Misery Guts

v.

The florist drops a handful of coins in your palm. You skip across the square, dodging Henry’s Ford for Kimbell’s Hardware and his display of buckets, pans, and brooms, where you buy a new basket for a dime—woven willow; it reminds you of Mamá. Next door, at the bakery, a loaf of day-old bread costs 3 cents. You buy a hog neck for a nickel from the butcher—who sells rows of pork, beef, tripe, pig’s feet, rabbits—and throw in another 10 cents a pound for mutton. A quart of milk from the dairy, 9 cents. The poulter charges an arm and a leg for his chickens, ducks, and geese hanging out front by the feet, so you make your way for the greengrocer and pickily choose a few onions, potatoes, and sack of chiles from amongst the slopes of ripe produce. At Anderson’s mom and pop grocer, you cozy up to the counter. Anderson’s Grocer is a small shop, long and narrow, where past a few wooden crates of wormy cider apples, a dented wood stove sits against the back wall, its pipe disappearing into the brick.

Above: a variety of deer antlers and a boar’s head. And a bare bulb hangs from the ceiling, along with a dozen oil lamps that line the wall, along with a row of top-of-the-line baskets that catch your attention—12 cents. A large sign hanging from a chain reads:

NO CREDIT!!

So, you return your attention to Anderson, the grocer. Behind the long counter, stretching the length of the store, he stands. Anderson the grocer: holds his hands on his hips, wears a starched apron double wrapped tightly about the waist—sports an English mustache, vest, bowtie, and pocket watch, with shiny, flat hair parted perfectly down the middle. Behind: shelves of bottles and cans rising to the ceiling, a large Campbell’s sign reads:

Conscience in every can!

Below: A case of cigars:

Fine Quality Mild, 5¢.

You put in your order as you fumble with your braids, and Anderson scribbles it down, longhand:

12 Egg

4 Peach

2 Tomato

4 Bean

4 Mutton broth

Corn flour

Salt

Lard

Coffee

Tobacco

“And a can of Campbell’s tomato soup,” you say, “got it?” Giving him attitude. You like to give him a hard time. And you let your eye linger on him as you slowly tiptoe away. Standing before a display of coveted Theilmann’s Garden Seeds, you see the sign once again:

NO CREDIT

You click your cheek as Anderson sets four cans of peaches on the counter, and you scan the mosaic of items lining the walls, studying the selection of colorful merchandise:

Butchers Wax

Zud Rust

Crystal White Soap Suds

And:

Coon Chicken Soap[CMP1]

Its label features the cocked head of a Black man with swollen red lips, winking and grinning under a red porter’s cap. A lady on the wall donning a white silk gown casually lies back in a chair, leg extended outward from the wall; her hair, long and sexful, stares at you lustfully with a Coca-Cola in hand. But the clopping of Puritan soles draws your attention away for a modest-to-stern woman in a dark-blue neck-to-floor dress with ruffled sleeves to the wrists, hat trimmed with the plumage of endangered wading birds, hurrying right for the toilet soap.

Meanwhile, you continue to twirl your braid, making eyes with Anderson as he climbs a ladder, reaching for the Campbell’s tomato soup—he is so tall, might snap in two if he falls from that ladder, you think, and turn away, afraid you’ll make him fall with your mind. He climbs down and makes his way past pancake flour, a stack of Arnett’s biscuits, a pyramid of Negro Head oysters, settling behind a large brass cash register where you dump your handful of coins onto the counter. Anderson jabs down on the clunky keys, figuring the total in his head as you ramble off random numbers in an attempt to confuse him once again, “Twelve, seventeen, twenty-two, three-thousand, four-hundred, sixty-six, one, two, three, four,” as his eyeballs bounce back and forth in their socket. You catch the tip of your tongue in your teeth with a wide grin and a giggle. He cranks down on the handle, and the cash drawer pops open with a loud CHA-CHING!

