Robusta

         Roberto’s truck bounced up the mountain road, empty.  His face was wooden, betraying no emotions.  In his pocket was the cash from his trip into town, to sell the product of his most recent harvest.  It was not enough to last until the next would be ready.  He knew what lied ahead.  His family had cultivated the Coffea plants on this lush Colombian mountain since la independencia, and he would now be the last to do so.

         He rolled onto his plantation, annoyed, but not surprised, to see a brand new Land Rover parked in front of his humble house.  He parked behind it, got out, and greeted his visitor.

         “Miguel, what brings you up here?”  Roberto already knew the answer, but decided to play the game, if only to appear less helpless.

         “Just came to see how things were going.”  A lie.  Miguel knew exactly how things were going.  Roberto had know Miguel San Carlos since they were in grade school together.  He was a bully back then.  In recent years he had become a higher class of thug, but a thug none the less.

         “Prices are down, as you know.  Demand for our robusta is not what it once was.”

         Miguel feigned concern.

         “It’s the 80’s, Roberto, everything is becoming bigger, more commercial.  It’s all those big plantations up North that are undercutting all our family farms.  It’s a real tragedy.”  Miguel was a shark, and he smelled blood in the water.  Both men knew that Miguel’s organization was funding those commercial farms, for the sole purpose of driving the local family operations here in the mountains to more lucrative crops.  Roberto was one of the last holdouts, and he had hung on as long as he could.

         “My offer still stands, you know that.”  That Roberto did not reject it immediately has he had dozens of times before was tantamount to acceptance.  Still, Roberto could not stomach it, even though he knew it was a matter of survival.  He tried a lazy evasion.

         “Miguel, I am a coffee grower, I know nothing of the Coca plant.”  His weak argument failed before he even finished.

         “Nonsense,” Miguel replied forcefully, “They are grown the same, you know that.”  Roberto nodded in agreement.  “We can have the seed here for you in the morning.  You can pay us later.  You only have to grow it and harvest it, nothing more.”

         “I’ll have to think about it.”  Miguel smiled and handed Roberto a card.

         “Call me when you make up your mind.”  The men shook hands and Miguel drove off.  Roberto went inside, where his wife waited.

         “Why did he stay so long?” His wife asked.  Roberto said nothing, and instead fished the cash out of his pocket and dropped it on the table.  She counted it quickly.

         “What is this?  Where is the rest?”  He looked her in the eye stoically.

         “That is all.”

         Her face sank, knowing what that meant for them.  Years after year the crops brought less.  It was no longer enough.  His face was a stone, hard and rugged as the mountain they lived on.  His wife’s lips trembled.  He reached out and took her hand in his, silently granting her permission to let it all out.  She collapsed into him, burying her face in his shoulders.  It broke his heart to see his wife cry, but she needed him to be a rock right now.

         “Don’t be afraid, we will be ok.”  He wasn’t sure he believed it himself, but it was what she needed to hear.  A little while later, Roberto collected himself, picked up the phone, and dialed the number Miguel had given him.

         After the call, Roberto walked outside into the orange evening sun.  He crossed himself, looked to the sky, and asked La Virgen to pray for him and his family.  Then he hooked up the plow to his tractor, and began to plow his coffee plants under.



657 words.