From one to another, and back again

The valiant orange rind,
Now extinguished,
Rested in peace
Next to a satisfied, sleepy, outstretched hand

Olivia stirred, shifting her weight away from the inedible remnants and sighing as she looked out the vehicle’s glass. The minivan’s large window reflected her blonde curls and blue and gold uniform, as the landscape sped by. The last of the fruit’s sour-sweet juice stuck to her fingers, which criss crossed over each other on her lap.

Julie turned into a gravel parking lot, in front of the pitch, where she waved to the other mothers, before stopping and turning the vehicle’s engine off. Julie’s bottom half remain in the same position, but her shoulders pointed directly at Olivia, who smiled and squirmed under her seat belt. Unbuckling her, Julie watched as Olivia shot like a bolt onto the field, still in her puffy pink coat, ready to transform from her sweet daughter, into a “Lady Dragon.” With a smile, Julie lifted the orange remains and dropped them into a trash bin a few feet from the car’s nose.

The rind decomposed there for three days, until Keith arrived, with his garbage truck. It was only a subcontract for some of the city’s parks, but for him it meant stability, it meant a less tense household, it meant a future. He lifted the bag up out of the trash and tied the end. Keith finished his rounds around 6 p.m., at the dump. Where its owner, a Russian immigrant named Ulrich, came out and offered Keith a cup of coffee. Keith agreed, after he dropped off his many bags.

There the rind lay for days. A seagull pecked open its bag in search of a tuna can, where bits of the fish still clung to its metal interior. The night after, packs of rats came and carried off whatever they could find. The orange rind, though, had begun its transformation. And in time, it returned back to the earth.

The soil felt a dull thud of another orange hitting the ground. Miguel, who had grown up in the mountains of Honduras, turned to the sound. He lifted it, its bright, glossy orange surrounded by his thick beige gloves. And he placed it into a nearly full bag. Miguel had ventured out one night to an open mic night. Though still with a thick accent, he brought a $20 guitar and played the blues so well it captivated a beautiful young Cuban woman who sat in the second row with a couple of girlfriends. Miguel scraped together just enough to buy her a ring, and she, Josefina, was pregnant with their first child. Miguel lifted his bag full of oranges and marched to the end of a row, where Mr. Winston sat in the driver’s seat of a fruit loader under the Florida sun, watching his many workers pick his crop.

Mr. Winston’s vehicle had large rust marks and no air conditioning. He bought it with his own money, money he saved while working as a teenage farmhand to “modernize” the farm. He sweat and enjoyed it. Men lifted bags of oranges to the tub. Without only a nod, the men stepped away from the tub, which the fruit loader raised and put into the back of a flat bed truck. Hector’s voice crackled into the black walkie-talkie that warmed in a holster next to the steering wheel. “I’m about 15 minutes away,” Hector said “Y’all ready for me to pick up the flat bed?” Mr. Winston lifted the device, which also carried signs of wear, “Yeah, get down here as soon as you can. I’ve got this goat full, and I’d like to keep the line moving.” “Rodger.” Mr. Winston returned the walkie-talkie to its sunlit holster and stepped off the faded blue fruit loader. He stepped toward his son Ralph, who took the bag of oranges from Miguel, without looking at him. “How much more?” Mr. Winston asked. “Can’t say for sure,” Ralph replied. “But I imagine that we’ll have another few hours.” Mr. Winston spat on the ground. “Alright, I’m going to take this batch on to the truck. It’s a hot one today,” Mr. Winston said. He turned to Miguel, whose eyes grew wide.

Ralph was a sixth-generation orange farmer. He hated oranges. He hated the people and the sweat and the constant dirty looks that he felt came from the workers, who snickered and called him names in Spanish behind his back. He couldn’t understand them, but he was certain that they were calling him impolite things, things way worse than “gringo” or “cabrón,” or “culo” or “coño.” Unspeakable things, which when he recounted them, late a night, kept him awake to imagine the unspeakable harm on those in the field who might have said them, He had given up his youth to these oranges, and now, what? What did he have to show for it? Another 40 years in the fields like his father? He doubted it. He heard the stories that his dad didn’t want him to: tales about the farm in its origins, some 200 years ago, when the land was still infested with those, those, “crazies.” A little whooping did them a lot of good. The family fought with Andrew Jackson, the Andrew Jackson, and took on those crazies. He knew it. He knew that they’re the ones who civilized the entire state. That’s why they had such a large orange farm now, and money, always money — even after the civil war, when their labor had left and gone away, abandoning his great, great grandfather with his great grandfather and great, great grandmother. Ralph spat on the ground. This was the place, his family’s blood had been spilled on this place, and now these rotten oranges were coming to him green and dirty. How dare they.

