Page 100 of Resilience on Canvas

“Is this how you make a livin’, then?” Henry asked.

“Well, yes and no. I take people out to the valley, but I work out there myself too.”

“But, then, if yer headin’ out there regardless, why’re chargin’ folks so much?”

With a huff, the man crossed his big arms over his chest and then tilted his head. “Do you own your own vehicle?”

“Uhm, not me, no,” Henry said.

“Well, then, either you pay me the money, or you’ll pay someone else the same. Probably more. One of my buddies, Lloyd Green, has a truck, and he chargestwelvecents. What’ll it be, son? Do you want a ride out to the farms or not?”

“Uhm, yeah, okay, we’ll pay the ten cents,” Henry said before looking over at Robert. “Right, Robert?”

Robert let out an irritated huff, still too mad to speak, and moved to retrieve his wallet. Ten centsperriderpertrip. What a pile of horseshit.

After paying, Henry and Robert waited in the cargo bed for a few other folks to join. Once the bed was full—six fucking people crammed together like Vienna sausages in a tin can—they were off to the fields. What a lousy Goddamn ride it was, too. Every time they went over a bump, Robert felt as though he might be thrown over the edge. Worried that he’d lose Henry from one of the violent bounces, Robert stuck a finger through one of Henry’s belt loops so he could feel like he was protecting him from being flung overboard. Despite knowing how stupid of a thought this probably wasandhow strange it was making the two of them look to everyone else in the bed with them, Robert couldn’t help himself. Clinging to that tiny scrap of fabric made Robert feel better somehow.

Over one and half hours later, they reached one of the farms. The truck rolled to a stop near a collection of white tents and shacks made out of scrap metal, cardboard, and wood. Close towhere they’d stopped, there was a wooden booth, and behind it sat a man with a long mustache and stacks of rectangular boxes next to him. After Robert and Henry hopped out of the cargo bed, they hung back and watched the other men with whom they’d been riding walk up to the man and exchange pleasantries. Each of the men took a wooden box.

Finally, Robert and Henry made their way over.

“What are these for?” Robert asked.

“Tomatoes,” the man said. He pointed to the field beyond the tents where people—men, women, and even a couple of children—were working, hunched over in the fast-rising summer sun. “Fill up the crate, bring it back, and I’ll weigh it. I’ll write the weight here in my notebook, along with your name, and then, when you’re finished for the day, I’ll pay you for how much you picked.”

Nodding to himself, Robert took a moment to digest this. If him and Henry could be paid for how many tomatoes they picked, and not how many hours they worked, surely they could make more than most everybody else working in the fields. Him and Henry were practiced. Over the years, Robert had spent hours upon hours working in the fields of his own farm, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion. Even though it had been a while since he’d had that much work with regards to plowing and harvesting, he’d still spent plenty of hours shoveling the topsoil that had blown in from the storms. And Henry, well, he had plenty of experience restocking the store, hauling sacks of flour and sugar out from the stockroom and unloading crates of cans from supply trucks. Both of them working together? They’d be filling up crates of fruits and vegetables left and right.

“Sounds good to me,” Robert said, taking the first wooden box from the stack. He started toward the field. “Come on, Hen.”

Henry snatched the next box and followed close behind.

Over the next eight hours or so, Robert and Henry picked tomatoes without stopping, except to venture back to the makeshift camp for some water that the farmer was supplying to the workers and to take a couple of piss breaks.

By the end of the long, long workday, they had filled up a whole two crates or so more than most other people. Robert had been counting. They werebothcompletely soaked with sweat. It clung to their shirts and plastered their hair to their heads, and, son of a bitch, it was probably making the two of them smell even worse than they looked. Even Robert’s socks were feeling uncomfortable. He hadn’t known feet could sweat that much.

And yet, no matter how hard picking tomatoes had been and how heavy the last crate felt as Robert carried it in from the field, the weight on Robert’s shoulders seemed lighter than it had in months. Because soon, him and Henry would return to the city having made some headway into saving up enough money to rent a place of their own.

When Robert and Henry reached the booth, they set their crates down with big, exaggerated sighs of relief. Day one of field work was over. Thank the Lord.

After the crates were weighed, the man worked to tally up their earnings, and Robert and Henry waited patiently while chatting about how much Goddamn supper they’d eat once they were back in San Francisco.

When the man was finished, he caught Robert’s eye and said, “Alright, looks like you earned yourself eighty cents.”

“Eightycents?” Robert shook his head in confusion, his stomach souring instantly. “Are you sayin’ thatallof those crates of tomatoes only made me—”

“—eighty cents,” the man finished for him.

Robert’s eyes widened, bile creeping up his throat. “Total.”

“Mm-hmm. Total.”

“No, that... that can’t be right.” Robert stepped forward and tapped the man’s notebook forcefully with his fingertip. “Check the math.”

“I checked it twice.”

Swift as the next, clear California breeze, every ounce of blood left Robert’s face. Lightheaded, he staggered back a couple of feet, and with every step he took, it seemed as though he was walking backward into the past, back to Oklahoma, with the barren fields and black blizzards. Desperate to prove to himself that the meager salary might still be enough, Robert shut his eyes and tried to work out how much money him and Henry would have to realize their future together. Numbers began to pelt Robert’s mind like the fine powdery particles kicked up from one of the forceful Oklahoma winds. Eighty cents for each of them. Times two. Makes one sixty. Times seven. Makes...

“Robert?”

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