INTERNSHIP: Marcos

13 July 2009

Home Depot Lot, Little Village Chicago

Marcos was shy, but once he started talking his voice flowed forth. Though he never spoke rapidly, he never paused, acting as if the words were almost tumbling out. Sometimes, when people tell me their stories, I can hear the way they build themselves up as we go along. But with Marcos, I heard more and more truth and honesty the longer he spoke and I listened. Sometimes he looked away, sometimes I heard shame when he dropped his already quiet voice, but he kept talking.
We started by talking about his life.
He was from Houston, up here to work. He told me about the jobs, the occasional employers who fucked you over—giving you too little for difficult work. If that happened, he and his friends would leave, hiking back to the Home Depot lot to farm themselves out to someone with a little more integrity. If it got to 2 or 3 and he still hadn’t found work, he’d give up for the day: find a park and maybe drink (he indicated this to me with the shy hint of a hand motion, bottle to mouth but so subtle I might have missed it.)
Most employers are good though, he assured me. They offer you water; help you out a little.
Looking around at the others in the lot, he told me there were more guys than ever who had lost their jobs. He told me about how he at least had a skill—sometimes people who bring him along just to translate.
Where do you stay? I asked.
He stayed in the mission—a homeless shelter down town. He didn’t like it. They were too strict. And religion? Well, don’t get me wrong, he said. I love god. I do, I really do. But I get a note to say I am working so I don’t have to do that stuff. I like going to church, I do, I really do. But…their services…
They just don’t speak to you? I offered.
Yeah! You know.

*

Eventually, we wound around to the rest of his story, a part I was desperate to hear. By now, we had been chatting for a long time. The sun was hot. Cars drove in and out of the lot and the workers around us shifted as people took work and left it. Jorge was talking animatedly to the workers around, laughing and waving his hands. When a driver rolled down the window and asked for a plumber, Jorge took a break from talking to run around to clumps of workers, calling out for the plumber. Marcos and I continued to talk.

I made a lot of mistakes, he said. You know, when you’re young, you mess up.
He stopped looking at me except to glance. He rubbed the back of his sunburnt neck and twisted his arm behind his bag, still clutching the half eaten burger, poppyseeds on top.
He continued.
Marcos: My parents were from El Salvador. But I was born in Belize. They were refugees there. I was born there and two sisters were, too.
Me: How did they get over… to the US, I mean?
Marcos: They did what a lot of people did, they got into the country, then…it was different for El Salvadorans then because there was a war there. They did what Cubans do today.
Me: They applied for amnesty.
Marcos: Yeah…
Well, I was making a lot of poor decisions. I, he stopped, still pained at the closeness of it all. I had my green card pending.
It was new years and I went over the border with friends, to party. On new years, lots of people were coming back and forth, they were busy. But when it came my turn, I was.. I was intox… I was drunk and high on drugs.
He strung the last words together, barely audible, ashamed.
I was. And uh, I tried to cross the bridge but I was alone. I walked that long way alone, you know and not with a lot of people, so the lady asked me a lot of questions. And it was all cool until she asked for my card and I gave it to her and she put it in her computer and she said, you’re not in the system and then, they imprisoned me, detained me for seven months.
I was sent to Belize. I wasn’t from there. I hadn’t been there since I was six. Everybody heard the way I talked, said: ‘where you from, man?’
It was horrible. I am used to here where they say, ‘ah man, you want some water?’ There, they make you work, they mean. They drive you and the work is hard and you make no money. Nothing. Like twenty five cents. And then I lost my job. I lived there for a year and a half and I was like, ah man, I gotta get back.
Me: How did you do it?
Marcos: Well, Mexico’s got real strict borders, real strict you know. I got into Mexico because I speak Mexican Spanish—and Spanish from Belize. They are two different like dialects, you know? I grew my hair long, was all shaven. So I did that. And then, when I was North, I called my parents and they paid for me to cross the other border.
Me: How?
Marcos: By… uh… boat. They took me across the river.
I can’t complain, man. It was all, all was inside I could feel the fear inside me. But I’m lucky. He touched his round face. I never suffered, no one ever beat me. And then I come here and man, America is great. Man, I so lucky to be here man. So lucky. And all of that. It’s like a bad dream. Like a bad dream, seems so long ago. After seeing what it was like over there, I’m just happy to be here. It’s so much better.
I wasn’t sure what to say. Here was a shy and sweet man, living in a homeless shelter in Chicago, standing in a hot parking lot waiting for day labor jobs that aren’t coming and he is telling me America is great?
*

Oh man, I real shy.
Marcos looked bashfully at the ground and rocked from foot to foot. He didn’t want his picture taken until I convinced him that the reason I wanted his picture was because we talked. I could take a picture of any guest worker anywhere, but I wanted his because I knew his story, because he had shared it with me.
You do? He asked.
We compromised. A picture from the back was ok. He checked it out on my camera.
Me: Is Markos with a “c” or a “k”?
Marcos: With a “c”, but I like Mark.
Me: Can I ask you your last name? Do you feel comfortable…? I asked.
Marcos: Martinez. Yeah sure, and here. I’ll give you my cell phone number. I like what you do. A lot. I—how do you say it—uh, support what you doing, he said. I really do. Your helping all these people. That’s why I want to help.
His faith in my work was almost disconcerting. Who was I—this young kid, this girl— he had entrusted his story to?
Me: It’s people like you two who tell me your stories, I said.
He wrote his name on a receipt in blue ink. Tell me when it comes out, I’d like to see it.
It’ll be out August 7th, I said. You can get a copy… I stopped. Did he even have two dollars to spare? Why would I make him pay when I’d send a copy to someone I interviewed who had an address?
Absolutely, I said. I will give you a call. Absolutely.
It’s a promise I am not going to break.
*
You hit the golden nugget with that guy. Jorge says, as we get into the car. I am a little shocked.
Yeah, I say. I know.