One day in summer long ago, my best friend Nina and I made plans to go frog-gigging out at Cesare's slough at night, with Nina's boyfriend Rob and his friend, Darwin. Darwin had mild acne but was intelligent and good looking in a brooding way, kind of like an adolescent Richard Burton. Nina and I were excited about going out in the moonlight with two of the bestlooking boys in high school. It seemed all the more daring because the owner of the property — Al Cesare — who was also my boss at the onion packing shed — didn't care for people trespassing.
I sat at the top of the staircase outside the tavern where Mama worked and waited for Rob, Nina, and Darwin to pick me up. I could see a hundred miles in any direction. A smear of pink clouds hung over the Coast Range. Mama and I lived in the apartment upstairs. I'd told her we were going to the movies. Inside the tavern the voices had grown loud. I wondered if men were the same everywhere. Whenever I walked up the stairs to the apartment, I could feel the men in the parking lot watching me. Like most girls my age, I liked to wear tight jeans and put on a little mascara and eye shadow. I wanted to feel attractive, but I felt uneasy when grown men paid too much attention.
At work I could especially feel it when Al Cesare was nearby. Once I was standing at the snack wagon when I felt him looking. He was leaning against a pallet of onions, watching me with his intense dark eyes. He was muscular. All the ladies talked about him. Something about him made me excited and scared, but I did my best to conceal it.
For eight weeks that summer I hovered over metal rollers and watched onions tumble by, sorted and culled, sorted and culled. Cesare's packing shed was located a few miles southwest of Lost Hills in flat dry ground, jackrabbit territory. Whoever named that patch of desert had quite a sense of humor.
My being around Mr. Cesare didn't exactly thrill Mama. The first day she drove me to work she warned me. "Margaret, sweetheart," she said. "Don't ever let that man talk you into staying after work, no matter what he says. And never, never let him put his hands on you. You understand?"
"Yes, Mama." It was a lie. I understood nothing. I only knew if someone wanted to push me in a certain direction, even Mama, deep down I started gravitating the opposite way.
At this time in my life I knew little of men. I knew even less of the world. All I knew was whatever gave the world meaning would most likely be found beyond the surrounding mountains, far from Lost Hills and Buttonwillow. I'd never known my father, but Mama had told me that's where he was, somewhere out there beyond the mountains.
Marna tried to be calm when she talked about him, but I could hear a bitter edge in some of her words. I didn't feel anything about him. I couldn't hate him for leaving Mama when she was pregnant with me. You have to know someone before you can hate them. You have to feel betrayed, and since I had never even seen him, how could I have disliked him?
At times I found myself wishing I had known him, especially the summer I went to the beach with Nina and her parents. Her dad liked to tease me. He'd balance me on his shoulders and run into the ocean. I'd scream and kick, loving every moment of it. I felt frightened and secure at the same time.
I remember the four of us leaving the beach in their air-conditioned Thunderbird, crossing back over the Coast Range, through Paso Robles and descending into the sloping desert. It felt like I was part of the family. We passed a small sign that pointed down an isolated dirt road that led to an old house surrounded by shade trees. "Bitterwater Valley," it said.
The sun was going down. I wondered what it would be like to live there.
I imagined a slender man in dusty workpants and no shirt standing on the porch of that old house, studying his calloused hands. His hair was brown, like Mama's and mine, matted from sweating in a hat. He had tired blue eyes that were kind and a thin nose, lean, like the rest of him. His face and arms were deeply tanned. He looked up and squinted, searching the mountainous horizon.
That was the first time I'd ever imagined what my father looked like. I was thirteen. That night, when I cried myself to sleep, I dreamed he was still standing on that lonely porch. * The slough was a weeping gash on the smooth face of the desert. The goo never stood more than a foot deep, just enough to support a thin skin of life. Rob parked his '53 Chevy beneath a giant oak tree that grew near the bank and turned off the lights. Darwin and I sat next to each other in the back seat. He turned and blurted out his proposition. "Want to take a walk? Look at the stars?"
"I thought we were going to gig frogs," I said.
"Yeah, well, there's the sky and all, too." He pretended to look out the window. I could almost feel the heat from his face.
Nina turned to us from her seat next to Rob. "Once my grandmother told me the sky was a big bowl that had been stuck with pins. The stars are just little holes where the light shines through from outside."
"The only bowl around here is the one we live in," said Rob. "The Dust Bowl."
''We going to gig frogs or not?" said Darwin. "Hold your horses," said Rob.
"Anyone got any scary stories?" said Nina.
