Besides that, I didn’t like standing in one place for ten hours. We got only one break for fifteen minutes.
Now I have two jobs. Five mornings a week I work at the Newark Shopping Center movie theater, cleaning the bathrooms and the theaters. I make sure there’s toilet paper in the stalls. I mop the floors. I have a wire brush I use to clean the sinks. In the evenings I work at the Movies 10 movie theater in Stanton. That job is harder because there are so many theaters. If too many movies finish all at once, it’s a challenge to clean the theaters before the next group of people comes in. I have been reprimanded for leaving an empty cup in the seat arm. Usually I don’t have time to go home between my shifts, so many times I eat popcorn and soda for dinner.
But I am very grateful for these jobs. They allow me to send money to my children to pay for their schooling. When both of them graduate, I would like to go back to México to be with them. My wish is that they’ll do something worthwhile with their lives, something more important than sweeping popcorn. I have done what I can for them. I would like to see them give something back.
Alma
Arturo came home from work each day tired and hungry, the crevices of his skin caked with dirt. He went straight to the shower and stood under the spray of the warm water until I knocked on the door and told him that dinner was ready. When we started seeing each other, one of the traits that had attracted me to Arturo was how serious he could be, the way that he furrowed his eyebrows when I used to watch him on a job, the intensity of focus and the pride he took in doing the job well. I was stubborn, but I had never been as solemn as him, and I admired the strength that his solemnity seemed to represent. Of course, in time I learned his soft spots, like bruises on a piece of fruit. He was compassionate and kind, and hearing of others’ hardships affected him so much that usually he couldn’t stop himself from doing something to help. Once, when a young girl in our town lost her sight after a propane tank exploded in her face, Arturo built a birdhouse and put it on a stake in the girl’s backyard so that when she opened her bedroom window, she would hear the songs of warblers and mockingbirds. But he could also be uncompromising and hard on himself. And since the accident, those traits that I loved had given way to something darker—seriousness had become gravity, sensitivity had transformed into melancholy. I didn’t always see it. Arturo fought to preserve his better nature. But occasionally his despair came through.
I found him one Sunday morning in the kitchen on his handsand knees, his head inside a cabinet. I had just gotten dressed, and I went up behind him and kicked him lightly. “Hey!” he shouted, curling his head out.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m looking for a bowl.”
“Why?”
“Maribel wanted pineapple.”
“I would have gotten it for her.”
“I thought we had a glass bowl,” he said.
“We didn’t bring it with us.”
“Why not?”
“We have a metal bowl.” I started toward the cabinet where I’d stored it.
“I don’t want a metal bowl,” he said.
“It’s a perfectly good bowl.”
“When I eat something out of a metal bowl, it tastes different afterwards.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It tastes like I mixed in a handful of coins.”
I smiled.
“You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know what you’re saying.”
“I wish we had brought that glass bowl,” he said.
I looked at him and understood that we weren’t just talking about bowls anymore. I smoothed my hand over his thick hair, cupping the back of his neck. Arturo wrapped his arms around my legs like a child.
“We’ll see it again,” I said.
And I imagined it, that glass bowl with the flat bottom and the broad rim, nestled in the lower kitchen cabinet whose door creaked when it opened, nestled among the pots and pans,
Now I have two jobs. Five mornings a week I work at the Newark Shopping Center movie theater, cleaning the bathrooms and the theaters. I make sure there’s toilet paper in the stalls. I mop the floors. I have a wire brush I use to clean the sinks. In the evenings I work at the Movies 10 movie theater in Stanton. That job is harder because there are so many theaters. If too many movies finish all at once, it’s a challenge to clean the theaters before the next group of people comes in. I have been reprimanded for leaving an empty cup in the seat arm. Usually I don’t have time to go home between my shifts, so many times I eat popcorn and soda for dinner.
But I am very grateful for these jobs. They allow me to send money to my children to pay for their schooling. When both of them graduate, I would like to go back to México to be with them. My wish is that they’ll do something worthwhile with their lives, something more important than sweeping popcorn. I have done what I can for them. I would like to see them give something back.
Alma
Arturo came home from work each day tired and hungry, the crevices of his skin caked with dirt. He went straight to the shower and stood under the spray of the warm water until I knocked on the door and told him that dinner was ready. When we started seeing each other, one of the traits that had attracted me to Arturo was how serious he could be, the way that he furrowed his eyebrows when I used to watch him on a job, the intensity of focus and the pride he took in doing the job well. I was stubborn, but I had never been as solemn as him, and I admired the strength that his solemnity seemed to represent. Of course, in time I learned his soft spots, like bruises on a piece of fruit. He was compassionate and kind, and hearing of others’ hardships affected him so much that usually he couldn’t stop himself from doing something to help. Once, when a young girl in our town lost her sight after a propane tank exploded in her face, Arturo built a birdhouse and put it on a stake in the girl’s backyard so that when she opened her bedroom window, she would hear the songs of warblers and mockingbirds. But he could also be uncompromising and hard on himself. And since the accident, those traits that I loved had given way to something darker—seriousness had become gravity, sensitivity had transformed into melancholy. I didn’t always see it. Arturo fought to preserve his better nature. But occasionally his despair came through.
I found him one Sunday morning in the kitchen on his handsand knees, his head inside a cabinet. I had just gotten dressed, and I went up behind him and kicked him lightly. “Hey!” he shouted, curling his head out.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m looking for a bowl.”
“Why?”
“Maribel wanted pineapple.”
“I would have gotten it for her.”
“I thought we had a glass bowl,” he said.
“We didn’t bring it with us.”
“Why not?”
“We have a metal bowl.” I started toward the cabinet where I’d stored it.
“I don’t want a metal bowl,” he said.
“It’s a perfectly good bowl.”
“When I eat something out of a metal bowl, it tastes different afterwards.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It tastes like I mixed in a handful of coins.”
I smiled.
“You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know what you’re saying.”
“I wish we had brought that glass bowl,” he said.
I looked at him and understood that we weren’t just talking about bowls anymore. I smoothed my hand over his thick hair, cupping the back of his neck. Arturo wrapped his arms around my legs like a child.
“We’ll see it again,” I said.
And I imagined it, that glass bowl with the flat bottom and the broad rim, nestled in the lower kitchen cabinet whose door creaked when it opened, nestled among the pots and pans,
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