Beyond a barren tree, the porch creaks, though you seem weightless as you lug the loaded crate effortlessly in your arms. Inside, a toasted-skinned man in a Henley undershirt looks up from his empty mug, and the scent hits you, familiar sweet maíz. “Buenos tardes,” he says.

“Papá, I got the cans from the grocer.”

“Gracias—” he says, standing from his chair.

“Papá,” you say, seemingly annoyed, widening your eyes, “I got it,” and set the crate on the floor.

“Coffee?” he asks as you step up on the crate, stacking cans on a tall shelf covered in oilcloth. You step down and grab a large knife and stab it violently into a can of instant coffee and fill a kettle with water from a pitcher and place it on the stove. “Sit,” you say, and he does, onto a round stool.

The kitchen: A denim coat and hat hang on a nail; laundry on a cord stretching from wall to wall—whitewashed but blackened with soot; window frame chipped and flaking, lined with empty coffee cans. “Dónde está Arturo?” you say, and Papá nods past the leafless tree just outside the window, on down the way. Your eyes wander back to the task at hand, emptying a dwindling coal bucket with a small metal shovel into a potbelly stove. On the floor about the stove, flower petals, tiny leaves, and stems are strewn about everywhere. A mirror hangs above a bathtub with a clothes wringer and washboard, and in the corner leans a stiff-grass broom. Empty milk bottles collect on the plank floor near a trash bin and wash basin. Pots and pans hang. And on the shelves of the wooden cupboard, a few mismatched dishes and an oil lamp sit amongst stacked cans. A yellowed image of the Virgin Mary hangs on the wall above Papá’s head. Its rough-hewn frame cockeyed, slightly to the left.

Sipping coffee, you take a load off, swinging your feet anxiously beneath your chair, your humming easing the silence. Papá takes a small sip but spits it back in the cup with a terrible grimace.

Giggling, “Qué,” you say.

“Caliente,” he says. “Hot!”

“What, you never drank coffee before?” You laugh.

“Too much strong, Palomita,” he says. “Leche, por favor.”

And you stand to grab a bottle of milk, and the leche helps him swallow it down.

“Palomita—” he says as your feet swing, his thumb rubbing the rim of his mug.

“Miguel,” you say mischievously.

He has let you behave this way ever since Mamá died.

“¿Cómo me llamo?[CMP2] ” He feigns to scold you.

“What is my name?” you correct him in English. “Your name is Papá—King Papá,” you say as your eyes widen, head shifting back on your shoulders like a deer caught in headlights before royalty—as you love to tease him, more than Anderson the grocer, but likely, you have confused him again, and you feel sort of wrong, and rub his arm. “Papá, te amo, I love you,” you say.

“Palomita, trae mi guitarra, por favor,” he says, and you quickly retrieve an old beat-up six-string guitar from a far corner.

Papá’s fingers twist to tune the strings, and you watch as his nails pick at the strings, making a scratchy mess—a catfight even. But as he slides his fingers up and down the frets, a wavering glissando fills the air, and a steady tempo is born. Strumming a graceful, elegant strum—a lovely, deeply soulful, haunting melody resonates. Sipping your coffee to the rhythm, Papá bounces his knee, and your feet swing and hurl back and forth—caffeine shooting through your veins.

“¡Adelante, Palomita, enséñales lo que tienes!” says Papá.

“Papá, no,” you say stubbornly, but Papá insists with a single nod, in that way he does, that way that nudges you on as he strums away his dreamy-eyed waltz.

So, you shut your eyes, clear your throat, and throw back your head, young, angelic face up toward the heavens, toward Mamá. And you lighten and glow as your brow softens, and below the slouching rafters in the low part of town, dazzling words flow from the depths of the river that is your soul:

“Trópico, calido y bello / Istmo de Tehuantepec / música de una marimba / maderas que cantan / con voz de mujer / Música de una marimba / maderas que cantan / con voz de mujer—

Tehuantepec, Tehuantepec / tienes mirar de una Diosa / que nunca en la vida / que nunca en la vida / pierde su color / Pero mujercita mia / mi fiel prometida / yo nunca en la vida / te piense olvidar / Tehuana la del alma suriana—Tehuana la de la voz timbrada / eres una muñeca entre los / encajes del blanco huipil / pareces una imagen virgen que de / un retablo se desprendiera / Tehuana la del alma suriana / que bailas de la marimba el son / rumbosa, preciosa / virgen de mis amores / linda muñeca, eso eres tú / Tehuana la del alma suriana / que bailas de la marimba el son / rumbosa, preciosa / virgen de mis amores / linda muñeca, eso eres tú.”

