Cigaretts And The Yew Trees

We lived in a small tear-drop trailer that my dad pulled behind our old Ford pickup truck. My parents earned a meager living by picking fruits and vegetables in California. Most people looked down their noses at us. "Migrant workers" they'ed say, which sounded bad just because of the way they said it, nasty-like. We moved around alot, up and down the length of the state following the different crops: apples, peaches, grapes and cotton, tomatoes, beans and a variety of different nut crops. We lived hand-to-mouth with nothing extra to spare. Seems like it was always about money, and we never had enouh to take away the pressure of it all. My parents fought over the fact we didn't have enough, it was the old, "Blame Game". My mom pressured my dad that us kids had to eat even if they didn't. This didn't make much sense to me then or now because they had their alcohol and cigarettes, even if it was cheap Port wine and Bull Durum tobacco to roll their own and not "tailor-made", as they called them.
I remember this time well, David and I were very little, we were in northern California waiting a few days until the grape vineyards were ready and the ranchers would start to hire pickers. I wasn't old enough for my consciousness to pickup on everything, but for my age I was aware of quite alot. We had no money at all, not even for cigarettes.
David and I were sent outside to play. There was a cheep motel next to the vacant lot where the trailer was parked, and next to it grew three huge evergreen trees, maybe "Yew trees". They were very tall and dense, with boughs that went all the way to the ground. My little brother and me walked around those trees, the branches were so thick you couldn't see their trunks. For some reason, I wanted to get inside those trees. I pulled the ground branches aside and David and me crawled in on our hands and knees. All the green seemed to be on the outside of those trees, the inside looked like three joining towers with spiral branches going up, up, up.
It was dark inside and it took some time for our eyes to adjust to the lack of light. This magic place was spacious, quiet, and best of all, carpeted with soft fragrant pine needles. David and I smiled at each other knowing we had discovered a sacred place where no grownups ever came, only us. As we looked around our living cathedral, we spotted on the spice scented ground, four whole perfect cigarettes. Our mom and dad had been out of cigarettes for sometime, which made them somewhat grouchy and easy to anger. David and I were delighted...we had found a treasure, and thought we would be heros to our parents.
I carefully held those cigarettes and crawled out of our new found sacred space. I felt pure joy running for the trailer. David, running as fast as his little legs could carry him was right behind me. We found what seemed so important to our parents,"cigarettes".
It was not joy expressed at our gift, but a bombardment of questions. There were so many questions and the stress in their tone, made me feel guilty, as if I had done something terribly wrong. "Where did we get them?" Cigarettes, new ones, not half smoked and thrown away, but new ones. We both told them but they didn't seem to believe us. Our gift was tainted somehow.

Now, as I think about it as an adult, it seems they were afraid we had either stolen them, or worse yet, ask someone, breaking the famile rule in letting someone know my parents had no money. I felt shame, their shame...it was not mine. I was probably five or so and David a year and nine months younger. We had found what they wanted most...no one knew, their secret was safe, but the fear they felt ruined our gift. It was to good to be true. I don't know if they believed us in the end, but... I am sure, they smoked the cigarettes.