From his perch under the intermittently shady canopy of the scalped plants the world slowed down a clip for Atanasio as he lost the noise of the plantation to his quiet work. The leaves needed moisture to merge with each other and maintain the shape of a ball so Atanasio would drag his collection of precious, sticky interior leaves behind him as he went from plant to plant where the rain waters from the previous night collected near the roots of the fat, enormous stalks.
The muddy water felt cool against the heavy, hazy October air. Occasionally, Atanasio would dive his hands straight through the water to the loose earth that lie beneath. The ball was built, layer by layer with a new, soaked leaf laid on the outside at which point he’d run his hand over the new surface with a soft and consistent method. Then, like a mother hen laying her wings over her threatened chick Atanasio would place the ball in his lap, wrap his arms over and hug it with his midsection for a few moments to make sure it didn’t peel.
For her part, Tita was a different woman when she was at work. Though not overly severe, she was always very demonstrative with her grandson: equally so when she was lavishing her grandson with love and castigating him with her words or a beating. At work, she worked. She shared the odd joke with the women on her line but was never the source of any new gossip on the line or sharing in a gripe about the bosses. She had been with Nolan foods long enough to know Mr. Evans could be anywhere.
Tita explained to Atanasio that Mr. Evans wasn’t a bad man. Tita had been working on the plantations many years and was known throughout Catarema to be a reliable employee he needed almost no management and never spoke of wages or unionizing. As such, Tita was never want for employment and had chosen the hacienda specifically because Mr. Evans allowed the workers to bring their children. No, Mr. Evans was not a bad man, at least not from Tita’s point of view but he was austere with the workers and rather ostentatious with his own lifestyle which many of the workers couldn’t stomach.
Often, when they sent down an American to run one of the plantations they couldn’t bear to witness the wild discrepancies of treatment between the upper management and labor. Oftentimes, the Americans would reach into their own pocket as inducements to their best workers. It served the dual purpose of assuaging their guilt and being a rather effective management strategy.
Not Mr. Evans. He was being groomed for the top position at Nolan Foods. He was putting in his years down south so one day he would have the credibility necessary to tell his stockholders that he had put in his years down south. Whereas many governors of the plantations would find ways to funnel extra funds to their workers, Mr. Evans prided himself on his ability to run an efficient operation that consistently avoided mass firings or any hint of uprising without one extra cent from American home office.
4 dollars a day, not a penny more. No one was ever fired for small infractions like lateness. No one ever made their full daily wage if they were late. No one was ever given a Christmas or Easter bonus but no one was ever asked to work on Christmas or Easter. Mr. Evans had a near preternatural ability to know when to press and when to be lenient with his workers. A truly great manager – no one hated him and everybody feared him.
Whenever Mr. Evans was about Atanasio always noticed his Tita stood up straighter as if someone had run an electrical current up through the bottom of her feet. Atanasio didn’t fear Mr. Evans the way the workers seemed to. He never, ever scolded the children – he left that to their caretakers.
Atanasio laid over his nearly formed and nearly finished wet ball, feeling for small imperfections on the surface and smoothing them over with more muddy water. As Atanasio leaned forward over his crossed legs, he laid his head on the ball like it was confiding in his a secret. Past a break in the plants he watched Miles cut down other plants and his friend Raphael gather up the leaves like two irregular satellites their constant motion highlighted the stillness of his place in the venture. He smiled as he thought about when it dried – there was nothing better than a new ball.
In the distance, though inaudible to him, Atanasio could tell Miles had heard something because he stopped in his tracks. Atanasio lifted his head up to look around but he couldn’t see – not without shifting around too much and ruining the ball. From the right side of the frame of his slightly immobilized eyes Mr. Evans appeared. He strolled up to miles pointed into the distance and struck up a conversation look an old friend.
Mr. Evans was always easy to spot. In theory he dressed the same as the other field workers, but his white sneakers were always a shade too white, his shorts always pressed and firm, and he his biggest identifier, his pastel colored polo shirts were always tucked in. The workers didn’t bother with such attempts at decorum if they wore it shirt at all. Sure, Mr. Evans helped carry the odd banana bunch here and there and just being in the fields would tinge anyone’s clothes but just like Jesus always dressed in bright white in the passion plays, Mr. Evans fundamentally stood apart in all manner from his workers.
No one ever talked to him more than Miles even the plantation underbosses. Miles wasn’t a manager in any official capacity (and he certainly wasn’t paid like one) but he did have a hand in maintaining the uneasy peace that had kept the Diana Hacienda so productive and free of acrimony over the years.
Years previous, when Mr. Evans predecessor ran the plantation, Miles caught word of a strike being headed up by a group of workers who had all recently found out their wives were pregnant. Having overheard a phone conversation Mr. Evans’ predecessor had had with the home office, Miles had gotten the impression that the managers had the authority to call in outside agents in the event the workers began to speak of unionizing. Hearing stories from the east of the force these agents were charged with using, Miles had been instrumental in convincing he group of new and repeat fathers to call off the strike. In the intervening years, Miles had become a de facto liaison between the managers and the workers and Mr. Evans, especially, had an unspoken reverence for Miles’ role on the plantation.
The men shared a bond, if not a disparate degree of payment for their similar capacities on the plantation. In the same way that Mr. Evans maintained order on the plantation through the force of his will, Miles avoided the usual brands of traitor through his genial affability and unstoppable work ethic.
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