Out back, a gravel alleyway lined with lean-to sheds and overflowing trash cans runs down the block behind the house. You tend to the chickens in your huaraches, scattering leftover rice on the ground, before sitting with your new basket on the step. You fiddle with an arrowhead you found in a field one summer, working the crops for Mr. Avery. Mr. Avery: You chose to forget his face. Though his wife brought you lemonade when you passed out in the heat.

You rub your thumb against the arrowhead’s chiseled edge and jump to your feet, circling about the weed-filled lawn, seeming lost in thought. You spin your braids around twice and plop back down, resting your chin on your knee. Restless, you grasp onto your anxious legs, catching your tongue between your teeth. You look at the sky above, eyes wide upon the horizon, unblinking, gleaming, as the back door creaks open. “Hola, Arturo,” you say, looking up at your brother looking down at you with a crinkled brow and severe gaze of his own.

“Agua,” he says, handing you a pitcher, seemingly annoyed.

And you say, as you do, “A bowl of tomato soup?”

“Quakala,” he makes a grimace of his own, as you knew he would.

“Don’t be such a grump,” you say, snagging the pitcher from his hand, and Arturo disappears back inside. “Grump,” you say. “Grump, grump, grump!”

Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda, Papá reminds himself, the first rooster out of the coop waking the others in the low part of town. Pulling his suspenders over his shoulders, he makes his way to the outhouse; the SLAP of the screen door wakes you. Your palms had been snug under your cheek as you had dreamed of Mamá. Now, the tired springs of the metal bed whine and cry over every little thing as you stretch about the lumpy mattress in your ruffled gown.

Your long, jet-black hair falls well below your waistline as you make your way to the kitchen with a yawn. With the stroke of a match, orange umber illuminates the contour of your high cheekbones. Arturo enters the front door, a metal bucket brimmed with coal in hand. The two of you make eyes but say nothing. And using the small shovel, he fills the potbelly stove, his own chiseled face—partially hidden behind long, greasy bangs—brightening with a licking flame, angular nose casting a shadow upon his sunken cheek. The grays eliminate as you fill the pot with water and place it on the stove. You step up on the crate for a bundle high on the shelf, and, unwrapping a cloth, you remove a small loaf of bread—a dog’s breakfast—resembling a badly raised biscuit. With another slap of the door, “Buenos días,” says Papá, stepping into the noir.

“Buenos días, Papá,” you say, flipping tortillas on the smoking hot stovetop with quick fingers—the sweet scent of maíz enrichening the air. Eggs sizzle in hot lard. Arturo: A broth of a boy. He respects the sacred hour and pulls out a chair for Papá. And breaking the bread in two, Papá hands a piece back to his boy.

“Buen provecho,” you say.

“Gracias,” they say.

Papá: A quiet man with a severe crease dividing his eyes, speaking volumes about the low-key lighting. His figure, reedy. Arms, muscular. His irises, a blackness beyond Paris Brun. His own downward gaze is split by crisp diagonal darkness. His pointy elbows jab into the tabletop like knife blades. With a sip of bitter black coffee from his chipped enamel mug, steam glistens on Papá’s hairless lip, quivering for caffeine.

