In This World of Ultraviolet Light by Palma Raul

Author:Palma, Raul
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

4

The Roasting Box

At the dead end of the Miami River—a levee divides the river’s scrap metal industry from the passageway to Lake Okeechobee—wrecked cars are crushed and stacked along the banks. Iron oxide powder settles on nearby windshields and walls; when it rains, the rust and the oil on the streets bleed into the river. Pickup trucks with chain-link fences bolted to their beds line up at weigh stations. They’re stacked with old refrigerators, corroded ironwork, obsolesced doorknobs—all the industrial junk that makes our living civilized. I’ve come here to sell my grandfather’s junk.

Cigarette smoke and exhaust linger at the scrap metal lines, as does the static of distant radio stations. Cargo planes descend on the nearby airport, slicing over the river traffic. The scavengers weigh in twice, one at a time; first fully loaded, then again when they’ve dumped all their scrap. They’re handed a PIN on a printed receipt. They sit around a makeshift ATM, waiting for an opportunity to cash out and repeat: $7, $42, $79. Compactors mangle some of the junk, but most of it is collected by large hydraulic cranes and placed on small container ships, which make their way down the river, past the high-rises in downtown Miami, toward the Caribbean islands.

Children fish on the north end of the levee. Ignoring the warning signs, they climb the fences, tossing their lines over the yellow floating oil booms, holding their rods and smelling all that pork in the air. Nearby, some families raise pigs. Outdoor terraces are converted into illegal slaughterhouses. Bones and carcasses are tossed in the river. Roasting boxes, Cajas Chinas, are stacked and sold along Okeechobee Road. During the holidays, festive lights and music illuminate the bloody terraces. Parents bring their children, who know that when choosing a holiday pig to bleed out, the larger ears are often the crispiest. On Noche Buena, pigs are nested in wooden roasting boxes to be cooked beneath a bed of charcoal. Neighborhood streets reek of pork. Family elders sit around la Caja China, engulfed in lechon smoke, drinking cheap beer, checking the pig’s tenderness, the glow of the charcoal flickering against their wrinkled faces.

In the heat of my grandfather’s shed lay things accumulated over the years: lawn mowers caked in grass sap, their motors burned out; birdcages rusted and stacked on their sides, still clinging to faded little red feathers; bags of charcoal ripped open by rats, lumps of coal and lighter fluid residue scattered across the floor. When he passed away, we couldn’t get in. When we’d open the door, his things tumbled out. My grandmother sealed it shut with a string. It became a breeding ground for pests, and they brought snakes.

I cleared the shed, taking the snakes out with a machete chop to the head, as my grandfather had taught me. He’d trapped one, its body banded orange, yellow, and black, and he handed me his machete. Crouching, he pointed at white buckets. “Corta la,” he said, “con fuerza!” When he dragged

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