Free Under the Same Sky by Cynthia DeFelice Page A

here.”
    â€œSo you know who they were, sir?”
    Dad scowled. “I’ve a pretty good idea,” he said. “It was some of our so-called ‘neighbors.’ But they’d never admit it, the cowards. And I can’t prove anything.”
    â€œJim,” said Mom, looking worried. She reached out to touch Dad’s shoulder.
    He turned to her. “Well, Vivian, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened right after the zoning board meeting, do you?”
    Mom sighed and murmured, “No.”
    Dad said to the older, taller officer, “I’ll bet if you talk to Tom Matthews—he’s a farmer down the road—you’ll find he had some visitors tonight, too.”
    â€œWe’ll check on that, sir. Now, why is it you think these neighbors of yours came here tonight?”
    â€œTo make a protest,” Dad said. “To harass my crew. To try and scare them back to Mexico.”
    The older cop appeared to think about that for a minute before saying, “I’m just wondering why they would do that, unless your men provoked them in some way.”
    â€œBecause they’re ignorant jackasses!” Dad exploded. “Tom Matthews has applied to build more housing for his workers, and it’s got the local rednecks all riled up. They say they want to protect their families from the likes of my crew. Well, what I want to know is, who’s going to protect my family and my crew from them? ”
    Dad’s face was flushed, and he glared back and forth at the policemen, waiting for an answer.
    â€œSo you’re saying they don’t like your men because they’re Mexicans, sir?” the young cop asked.
    Dad looked at him with exasperation, and I almost felt sorry for the guy. Dad took a deep breath and said in a low voice, “Well, officer, let me think. They came through here yelling ugly names like ‘spic,’ ‘illegal alien,’ ‘greaser,’ ‘beaner’—let’s see, what else?—‘wetback.’ Saying ‘Go back where you came from’ and making their point with cherry bombs, broken bottles, and stink bombs. Now you tell me, do you think they like Mexicans?”
    â€œJim,” Mom murmured again.
    â€œWe had a report of some Mexicans being drunk and disorderly down on Exchange Street earlier, sir,” said the older cop.
    Dad spoke very slowly and softly then, which made his words even more forceful than before. “Well, now you have another report, officer, of a bunch of drunken, disorderly local men coming onto my property to harass decent, sober people who are minding their own business, trying to get a good night’s sleep so they can get up in the morning and work harder than that trash ever worked in their miserable lives.” He stopped to catch his breath, and I looked at the officers to see how they were reacting.
    The younger cop flushed with embarrassment and looked down at his shoes. The older one, his face absolutely blank, took over, pulling out a notebook and pen and getting down to business. “So the vehicles were a pickup truck and a sedan, you say?”
    Dad’s expression grew a little less tight, and I felt myself relax some. Mom and the girls left while the questioning continued, but I stayed and listened, not wanting to miss a single word. Dad didn’t say anything to me, but at least he didn’t send me back to the house.
    Long after the police left and I was back in my bed, my brain continued to whirl. I kept seeing Luisa’s frightened face, hearing the crashing glass, and smelling the stink bomb, and trying to make sense of it.
    I’d heard the word spic before. Randy had used it on the last day of school, I remembered uncomfortably. Greaser , too. Wetback , I knew, referred to the way some Mexicans swam across the Rio Grande River to get to America. Beaners , I guessed, was because of Mexicans liking to eat beans. And