"I heard something at work that's kind of scary," I said, "but I'm not sure it's true. It's about my boss, Al Cesare. One of the women said he beat up her girlfriend for not doing what he wanted."
"What did he want?" asked Nina.
"Guess," said Rob.
Nina turned to Rob. "I don't believe it. He seems like a nice man. He just looks kind of dangerous when he frowns because of those dark eyes."
"It's not his eyes that make him dangerous," said Rob.
"Do you always have to think that way?" said Nina.
''What way? All I said is it wasn't his eyes — "
"Come on you guys," said Darwin, opening his door. "Let's gig some frogs."
We mounted the bank and looked out over the moonlit desert. It seemed Columbus could not have been more mistaken. To the north, away from the mountains, the world was a flat table as far as you could see. I tugged on Nina's blouse and whispered for her to go slow. Rob and Darwin dropped down into the slough. We followed.
"Yeehaaa," yelled Rob, flinging his gig.
"You missed," said Darwin. "You've got to keep quiet and be cool. Watch this." He stalked a little ways in a crouch, then unwound like a tight spring. His gig stuck deep in shallow mud. The frog had moved on.
"Damn."
After tagging along awhile, pretending to be repulsed by mud and goo, Nina and I clambered back on top the bank. Silhouetted mountains loomed to the south. A light came on in the distance.
"Isn't that the Cesare place?" I said.
"I think it is," said Nina. "I hope nobody saw us."
"Quiet up there," said Darwin. "You're scaring the frogs."
In a minute a pair of headlights started moving toward us. In the moonlight you could see the dust boiling behind the pick-up. "We'd better get out of here," said Nina.
"Who is it?" said Rob, mounting the bank carrying a bucket. "Old Man Cesare?"
"He's not old," I said. "Just mature."
"Yeah? Well I'm not waiting around to check his I.D." He took our gigs and tossed them along with the empty bucket into the trunk and closed it, then slid behind the wheel. Darwin got in on the passenger's side. "Come on, you two."
Nina and I stood on the bank, transfixed by the oncoming headlights. The dust cloud swirled behind the truck, slowing in widening spirals as it lifted into the moonlight. "Someone's in a real hurry," I said. "I think it's too late. We'd better not run. It might make him mad. He'd chase us and catch us."
"Are you crazy!?" shouted Rob. "I'm not gonna let that musclebound jerk get his hands on me!"
"Me neither," said Darwin. "You two better come or you're gonna get left."
The pick-up slowed at the junction where the dirt road met the slough, turned, and accelerated toward us.
"It's already too late," I said. "Just leave the talking to me. When he sees it's me, he'll let us go."
"Are you sure?" said Nina.
"I'm sure." My stomach began tying itself in a knot.
"I'm not," said Rob. "You can tell him your friends got scared and left. Maybe he'll feel sorry for you and give you a ride home. Just don't tell him it was us."
"I've got an idea," I said. "Maybe you could wait for Nina and me in Lost Hills. Behind the gas station. If we don't drive by or come on foot in an hour, come back for us."
"Well, okay, but I think you're crazy. We're getting out of here." The '53 Chevy disappeared in a billowing cloud of dust.
"Margaret?" said Nina.
"What is it?"
"I'm scared."
"Here, hold my hand." Nina took my hand and I led her down the bank. We stood like innocent schoolgirls in the glare of the pick-up headlights.
The pick-up squeaked to a stop and Al Cesare's unmistakable head of hair popped up over the open door. He turned off the engine but left the headlights on. Dust swirled around us.
"What's the story, girls? You know you're on private property?"
"I just wanted to show my friends where I worked, and I guess we got lost. The others got scared and left, but I told them I worked for you and you'd understand. That's why we stayed behind. To explain, so you wouldn't get mad or anything."
He shined a flashlight on my face. I shielded my eyes. Judging from his fuzzy silhouetted torso, he wasn't wearing a shirt.
"I thought I recognized you," he said. Then he shined the flashlight on Nina. "Who's your little friend?"
"This is my cousin. She's here on vacation."
"Vacation, huh. Why would anyone come to Lost Hills for a vacation?"
Nina looked at me. "I guess … just to spend time with Margaret, my cousin."
"Yeah, we like being with each other a lot. We thought, if it wasn't too much of a bother, maybe you could drop us in Lost Hills. At the General Store. I could use the payphone there to call Mama in Buttonwillow."
He didn't say anything, just looked at me.
"We'd be happy to walk if it would be an inconvenience."
He turned to Nina. "Why don't you get started walking. "I've been meaning to have a talk with Margaret, anyway."
Nina didn't budge. "My Mom told us to stay together."
