The Mexican (revised)

The funny thing about the Mexican was he didn’t speak Spanish, which took 5 years to figure out. They had a feller from Albany, Victor Hernandez from Health and Human Services, who was in town on state business, meeting with the sheriff and his deputies and Sheriff Thom asked Hernandez if he’d do him a favor and stop out at his sister Jane’s farm to talk to her hired hand, explained that Jose, the hand, had been working for Jane for over five years but still spoke no English. Victor Hernandez figured doing the sheriff a favor could only help.

All jane knew was the guy’s name was Jose and he came from Mexico. About the only words that worked were si, no, and donde. But no matter. In Jane’s opinion Jose was worth four of any other farmhand in Chenango County and the language barrier didn’t matter cause she never needed to tell him what to do. He knew when and what to feed the livestock. If an animal got sick he’d notice before her, point it out to Jane. He’d figure out a cure, too, most of the time, old-timey sorts of cures with roots, mud, flowers, leaves, and such. Saved her a ton in vet bills. sometimes Jose’s cures didn’t work, but you could say the same about the vet. Things were pretty tight financially for Jane, and Jose worked for room and board. Jane paid him a little cash too, but she didn’t need to.

The farm had been in Jane’s family for 8 generations. It had never been much more than a subsistence affair, but there used to be the extended family to work the place. Jane had been working it alone for 20 years, hiring help when she could afford it. She did the best she could with the livestock and the crops, scaled down of course. Her brother helped her maintain the buildings and machinery.

One September, Jane was cutting hay when she noticed a stranger leaning on the corral fence watching the llama, calling to it. Jane had gotten the llama to protect the sheep from coyotes, after losing 4 sheep in one year, and it had done its job well. apart from Jane it didn’t like anyone in its territory, so it was pretty odd that it was not reacting to the stranger. It was also pretty odd that the stranger had come on foot. She would have heard if he came by car, and he didn’t have a bicycle. Sometimes pickers came by looking for work but never on foot.

Jane got jose’s attention, pointed at the hayfield, waved the sickle in a cutting motion, and then pointed at jose. Jose just nodded and followed her back to the hayfield, took the sickle from her and started to cut. Jane needed the rest, sore hip and all. She went inside for lunch, dozed off for a while, came back out about 2pm, a little groggy, and saw that he had finished the hayfield so she fetched a ladder and got him started in the orchard.

At quitting time Jane gave him a 20 and offered him a ride home. Jane eased the truck down the driveway, pointing left and right, looking at Jose for a sign of which way to go. No response. She guessed that he must be from one of the trailer camps outside Susquehanna on Route 8 so she went in that general direction.

They drove around for an hour, slowing at every intersection and every trailer park, jane glancing at Jose for an indication, jose just looking blankly back at her. finally she drove in to town, pulled up in the IGA’s parking lot. “Donde?” she tried, repeating the word a few times, hoping he’d recognize where they were and how to get where he needed to go, but he just looked blandly back at her, eyes gently averted, a wisp of a smile on his lips. He nodded slightly and said “Donde”, turned and reached for the door.

“No, no” said Jane, flustered, reaching across to catch his hand before he opened the door, but the door swung open and she lost her balance and fell over Jose’s legs, causing both of them to topple out onto the gravel. Jane bruised her bad hip. She lay there rubbing the sore spot, looked around to see that Jose was face down on the road, bleeding some, not much, from the forehead. Jose opened his eyes and sat up. He didn’t look too bad. She got one of the cleaner rags and dressed the wound.

“That didn’t work too well” Jane muttered as she gathered herself. She shut off the motor and checked her face in the truck’s mirror, brushed off her clothes and walked over to the IGA to get them each a coke. When in doubt, have a coke. She used the machine outside the store, got two for each of them.

They sat on the running board of the truck drinking the cokes. Jane tried to figure a way to let Jose know that she wanted to drop him off where he was staying and have him back the next couple of days to pick some more. She hoped wherever he was living there’d be someone to translate.

She got back into the truck and looked over at Jose. with the bandana tied around his head, made her think of errol flynn though there was no resemblance.

Jose hesitated then got back in. Jane tried again: “Donde?” Jose smiled and replied “Donde.”

