Anomaly Chapter 11
Sarah Centrella's childhood memoir
Rotten Fruit
Dad had a hard time finding steady work that summer. No one was hiring a handyman full-time, and money had never been tighter. Every morning, long before the sun cracked the horizon, he’d pull on his worn-out jeans, lace up his boots, and head out toward the farms outside Boise. The air was still cool then, carrying the scent of damp earth, the sky warming with shades of pink, yellow, and red as the sun rose over the miles of farmland.
At the edge of the fields, he’d park on the side of the dirt road near a growing crowd of day laborers—mostly men and women from Mexico—who stood in loose clusters, hands shoved deep into pockets, waiting for the foreman to make his pick. Dad didn’t speak Spanish, but he didn’t need to. The quiet tension of the morning was universal. Everyone was as desperate to be picked as Dad—they all had mouths to feed. The shifting of feet, the quick glances toward the boss as he stepped out of his truck, the barely disguised relief on the faces of those chosen, the defeated slump of shoulders on those left behind. Most of the time, Dad got picked if he arrived early enough, before the crowd swelled. When he didn’t, he’d drive to the next farm and try again. He couldn’t afford to come home empty-handed.
The work was brutal—backbreaking hours under the relentless sun, arms and hands pricked from reaching into the thorny raspberry bushes. Fingers moved fast, flicking the ripe fruit from its stem—careful not to squish it—into the cardboard pint cartons that would fill each flat before the heat became unbearable. The farmers paid by the flat, not the hour, so speed was crucial. One flat earned just a single dollar, and he needed to fill as many as possible each day to keep food on our table. His hands, already calloused and cracked, would be stained with berry juice by noon, his back aching long before the day was done.
Some days, when money was especially tight, Dad followed the lead of the other workers and brought us kids along. More hands meant more flats, and more flats meant a better chance at making enough money to get us through the week. We’d wake in the dark and pile into the truck, still half-asleep, the musty scent of old blankets and the gasoline Dad had poured into the truck with our backup five-gallon can clinging to us as we rubbed the grogginess from our eyes. Kim packed us all peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in wax paper for lunch and milk jugs filled with water, and Dad and my sisters would set off toward the fields.