Below is an excerpt from a historical fiction piece I’m developing. The work follows a family's trajectory, based in Central America in the late 1950's - early 1970's. Below is a chapter titled "Quime", which introduces one of the characters at a young age. The year is 1957.
“Quime”
The pigs’ high pitch squeals broke through the morning light. They are the first and loudest animal to demand their breakfast. Their nourishment consists of boiled maicillo mixed with suero (milk whey). Quime rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, stepped out of the hamaca, and into his rubber yinas. He stretched out in his wrinkled tan cotton shirt and linen pants. At only 10 years-old, he was responsible for his share of the housework. A list that grew perpetually in accordance to his age.
“Yah, yah, I’m on my way. Tanto que joden,” Quime telepathically communicated with the pigs.
The brown spotted pigs with pointy ears had high expectations. They knew if they woke up the humans in the most obnoxious way, they would be fed first before all the other animals on the farm. Before the chickens, who slept in late on top of the trees. Before the cows, who were cuddled up with their little sleepy calves. Before the goats, who were pickiest eaters.
Quime filled a huacal with maicillo and poured it into the bowl of each pig. The suero followed this careful manner. There was always one speedy, selfish swine who finished their bowl before the others. Quime grabbed the garrote to push the gluttonous one away.
The morning light broke over the valley ridge through the jicaro trees. The chickens spread their wings and came down from the trees. The calves and their mothers moo’ed for Quime’s attention. He knew he had to feed them all before his parents and younger siblings woke up.
At least his younger sister Lena could help with fetching firewood but Lupito was still too clumsy to grab the sticks without falling over. The most Lupito could do is scare off the crows who feasted on the milpa. The crows were persistent but so was Lupito, with his 5 year-old frame.
He knew that the milpa was the family’s primary food source. The tender growing corn fed everyone on the farm, including the animals. Tending, dehusking and shelling the shapely corn was the main chore in the evenings. The ugly and flattened corn stalks were tossed to the side to serve as food for the goats, the cows. Lupito knew if wanted to eat tortillas tonight or any other night, he had to make sure the corn field was not the avians’ personal maize buffet. He would run after the clever birds, shooing them away until either lunchtime or defeat arrived, whichever came first.
Quime patiently swept the front porch from all the dirt kicked up from the overnight winds. The winter rains were delayed this time of year and every wind without precipitation felt like another empty promise from a disappointing parent. Even the earth began to crack open from the drought. Quime found a new tiny canyon to jump over every morning on his way to collect buril. The dried cow manure, when burned, serves as an effective mosquito repellent. The smell wasn’t so bad either.
The beaten dirt path behind their adobe home leads directly to the creek. The narrow body of water serves as the main artery pumping life throughout the village. In the mornings, the neighboring women carry piles of dirty laundry in broken buckets on top of their heads to wash on the smooth stones. In the pockets of their soft aprons, boars of soap are safely guarded. The cacophony of cackling alerted Quime to wait.
The women congregated to talk about last night’s dinner, commiserate in their exasperation for rain, describe in detail the crops their husbands were tending to in their fields. The piles of clothes and their oversharing seemed to never end. Their chubby little babies would bathe next to the pile of wet clothes, following each other in the shallow water. Picking at little algae and forever tempted to put it in their mouths. Quime knew to wait until after they were done in order to head to the creek to fetch fresh water. As an attempt to pull him into their brouhaha, they would ask him a million of prying questions:
“How are your little siblings?”
“Are you done with chores? It’s too early to be done.”
“When is your Mother going to visit me?”
He wanted nothing to do with the inane small talk. Holding his broom on the porch, he could hear the women’s retreating steps of their rubber flip-flops. The babies cooed in the broken bins full of clean wet clothes, both worn out from their time in the water.
This was finally his quiet moment of action. Quime stashed the broom in the kitchen corner and grabbed his bucket. Motivated by the idea of having the creek all to himself, he jumped onto the dirt path broken in by so much foot traffic behind the house. He swerved between the barbed wire of the wooden post where the bend was the easiest to pass through. The foliage knew to move to the left or right to let the tiny running human pass.
Quime held his bucket tightly and patted the sweat above his lips with the back of his hand. His dark hair was beginning to stick to his forehead with perspiration. The radiating heat from the blazing sun told him to move quickly. He needed to have this water ready because it is the first thing his Mother would ask for once she stepped into the kitchen. The pila of water had to be replenished constantly, especially in this unseasonably warm winter. That water was the lifesource of the household: to wash, to drink, to cook, to bathe.
On the dirt path, the tropical birds called out like old neighbors to each other. The wind moved through their feathers and leaves culminating in a soothing hush. Reaching the creek, the stream was clear enough to see the bottom. The speed was quick, enough to wash downstream the soap bubbles from the previous visitors. The silence, pleasant enough to know that he wouldn’t have to politely smile through a marathon of inquiries from nosey señoras.
The water’s surface reflected the fiercely glowing sun. Quime slowly removed his rubber yinas on the edge of the creek, placed them on top of a sunned boulder. He approached the body of water, only up to his ankles. A few meters away, a little wiggle sneaked into his peripheral view. He leaned over to get a closer look, stepping silently in that direction. A squirt of water splashed up and surprised him. Through squinting and mostly instinct, Quime was able to make out the silver shapes of a little chumpa and congo grazing on the streambed. The striped congo had too many little bones for his liking but the idea of a crispy fried chumpa made his mouth water!
Overly taken by the immediate prospect of lunch, and to take a break from the monotony of frijoles, Quime’s hunger dove right in with the bucket. Despite the small brain and puny eyes of the fishes, they managed to dodge their capture with lightning reflexes. They lived to see another day of rocks. The same rocks that slipped under Quime’s foot and sent him crashing down knee first into the streambed.
Chilled water washed over the heated 10 year-old in soaked clothes with a throbbing knee. The bucket also escaped an imprisonment of servitude. Floating downstream, the bucket was free to serve no master beyond the water’s rapids. Anger poured into Quime’s chest and pumped right up to his wet cheeks.
“Why did I have to follow those stupid fishes? Hay que coman mierda. Mi mama is going to kill me for losing that bucket. What am I going to tell her? Por culpa mia, the water took it? Ni madre,” the tirade spiraled inside the kid.
This will be the first of many times that failure sinks into Quime’s chest, knocks the wind out of him and radiates outward. A type of compression that pushes hurt into anger without discerning between the two. A cinder block that gets heavier to lift through the passing years until one day, it just stays.
Block by block, a wall that gets cemented with distrust.
A wall:
To block out - the excruciating hurt of his wife’s infidelity and his deceased marriage.
To block out - the guilt of leaving his children for the trip al norte and missing out on their childhoods.
To block out - any remorse for neglecting his dying parents and the resentment upon learning that they bequeathed the land to his younger sister.
But for now, the lost bucket and wet clothes weigh heavy on Quime. Pissed off, he made his way out of the water, slipped on his yinas. The sandals squished on his way back home. Perfectly oblivious that this anger discovered at the creek will be the same one that will tear his family apart.
