stuck my bare feet on the dash of my mother’s ten-year-old 1965 VW Bug. The metal was hotter than I’d bargained for. I let the heat sink in and felt the relief of its intensity. My brother Josh just chewed his thumb while he used his elbow to hold the steering wheel.
We were camped in the gas line at Qwik Gas. A quarter of a mile of pearly low riders, rusted out Pintos, and pickups outfitted with roll bars and rifle racks stretched out behind us. Josh eased the VW up to the bumper of the Mustang with “Wash me, asshole” across the back window. I wiped sweat from the back of my knees.
“This sucks.” Josh spat out a piece of thumbnail and tossed a wedge of blond hair from his eyes. “I can’t wait to get to the coast.”
I glared at him. He blinked his swimming-pool-blue eyes at me several times. In a week, he would leave for Imperial Beach for basic training. He had dropped this bomb at breakfast this morning. Mom had taken the news surprisingly well. The Vietnam War was over, and more importantly, she was in love. My little sister Annie worried only about King, our feeble black Lab, who’d favored Josh since Daddy had died. I was pissed off, which Josh had expected. And why shouldn’t I be?
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said.
“Come on, Sheila. It’s not like I’m going into combat.” He fingered the keys dangling from the ignition. “It’s a good time to serve.”
“Serve?” I punched his leg below the fringe of his cut-off Levi’s, a sure bruise he deserved. “They’ve brainwashed you already.”
“Shut up, Shee,” he said, wincing as he rubbed his leg. “You sound like Dad.”
“Someone in this family needs to talk sense,” I said.
I wished I’d hit him harder. I wished Daddy was still around to straighten him out. Daddy would get him to see the light.
Across from the filling station, the shuk shuk of the sprinklers in the fields seemed cheap relief from the heat. A braver girl than me would scale the fence and run through those sprinklers.
“They’ll shave your head,” I said, trying another angle.
He shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair. He’d quit competitive swimming the previous fall, and now his hair was shoulder length and sun-streaked. My mother called it his lion’s mane.
“Dad hates you doing this,” I said.
Daddy had detested the military and the CIA. Richard Nixon and his cronies were demons, Vietnam their infernal playground. Daddy was the only person in town who had thought this way. Except for Tall Larry, the black janitor at Tristes High School.
“Dad’s dead,” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “In case you didn’t notice.”
I swallowed the dusty lump in my throat. I was suddenly dying of thirst.
“Do you have any change?” I asked.
I smiled at him with mock sweetness. To my surprise, he reached into his pocket and dropped two quarters into my hand. He was typically tight with his money.
“You owe me,” he said.
“Consider it payment for your stupidity,” I said.
The soles of my flip-flops seemed soft when they made contact with the pavement. The air was dense, resistant to movement. We had another hour of one hundred-degree temps to endure before the wind passed through to wash away the dust, the metallic odor of pesticides, and woodsy, shivering smell of Fat City, the steer ranch in the Gabilan Foothills, just east of town.
“That’s cold, Shee,” Josh called.
I turned around and stuck out my tongue. “You want a soda or not?”
The soda machine ate the quarters. I looked around for Ramon Ramirez, the attendant. He was busy filling the Fratti Farms truck at the pump. Fumes shimmered from the metal gas nozzle. Ramon had to stand on his tiptoes to squeegee the truck’s windshield, flicking the toothpick in the corner of his mouth as he worked.
One night, under the influence of tequila sunrises at a roadside keg party, Ramon had professed his love for me. Since I’d turned him down, he’d pretty much steered clear of me. My best friend Ingrid kidded that we’d make a great couple. Ramon was four foot eight. At nearly seventeen, I was a towering five-eight. Ingrid had strange ideas about romance.
When I got back in the car, Josh was spinning the radio dial. He looked at me blankly. His forehead glistened with sweat.
“No soda?” he asked.
“The machine’s out of order,” I said.
“It figures.” He frowned at the pulsing Spanish music coming from the radio.
Tristes got three stations. KHTS Top 40, for the thirty-five-and-unders. KPSA with its campy Spanish ballads. And KJAZ broadcast out of fog-choked Monterey on the other side of the Santa Lucia Mountains. KJAZ only came in during rainstorms.