Somewhat against her better judgment, Jane drove back home and offered Jose the use of the guest cottage, which was really a tool shed with a cot in it. She had never had a stranger stay for the night. The next day, when she told her brother, he said it was the most foolish thing he’d known her to do,

Jose stayed on in the guest cottage for five years. He took over most of the manual work from Jane, freeing her up to do some things, like sewing and decorating, that she scarcely had time to do in years. She could get out and hunt or fish as much as she liked. Sometimes Jose came along. He wasn’t a good shot; did a little better with fishing.

She even had some time in the morning to put on her old Richard Simmons video and exercise a bit. She enrolled in a Spanish class at SUNY Chenango, hoping to learn enough to communicate with Jose. She took two semesters, got good grades. She practiced with jose but he must have spoken a different dialect.

Jose didn’t mind that the cottage was unheated, slept okay with a down comforter and a couple of wool blankets added on the colder nights. Jane wished she could let him use one of the bedrooms in the house but that just was not done. She did cook for him, and he ate with her. Besides not minding the cold another surprising thing about him was his appetite for woodchuck. Never had known any of the Mexicans or Jamaicans to eat more than a couple of forkfulls, if that, but Jose’s eyes lit up when she served chuck.

They arrived punctually at 2pm, the Sheriff in his personal car, Victor Hernandez in a state car with his aide. Jane led them to the guest cottage and knocked on the door. Hernandez was wearing city clothes, dark blue overcoat and a grey flannel suit with galoshes over dress shoes. His outfit made her think of funerals. His aide was more sensibly dressed. She glanced sidelong at Hernandez, checking his outfit more carefully, thinking that the shoes must not be very warm. He looked pale and seemed to be shivering but he held himself.

Victor was also thinking about his shoes. It felt like he was barefoot on a block of ice. He wanted to shuffle his feet to keep warm, but he didn’t want to look foolish. His aide, wearing Timberlines, should have advised him, but that was a different problem. He inherited the aide when he took the Albany job the previous summer, didn’t like him much but had lived with him thus far. he had lived all his life in San Antonio, and at 32 was a rising star in the Democratic Party back in Texas. He ha but then the New York job came up.

After a while Jane knocked again, smiled at Victor to reassure him. She couldn’t take her eyes off his outfit, how he looked so spiffy with the black cashmere scarf, bright, bright white shirt, conservatively loud red tie, ear muffs made out of some fur she couldn’t place. Only the coyote lined hat didn’t fit. Seemed like the hat his aide had on would go better.

Victor smiled back and thought his lips were going numb. He thought about William Harrison not wearing an overcoat to his inauguration and dying of pneumonia a month later. He wondered if his feet were in danger of frostbite. After a second eternity the Sheriff, God bless, pronounced Jose not at home. Jane guessed jose had gone off in the woods.

Victor wanted nothing more than to get back in the car and crank up the floorboard heat, but he didn’t want to leave empty handed. Coming out to Jane’s place had been a political token, a matter of currying favor with Sheriff Thom. He expressed disappointment that he wasn’t able to help, gave both Jane and the Sheriff his card, told them to call him and he’d speak with Jose. He shook hands with each of them and walked back down the long driveway towards the car. The farm didn’t look all that different from farms back in Texas. Even with the heavy snow cover he could visualize it in warm weather, the fields and the orchards, the massive shade tree in the front yard.

Everything would have been fine if he hadn’t gotten distracted by the llama. He thought it was a horse at first, He stopped in his tracks, tapped his aide on the shoulder and pointed to it. The aide explained that farmers kept them as guard animals, especially for sheep. Victor moved towards the corral and the llama trotted towards him in response. Jane was hollering something at him and he turned towards her, not catching the words, smiling in a photo op reflex. Something warm and wet was on his cheek. He turned to look at the llama and it curled back its lip and expelled about a pint of spit, a good deal of it falling short but more than enough to lather his face and stain the overcoat, scarf, shirt, and tie.

Jane took him inside the house and cleaned him up as best she could. While she was at it she spotted Jose out on the road, watched him walk up the driveway, caught his attention and waved at him to come inside.

Victor greeted Jose and spoke to him in Spanish, but he didn’t get through any better than anybody else. Sheriff Thom eliminated English and Spanish and wondered what that left. Victor supposed he might be Indian, said he’d follow up once he got back to Albany. His feet were feeling better already. He thanked Jane and the Sheriff and left.

Nice guy, thought Sheriff Thom. Too bad he wasn’t Republican.

Jane looked at Jose. It didn’t change much, him not speaking Spanish, but she thought maybe she should stop calling him Jose. She lay awake in bed for a long time that night, unable to stop thinking through a list of names.

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