"It won't take long," he said. "I just like all my employees to understand what I expect from them." He looked at me. "We're kind of like a family." Then he looked back at Nina. "Why don't you get started in the direction of Lost Hills. We'll be along to pick you up in a little while."
"Well …" said Nina.
"It's okay," I said. "Mr. Cesare knows we didn't mean any harm. He just wants to talk. I'll be okay."
"If you say so," said Nina. "But don't be long." She turned and started down the dirt road that paralleled the slough, looking back occasionally. Mr. Cesare walked back to his pick-up and turned off the headlights.
"Come here," he said. I just stood there, wondering what to do.
*
From behind the door of the pick-up he leaned through the open window. His hands and arms looked huge. For a moment I thought of running, but I started gravitating toward him. "The main reason I don't like people messing around in the slough or parking out here with their dates is you never know when someone's going to run into a standpipe or wipe out an irrigation ditch full of siphon pipe. It's happened before. The next morning there's a muddy mess on the road, not to mention a crop short of water and the possibility of a burned-out pump."
"Oh," I said. "I thought there was probably a good —"
"And the other reason," he said, "is I happen to be partial to frogs."
"Frogs?" I felt afraid, as if we'd been discovered, but at the same time, relieved. A man who liked frogs couldn't be all that dangerous.
"Frogs are beneficial predators," he said, stepping around the door, taking my arm. "Kind of like me." He led me to the base of the giant oak. "Sit down."
"Mr. Cesare —"
"You don't have to be scared. We're just going to talk." He sat down opposite me, leaned against the trunk of the giant oak, and looked toward the southern sky.
I tried to relax.
"How old are you, Margaret? Seventeen?"
"Yes," I lied.
"I suppose, like all the others, in a year or two you'll leave here and never come back."
"Well, I hadn't really —"
"Yes, you have. You're a dreamer. You stare out past the mountains and wonder. You want to go away and become someone important." He'd been watching me at work, observing me. I was flattered, and a little afraid.
"I guess you're right. I always have wanted to leave."
"You don't know what this place has to offer," he said.
"Lost Hills?"
"Lost Hills, Buttonwillow, as far as you can see," he said, sweeping his hand toward the horizon. "It's the last place you can be your own man. You can do what you want without anybody telling you different. You don't have responsibility to anybody but yourself."
"But don't you care what others think?"
"No," he said, looking down. For a moment he reminded me of a little boy caught in a lie. "Nobody really cares about anybody.”
"But I'm sure lots of people do."
He looked back and studied my face. "Your daddy didn't."
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.
"Isn't that what your Marna told you? That he didn't give a damn? That he got what he wanted and left?"
I could feel my face glow red. Who was this man to talk that way about my father? What did he know about my life? "I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "I'm leaving now."
"Wait." He caught my arm. "I have something to say. Don't go." His voice sounded softer. I settled back down. "Your daddy and I," he said, "were two of a kind."
"You didn't really know my father." I felt certain he was lying.
"We were this close." He pressed his thumb and forefinger together, as if holding a pinch of salt. "I knew him better than anyone."
"I don't want to know anymore," I said. "I'd like to go now."
"Not yet," he said. "I don't mean any harm. I just thought it was time you knew something about him."
I was beginning to feel confused. What if he was telling the truth? Did I want to know about my father or not? I took a deep breath. "Don't tell me anymore, please. I need to think about this."
He got to his feet, slid his hands in his pockets, and looked at the sky. "You know, when a man is young, he thinks he can do what he wants with the world. There's really no future then, it's all in the present.
Whatever looks and feels right is what a man usually does. Later on, sometimes, he regrets it." I was confused, didn’t know if he was talking about my father or himself. I envisioned my father on the lonely porch with his brown hair and tired eyes. It was his eyes that made him different from Mr. Cesare. I was beginning to feel like I knew him, even though I’d never seen him. He had become a frequent visitor to my dreams.
"Your daddy liked women a lot. He'd see a pretty woman and start figuring a way to have her. It wouldn't always work out that he'd get her, but he'd spend a lot of time thinking about it." He looked down at his boots, hands still in his pockets. "He wanted your Mama bad enough that he risked his marriage just to spend a few hours with her."
"That's a lie! My father was never married to anyone but Mama!"
He came over to me, crouched down in front of me. I covered my face with my hands, looked down and squeezed my eyes shut.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said. "But you don't understand. He couldn't help himself. He couldn't marry her. He had his wife and family to think about." He pried my hands apart and held them tight. "Look at me and listen." I looked up. Why did this man insist upon intruding into my life? "If he'd married your Mama," he said, "he would have lost everything. His wife, business, land …" His eyes were dark pools. He squeezed my hands until they hurt. "He paid for it, believe me."
