Read Online Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution by Peter Matthiessen - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
Ads: Link
hand, he did not
stop moving; we walked south down Kensington Street
and turned west at the corner.
The man who has threatened California has an Indian’s
bow nose and lank black hair, with sad eyes and an open
smile that is shy and friendly; at moments he is beautiful,
like a dark seraph. He is five feet six inches tall, and since
his twenty-five-day fast the previous winter, has weighed
no more than one hundred and fifty pounds. Yet the word
“slight” does not properly describe him. There is an effect
of being centered in himself so that no energy is wasted,
an effect of density; at the same time, he walks as lightly as
a fox. One feels immediately that this man does not stumble,
and that to get where he is going he will walk all day.
In Delano (pronounced “De- lay -no”), the north-south
streets are named alphabetically, from Albany Street on the
far west side to Xenia on the east; the cross streets are called
avenues and are numbered. On Eleventh Avenue, between
Kensington and Jefferson, a police car moved out of an
empty lot and settled heavily on its springs across the sidewalk.
There it idled while its occupant enjoyed the view.
Small-town policemen are apt to be as fat and sedentary as
the status quo they are hired to defend, and this one was no
exception; he appeared to be part of his machine, overflowing
out of his front window like a growth. Having
feasted his eyes on the public library and the National Bank
of Agriculture, he permitted his gaze to come to rest on the
only two citizens in sight. His cap, shading his eyes from
the early sun, was much too small for him, and in the middle
of his mouth, pointed straight at us, was a dead cigar.
At seven on a Sunday morning in Delano, a long-haired
stranger wearing sunglasses and sneakers, in the company
of a Mexican, would qualify automatically as a troublemaker;
consorting with a known troublemaker like Chavez,
I became a mere undesirable. The cop looked me over long
enough to let me know he had his eye on me, then eased
his wheels into gear again and humped on his soft springs
onto the street. Chavez raised his eyebrows in a characteristic
gesture of mock wonderment, but in answer to my unspoken
question—for in this tense town it could not be
assumed that this confrontation was an accident—he
pointed at the back of a crud-colored building fronting on
Jefferson Street. “That’s our station house,” he said, in the
manner of a man who is pointing out, with pardonable
pride, the main sights of his city.
A walk across town or Eleventh Avenue, from the vineyards
in the east to the cotton fields in the west, will teach
one a good deal about Delano, which lies in Kern County,
just south of the Tulare County line. Opposite the National
Bank of Agriculture is a snack stand, La Cocina—P EPSI ,
B URGERS , T ACOS , B URRITOS —as well as the Angelos Dry
Goods shop and the Sierra Theatre, which features Mexican
films; from here to Main Street and beyond, Eleventh Avenue
is lined with jewelry shops and department stores.
Main Street, interrupting the alphabetical sequence between
Jefferson and High, is a naked treeless stretch of
signs and commercial enterprises, mostly one-story; today
it was empty of all life, like an open city.
Toward High Street, Empire Ford Sales rules both sides
of Eleventh, and the far corners of High Street are the
properties of OK U SED T RUCKS and K ERN C OUNTY E QUIPMENT :
T RUCKS AND T RACTORS . The farm-equipment warehouses
and garages continue west across High Street to the
tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad; the loading platforms
of the farm-produce packing sheds and cold-storage
houses front the far side of the tracks, with their offices
facing west on Glenwood Street. Opposite these buildings
are some small cafés and poker parlors frequented by the
workers—Monte Carlo Card Room, Divina’s Four Deuces,
Lindo Michoacan—and beyond Glenwood, the workers’
neighborhoods begin. Fremont Street, relatively
stop moving; we walked south down Kensington Street
and turned west at the corner.
The man who has threatened California has an Indian’s
bow nose and lank black hair, with sad eyes and an open
smile that is shy and friendly; at moments he is beautiful,
like a dark seraph. He is five feet six inches tall, and since
his twenty-five-day fast the previous winter, has weighed
no more than one hundred and fifty pounds. Yet the word
“slight” does not properly describe him. There is an effect
of being centered in himself so that no energy is wasted,
an effect of density; at the same time, he walks as lightly as
a fox. One feels immediately that this man does not stumble,
and that to get where he is going he will walk all day.
In Delano (pronounced “De- lay -no”), the north-south
streets are named alphabetically, from Albany Street on the
far west side to Xenia on the east; the cross streets are called
avenues and are numbered. On Eleventh Avenue, between
Kensington and Jefferson, a police car moved out of an
empty lot and settled heavily on its springs across the sidewalk.
There it idled while its occupant enjoyed the view.
Small-town policemen are apt to be as fat and sedentary as
the status quo they are hired to defend, and this one was no
exception; he appeared to be part of his machine, overflowing
out of his front window like a growth. Having
feasted his eyes on the public library and the National Bank
of Agriculture, he permitted his gaze to come to rest on the
only two citizens in sight. His cap, shading his eyes from
the early sun, was much too small for him, and in the middle
of his mouth, pointed straight at us, was a dead cigar.
At seven on a Sunday morning in Delano, a long-haired
stranger wearing sunglasses and sneakers, in the company
of a Mexican, would qualify automatically as a troublemaker;
consorting with a known troublemaker like Chavez,
I became a mere undesirable. The cop looked me over long
enough to let me know he had his eye on me, then eased
his wheels into gear again and humped on his soft springs
onto the street. Chavez raised his eyebrows in a characteristic
gesture of mock wonderment, but in answer to my unspoken
question—for in this tense town it could not be
assumed that this confrontation was an accident—he
pointed at the back of a crud-colored building fronting on
Jefferson Street. “That’s our station house,” he said, in the
manner of a man who is pointing out, with pardonable
pride, the main sights of his city.
A walk across town or Eleventh Avenue, from the vineyards
in the east to the cotton fields in the west, will teach
one a good deal about Delano, which lies in Kern County,
just south of the Tulare County line. Opposite the National
Bank of Agriculture is a snack stand, La Cocina—P EPSI ,
B URGERS , T ACOS , B URRITOS —as well as the Angelos Dry
Goods shop and the Sierra Theatre, which features Mexican
films; from here to Main Street and beyond, Eleventh Avenue
is lined with jewelry shops and department stores.
Main Street, interrupting the alphabetical sequence between
Jefferson and High, is a naked treeless stretch of
signs and commercial enterprises, mostly one-story; today
it was empty of all life, like an open city.
Toward High Street, Empire Ford Sales rules both sides
of Eleventh, and the far corners of High Street are the
properties of OK U SED T RUCKS and K ERN C OUNTY E QUIPMENT :
T RUCKS AND T RACTORS . The farm-equipment warehouses
and garages continue west across High Street to the
tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad; the loading platforms
of the farm-produce packing sheds and cold-storage
houses front the far side of the tracks, with their offices
facing west on Glenwood Street. Opposite these buildings
are some small cafés and poker parlors frequented by the
workers—Monte Carlo Card Room, Divina’s Four Deuces,
Lindo Michoacan—and beyond Glenwood, the workers’
neighborhoods begin. Fremont Street, relatively
Similar Books