Ladling the last of the Chilayo—a traditional bone stew—from a terracotta pot, you fill two heavy-duty, round tin pails. Setting a plate of eggs between them, you cozy up in a chair, your own mug between your palms—praying silently over the steam. But you jump up and again, using the crate—as you are only but four-foot-two—you retrieve a small can of peaches from the shelf you’d forgotten. You place it with a stack of warm tortillas wrapped in a damp cloth into an old yellow tobacco box. Not a lazy bone in your body, you are quick to top off Papá’s mug as he sprinkles a bit of tobacco into a corn husk, and Arturo holds out a match ablaze—dilated pupils shimmering.

Papá clears his throat, smoke rolling from his nostrils as a lone bird perched in the leafless tree sings. “Al que madruga Dios lo ayuda,” he says.

And you correct him in English, “Early bird gets the worm, Papá!”

He grunts, “¡Ayy, Josephina!” and Arturo cracks the window.

Above: Our Lady of Guadalupe, ever looming—ever in perpetual sorrow.

Papá and Arturo put on Norfolk jackets over threadbare overalls cuffed at the heels. Grab newsboy caps off rusty nails and pails from the table. You hold out a dented thermos of coffee, nudging, “Arturo—” And as Arturo gives a pleasant nod, with a gentle grasp by the chin, Papá rubs his calloused thumb on her cheek, saying silently, what’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh, kissing you on the forehead, yet somewhere about your heart. You follow them to the door, where they slap their caps on their heads as the breeze catches the door—SLAP. You watch the peas in a pod stroll off for the train yard—same step, same stride, same blood running through their veins—disappearing into a dense fog settling so low that it sits right on the tracks.

Over two thousand men and boys have lined up—most of the town’s male population—smoking and gibbering on about this and that, sipping their thermoses along East Elm. A mural on a brick wall reads in large white letters:

P & O

And below:

The largest and oldest permanently established plow factory on earth.

Before the rising sun on the eastern front, the factory whistle, known as “Big Toot,” cries out a shrill across the rooftops at eight o’clock sharp. A guard rolls open the gate, and Papá and Arturo step forward amongst the laborers filing in toe-to-heel, head-to-toe in denim, for a twelve-hour workday of blacksmithing for Mr. Parlin and Mr. Orendorff—having arrived at their own private entrance in their fancy cars.

Giving Papá a shove, a scruffy man with jaundiced complexion steps on his heels, tells him to “Move it along” and calls him a “Spic.”

Arturo, scowling over his shoulder, “Cabrone!”

“I’ll cut your goddamn tongue out and feed it to you,” threatens the man. “You little shit,” the man grumbles, “What was that, boy? You speakin’ beaner to me,” and so on, as Arturo steps out of line and turns to face him squarely.

The man: Furrowed brow, quivering lip, hidebound teeth, waiting to pounce, chomping at the bit—just starving for an excuse.

“Arturo,” says Papá, giving him that look he knows all too well—count your blessings, with the slightest fluctuation of the eye. And Arturo falls in line.

Hammers in hand—a dozen boys and men ride a large freight elevator. Creak, pop—and it jerks to a stop before a man with broad shoulders in a black suit and bowler hat overlooking the foundry floor. A sprawling, monochromatic room of harsh shadows of Dantean darkness. Dangling bare bulbs burn silhouettes of countless curve-spined men givin’ hell to iron deep into the retina. The forty-five-foot walls are covered in an endless array of spare parts and tools, strewn with coats and hats. A looming supervisor strolls down a row of downward tilted heads swiveling upon swollen shoulders—every man to his trade. Cranking, scraping, chiseling, filing, hammering—CLANK—BANG—CLANK—BANG—reverberating the bones. Liquefying the marrow; jarring the jaw; shattering the teeth. The hammering: Arrhythmical, deafening—boxing the brain. Ears, in a constant ring. Young boys sweep and scurry after hollered shouts, running like headless chickens about heaps of scrap iron, chasing endless errands of an infinite kind. At the far end of the floor is a bubbling furnace. Molten iron at its volcanic center. A blinding eye as mighty God, turning eyes away like royalty—a thin layer of rawhide shielding mortal flesh from the blistering heat of hell.