"Please let go," I said. "I don't feel well. Please take me home. I want to go now." I stood up quickly and so did he. When I turned from him, he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me toward him.
"Stop," I said. "Don't touch me!"
"Now settle down," he said, holding me, "I don't want to harm you."
"Leave me alone. You're hurting me, let go!"
"Sometimes you look just like your Mama. "
"What do you know of Mama? Let go of me. I want to go now." Tears sprang to my eyes. "Please," I said. "Let me go."
"Now, now," he said. "Don't cry. You're going to be all right. It's not like you think. I just don't want you to go." He loosened his hold on me gradually. Then my tears began to flow. "Please don't cry. I don't want to hurt you." The tears just kept coming, as if he had struck a deep well within me.
"Please, stop crying," he said, holding my arms. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean it. I thought you'd listen. I thought you'd understand." His voice sounded funny all of a sudden, so I looked up at him. "I just wanted to explain, that's all." And then he began to cry, silently, tears welling in his eyes. This powerful grown man. Immediately my tears started drying up. Why was he crying? Why was I so important to him? I began to relax. Suddenly I felt like comforting him. Who was this man and why did I feel this way? I remembered Mama's reluctance to let me work at the packing shed, her warning to stay away from him. His watching me, knowing my mind. Insisting that I hear his story. Why was it so important to him to tell me about my father? Was that what this was all about, my father? Gradually my feelings of tenderness began to harden.
The more he cried, the less compassion I felt. When I began to feel angry, I knew who he was. "Bastard!" I cried, shoving him away. "You bastard!" He looked stunned.
I turned and ran down the dirt road.
"Wait!" I didn't want him to touch me or talk to me. Pretty soon I heard his pick-up. When he tried to pull up beside me, I ran to the middle of the road, in front of him, forcing him to slow down. The slough was on one side, an irrigation ditch on the other. I stayed in his way, running.
"Stop!" he yelled out the window.
I wanted to punish him, to make him beg forgiveness. I kept on running. When I got close to Highway 466, I ran up the bank of the slough and then down inside. Hitting the muck in full stride, I headed for the concrete culvert in the slough that ran beneath the highway, went down on my knees, crawled into the culvert and huddled there, out of breath. The pick-up stopped. I heard the door open. He left the motor running. In a little while footsteps scraped the top of the bank.
"I know you're in there," he said. "Why won't you give me a chance? All I want is to be your friend."
"Is that what you told Mama!?" I screamed. "Is it!?" My voice echoed off the concrete walls, frightening me. The culvert was dark. The smell of fermenting moss hung in the air.
"But you don't understand. All I want is a chance."
"What kind of chance did you give Mama!?"
He didn't answer. It was quiet. Then I heard his boots slide down the bank and splash in the muck. I crawled further into the culvert. Soon he was crouching just outside, looking for me. It was pitch black inside with his body blocking what light there was. I held my breath.
"I'm starting to lose my patience. I don't want to hurt you, but I'm not going to let you get away. You understand? You're starting to make me mad. Now come out of there. I don't want to have to come get you."
I remembered the story I had heard about him at the shed. Maybe he really was capable of violence. I couldn't see the other end of the culvert, but I knew it couldn't be far.
"Are you coming out, or do I have to come in and get you?"
I said nothing but started inching toward the other end of the culvert. He got down on his hands and knees and started crawling inside. I crawled toward the other end as fast as I could, splashing in the muck.
"Hey!" he screamed, his voice echoing. "Stop!"
When I reached the other end, I ran up the bank. The stars were brilliant. I'd never seen the night so clearly. There was no place to hide. I ran back over the highway to his idling pick-up and climbed in. I slammed the door, wiped my muddy hands on my jeans, shifted into first, and lurched out to the highway. Just then he mounted the bank.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
I turned onto the highway and accelerated, ground a pound of metal shifting into second, and pushed the pedal all the way to the floor. I could see him come into the rearview mirror. He was running down the middle of the road, shirtless, knees shining with slime. I shifted into third and he grew smaller. The speedometer crept up to sixty, then seventy. Eventually he stopped running, put his hands on his hips and just stood there, growing smaller and smaller, until he looked no bigger than a sack of onions.
It wasn't until he had disappeared completely that I realized I was headed west. Away from Lost Hills and Buttonwillow, away from Mama, Nina, and everyone I knew. Ahead of me lay the silhouetted coast mountains, the road through the pass, and — somewhere beyond the reach of my dreams — the man on the lonely porch, whoever he might be, waiting for me.
***
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