The Skunk

My father made arrangements whenever he could. These arrangements guaranteed a roof over our heads, food, and work. The arrangements often involved a roof and food in exchange for work. It was clear that we would not be moving on up.

The trailer was located under a giant tree on the banks of the Salinas River in San Lucas, CA. It was old and had holes on the roof and on its sides—the fiberglass insulation stuck out of the holes, and often my mother would yank it out so as to patch up the holes with duct tape; often fur-less baby mice would fall to the floor and squirm and make a high pitch squeak before Mother-the-Hun would crush them with her heel. One of these holes was so big that they had to wrap a large piece of tarp onto it, and glue it on or tape it with the duct tape. It is through this hole that the skunk got it.

My father was outside with his friends drinking beer and tequila and listening to music when I went to bed. My mother stayed in the living-room/kitchen/hallway watching the 13-inch black and white tv and waiting for my father to come in and eat whenever he felt like it. The smell of burned tortillas woke me up later that night—my bed was right by the stove. I got up to go to the bathroom and saw my father standing still by the door with a shovel over his head. My mother was behind him on top of the couch covering her face with a sheet. Before I put things together, my father hammered the ground with the shovel and hit the skunk right on the head. The skunk lay motionless by the garbage door and my father hit it again. It sprayed me right in the face. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. My skin burned. My lungs filled with skunk fumes and I could taste the diesel-rotten onion stench on the top of my palette. It went into my brain and stayed there for years.

Once my father took the animal outside and buried it, he came back in and I was given a quick shower. The smell wouldn’t come off, but my mother said it was only because we were immersed in it; that once we went outside, in the morning, the smell would come off. She was wrong. In the morning she woke me up and said I was going to be late for school (I was in the 3rd grade). She put my clothes out and made my breakfast. I protested, saying that I stunk and I didn’t want to go to school, since everyone would make fun of me. She said that we didn’t come to this country for me to stay home and do nothing just because of a little skunk. She insisted, forcefully and with the broom, that a better life wasn’t going to be given to me…that I had to earn it--and you earn things by going to school. I said that I was in the 3rd grade and that I didn’t want a better life; I just wanted to stay home, ‘cause I smelled. We had a starring contest and she swung the broom at my head, told me to get out and go to school—“and you better learn something” she warned. The bus-stop was a few miles away, so I got on my bike and slowly began to pedal. I stopped a hundred feet from the trailer. She stood there with the broom and swung her hands about, telling me to get going, pointing at her wrist and yelling that I was late. I wanted to be late. But I wasn’t. On the bus, the driver sat me in the back and moved all the kids to the front. All the windows were opened. When I got to class, they told me to sit outside the entire day. I told the teacher that I had to learn something or else my mother would be upset. She told me to practice my handwriting. So I did. I took it home and showed it to my mother. She didn’t look at it, but told me she was glad I’d gone. We didn’t come to this country to be sitting around doing nothing. Later I took a bath in tomato juice and some of the smell came off. It lingered in the trailer until we moved…8 months later.