Brown Dirt Cowboys

Five days. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “That’s good money. When we trim trees or more hard work, then I give a little more. Like over with [the actor’s]; you know how hard they working; all those branches and cement and cactus and all that. That’s hard work. Nobody want that kind of job. They do it.”

They don’t have a lot of options. Filemon, for instance, has been here 10 years and speaks no English.

Esteban makes the raspy hum again. “I told them all the time, I told everybody: You guys are young, you have to join the electrician union, apprentice, or go to school and learn something.”

Do they do it?

“I don’t think so,” he says. “After work, they go to house, sit down and watch television and all that; that’s what they do, drink some beer. That’s it. And I never have time for that. I work very, very hard; after work I go to school, come back 9 or 10 o’clock, take a shower.”

Your client says you’re the hardest-working man she’s ever met.

“Probably,” he says. “They’re very nice people. Wonderful.”

I thank him for letting me work. “You’re a good worker, and I’m very happy that you stay with us all this week,” he says. “It has been my pleasure.”

As I make a U-turn down the hill, a BMW passes the other way, and parks. Esteban opens the driver’s-side door and offers his client his hand.