Name: Gabriella Webster
Entry Title: Constellations
Word Count: 1,992
“Gabriel, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?”
I stared blankly into her searching eyes; so glossy I could see my own
reflection. The white walls and furniture minimized the already small room where I
sat, crinkling the paper on the examination table as I shifted in my seat, searching
for an answer.
At ten years old, I’d never been asked about my dreams for the future, a
trivial question used to spark a conversation at a meal. I knew what I would be, but
what I wanted to be was never an option. I would work the fields for the rest of my
life to support my family, and that was that. My family was all I had.
I left my home in Texas in the back of Papa’s old flatbed truck with a box of
tools in front of me and a flat expanse of land for miles on either side. The wheels
kicked up dirt in clouds that swirled around; homemade dust devils in the middle of
the street. I watched them spin and settle until my house looked like one of the fairy
homes Abuelita taught Jessie to make. Jessie was only four, so she stayed home with
Abuelita. They waved from the front porch until we passed the tool shed. Now they
were gone, and the house was out of sight: another speck of dust in the whirlwind of
road dancing in front of the exhaust pipe. We drove for two days, only stopping for
gas. I slept bungee-corded down in the back of the flatbed, staring up at an
impeccable view of the stars.
I’d always loved space; the way the stars never abandoned me, no matter
how many times we packed up and left. It was the one thing I could count on—that
the stars would always be there and the sky would never move away. They were
constant in a world where everything was moving and changing; my world where
everything was moving and changing. I watched the sky twinkle for an hour before
falling asleep to the rocking of the truck over the potholes.
The next morning, I woke up blanketed in dust in the middle of the Mojave
Desert, where the wind through the dunes didn’t need our rusty-old truck to make
dust devils for it. The sun was blinding, and it reflected light off each grain of sand
until I thought I had died and gone to what looked like heaven and felt like hell. The
only thing I ate that day was a bag of chips Papa had picked up the night before that
I had to share with my older sister, Marissa.
When we reached Tulare County it rained for an hour straight, and I found
refuge in a piece of tarp rolled up in the toolbox. Water rolled down the bed of the
truck—droplets racing one another down the rivets in the plastic and onto the
street. I was sopping wet and chilled to the bone when the rain stopped just outside
of Visalia. My wet skin dried quickly in the May heat as we drove to the onion fields.
A mile into Visalia, our flatbed was absorbed in infinite farmland. The sky
was a haunting blue, startlingly clear and beautiful above the hundreds and
hundreds of families slaving away with burnt red skin and gaping wounds under the
brutality of a cloudless sky and beating rays. This was what I left school a month
early for: to earn three dollars a day by selling my pre-pubescent body to a
corporation so that my family can afford to buy a pair of shoes for Jessie that
actually fit, and food for another month.
An agricultural wasteland where dreams come to die awaited my family and
me, because in this life of poverty there is no escape. Every aspiration evaporates
under the hot summer sun for migrant workers. That was how it had been, and how
it appeared it would always be. Over the rumbling of the truck on the gravel I could
hear the cry of a child in the distance.
We pulled up to the farmhouse and parked our car beside fifty others in the
parking lot: a dirt clearing out of sight from the road that ran past the fields. As I
jumped over the side of the bed, Papa climbed out of the cab of the truck.
“Quickly! We can make it to the fields in time for pay if you hurry!” Papa
shouted in Spanish so fast that I struggled to keep up. Mama and Marissa exited the
cab at the same time with Abuelo struggling to find the gloves in the storage bins
under the seats.
“Edwardo, I can’t find them! We must’ve forgotten!”
The cab walls and the noise coming from the fields muffled Abuelo’s voice.
“Then we go without,” Papa replied, grabbing Mama and Marissa by the
hands and dragging them hurriedly to a path cutting through the rows of onion.
“Andale! Andale!” Papa cried, patting them on the bottoms as they ran for an
open row to harvest.
“Mijo! Grab the tools. Stay with Abuelo. I’ll sign in.” Papa yelled over his
shoulder as he ran for the farmhouse, kicking up dust like a character from the
Sunday cartoons as he went.
Abuelo and I carried the box of tools down the break in the rows to where
Mama and Marissa were pulling onion plants from the dry earth, their nails already
caked with dirt; their skin already burning. Isolation brought no peace, as constant
chatter and children’s cries filled the air and then disappeared into the incredibly
blue sky.
That night Marissa slept in the bed of the truck with me. We watched the
stars dance in their black box ballroom to a muted song. Before long, my eyes were
open just enough to see my wishing star. Then Marissa turned to me.