Humming—you divide your hair into three equal sections at the nape of your neck. Holding the right section, you cross the strand over the center strand so that it now sits in the middle. Taking the left strand, you cross it over to the middle so that this strand now becomes the center strand, and so on. You secure the braid with a length of green ribbon, leaving a tail at each end to form a bow—all the while making a low, steady, continuous hum like that of a bee. A wordless tone—mouth closed; you force the sound to emerge from your long, angular nose.

Your eyes are kept downward within the melody of thoughtful absorption, “Hmmm, hmm, hmmm—” you carry on as you strap on your huaraches and grab your basket of willow. You throw a lime-green rebozo[CMP3] over your shoulder—the long, wool garment like that of a shawl you wear on your head to block the sun—the way Mamá did. You often use it to alleviate headaches by tying it tightly around your head when you think too hard. You hurry out the door, running away from your thoughts, and with a SLAP, the door is caught in the breeze. Our Lady of Guadalupe, crooked on her nail: a virgin, not too unlike yourself—delicate features, but straight, unbraided hair that is simple and parted down the middle, framing her face. She stands in contemplative prayer with hands joined, little finger separated. Head, slightly inclined, she gazes with heavy-lidded eyes at where the door has just slammed shut. Clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head, a crown of twelve stars, and a figure reflected in her eyes; not a single figure, but a small family; mother, father, son, and daughter—all in the center of our Virgin’s eyes.

You scurry along the tracks past P&O for the junction, where you head west to where the tracks cross Main, and you continue on for two long miles for the train bridge on the western edge of town. Crossing high over Big Creek, you meditate on the tips of your toes, tiptoeing about the high trusses. Back on land, you run down the steep hillside into a vast prairie where you are swallowed by towering pony grass—burgundy seed heads swaying in the breeze like soft clouds. It has turned out to be a lovely day, quite indeed, or so you believe.

Deep in the sea of fauna, young, almond-skinned, in a lime-green dress aglow as a rice-paper lantern in the light of day, silken braids bobbing about, turquoise rebozo draped about your shoulders, you gather daisies into your basket, which hangs upon your arm. A loose strand of hair curls about your cheekbone; with one eyebrow raised, you grin, the tip of your tongue caught in your teeth. You slice through stems with Papá’s knife as delicate petals fall free to the earth. And from your lips, you sing the sweetest song that rises to the heavens above like the feathers of a pure white dove:

“Palomita vamos a mi tierra / Y seremos felices los dos / Gozaremos lo que un alma encierra / Y estaremos en gracia de Dios / ¿Por que quiero de ti separarme? / Tengo otros amores, tengo / otros consuelos / Palomita, vamos a mi tierra / Y seremos felices los dos—”

SNAP—a rustling startles you quiet. Looking back over your shoulder at the tree line, your thick, heavy brows slant deeply inward like a raven’s wings, intensifying the severity of your gaze. Your doe eyes now piercing. Sable brown with a circling tinge of old-world blue, glossy saucers that shimmer and shine, reflecting the darkness of the thicket back at itself. “I see you,” you holler. And with a giggle, and a grin that spreads from ear to ear, like water off a duck’s bill, a red fox darts over the horizon.

Climbing the hillside to the tracks above, you skip across the bridge, losing sight—you are a good fortune in the air. Eyes reflecting the sky, high in your glory, darting toes carelessly across the trusses—carefree, without worry or doubt. Until you slip on a pebble and trip forth—fluttering on edge like a helpless baby bird about to fall—flailing your wings in large circles, trying not to plummet from your nest. Half your bundle scatters, feathers falling gracefully below, where they are swept away by the steady stream. Slowly, you steady yourself and step back from the edge. Closing your eyes, you take a deep, deep breath and remember your place here about the crust—counting your blessings just as Papá reminds you, “Con gracia. Con gracia.”

