The Guardians Read Online Free Page B

mi papá comes, I will give it to him. He would never ask it of me. He will make good use of it to help my abuelos or toward building the house there. As for me, I have no need of dinero or material comforts. (But, on this subject, Your Reverence, I must ask you to help me, especially when my blanket feels so rico over my body, tan cansado. I find it difficult to get up in the mornings.)
    When I return from work, after my shower, I do my homework in my cuarto, so my tía's sleep is not disturbed. I go to school. I go to work. I go to church. Meanwhile we wait for my father. He will decide if I stay or not but for now I want to stay.
    My aunt had left the truck keys on the kitchen table. Truck keys and one aguacate. My aunt is good at rationing even while she knows we are not starving; although we have our share of arroz y papas all week. And of course, every day, beans, every which way you want to have them— first in the pot like soup; that's the best. You sprinkle a little diced onions and with a rolled-up corn tortilla—a man could not ask for much more in life. We can't add chorizo to them anymore because my tía says one day it will give her a heart attack.
    Avocados are just about the only thing my tía doesn't grow in the garden that we can't live without. She has one of those green thumbs.
    We get all kinds of chiles, tomatoes, yellow, red, and green for salsa, three varieties of squash, a patch of watermelon, and corn.
    Mis padres thought my tía Regina had won the lottery with this property All summer, from harvest to harvest, Mami kept badgering my father, “Why don't we settle down like your sister? Why can't you get us something like that? Por favor, Rafael—your sister did it by herself Why can't we?” My poor mother; she was never happy Who could have been, working in la pisca like we did, pulling up tomatoes, artichokes, cotton, grapes … pues, todo, pues, Santo querido.
    That day in my tía Regina's kitchen, which is dark even in the daytime but from the window over the sink you can see the mountains, I decided to eat only the avocado. I picked out two corn tortillas, the hardest ones. Little sacrificios prepare me daily for the course I have chosen. I added a hot salsa of chile árbol that my tía makes so delicious, but that was all. (I tried not to enjoy it too much.) I ate the whole avocado because no matter what I try, once you cut one open, the leftover portion will turn black and go to waste. I've heard all kinds of trucos as to how to prevent that—cellophane, aluminum foil, cut the pit out, leave it in, Tupperware. My tío Osvaldo in California swore that the only sure way to keep an open avocado from spoiling was to place the open part flat down on a piece of cardboard. My mother's brother, he had picked avocados in California all his life so I accepted his word. Until I tried it. It did not work. But back then, when Tío Osvaldo was still alive, I was just a little boy. What did I know of life then?
    One day my mother got word that Tío Osvaldo was dying of pneumonia. He had been working for a flower rancher near Fresno, allá in California. We were working the garlic pisca near Watsonville when the message came. Mami took me with her to see him. Tío Osvaldo was laying there in un jacalito. It was typical of the ones we migrantes were assigned in the labor camps. Since my earliest memory such a shack would be called home. There wasn't electricity in that one.
    How does someone die of pneumonia picking flowers, Santo? You could die of heat exhaustion and overall fatigue. This everyone knew. My uncle was only twenty-nine years old. He was very strong and had never been sick. When we found him, he was trembling to death under a blanket another migrant had lent him. It was one of those soft colchas depicting whole scenes—an adobe house in front of a big yellow moon,a tiger looking at you, the Seven Dwarves dancing. This one had la Virgen de Guadalupe with a white face. The owner of the blanket