My father had died on a stormy February night. He had been a Miles Davis fan. I was only eleven years old at the time. A few weeks after the accident, I had called KJAZ and asked the DJ what they’d been playing at 1:48 A.M., when the train barreled into Daddy’s stalled pickup. Miles Davis. Daddy’s timing was impeccable.
Josh switched off the radio and went to work on his thumbnail again. I watched Ramon toss the squeegee into a tub, sending soap suds flying. He mopped his hand across his forehead and surveyed the line of cars.
“Poor guy,” Josh said. He was scrutinizing Ramon too. “See what I mean? There’s nothing here for me.”
“You could always work for George,” I said. “If you could stand it.”
George Fratti owned most of the land around Tristes, along with the only produce packing company in town. He’d been lusting after my mother for years. That meant he would do anything for us.
After Daddy had been killed, George had waited a while. Then he made his move. My mother eventually gave him the signal, and they went on a first date. Roses and a candlelit dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey. A year later, the proposal. The wedding was set for this October.
“George is all right. I just don’t want to work for him,” Josh said. He let out a deep sigh. “I’ll be fifty by the time we get gas. I thought the oil embargo was over.”
“Mom will probably get a new car now,” I said.
“It’s about time,” Josh said. “Look at it.”
The bent metal seam on the VW’s hood threw out a blade of sunlight. The deer had come out of nowhere one night after my mother’s shift at the Steak Pit. Chief Rodriquez was out patrolling for drunks and found my mother in the middle of the road hunched over the doe. My mother refused to leave the deer’s side. She said she owed it to the doe to stick around.
“I love this car,” I said.
The Fratti Farms truck at the pump pulled out of the station and headed south into town. A bearded collie darted across the truck bed. Another hot passenger on this miserable day. Josh moved up a car length.
“I wish Annie would shut up about the pony George is going to buy her,” I said.
Annie had been an infant when Daddy was killed. Josh’s and my memories were all she had. Poor Daddy had even less than that. A plain pine box and the Winnie the Pooh book Annie had given to my mother to put in the ground with him.
“Annie needs a dad, Shee,” Josh said.
“She has a dad,” I said.
“You’re unbelievable.” The sharp blue of his eyes held muted exasperation.
“That makes two of us,” I said.
I glanced in the rearview mirror. Betty Rodriquez was sitting in her pristine white Buick. Her candy-red lips were moving, counting the pearl rosary beads she kept in her purse. Betty was Ing’s mom and therefore always praying.
Her suspicions about Ing’s promiscuity were warranted. Ing had lost her virginity when she was twelve to Billy Rollins. She later referred to Billy’s penis as a Vienna sausage. He had tried to make up for it by grinding Ing’s butt against the pitcher’s mound. The scrapes were still healing a week later. By the end of our sophomore year, Ing’s interludes had totaled eleven to my zero.
The only guy I had ever considered dating was Jimmy Emmons. But Ing had snagged him the previous summer. Betty was convinced Jesus had brought Ing and Jimmy together. He would do the right thing if Ing “got in trouble.” It was true, Jimmy adored her. And she loved his adoration. Ing called this love.
“Have you been to the cemetery?” Josh asked.
“What?” I was a million miles away.
“Have you been to see Dad?”
Daddy’s plain tombstone was tucked among the marble crosses and pink granite headstones of well-to-do Swiss Italians. I had tried to get my mother to bury Daddy closer to the migrant workers’ graves whose anonymous wood crosses Daddy would have found solace in, given his political leanings. But Mom had insisted that he have a burial that befitted a father and a high school teacher.
“Not for a while,” I said. “But the last time I went, he talked to me.”
“Dad never talks to me,” he said. He ripped a stray thread from the fringe of his cutoffs.
“That’s because he loved me more.” I grinned at him, and he cracked a smile.
Truth was, I would rather have had Daddy talking to both of us in the flesh. His voice didn’t make up for him dying. I would never stop missing him. But it kept me from losing him completely. Sometimes this seemed like enough.