Ralph’s brother, Hector, drove along back to the orange field. Though he couldn’t understand the origins of the thought, he thought of his great, great, great, great grandfather who fell in love with a Seminole woman he met, while washing clothes in a stream. So head over heels, he renounced his U.S. citizenship to join her tribe. Over the years and successive wars, his family settled down in a remote area, until anglos moved in around them. His great, great, great grandfather was “white enough” to buy some land and start growing oranges. Now Ralph and Hector had only the story and genetic flat noses to reminded them of their Seminole blood. Hector waited patiently for his father’s fruit loader to come by and drop off the next batch. He would look out across the green hood of the truck for a few more hours, until the successive batches of oranges filled up the back of the truck. He’d then put it into gear and pull down the dirt road slowly, taking his time to not jostle them too much, until he hit the highway. He traveled this same route with his father as a boy. And he takes the time to chat with the orange distributors he works with, some who have known his family for generations. Some oranges will become juice, others marmalade, some oil, some soda, others beauty care products, but many will reach groceries across the U.S. He waved to the orange distributor, “Where these headed?” he asked, the same question he always asked.

“Chicago.” Oscar, clean shaven and young, gripped the semi’s steering wheel. Glen sat heavily next to him. He twitched his mustache and closed his deeply sad eyes, which both understood the world and how much it felt like it wasn’t for him. He shifted in the chair now and let rip a fart. Oscar turned to him with a grimace, “Com’on,” he said and rolled down his window. “Not my fault, man, my wife, she keeps making these little pizza things,” Glen replied. “We have a million of them. They fill up the kitchen and the pantry. I gotta eat ‘em.” Oscar rolled his eyes, answering “You gotta get control of yourself.” The two sat in the air conditioned cab and drove north, pausing only for bathroom breaks and a morning shower. After, at breakfast, their one meal a day that wasn’t fast food, Glen began the speech that started their journeys together, each morning. “Ya know, the one regret that I have, above any others, is that I never went to college.” Oscar sighed and shook his head. Glen continued: “You’re a young guy, what are you doing getting into a game like this? You’re able to go out and get somewhere. You’ve got brains.” Oscar gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Glen, thanks, I appreciate that, but I tried. And, ya know, it’s just — it’s not for me. It’s not for me.” Oscar seemed definitive, as usual, and Glen knew the routine too. Glen would make a hard charge at him, one or two more statements, until silence fell over the cabin, only to be alleviate by the rip of a fart. Oscar typically spent this time lost in thought, considering the three months he had spent driving in from Aurora to the University of Illinois, Chicago. There, he found a daily reminder of how poor he had been growing up. The lessons he was taught about hard work and diligence and craftsmanship weren’t enough to overcome the tremendous inadequacy he found hard to admit to, and even harder to explain whenever the subject came up. Instead of joining the school and accelerating, as most had suspected he would, he stayed mute in class and distrustful of his peers.

Glen and Oscar approached Ismail, their truck quietly purring behind them, “Hell, it’s cold in Chicago,” Glen said. “Where you coming from?” Ismail asked, He didn’t hide his accent. “Florida,” Glen replied. “Where you from, anyway?” “Not here,” Ismail replied with a smile. This was their dance. Glen handed over a clipboard with some paperwork on it, and told Oscar to line up the truck so the last remaining oranges could be unloaded. Ismail watched on, his thoughts on when his family emigrated from Iran to the United States in the 1950s. He learned later about the CIA coup that forced him out of his homeland, but they came out later, after the Iranian Islamic Revolution, and many so called patriots cursed at him and spit on him — as though he could return the ambassadors to the United States. Ismail directed the truck to back up into a loading area, where waiting hands opened the door and began to move the crates from the back of the truck into groups for orders. Some supermarkets would get four crates, some bags, some more, some less, as quick and deft hands unloaded the truck, Ismail left Glen and Oscar out in the sun by themselves. He marched back into the factory and climbed up the metal steps, where he could look down on drivers who loaded up there trucks with the crates and bags of oranges. Ismail watched one in particular, Gregory, a kid who the city moved to the idyllically named suburb “Country Club Hills,” when it destroyed his project housing. The boy he lifted a box and set it gently in the back of the otherwise full yellow delivery truck. Gregory seemed constantly searching for a way to improve his standing. Most of the workers slacked off. Occasionally one would come in drunk, high, or, at a minimum, hung over. Not this boy. He worked dutifully, never complaining. Ismail asked him, “Gregory, why you work so hard at a job that won’t go nowhere?” To which Gregory, the young man, responded, “This is training for the job that will go somewhere. I must be as excellent here as I expect to be later in life.” He was the youngest of Ismail’s drivers, 17, and in his senior year of high school.