Cooking up Mamá’s stew just the way she used to—or so you imagine—you know surely, Papá remembers its taste, the way she once prepared it back in the El Paso encampment, yet you also know he will mention not a word but simply lick his plate clean. You drop a neck bone into a terra cotta pot, add a pinch of salt, and toss your long braids out of the way as you remove the stalks from enough dried chiles for a copper-plated belly. You slit them open, scrape out the veins and seeds, and toss them in the burbling broth. Crushing cumin with a slam of your fist to the side of the knife, you drive your frustrations out into the tabletop, rattling chipped China and the teeth alike. You chop cloves of garlic and onion, remembering Mamá’s eyes and how they once sparkled, as your own well up in sulfuric fumes. You quarter eight tomate verde, leaving the husks intact. And recall the scent—subtle and rare. Mixing the Chilayo with a wooden spoon, you take a breath of steam in through the nose, out through the nose in audible pain. And you plop down with a small pair of shears, trim at tiny leaves from your bundle of daisies, and softly sing your favorite tune—one Mamá sang in the encampment, or so Papá tells you. It’s a tale of a cat, a cat in love, and so it goes:

“Estaba el señor, Don Gato / Sentadito en su tejado / Maramiau, miau, miau, miau / Sentadito en su tejado—”

As the meat cooks, the fat floats to the surface, and you dip the wooden spoon once more to see if it coats, to see if it sticks—as it had for Mamá upon her spoon. Chopping the stems evenly across the bottom of the daisies, you remember faintly—or imagine so—picking wildflowers back in El Paso, and you sing on:

“Ha recibido una carta / Que si quiere ser Casado / Maramiau, miau, miau, miau / Que si quiere ser Casado—”

You stop and wince—sometimes it hurts—sometimes it stings. You stand from your stool and remove a small pot from a shelf lined with tar cloth. You place it on the table and, stepping up on the crate, you grab a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Picking up the knife and clenching it in your fist, you gaze empty-eyed past the leafless tree outside the window. Slowly, you raise the knife high, high above your head. And with a swift jab, you stab the blade deep into the lid—red sauce oozing. And you carry on:

“Con una gatita parda / Sobrina de un gato pardo / Maramiau, miau, miau, miau / Sobrina de un gato pardo—”

Opening the stove, you poke at the hot ashes and add a scoop of coal. You dump the soup into the small pot, put it on the stove, and it quickly begins to burble.

“¡Ayy!” you shout with a burn to the finger—and you kick the stove and shake off the pain and sing on in high tune:

“Al recibir la noticia / Se ha caído del tejado / Maramiau, miau, miau, miau / Se ha caído del tejado / Se ha roto siete costillas—El espinazo y el rabo—”

You pour water from the pitcher into the empty soup can, slide in the flowers and place the Bellis perennis—qualified as the common daisy—onto the table. You grin wide, the tip of your tongue caught in your teeth—your thoughts on a boy, a boy in the nude. And with a blush before the crooked Virgin, you throw your rebozo before your eyes and let out a giggling cry, “¡Ay caramba! Don Gato!”

And the meat falls from the bone.

Big Toot cries out in hunger: The workers file out for cold lunches to be eaten alone and in small clusters about the warehouse yard—squat about hazardous materials, atop heaps of iron and bundles of wire. A few linger back and open their tin pails at their workshop desks with unwashed hands, as doing so would take a third of their lunchtime. Cold lunch is paired with hot coffee, leftover pie, and bread. Preserved meats, a wedge of cheese, a hard-boiled egg, and a handful of shelled hickory nuts. Leftovers from the night before, cooked potatoes, sweets, and traveling foods, as anything wet and sloppy is more bother than it’s worth. The Swedes eat pickled herring from tins, a few yards off, beside a cistern of crude oil, and the Italians chew on hunks of pastrami, cheese, and olives. As a lot of fellows with shaky hands sneak off to the beerhall for a quick swig and an honest laugh. Arturo and Papá lean against a wall, eating tortillas with bone stew with hind ends in the dirt, when the man with the pockmarked face walks past, kicking over the pail. Arturo jumps to his feet and grabs the man by the collar.

“Go on spic, give it a shot!”

