Just One of the Guys

"Vamonos, pues!" Eugene boomed in his strict, no-nonsense tone. "Put down the clippers Thomas, it's 4:30; time to go."

Quickly, I finished cleaning up a head-high prune, meticulously blotting out the buds-to-be below the allotted four nodes saved to grow shoots that will be trained throughout the growing season. Pruning, I have quickly learned is a matter of balance and foresight. Like the struggling first grader who cuts class for remedial reading, so too a young weak vine benefits when it is cut back to two or four nodes, thus cutting its work load in half.

Normally when I think about a typical Saturday, I imagine waking up around noon to drink a big gulp of Gatorade to kill any remnants of a hangover and then cooking up a platter of eggs to be slurped down while watching an under appreciated 80s flick. Maybe something a la John Carpenter's early repertoire. Yesterday, in an attempt to bring home the bacon for a much anticipated visitor I pried myself from bed at the asscrack of dawn (read 5:30) to join the crew on their sixth and last day of work, before their day of rest: the holy day, God's day.

"Hoooola Tomas," greeted El Topo, the crews principal loudmouth and instigator. "We didn't think your huero ass was gonna work today!"

"Yeah, well I came here to do two things: prune some vines and chew some bubble gum. Looks like were almost out of bubble gum."

"Chicle, eso quieres? Chicle?" asked El Topo, " 'Cause I've got a pack here in my back pocket."

"Forget it," I replied laughing, my spirit already quaking at the length of the day.

Learning to prune grapevines, coincidentally, has become strikingly similar to my attempts to master the Spanish language. In Chile, I was given more often than not what we called "gringo edge." When other students were demanded the world, gringos were given an affectionate pat on the toosh as we effortlessly walked around the flaming rings of fire. Often times it felt like I would receive a passing score on an exam for successfully completing all my Spanish sentences with a subject and predicate. In the fields the treatment is often the same: my own remedial help. Most of the time I work alongside an experienced pruner that can help to point out potential canes and spurs in an ugly vine. Hey, get off my back. I've shown improvement.

Working next to a number of guys also gives you a snapshot of each workers world, where they come from. The two crews have workers from all walks of life: the politicized Salvadoreno, the comedian cantante from Santa Anamaya, the ex-cop from the Mexico City, the shit-talking workhorse, the gangster teen from SF, the mechanic from Guanajuato, the soft-spoken Oaxacan.

Around mid-day on Friday we chugged away down the rows in a vineyard outside Graton, el cantate had his trusty hand-held radio faithfully slung over his shoulder, resting for all to hear on his side. "Today I'm gonna call Dulce and win the prize: the ticket to Las Vegas," bragged El Topo. My young teacher was referring to a Santa Rosa based radio DJ, Dulce, who conducts a daily contest where listeners have to identify an unknown song based upon a short clip. Typically they are whining love songs, which sadly struggle to strike an emotional chord or break any new ground. "You're not gonna call you bullshitter" came one of the jeers from the field.

"Hola Dulce" greeted El Topo, covering the phone and telling El Cantante to turn up the radio's volume.

Standing next to El Topo I overheard Dulce respond through the cell phone "Hola amigo, how are you?" Her voice resounding as voluptuous and fresh as it did through the hand-held.

Then we heard El Topo's voice echo his responses to La Dulce's questions through the one- second time lapse: "Michoacan," "Trabajando" "Si" "Gracias." El Topo's typical boisterous demeanor appeared stunted in the face of mass communication. I was a bit stunned myself. For a few minutes our shears remained placid as we listened intently. From the next row over Homey, a young buck, shouted out "Dulce I love you!"

"What's that shouting in the background? Tell your friends not to be loudmouths," directed the Sweet's voice. "O.K. Antonio are you ready to play?"

"Si," replied El Topo timidly.

Booomp, booomp, booomp came the cries from the bands horns and then a number of tear jerking lines "Por que me dejaste solito. Ya que no estas, mi corazon esta quebrada indifinitivamente...."

"Ya pues, what the hell is the song name. C'mon tell me jue!" demanded El Topo, returning to his former self off the air.

"Honestly, I don't know it jue. Say 'Mi corazon esta quebrada'" replied the apprently not-so-well-versed freelance field singer.

As the last beats of the song began to fade to black, Eugene, el supervisor, briskly arrived on the scene with a stiff purposeful strut that mimics that of a native black bear. "What do you think you are doing on the phone?" Eugene demanded. "Do you think that you are being paid to talk? There's no talking here. This is work. We work, we don't talk on the phone. If you want to talk on the phone you can walk your ass outside of that gate and do it on your own goddamn time, not mine. Got it?"

El Topo, a faun caught in a big rigs headlights, meekly clapped his cell phone shut, his mouth slightly open and aghast throughout the reemy. Silence pervaded the vineyard as we simultaneously heard La Dulce come back on the air; "Antonio, are you there? Are you ready do make a guess?" Dead air. "Antonio are you still on the line?...Antonio. What happened? Well we seem to have lost Antonio, let's take another caller!" As Eugene marched away to fry another fish we all began to burst at the seams; fits of laugther filled the void created by the harsh reprimand. Dejected El Topo picked his shears out of the holster and bent over, frowning to continue with his labor.

That evening, at closing time, I was beat. Lurching over to cut weak vines all day reminded me of countless hours bent over pruning in New Zealand. Conversely cutting more mature vines requires thousands of cuts and snips, which takes the piss out of all the joints in your hands. My back ached and my right hand swelled with inflammation. Oh, but it is a labor of love.

The guys working in the field do it ever week. Nine hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks out of the year. Pruning, planting, thinning, spraying, weeding, hedging, maintaining cultivating and picking your produce. Mexican workers, without whom, you might not have crisp spinach in your salad, tender artichokes for your chip dip and yes, delicious wine for your bourgeois dinner party. Next time you raise a glass to your mouth or take a trip down your local super's produce section take a minute to realize who's putting the food on your plate, and I will give you a hint: it's not your neighborhood accountant.

Too bad for El Topo, he could probably use a trip to Vegas.

End Notes:

1. El Topo means "the mole" in Spanish and is also the name of a great film by Alejandro Jodorowsky.