“Coach, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and our raisins are still drying on the ground. My father needs my brother and me to help cigarette-roll our crop. I’m sorry, but my dad said I can’t come to practice today.”
Alex Flores looked across the over-sized desk that was somehow jammed into his small-town, school-gym office. Ray Avakian, his quarterback…his only quarterback, had just added to his woes. When you’re playing eleven-man in 103 degree day games and you only have 14 kids on your whole team, you have a lot of onlies: only center, only tight end… just about everyone went both ways and did special teams too…except Vernon Hansen. He was one of the high points of the 1962 Panthers, a real beast at middle linebacker, but he had pretty bad asthma. If they didn’t stop the other team on fourth downs, his teammates were afraid four more plays, and he might die. It made for some pretty impassioned third and two huddles each game.
“Come on, guys!!” and, “Suck it up for Vernon,” they’d bark and plead as he wheezed, on both knees, in the middle of their summoning circle.
Today, at 24, Alex was reminded of his unique head-coaching situation. Last year’s Pullman team and coach had won a Fresno County league championship…but graduated 10 seniors and the coach had moved up a league. God, would these kids now even win a game? So far, they’d had two shellackings in a row. Add to that the war he was having with over half the teams’ mothers and the unsanitary, single water dipper for the water bucket during times out. That latter issue would remain for tomorrow. Today it was rain, raisins and a quarterback who could run hard but didn’t throw very well. What the hell. Sometimes Alex felt like he was the only clown in a circus clown-car, and he kept coming out over and over and over…alone. What all did that mean? Must have been part of Psych 101, maybe, when he was a sophomore at Fresno State. Was it ironic metaphor? Dang, he must have gone to that class more than he thought.
Slightly side tracked, the wondering kept him from simply getting pissed and why me’d with his present situation. What’s really on the table here, he asked himself? He could still hear his bracero father’s answering voice too, “Boil down all the parts, son. Find the good in it; find the good…before the bad finds you first.”
Grudgingly, Alex began testing the issues but needed some basics. “Ray, I’m a Central LA city boy. What the heck’s a cigarette-roll?”
“Well,” Alex double-clutched, knowing just about everybody in a farm town should already know this. “It’s kind of a temporary thing. See, the drying raisins are on paper trays, lying, under the sun, on the ground. An emergency like rain comes, and you have to quickly cover the harvest to protect it from the passing storm. You move the fruit to one side of the paper and roll the whole thing up, like a homemade cigarette and leave it where the ground is highest. You hope it doesn’t rain too hard and that the wrapping will keep the, tryin’-to-become raisins, raisins as dry as possible. When the storm ends, you unroll the paper and respread the half-dried bunches, the best you can, like they were before. Then, you hope and pray the sun comes out soon to finish the drying. If it doesn’t, Coach, you’ll get mold and lose a whole crop.”
“Sounds pretty important.” Alex found himself meaning that. Was this what he was hired to do though? Was he nuts? Was he…a coach?
“Lose a crop, or even part of one, and in two days, you’ll see most every farmer in town standing in front of the bank, taking out a loan for the rest of the year.” The boy sat silently, and the not-much-older man thought about what to do.
Stuck with feelings on a faster track than his words, the coach heard himself ask something he never thought he’d say. “Ray, gotta question for ya about your pop?”
More than surprised, the only quarterback squirmed a bit, but he wanted to be respectful. “Sir, my dad won’t change his mind. I have to…”
“No, no,” he cut him off. “No, no, no. I already got that, young man. You have to go. I’m with you there. Not real happy about it, but I understand. I just got this off-the-wall, first-year-rookie-coach question, so why not ask? It’s a crazy day, right? You don’t have to answer if it’s none of my business.”
Carefully, but curious, “Yeah, OK, if I know the answer.”
“Fella, I’m finding that living in a small town, like Pullman, where life is supposed to be slow and easy is pretty complicated plus everyone has a face and a story.”
“I guess so, Mr. Flores,” Ray said, trying not to sound as unsure as he felt about where this was going.
The coach continued, “From the beginning, everybody has been really nice to me, my wife, son and even the Kazi dog. Some of you even helped us move into our house here in June. You were certainly there.”
