Distillation
Hugo Martinez-Serros
He went on Saturdays because it was the best day. He did it for years and we, his sons, were his helpers. And yet one day alone remains, that single distant Saturday—a day so different from the rest that I cannot forget it:
Friday night I was in bed by nine. It would take us about an hour to get there, and we had to leave by eight the following morning to arrive just before the first tall trucks. All day the trucks would come and go, all day until five in the afternoon. My father wanted to get there before anyone else. He wanted to look it all over and then swoop down on the best places. There the spoils would go to the quickest hands, and we would work in swift thrusts, following his example, obeying the gestures and words he used to direct us.
That Saturday morning my father waited impatiently for us, his piercing whistles shrilling his annoyance at our delay. Anxious for us, my mother pushed us through the door as she grazed us with her lips. My father was flicking at his fingers with a rag and turned sharply to glower at us. I saw fresh grease on the hubs of the big iron wheels that supported the weight of his massive wagon, its great wooden bed and sides fixed on heavy steel
axletrees. He spoke harshly to us, for we had kept him waiting and he was angry: “What took you so long? ¡Vámonos!”
2
He had already lowered the wagon’s sides. Now, grasping us at the armpits, he picked us up and set us in beside the burlap sacks and a bag of food, starting with me, the youngest, and following the order of our ages—five, six and a half, eight, and eleven. He handed us a gallon jug of water and then pulled the guayín through the door in the backyard fence, easing it out into the alley by the very long shaft that was its handle, like some vaguely familiar giant gently drawing a ship by its prow.
Yawning in the warmth of May, I leaned back, like my brothers, in anticipation of the joys of a crossing that would reach almost the full length of the longest line that could be drawn in the world as I knew it. That world, dense and more durable than a name, extended just beyond South Chicago. The day, a vast blue balloon stretched to its limits by a great flood of light, contained us and invited our blinking eyes to examine all that it enveloped.
3
The fastest route led us down alleys, away from pedestrians, cars, trucks, and wide horse-drawn wagons that plied the streets. The alleys, always familiar, seemed somehow new in the morning light that gleamed on piles of garbage and everywhere flashed slivers of rainbows in beads of moisture. Garbage men used shovels to clear away these piles. What garbage cans there were stood sheltered against walls and fences or lay fallen in heaps of refuse. Through the unpaved alleys we went, over black earth hard packed and inlaid with myriad fragments of glass that sparkled in the morning radiance. Ahead of us rats scattered, fleeing the noise and bulk that moved toward them. Stray dogs, poking their noses into piles, did not retreat at our approach. Sunlight and shadows mottled my vision as the wagon rolled past trees, poles, fences, garages, sheds. My father moved in and out of the light, in and out of the shadows. On clotheslines, threadbare garments waved and swelled. Without slowing down, my father navigated around potholes, and these sudden maneuvers shook loose squeals and laughter as our bodies swayed.
4
At 86th Street he had to leave the alleys to continue south. There the steel mills and train yards suddenly closed in on us. We rattled over the railroad crossing at Burley Avenue, a busy, noisy pass, and this made me stiffen and press my palms against my ears. For one block Burley Avenue was a corridor—the only one for some distance around—that allowed movement north and south. At 89th Street my father followed a southwesterly course, going faster and faster, farther and farther from the steel mills, moving beyond the commercial area into a zone where the houses looked more and more expensive and the lawns grew thicker and greener. Already there were many flowers here, but no noise and few children, and there were no alleys. As my father rushed through these neighborhoods, we fell silent. I was baffled by the absence of garbage, and my eyes searched for an explanation that was to remain hidden from me for years.
At the end of a street that advanced between rows of brick bungalows stood the tunnel. We entered it and I tensed, at once exhilarated and alarmed by the wagon’s din, frightened by the sudden darkness yet braving it because my father was there. A long time passed before we reached midpoint, where I feared everything would cave in on us. Then slowly my father’s silhouette, pillarlike, filled the space ahead of me, growing larger and larger as we approached the light. Beyond the tunnel there were no houses, and we emerged into the radiance of 95th Street and Torrence Avenue.
5
There, stopping for the traffic that raced along 95th Street, my father quickly harnessed himself to the wagon with the double rope that was coiled around its prowlike handle. He was safe in this rude harness, for he could loosen it instantly and drop back alongside the great vehicle to brake it if the need arose. Now he pulled his wagon into Torrence Avenue, and his legs pumped, hard at first, and then they let up and soon he was running. Torrence Avenue, broad and well paved, shone like still water, and he ran smoothly, with long strides, at about three quarters of his top speed. We were smiling now, and we saw the smile on his face when he looked back over his shoulder. Breathing easily, he ran before us, and I watched his effortless movement forward. I felt a sudden keen desire to be just like him and for an instant found it difficult to breathe. To our right was a green expanse—trees, wildflowers, grasses, and a bountiful variety of weeds—like a green sea extending to the horizon. Torrence Avenue now curved gently to the left for a half block and farther ahead gradually straightened along a stretch of several blocks, flanked on the left by a high fence and a long dense row of poplars. As my father navigated out of the curve we urged him on.