Boy’s jefito brought home his bi-weekly paycheck and laid it in a bowl full of rubber fruits sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. Although it was late in the evening, the preparation of supper had not yet started. Boy’s jefita snatched up the check, looked at the printed numbers, calculated out loud how much was to go where, and dashed out to go buy groceries with Boy’s big brother, Flaco, a pre-teenager whom she needed to translate English.
She returned an hour later with bags of food.
“Féria?” Boy’s jefito said, joking.
His wife ignored him.
“She’s gonna give me the féria later,” Boy’s jefito said with a wink to Boy and his siblings, who were all sitting at the table waiting for supper.
The children laughed.
It was a hackneyed old joke they’d heard many times. They didn’t know what féria actually was. They’d only heard of it, never seen it. They knew it was desirable de amadres, but their jefito for sure never had any. The paycheck wasn’t féria. It was exchanged somehow at the store for food and —maybe— the féria their jefito joked about.
Féria was in the same realm as Santa Claus and the city limits, a concept that straddled the line between reality and tale.
Boy thought about this as his jefita put on the table a pot of reheated stewed pinto beans and just-bought diced vegetables and unconsciously wondered about féria out loud.
“What’s féria for?” he asked.
“To feed you and your brothers and sisters,” his jefito said, his tone turning serious to signal the conversation was over.
“Then why don’t you just get food instead?” Boy said under his breath.
His jefita looked over at her husband and spoke up.
“That’s how you get food. You trade it for féria. If you have a lot of it, lots of food. If you don’t, no food,” she said.
“Why don’t people work for food instead of féria?” Boy asked.
“They used to. And there was never enough, or you had to accept whatever was available at the time. That’s why I moved here: to work for féria so I could have enough food to feed all of you,” his jefito responded.
“I’m gonna work for féria too,” said Boy.
“Pos first you’re gonna eat these beans,” his jefita said.
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