The Kerr Construction Company Read Online Free PDF Page A

make it if I become legal.”
    “I used to work the fields with illegals,” I related. “We called them wetbacks, for swimming the Rio Grande to get to Texas. You can’t say that now. Anyway, we barely paid our illegals anything, but we gave them a shack for free. They not only saved but sent money back to their families. One guy was like my big brother. Then, with another hand, we were both disking a field. At quitting time he looked at me from his tractor, smiled, then went home and asked my daddy to borrow our twenty-two rifle to go rabbit hunting. We found his body the next morning. He blew his brains out with that twenty-two.”
    “Hey, amigo . Dalhart.” Two of the others called out to me as they walked to the pickup for a break. “ Merienda ,” they said. “Dalhart, we have for you.”
    They wrapped a tortilla around three chili peppers and handed it to me. I bit into it and felt something bite back. Hellfire reincarnated. I wanted to scream, except I was from Texas.
    I looked at them in disbelief as they munched away on theirs. I could not let Mexicans beat me, but my nose kept running. I pictured steam coming out of my ears like in some cartoon as my eyes watered. I tore off a piece of tortilla without any chili pepper and tossed it into my mouth to pacify what was left of my tongue.
    Jose took it all in. “You’re a crazy one.” He shook his head and grinned. “You try hard, for a gringo .”
    ****
    It felt commonplace now, even though it had been just a week since I first started seeing Carmen. I would go to the house of my work colleague to shower, then to the restaurant where she worked. If she wasn’t in the dining area when I arrived, I would seat myself and wait until she appeared. Otherwise, I’d walk up to her, even if she was in the process of taking an order. We would always kiss. Nothing dramatic, considering where we were, but a definite show of affection. A continuum for our territorial claims on each other, as well as a renewal of commitment. That’s what it was now, commitment. We just had no idea what we were going to do about it.
    They had a jukebox where she worked. Somewhere during the process of me waiting for her to finish work, each of us would play a song on it. Something to show what kind of mood we were in. Perhaps a message directed at the other one that was to be figured out. A moody sentimental song, or an energizing Beatles song, or a he-done-her-wrong type of song. And before we went home, either during the song we played or one we got off to that someone else played, we’d dance, right there in the diner in front of everyone. It got to where people in the restaurant encouraged it, even by playing a song of their choice, hoping we would dance to it.
    Carmen didn’t live far from where she worked. We could have walked. But that was part of the courtship now, me driving her to her mom’s, then staying awhile. I still left the house when our evening together was over. That part hadn’t changed. It wasn’t so special now to me, being so pure. It seemed more like a duty. That was a bad sign. Something was going to give somewhere, I was sure.
    ****
    I hated working Saturdays, especially since it took away from time with Carmen, but I needed the money. Usually the work on a Saturday was especially boring, though. So I was glad when Doug pulled me away from the others as we policed the area. He led me to the workshop.
    “I need you to hold this bar up,” he said. “You better have rubber soles on your boots, because this may shock a bit when I weld.”
    I felt the red hot filings hit my arm as I looked at our shadows from the electrical flares spewing out of the welding rod. Then suddenly I felt an electrical jolt on my shoulder. I turned to look just as Doug poked me again with the tip of the rod, knowing I wouldn’t drop the bar I was holding. Then he did it yet again.
    “Ow!” I yelped, dropping the steel bar onto the floor to defy him.
    “Is it hot?” He laughed