“Arturo, Arturo,” begs Papá.

But Arturo pants, fist balled, knuckles white, as the vein in the man’s forehead pulsates. Switch—a blade appears at the boy’s throat, shimmering in the noon sun, glaring off the boy’s eye. “Split you open like a hog, boy,” the man foams with hate. The boy, but a boy, swallows hard, releases the man’s collar, and steps away. “That’s right, spic,” spits the man, running the blade across his own neck from ear to ear. And pointing the knife toward Papá, “Make a move,” with jaundiced, bloodthirsty eyes. But his eyelid twitches, and he switches the blade shut and walks on—stew seeping into the earth. And Papá hands Arturo a tortilla as Arturo scowls—fuming, raging, chomping at his own bit. “Sit,” says Papá , tortilla shivering in hand.

With your basket of daisies, you scurry in your huaraches down Cherry Lane, passing a few houses not too unlike your own. Humble homes with tar paper roofs. Ridges bowing under the weight of four seasons, shoddy construction, and poverty. Paint, the color of dirty washrags—the kind most mothers toss out at the end of the day—paint, shredding and peeling to the ground, collecting like dried leaves in a dirt lot. Shacks sitting upon blocks stacked haphazardly upon one another, about heaps of trash and stray cats licking long-licked tuna cans, and stench and filth. At the end of short paths, porches sit but a foot off the ground, roofs supported by narrow beams harvested directly from the forest, sprouting the only greenery insight. Front doors, ajar and cockeyed. Windows stuck open and shut. Sad, peering eyes and young faces with dirt crusted about the mouth. Others, old and white, vacant, gray. Few eyes as dark as yours, and hardly any with your reflection—a black mirror that shimmers, a shine Mamá gave you.

Crossing 3rd, you pass a shed rusted Indian red and a tall pile of sleepers reeking of tar. At Fulton Manufacturing Company, about a square, two-story red brick building, shards glimmer on the ground about crumbled coal. Past 2nd, more scatterings of what too many call home and another series of crumbling brick warehouse buildings. A block past 1st, you take a right on South Main and scurry toward Hickory, and Oak, to where the paint flakes turn to charcoal, now, shadow, now, lead pewter, or smoke, or mouse, or fog, and mushroom, squirrel, pigeon, grandma, coin, cloud, and finally, mist. And the rooms slowly grow in number. From one or two rooms to two to three. From three to four, four to five, and so on as you approach Rail Road Street—the tracks separating, “Us and them.”

At Maple, Ms. Clancy’s house sits broadly on the corner, perched on a small hill. Her watchdog, a miniature poodle, stands guard on the porch, shivering—the first two-story home in sight. Giant oak limbs shade the effervescent lawn from the searing late July sun. The paint, of course, is silk white. You cross Walnut, and on the left, the school—a four-story gothic building—where a chorus of children’s laughter pours out the many long rows of unbroken windows. You cross Pine. You pass Vic’s candy cane barber pole spinning endlessly. And now, so many Henry Fords—AHOOGA, AHOOGA—and so many colorful signs on the left and right that read:

Perfect Players

Good Drugs

Best Tobacco

Extra Extra

Drugs, Drugs, Drugs

Smith & Sons

Sam & Sons

Sonny & Sons

Implements

Hardware

Merchandise

Drive Slow & See Town

Drive Fast & See Jail

Fresh Meats

Fancy Fancy

Since 1886

Since 1882

Aunt Jemima

Nigger Joe’s

And so on.

Above, in giant block letters atop a limestone building towering four stories into the midwestern sky, from where headlines roll off the tip of the tongue in a clamoring that rattles the block:

The Canton Register

And the most colorful place of all:

Gustine’s Drug Store

A place you’ve never stepped foot inside, but gaze through the glass at the curios as you slowly pass the fantastic display of wonder. But you end up peering only back at your own face, at the bit of dirt on your cheek. And as the trolley and the Benington ice wagon—water drizzling out the back—pass by, you take a right at the First National Bank and enter the first door on your right, the flower shop.

