Gary Soto’s “Looking for Work”
One July, while killing ants on the kitchen sink with a rolled newspaper, I had a
nine-year-old’s vision of wealth that would save us from ourselves. For weeks I had
drunk Kool-Aid and watched morning reruns of Father Knows Best, whose family was so
uncomplicated in its routine that I very much wanted to imitate it. The first step was to
get my brother and sister to wear shoes at dinner.
“Come on, Rick – come on, Deb,” I whined. But Rick mimicked me and the
same day that I asked him to wear shoes he came to the diner table in only his swim
trunks. My mother didn’t notice, nor did my sister, as we sat to eat our beans and tortillas
in the stifling heat of our kitchen. We all gleamed like cellophane, wiping the sweat from
our brows with the backs of our hands as we talked about the day: Frankie our neighbor
was beat up by Faustino; the swimming pool at the playground would be closed for a day
because the pump was broken.
Such was our life. So that morning, while doing-in the train of ants which arrived
each day, I decided to become wealthy, and right away! After downing a bowl of cereal,
I took a rake from the garage and started up the block to look for work.
We lived on an ordinary block of mostly working class people: warehousemen,
egg candlers, welders, mechanics, and a union plumber. And there were many retired
people who kept their lawns green and the gutters uncluttered of the chewing gum
wrappers we dropped as we rode by on our bikes. They bend down to gather our litter,
muttering at our evilness.
At the corner house I rapped the screen door and a very large woman in a muu-
muu answered. She sized me up and then asked what I could do.
“Rake leaves,” I answered smiling.
“It’s summer, and there ain’t no leaves,” she countered. Her face was pinched
with lines; fat jiggled under her chin. She pointed to the lawn, then the flower bed, and
said: “You see any leaves there – or there?” I followed her pointing arm, stupidly. But
she had a job for me and that was to get her a Coke at the liquor store. She gave me
twenty cents, and after ditching my rake in a bush, off I ran. I returned with an unbagged
Pepsi, for which she thanked me and gave me a nickel from her apron.
I skipped off her porch, fetched my rake, and crossed the street to the next block
where Mrs. Moore, mother of Earl the retarded man, let me weed a flower bed. She
handed me a trowel and for a good part of the morning my fingers dipped into the moist
dirt, ripping up runners of Bermuda grass. Worms surfaced in my search for deep roots,
and I cut them in halves, tossing them to Mrs. Moore’s cat who pawed them playfully as
they dried in the sun. I made out Earl whose face was pressed to the back window of the
house, and although he was calling to me I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.
Embarrassed, I worked without looking up, but I imagined his contorted mouth and ring
of keys attached to his belt – keys that jingled with each palsied step. He scared me and I
worked quickly to finish the flower bed. When I did finish Mrs. Moore gave me a
quarter and two peaches from her tree, which I washed there but ate in the alley behind
my house.
I was sucking on the second one, a bit of juice staining the front of my T-shirt,
when Little John, my best friend, came walking down the alley with a baseball bat over
his shoulder, knocking over trash cans as he made his way toward me.
