Search This Blog

Monday, March 1, 2010

The Gashouse

In exchange for housing, my father would put in a 24 hour work day, taking naps here and there throughout the night. The specifics were these: from 5:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. he would work in the fields, moving pipe, digging ditches, unplugging sprinklers with a wrench (mice would get stuck in the pipes and the water would force them out in pieces through the sprinkler head), driving tractors, weeding, and the rest. He’d come home and eat, drink a twelve-pack or two, and fall asleep on the couch until 10:00 p.m., at which time he'd go turn on water pumps, check on reservoirs levels, and chase deer away from the crop with a .22 caliber rifle or a flare gun. He’d do this 3 or 4 times a night…every night.


The housing he got in exchange was criminal. When we first arrived in San Lucas, CA., we were put up in a small trailer that smelled like rotting flesh in the summer and wet dog in the winter. Later, in the fall of 1985, we moved to "the house where I grew up." This was an old decrepit house which stood in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland. It was immediately surrounded by giant Eucalyptus trees which rocked and swayed during earthquakes and perfumed the air with the smell of medicine and Spring. They encroached on our entire existence, like guardians or annoying animals. Inside, the house was painted a light blue, had thin, worn out brown carpeting, and a yellow kitchen. The bathroom was small and cramped and the linoleum floor was peeling off. There were holes everywhere: rats and mice would watch me pee while eating popcorn with their friends. When I sat on the toilet, they sat on the edge of the sink and stare right into my eyes. They walked on my face when I slept; and when I woke up, they’d jump out of my shoes. At night, they’d play in the stove and it sounded like a million mice typing Shakespearean plays. They damaged the stove and the pipes and the house smelled like gas for years. My mother left a window open to let the fumes out. But the gas was in my palette when I drank milk or ate donuts; if I didn’t smell gas, then something was wrong. No one ever complained, because that wasn’t our style, but my headaches and my asthma went away when I got to college. My sister, who was born in 1989, has severe mental handicaps...who knows why. My father used to smoke in the house and no one ever pointed out the obvious—I guess there were things more explosive than gas in those days--especially when my father was around. I got used to the sound, the smell, the sights, and the vertigo of that house—I got used to its symbolism and its danger, to its weather and its geography; but I never got used to the gas—it was the smell of death or some unknown disturbance.

No comments:

Post a Comment

My Favorites