“Do you think we’ll ever find fulfillment in life?” she asked, with all the
vulnerability of a rose. I opened my eyes to look at her: beautiful, young, strong.
“Do you think we could ever be happy with ourselves if this is all we ever
did? Do you think we’ll ever get out of here? Run away, fall in love, make something
of ourselves? Do we even have a chance? Will we ever be truly happy?”
I saw the moon in my sister’s face that night, rolling down her cheek on a
tear. I wasn’t sure what to say, because I knew how much she hated lies, and how
much she hated our circumstances, and that no matter what I said I couldn’t satisfy
her. So I grabbed her hand and watched the universe roll down her cheek one last
time before shutting my eyes and falling asleep.
The next morning, we were in the fields by five with six hours of sleep under
our belts and an hour of cool weather left before the sun filled the sky with
sickening heat. I stayed across from Marissa as we used our bare hands to wrestle
the deep roots of the onions out of the earth and separated the bulb from the plant
with our rusty garden sheers. We had been at work for four hours when Marissa
began coughing like I had never heard her cough before. She was asthmatic, though
we didn’t know it at the time, and the pollution in Visalia exceeds that of almost
every other city in the nation. The pesticides in the air were palpable from fields and
fields of flowers and crops.
“Papa! Papa!” I cried for help as Marissa’s face turned blue and her coughing
turned to gasps. We had strayed from our family unknowingly, and my voice was
unable to be heard over the sounds of the men in the fields. With sore arms and
calloused hands, I hoisted Marissa over my shoulder and ran for the farmhouse.
Marissa could only be saved if I made it to the farmhouse in time for the paramedics
to come. With an incomparable amount of strength and adrenaline, I ran through the
path in the onion until I reached the office.
“Call 911! Call 911!” I called into the loud and bustling station. Running to the
couch in the living area, I didn’t notice that Marissa had stopped coughing. As I laid
her down on the cushions, I noticed she still held her shears in her hand. When the
paramedics arrived, I was restrained from following Marissa to the Ambulance.
Mama went to the hospital and told Papa, Abuelo, and I to stay and work.
“I’ll call the farmhouse if I get any news. You stay here and keep busy,” she
told Papa before climbing in the truck for the hospital. I still remember how the dust
swirled as she pulled away.
Papa told me to keep working to take my mind off of Marissa. That didn’t last
long. When I turned to watch an eagle flying overhead, I nearly took off my thumb
with the garden shears.
In the emergency room, they wrapped my hand in gauze while I waited for
my turn with the doctor. The television showed the news with subtitles, but I
couldn’t read. Instead I closed my eyes, and decided to name my stars. I had lost
nearly a cup of blood and named 55 stars by the time the doctor called me in.
“So, Gabriel, is it? Tell me, how did this little accident occur?” the doctor
spoke gently. Her blonde hair was pinned back in a bun, with small pieces framing
her kind face and wondering blue eyes.
“On the farm. With the garden shears.” I said.
“And what were you doing with the garden shears?” She asked, humorously.
“Harvesting the crops.” My old tennis shoes painted mud on the legs of the
examination table as I swung my feet.
“I see. Well, Gabriel, I’m gonna need to sew your skin back together. Now, it
shouldn’t hurt a bit, but first I’m gonna need to put some numbing medicine in it.
Okay?”
I nodded, and watched her sink a needle into my hand.
“Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”
I shook my head.
“Now I’m gonna ask you a few questions, okay? There’s nothing to be afraid
of.”
She bent over to stitch up my finger and began to ask me:
“How old are you…? Where do you live…? What’s your favorite color…?”
I could tell she was just trying to distract me, but I played along. Her inquiry
was predictable, which allowed my mind to wander—wondering about my Marissa,
and if we ever would find true happiness.
“Gabriel, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” she asked, in
a different tone than she had asked any question before—like she was questioning
my circumstances as a child of poverty.
I stared blankly into her searching eyes; so glossy I could see my own
reflection. The white walls and furniture minimized the already small room where I
sat, crinkling the paper on the examination table as I shifted in my seat, searching
for an answer.
Then, I thought about my wishing star, Marissa, and with more confidence
than I had ever had in my life I answered:
”Happy,” and I knew in that moment that I had the one dream that could
survive the brutality of the summer sun and the unforgiving cycle of poverty,
especially when Mama told me that Marissa was alive.
My family was a constellation: a collection of stars that alone are beautiful,
yet together create something remarkable. We were one another’s constants in an
ever-changing world. Together we fed America and were there for one another, and
that in itself is something to make even the brightest of stars jealous.