The Circuit: List 4

Now its blue soft covers were beginning to fade and its corners were frayed. As I smoothed them out with my fingers, I recalled when I first started to use it.

I carried the note pad in my shirt pocket and, while I worked in the fields, memorized the information I had written in it.

We could not use the second level because the floors were unstable.

I wanted to learn some spelling rules while I worked, but I couldn’t. The angry, blistering sun did not let me.

At sundown, when we got home, Mama and Rorra drove to the store while Papa, Roberto, Trampita, and I stripped to our underwear and bathed in a trough that was behind the house.

“Calm down, Panchito,” Mama said. Then looking down at my sister, she said, “Mi’ja, did you take Panchito’s pennies?” Rorra nodded sheepishly.

Roberto picked up the dishpan full of soapy water and hurled it over the stove.

A few moments later Papa came out coughing and clenching in his arms something wrapped in a blanket. His hair was singed.

Papa hurried over and stood in front of me. “¡Ya! ¡No seas tonto, Pancho!” he shouted angrily. His glare frightened me.

It was a scorching, hot day.

My clothes were drenched in sweat.

I crouched underneath the vines for shade but the heat pierced right through.

I crouched underneath the vines for shade but the heat pierced right through.

“La migra swept through the camp about an hour ago, and I didn’t know if the immigration officers searched your school too.”

That word evoked fear ever since the immigration raid in Tent City, a labor camp in Santa Maria where we sometimes lived.

I looked over my shoulder and saw several vans screech to a halt, blocking the entrance to the camp.

Many, like Dona Maria, “la curandera,” were caught, herded, and hauled away in the Border Patrol vehicles.

“So, you didn’t go out with la migra,” Papa said jokingly, trying to ease the tension.

I gobbled my two-egg and chorizo tacos and, making sure Papa was not looking, signaled to Roberto to hurry.

Once we crossed the cement bridge, which went over a dry river bed for a quarter of a mile, I stretched my neck and tried to pinpoint the location of Bonetti Ranch.

They were plagued by hundreds of blood thirsty fleas.

Mr. Bonetti periodically burned the garbage and hauled the remains to the city dump in his truck.

“Cutting his lawn. Once a week,” Roberto answered sadly. His lips quivered.
“Oh no!” I exclaimed, throwing my hoe on the ground in anger.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

I knew I had a thick accent, not because I heard it myself, but because kids sometimes made fun of me when I spoke English.

“What do you think?” Roberto asked, trying to conceal his smile.

I glanced at Papa and Mama. They were beaming. “You got a job!” I cried out.

I took the text and broke it down, line by line.

Thunder and lightning interrupted my concentration.

I don’t think he believed me because he stared at the note pad I was holding in my hand, mumbled, and changed seats.

I even looked forward to my recitation in Miss Ehlis’s class that afternoon.