Making Money: Drought Year in Minkler, California

By Gary Soto b. 1952 Gary Soto

“It’s a ’49,” Rhinehardt said, and slammed

The screen door, then worked his way around

The dog turds in the yard

To the Buick gutted from fire—the gears

Teething rust, the fenders sloped

Like the shoulders of a fired worker

Out of beer. He circled the car

Kicking the tires, eyeing

The grille that still grinned the ribbed wings

Of a sparrow. He looked inside and flies

Lifted like patted dust, settling

Into a loose knot on the visor.

“Yeh, you’re right as right ... it’s a ’50,”

Rhinehardt spat, his tongue rolling

A false tooth into place. “It’s got no

Running board.” He pressed a buck

Into his son’s hand and retired to the porch

Where he towel-flicked

His wife from a chair

And as evening came on watched beyond

The street, a kennel of trees,

Where—as he had dreamed—a plane would drop

And bloom fire. Two bucks on that one.

Gary Soto, “Making Money: Drought Year in Minkler, California” from Where Sparrows Work Hard (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981). Copyright © 1981 by Gary Soto. Reprinted with the permission of the author, www.garysoto.com.

Source: Where Sparrows Work Hard (1981)

Biography

Gary Soto is known for a body of work that deals with the realities of growing up in Mexican-American communities; in poems, novels, short stories, plays and over a two dozen books for young people, Soto has recreated the world of the barrio, the urban, Spanish-speaking neighborhood where he was raised, bringing the sights, sounds and smells vividly to life within the pages of his books. Soto’s poetry and prose focus on everyday . . .

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