Email this page  Print this page

Pocho keen: Like peachy keen, pero different

Up on the sun

Whenever I complain about the heat I always think of people who toil in it, roofers, landscapers, and others who stand toe-to-toe with everything the sun can throw at them. I tried it once, the summer after graduating from high school.

My friend Harvey and I stayed up all night wondering what would become of our lives and then suddenly the sun was out. So we drove around until we spotted a construction site and stopped to ask for work. An hour later I was digging trenches so the older guys could lay down rebar. You know, construction stuff. Soon I was promoted to “guy who carries heavy door-like panels off big truck to plop down on recently-dug trenches.” It didn’t hurt that much when one panel landed on my foot. I mean it did, but that’s not what I told the guys. I walked it off.

Along with the pain, the job came with a lot of responsibilities and I would have probably been good at it had I not started seeing things that weren’t there. The sun can play tricks on you if you’re not careful. “Drink a lot of water!” one man would say. “Don’t drink too much water!” another one would counter. I was thoroughly confused. This was not what Harvey and I had imagined the night before. It was nowhere near the romantic vision we had of how we would embark on our new lives as working stiffs, buying new trucks with shiny rims and taking girls to the movies with enough money to buy popcorn. At least not for one of us.

So every summer I live in AC as much as possible, dashing from one air-conditioned place to another. Sometimes, when I’m out driving around, I can’t help but make eye contact with construction workers whenever I come across a work site or when a truck full of landscapers pulls up next to me at a red light. I want them to know that I appreciate the work they do. Sometimes they give me a blank stare as if to ask, “What the hell are you looking at?” Other times the response is a single affirming nod as if to say, “I want my kid to do whatever it is that you do.” When I get out of my truck, I get to sneak into an air-conditioned place. When they exit theirs, they’re at their next job site, toe-to-toe with the sun.

I know I have it easy in the summer and it still sucks. It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t gotten lucky and actually hung out with guys in high school that went to college. I had positive peer pressure and didn’t even realize it. Friends that I eventually caught up with on campus because I didn’t want to be left behind. Besides, they had great stories to tell every time they came home and I didn’t. Not the best reason to go to college but it worked for me.

Harvey wasn’t one of those guys but he could have been. He’s one of those guys that is good at everything, industrious, and can fix anything. I remember designing business cards for his upholstery business that he started right after the construction job.

Then I went to college and he wished me luck.