but criminals.” He looked back and forth between the mess in the kitchen and my mom and me. We didn’t dare say anything. “He’s gonna clean up his mess. Ruined a whole year’s worth of pickles, the idiot. I’m taking it out of his pay.”
“I’ll go get him to help. You’re probably tired from all your hard work, why don’t you take a break?” My mom knew just the right way to stroke his ego to calm him down. I wish she wasn’t always walking on eggshells.
“Alright, long as it gets cleaned up.” He hardly finished the sentence before he was sat in his brown stained chair watching the same news he watched the night before.
Eli got mad like that and let me have it a few times before, but I don’t think I ever came out of it looking as bad as Santos. My mom had her arm around Santos’s shoulder while they walked back into the kitchen. He was limping something awful and had blood coming out of his mouth, besides his whole face being swollen. I didn’t even know what to do so I just stood there like an idiot. My mom knew what to do though. She got him a chair and pointed at it. She put her finger to her lips and motioned for me to start cleaning up.
She grabbed the first aid kit we keep under the sink and got to work. By time I got most of the mess finished my mom had his knee in a bandage, a cool rag on his neck, an ice pack on his head, and a glass of lemonade in his hands. She always said drink lemonade if you get a tooth knocked out cause the lemon disinfects the cut. She knew all kinds of stuff like that. She went to her room and got a bottle of pills that said Menstrual Pain Relief that we would sometimes take after one of Eli’s fits. I used to think it was weird cause they’re just supposed to be for women but they worked better than the regular headache ones.
I got the kitchen clean and my mom pointed back toward the old quarters. I helped Santos limp back to his room, and I realized he still didn’t have a decent bed. That just wasn’t right since he had to be in a lot of pain, so I helped him to my room and grabbed the dictionary. “You can sleep here until you feel better,” I tried to say in Spanish.
He looked like he wanted to say no, but I gave him that look that moms give their kids when they’re about to do something stupid. It worked and he stayed sat on my bed. I figured he’d want his things, so I brought him his green backpack. It was the only thing in the room besides a neatly folded stack of clothes. There was almost nothing in it but I thought he still might want it.
I started putting my laundry away and looking busy cause I wasn’t sure what to do next. He pulled an envelope out of his bag and started staring at the picture that was in it. He just stared at it for a while. I sat on the bed next to him and practiced one of the questions he taught me. “Todo bien?”, is everything okay? I didn’t know how to ask “Is anything okay”.
Now I knew how Jacob must have felt when I went to his house. He started bawling and speaking Spanish I didn’t have a chance of understanding. Thank God I had my whole fit at Jacob’s house. Otherwise I would have no idea how to handle this. I just wrapped my arms around him. I wished so badly I could tell him he was safe and going to be okay. But it wouldn’t have done any good cause we both knew he wasn’t. I had a big lump in my throat when I thought that, and we just sat next to each other crying on my bed for a long time. When Santos caught his breath he just said gracias and tried really hard to smile. He was missing one of his front bottom teeth.
Turns out they don’t have dentists for illegals. It’s just a good thing nobody really looks at the bottom teeth I guess.