Southland. Nina Revoyr

And his father stayed in town late two nights a week to gamble with his friends, a habit from his bachelor days that years of arguments and marriage had done nothing to change. Frank had worked with his father at the Berry Exchange for the last three summers, sorting the berries, picking out the rotten ones, arranging them in crates for all the grocers who came in from their stores. But he was fifteen now and he had his own job in his own neighborhood, working for Larabie, whom he’d known from his store—the Mesa Corner Market—but also saw downtown on the old man’s morning trips for fruit and produce. So as his father was stepping outside to warm up the car, Frank called out to him.

      “I don’t want to go,” he said.

      His father whirled around. “Eh?”

      “I don’t want to go.”

       “Nani? Do shite?”

      “Because we go every Sunday and you’re there every day during the week. I want a day off. I want to stay around here today.”

      His father pressed his lips together and pointed out the door at the car. His fingers were nicked and stained crimson and blue, the marks of harvesting, and handling bleeding berries. “You come,” he said. “You come Little Tokyo.”

      “No.”