Pocket Money
Sept 2023
Gage Fowlkes
The cab rattles and rocks as the truck makes its way out to the boat club, the second job of the day. At least I think Julio says “boat club,” but I don’t exactly catch when he and Ephraim stop talking about some guy they both know from Mexico named “Lope Sobrador.” To their credit, they attempt to include me, but all I can offer is a lame “no sé quién es,” and the conversation moves on. I begin to wrack my brain, trying to remember whether either of their last names was “Sobrador,” and if so, am I unintentionally being every bit of the ass that they undoubtedly think I am? The fact that my first great act with a mower earlier that morning was to cut an earthquake pattern into the sod certainly couldn’t have helped. The AC is out again, and I’ve got nothing to do but try not to bump Ephraim and sweat gently. Julio rolls down the window, a breeze starts to evaporate my dripping shirt, my eyes droop, and my mind begins to wander. I think aimlessly about how much cleaner my uniform is than my new crewmates’ and am I wearing a costume and it’s gross that I’m working for pocket money when Julio has a daughter and Ephraim has two sons and no, when is lunchtime and a snippet of conversation, political I think, and the earthy-sweet smell of mulch and the hum of the truck and the heat and the hum and the breeze, and a memory from six years before…
¿Menta o vainilla? She worked her way down the classroom aisle with two glass bottles; a sense of middle-school doom slowly rose in my chest with every ¿menta o vainilla? I looked down at the fill-in-the-blank, “How many days of preparation did you use for this test?” My bubbled-in lie, “una semana,” winking at me as if teasing me for expecting Señora Montgomery to be more lenient on account of my fabricated week of study. The smells of spa and wishful thinking filled the air with anticipation; aromatherapy began. ¿Menta o vainilla? It was my turn. Menta, of course, was the obvious choice. As if vainilla could ever hope to affect the same miracle as could Bath and Body Works Eucalyptus + Spearmint Stress Relief Body Lotion. I held out my hand and took a deep breath as the remedial preterit and imperfect tense exceptions moisturized my hands. Protected, no, trapped by the cardboard study cubby, tastefully adorned with the phallic handiwork of middle school boys, I waited for the singsong “buena suerte” that was an inevitable accompaniment to the smell of mint, and the test began…
The truck jolts over a pothole, and I wake up. How embarrassing. I’m slumped onto Ephraim’s shoulder, and I don’t know how long I’ve been here. It doesn’t matter; it’s time for The Ritual: park, silence, door, stretch, padlock, door, hydraulic lift, la máquina, una bolsa de basura, el azadón, hydraulic lift, gas, door, padlock. The inverse will be the same, albeit with Mango Jumex between the hydraulic lift and padlock. I’ve done this Ritual for four summers now, and it is a stasis that connects my first day passing out on my coworker’s shoulder with my present reality of knowing Lope Sobrador. Lope’s real name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and maybe it’s worth mentioning that he is, in fact, the 65th president of Mexico. After a recent completion of The Ritual, Ephraim tells me about this president’s “abrazos, no balazos” or “Hugs, Not Bullets” approach to the cartels, and its destructive impact on his suffering home state of Guanajuato, and I feel it again. Every ritual is connected, so the ride to the boat club and thoughts about my pristine uniform which still feels like a costume aren’t far, and neither is the image of two dirt bikes Ephraim bought for his kids, but I need pocket money, right?
Six months later, Bath and Body Works Eucalyptus + Spearmint Stress Relief Body Lotion sits on my desk, and it smells like Spanish tests and The Ritual and my working costume. It smells like pocket money and Lope Sobrador and my coworkers who taught me about him, y ahora entiendo. It smells like my blistered hands after my first day using a pickaxe and the faintest hint of conjugation rules en el modo indicativo and “lonche” not “almuerzo.” It’s bottled twinges of guilt with undertones of nostalgia and traces of somehow becoming valuable despite the discomfort of being an outsider.