“We were glad to and you needed it, especially with that upright piano Mrs. Flores wanted on the second floor.” The boy couldn’t help but smile at the memory of that shared challenge.
Alex played it perfectly droll – guys talkin’ to guys. “Yeah, when your school board hired me, they didn’t know they were gettin’ a whole new weight-training program thrown in for free. We plan to move that piano every year just to keep you guys in shape. Next year she wants a house with a third floor and a narrower staircase.”
Ray didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll be a year older and smart enough to say no.” They both laughed.
“Yeah, your dad was in on that day. He’ll shame you into doing it again. He delivered the monster from our apartment at State. We used his fruit truck and to haul it and wouldn’t even let me give him money for the gas.”
“Ya know, Coach, don’t say that so loud around other Armenians, or we’ll get thrown out of the tribe.” The boy had been just as glib and equally dry as his mentor. It was a nice moment that encouraged the next.
“My question’s about that scar I saw on his throat that day. It’s a mean one. Would you tell me what it was about, if you think Sarkis Avakian wouldn’t mind bein’ talked about?”
The coach noted the boy sit up a touch taller in his chair. He wasn’t at attention, but, perhaps was changed in intention. Alex had no idea what was about to flow. It emerged slowly, thoughtfully and with simple, yet, understated control.
“The cut came from a Turkish knife during the Armenian Genocide in 1915. It had already killed his mother, my grandmother, Ohanna, and my dad’s older brother, Gor. My father was 10. Our men and older boys had already been killed, but the women and younger children were being marched to death, back and forth on the frontier. Armenians are stubborn, tough and were dying too slowly, so the guards were finally ordered to quickly end them all. The Turks were to use knives only, because bullets were too precious. For some reason my father has never understood, the Turk who grabbed him cut him only to look bad, then pushed him into a ditch, making a gesture to be quiet and not move while he went on with more killing. That night my father slipped away in the dark. It took him two years to find his way to America and another year to reach a cousin here in Fresno. He bought our 40 acres in 1926 and started our family in Pullman.”
Ray was finished. He had learned, at times like this, if anyone asked – only the facts were to be told. He looked at his coach and waited.
Finally, after a long, slow shaking of his head, Alex slid the office phone across the desk to the boy and asked if they could hold practice on their ranch at 3:00. To take part would be a favor to coach and team – no contact, just two hours of conditioning… cigarette-rolling raisins. “Call your dad and see if that’s OK. Counting two coaches and a manager, we’ll be 17. Might lose some since the other farm kids might be in the same spot and needed at home. We’ll find out. I’m going to go ask the superintendent if we can do this.”
A little embarrassed, Ray protested, “Coach, my dad doesn’t want to make a fuss here. He just wants me home and we’ll do our best as a family. My older brother and the dentist uncle from Fresno are already here with my aunt and cousins.” The boy had to chuckle. “He hasn’t worked in the fields since he was my age. Hope he still has some boots. The best he might come up with now would be his oldest golf shoes. I’d love to see that.”
The teacher being taught scratched a little beard stubble and gathered himself. This would have been beyond him at the start of the day, but a lot of important things had happened since morning coffee. The telling of the scar had really stuck in his head. This boy should never have been here. A piano might never be in his upstairs and someone else’s raisins would be on what wasn’t now Avakian land. What were the stories of the other boys and their families: Mexican, Japanese, dust bowl Okies and more? Alex refocused; he looked at his watch. “Tell your dad thanks for the opportunity for extra conditioning,” was how he put it. “Might be the difference on Friday.” The chances were nil, he thought to himself, but it sounded so good, and wouldn’t it be nice if it somehow came true? He left his only quarterback with the phone.
***
At 3:05 it only took the bench seats in a Chevy and two Fords to get the band of 16 to the Avakian ranch, just south of town. Gerald Kobashi, his only-right-guard, didn’t go. He was needed to help his father and family do the same. Good for them.
The team had traveled light. No tools were required but their backs, arms and legs. After two hours, and practice, officially over, several young men still remained and worked into the night. That included Coach Ray who’d learned to love his team that day, working beside the onlies, cigarette-rolling raisins for a man and his family who almost were never there.
*
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- Cigarette-roll by Gwyl Weatherford - November 28, 2024