We were at the pump now. Ramon approached the driver’s-side window with his hands tucked in the greasy pockets of his uniform trousers. He looked in at my bare legs.
“Fill it, would you?” Josh said. When Ramon was out of earshot, he added, “You’re too picky. He’s crazy about you.”
“Look who’s talking about being picky,” I said.
“At least I took a chance.” He turned on the radio again and immediately switched it off.
Josh was referring to Violet from Hollister, his only girlfriend really. He’d fooled around with Ing’s cousin Lorna once or twice, but then he decided she liked him too much. Violet lived a safe distance. Hollister was fifty miles away on the eastern side of the Gabilan Mountains. The drive there was a good hour plus.
Josh and Violet had met at the first football game of the season. They wrote letters, met at games to make out. Then around Christmas, Violet’s letters stopped. Her phone had been disconnected. Josh had chewed his thumbnails down to the cuticles and, after three days, driven to Hollister. Her parents’ ranch house was empty.
“You think you would’ve married her?” I asked.
He stared out at the dry field beyond the sprinklers. Workers spilled out of a migrant bus to pick a late crop of strawberries. They dispersed amid the rows slowly, ignoring the shouting foreman.
“Probably,” he said in a low voice.
The gas pump clicked in the tank. Ramon took a ten-dollar bill from Josh. He fingered the bill and rocked on his heels.
“I hear you enlisted,” he said. He glanced at me and then settled his gaze on Josh. “I’ve been thinking of doing the same. Maybe I’ll see you down there.”
“Yeah, man,” Josh said. “That would be great.”
“See you around, Sheila.” Ramon flicked the toothpick.
“Stay cool,” I said.
Josh pulled out of the station. He threw on the blinker and waited for a truck hauling a trailer of irrigation pipes to pass. The pipes clattered as the trailer wheels bounced over twin potholes. Road maintenance was not a priority for the City of Tristes.
“Ramon will never leave,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
The Santa Lucia Mountains panned down the west side of the valley. Their creases, carved by rain and wind, seemed dark today, the mountain tips blunted where they met the sky. Across the valley, the Gabilan Mountains shone a quiet gold. The folds in the hills always reminded me of a giant’s fists. The giant clung to the edge of the earth, too shy to show his face.
On Main Street, early drinkers had already parked their cars in front of El Ranchero. The bar had been unofficially renamed the Hero when the E and R-A-N-C burned out, leaving L----H-E-R-O. The owner had had the sign fixed, but the name had stuck.
Josh turned down C Street. It consisted of mostly ranch-style homes and the occasional unkempt bungalow, ours being one of them. A crow departed from one mailbox, cawing as it flew to another. A nearby pepper tree shimmied. Breeze, finally.
“You forgot Mom’s smokes,” I said.
“I thought she quit,” he said.
“Not exactly.” I snorted. “But George wants her to quit.”
Josh sighed. A purist about his health due to years of swimming, he had little patience for my mother’s smoking. But no one got Mom to do what they wanted her to do, even for herself.
Josh turned into the Beckmans’ driveway to turn around. The Beckmans’ Doberman gnashed at the chain-link fence. Mrs. Beckman was standing on a ladder on the porch, wadding up newspaper.
“Use your own damn driveway,” she yelled.
“Old bag,” Josh muttered.
“Bet you’ll miss her,” I said.
“No.” He shifted into second, gunned the engine to the corner, and stopped. He turned to me. “But I’ll miss you guys.”
I counted his cinnamon freckles to keep from crying. Five on each side of his nose, just like always. I wanted to say something brave. But all I could think of was how stupid he was, joining the Marines.


The VW’s tires hit the curb in front of Kim’s Grocery. I smelled rotting meat. On hot days, the stench coming from Kim’s was nauseating. The produce was bad too, either peppered with fruit flies or rock hard. My mother only bought cigarettes from Kim and a carton of milk or loaf of bread on the rare holiday Friendly Market closed.
Josh shoved his hands into the pockets of his cutoffs and went in. He shook his hair from his eyes and reached up to touch the hem of the Dole Pineapple banner hanging from the store ceiling just inside the entrance. I tried to imagine Tristes without him.