Arturo sweeps debris around heaps of scrap metal that satiate the foundry floor. Papá mans the furnace, and the pockmarked man mans the material into the load bucket to be towed overhead to the furnace. There, Papá will spill the bucket into the furnace, and the material will melt down into lava to be formed into plow shields. Dropping his shovel, the man takes a quick break to scoop a cup of water from a nearby barrel, and, with a quick look over his shoulder, he splashes the remnants of the cup onto the heap of scrap. Dipping the tin cup into the barrel again, he wets the metal—all the while, all the banging and clanking in the world cannot dampen that belittling voice going round and round his head.

That tic in his left shoulder, “You were a mistake, boy!” And the hitting, kicking, shoving, biting, hair pulling, and whipping. Oh, the whipping in the barn—if he hadn’t enraged his pa, if he hadn’t milked the cows fast enough, early enough, if his pa hadn’t pulled him out the bunk by his hair before sunrise. That tic in his left shoulder: The shaking, the dropping, the striking, the biting, the burning, the cigarette butts that sear flesh, the scent, the pocks on his face, not all acne scars. “You were a mistake, boy!”

It hurts when he tells his boy Jimmy the same. But hell, it’ll make him strong, he thinks. Like it did me, he believes. And my pa, and pa’s pa, as he grabs a bucket, wrists visibly scarred from rope burn. He tics and shakes off the feeling with a shake of the hands, hands tied around that pole, a pole in the barn, as he bathes the iron scrap—as he purifies his soul. And with his shovel, he fills the load bucket to the brim with the wetted material and gives Papá the whistle, and he tosses up his arm and offers Papá a grin. Papa nods and offers the chain with a good yank. The clatter of iron dissipates into the chaotic orchestra that has become these men’s lives. As the load bucket rises above their heads, sending the scrap metal closer to its fate, Papá pulls a rope that guides the material across the melt deck for the furnace before him. Positioning the load bucket, Papá pulls down on another chain, spilling its wetted guts into the molten pool as he has a million times before. But this time, the liquid-bearing material instantaneously turns to steam and BLAST!!!

A molten metal splash—a violent regurgitation of lava spews out of the furnace, swallowing Papá whole in a sudden blinding flash. With a crash to the floor, the giant wave of lava evaporates all in its wake—a tsunami of holy hell. And a burning blaze ignites. And the panicked workers try to flee, stampeding for their lives, trampling over one another, over Arturo, as smoke quickly cakes the windows black, as Arturo is engulfed, as is any external light. Flames blinding, licking bones clean of flesh like a hell hound, burning, burning. Melted flesh pooling, a molten pool of molten flesh, as thick smoke, choking any screams that cry out, as Arturo takes his last, dying breath.

Sitting out front of the beerhouse, the drunkard cradles a puppy in his arms as a man buys a paper off the newsboy. He forsakes asking the man for a dime, busy scratching the little pup behind the ears. Half the number of coins in your hand, as usual, you exit the flower shop, as the florist places your daisies in a brass urn just inside the window.

You gasp. A boy. A boy you adore. You spot him on the opposite curb. You stare at him, but he sees you not, as his face is glued to the sky, a sky blackened by a plume of dark smoke swallowing the day, just over your shoulder. You are in glee, and you blush, as you’ve had him on your mind all day. Your heart skips a beat, and you shout out his name, “Oscar! Oscar!” as you skip off the curb, mindless, carefree, and in love when—

AHOOGA!

Henry’s Ford comes screeching to a halt, and coins jangle to your feet. Papers fly free from the newsboy’s hand, caught in a wicked breeze. And Big Toot cries out across the rooftops, sending the birds fleeing from their perch as men stagger out of the beerhall. Women clop out of Ms. Mallery’s dress shop, Anderson steps down off his ladder. The headlines circle back around, to where you now lie, as sorrowful as the Virgin, crooked on your nail, and the meat falls from the bone.

“Josephina, can you hear me? Josephina, are you there?”