Gregory didn’t pretend to understand his boss. He did, however, enjoy the freedom of driving a delivery van. He wouldn’t own a car under normal circumstances, and Ismail would allow him to drive the big, yellow truck to and from school — a calculated move the business owner said made certain that Gregory would be at the warehouse each day after his classes finished. Gregory withstood the teasing and taunts, with the firm belief that they would make him stronger, more focused on his schoolwork — a person determined to become who he wanted to be. Driving also provided Gregory with an unexpected, ever-changing glimpse of life that he couldn’t normally see. Today, he was loading oranges to deliver to a market on the north side of Chicago. Tomorrow, who knew, it could be car parts headed for Evanston or Bicycles for Oak Park. Ismail ran an operation where he bought up whatever couldn’t fit in other people’s trucks and then he sold it to shops all over town. Gregory received good pay, he listened to the radio and he always ran into interesting businessmen. When he would get home, his mother would have something waiting on the stove, which he could reheat. He lived with her, a woman who had tended and cared for him a great deal during his 17 years, and his eight-year-old little brother. His mother taught him to be better than his circumstances, and his little brother taught him that he must be his best-self daily, in order to be a consistent role model. He pulled down the door with a loud whirl the metal on metal brought his ears. He latched it into place and gave Ismail a slight wave. He then hopped in the driver’s seat and went off toward the Lakeview neighborhood, where his small yellow truck could navigate the unfriendly roads better than most. He pulled up into a back alleyway, where outside of a brick building stood a grocer with a trolley, a Greek man named Andreas who had a stout build and long, thick hair on his arms. He was balding, but generally seemed handsome in a way that didn’t rely on aesthetics. His rounded face was flanked by tufts of black hair on each side and a bulbous nose. He wore an apron without irony. He seemed completely in his element standing on the grey, cracked sidewalk off to the side of his store, the open back door giving a peak to a few people who were moving in and out of the shop, while he waited for his crates of oranges.

Andreas would always shake everyone’s hand upon meeting them and when they left. He gave the first handshake, a vigorous, firm grip, to Gregory now. Then he spoke a few, heavily accented words. Gregory smiled and laughed with a vague nod. Andreas clapped his hand on Gregory’s back then rubbed his two big palms together. Gregory opened the back of the truck and pulled out the many crates that Andreas had ordered, Andreas watching intently with a list in one hand. On that list: two crates of Florida oranges. Andreas pulled one load inside and motioned to a young man wearing a white apron and white T-shirt to go get another load. Andreas picked up a crate of the oranges and walked out to the store front, where rows upon rows of fresh fruit sat under florescent lighting. Wheels of shopping cars squeaked on the polished split-pea-soup green linoleum tiles. Andreas marched over to the big display for oranges. He lifted one of the crates onto the ledge and began to place them in different positions, the goal to make the display look overfull and beyond abundant — how could someone not help themselves to an orange? And he watched, with a great smile while a young girl with a face (who some unabashedly call “as cute as a button”) framed by blonde curls told her mother, “this one!” And the woman said hello to Andreas, as she plucked a plastic bag from the rack and lifted three of the largest oranges she could find. The little girl smiled and turned to Andreas, who cocked his mouth into a funny half grin. She was mesmerized, until she heard the words, “Come on, Olivia.”

Then,
 with her bright uniform declaring 
 her a “lady dragon,”
 she replied
 “Coming mommy.”