Down the street, smoke billowed from the Steak Pit stacks and curled around the year-round plastic reindeer and Santa faded to a Valentine pink. My mother would quit the Pit soon. She was sick of her boss nagging her and the other waitresses. And with the wedding coming, she wouldn’t have to work. George would take care of her, of us. My mother said I should be happy. Our lives would change for the better.
Chief Rodriquez lumbered out of the police station. I watched him fold his burly frame into his patrol car. He thought I was a good influence on Ing. “Mi hija, my daughter, my Ingrita would be lost without you,” he’d say. His wife Betty prayed, and he counted on me. I’d just nod, allowing him this small comfort.
The Chief had been the one to come to our house that night to report the accident. His heavy footsteps on the porch had woken Josh and me. His voice had been thick with emotion. “He misjudged the train’s distance. Lo siento, I’m sorry, Alicia. May his soul find peace.” From the doorway where Josh and me watched the Chief cradle my mother, all I could think of was how small his tears were for such a large man.
The wind was starting to kick up, rustling the pepper trees along Main. A stranger came out of El Ranchero. He brushed the burnt-orange hair from his eyes and squinted at the daylight, as if trying to figure out where to go next. He lit a cigarette and headed towards Kim’s. A green duffel bag slung over his shoulder bumped his lean frame.
When he passed in front of me, my heart thumped. His T-shirt was damp with sweat, his skin weathered and the color of wet leather. Tristes got few strangers. And never like this one.
God knew what possessed me. I called out to him, asked if he needed help finding someone or something. He turned around and flashed a smile.
“Been told there’s work at the packing shed,” he said.
“You met Will Fratti,” I said.
“Know him?”
He slid the duffel bag off his shoulder. A patch of an American flag was stitched to the pocket of the duffel. Wincing, he rubbed his shoulder. I imagined both shoulders T-shirtless and me rubbing them, and my breath quickened.
“My mother’s engaged to his brother.” I sounded remarkably calm.
“One of those complicated situations.” He gave me a little wink.
“It’s boring, really,” I said.
“How can anything that happens in Tristes be boring?”
His eyes were white-green, like sea foam. He dropped the burning cigarette and twisted the sole of his boot over it. I held his gaze.
“Easy for you to say,” I said.
“Who you waiting for?” he asked.
“My brother,” I said with a shrug. “Where’d you hitch from?”
“You’re a curious one,” he said, reaching for my hand. “What’s your name?”
“Sheila.”
His calloused fingers curled around mine. My heart was beating like a hard rain on an aluminum roof. When he let go of my hand, his touch lingered. The sensation was both cool and warm.
“I’m Buck Hanson,” he said.
Josh came out of Kim’s with the cigarettes. He looked from Buck Hanson to me. Buck nodded.
“This is Buck,” I said. “He’s looking for George.”
They shook hands. Briefly. They stood almost toe-to-toe, and nearly the same height. Josh gestured at the duffel on the ground.
“You were in Nam?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Buck cleared his throat and looked up the street. “Haven’t been able to sit still since.”
“I leave for Basic next week,” Josh said.
“Why are you going to do a thing like that, kid?” Buck’s eyes probed my brother’s. “War’s not a TV show, man.”
“We’re not at war.” Josh looked away.
“You think so?” Buck picked up the duffel. “I wouldn’t put it past those bastards in Washington to get us into another one.”
He gave us a mock salute and turned away. His hips shifted under his faded Levi’s as he walked up the street. I inhaled. It felt like I was breathing him into me.
“Did you see his face?” Josh said. “Those are wrinkles.”
“That’s from the sunshine,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Buck. “And there’s no harm in looking.”
He stared at me and folded his body into the VW. He tossed the pack of cigarettes into the glove box. He checked the rearview mirror, then waved to the Chief in his patrol car.
“I got a weird feeling about Buck,” he said, backing the car out of the parking space.
The wind was blowing full force now. Buck Hanson crossed the street, eyes locked on Fratti Farms Produce and hair tossing about like a flame. I resisted the urge to tap the horn. •