In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

9 Unloading

J. W. Johnson and Andy stood on the main floor and watched as the big truck from the Stewart farm backed up to the pickle factory door. Johnson’s armpits were wet, and sweat poured off his face. Late in the day the humidity had come up, and there was no breeze, nor hint of one, in the valley where the pickle factory was located. “Good God, that’s a bunch of cukes,” Blackie said. “Never saw that many come here at one time.” “Got our work cut out for us tonight,” Agnes said quietly. Jesús and the Rodríguez boys jumped down off the truck and quickly began dragging and lifting bag after heavy bag of cucumbers to the unloading platform. For a moment, the pickle factory crew just stared because they had never seen migrant workers before, never heard anyone speak Spanish, never seen people with dark skin. Quarter Mile Sweet and Blackie Antonelli began untying each bag and dumping the cucumbers onto the sorter. Sweat dripped from all the men, running into their eyes and soaking their shirts. But they didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. 64 9 Unloading 65 Unloading Not stopping to rest may have had something to do with an unspoken competition, pickle factory guys versus Mexicans. Neither Mexicans nor factory workers wanted to slow down or even suggest that they couldn’t take the hard work, the heat, and the humidity . So they sweated, and in the process eyed each other, watching how each other worked, used their hands, lifted—looking for differences but not finding any. Agnes Swarsinski hovered over the vibrating sorter like a mother hen watching her brood. Cucumbers bounced across the sorter, the little ones dropping through the narrow slots and tumbling into wooden crates first, the larger ones working their way along the jerking sorter, falling into their designated channels . Agnes searched for imperfection, a badly deformed cucumber , evidence of disease, rot, or mold—anything out of the ordinary . But she saw nothing as wave after wave of green passed before her eyes. She watched the young migrants and Quarter Mile and Blackie eyeing each other but not saying a word, and she thought of strange dogs that come together and circle each other sniffing and prancing, looking, growling a little, but not too much. Showing their teeth on occasion. Preacher carried each wooden bushel crate to the scale—box upon box full of number threes and number fours, fewer boxes of number twos, and fewer boxes still of gherkins. Soon his shirt was wet and sweat dripped from his brow. He was not accustomed to heavy physical work, and he grunted each time he lifted a box. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it, but Agnes heard it and turned to look for the source of the sound. Andy Meyer heard it too but said nothing. He worked the scale, moved the brass indicator back and forth until the scale arm balanced, and then wrote the numbers on a pad. Then he put down the pad and pencil and helped Preacher lift the bushel crates of cucumbers from the scale to a four-wheeled cart that would tote them to the vats for salting, a job that the crew would do later that evening. When he had a pad full of numbers, Andy carried the sheet to the office where Helen Swanson started two tallies, one for a check to Jake Stewart and one for a check to Carlos Rodríguez, half the total to each. Carlos had jotted down the number of bags of cucumbers Jesús had picked, and he would pay him accordingly . And as per their agreement that the migrants would receive all the income from the first picking, Jake would endorse his first check to Carlos. It took nearly an hour to unload Jake’s load of cucumbers. While they waited for Helen to prepare the checks, Carlos and Andy talked. It was the first time that Andy had talked to a migrant worker—in fact it was the first time he had been this close to one. Andy was surprised that Carlos seemed like any other person—skin a bit darker and hair blacker than most people Andy knew, but a friendly fellow with an easy grin. Andy told him that in the three years he had worked at the pickle...