Under the Feet of Jesus: Chapter Four Summary & Analysis

At long last, the family arrives at the clinic, a white trailer in an empty lot. As they pull in the gas gauge hits empty, not moving when Perfecto checks if it’s stuck. Even after he removes the key the car continues to clank and grumble. He sits behind the wheel as if the rest of the family has exhausted him beyond repair. Petra also sits quietly until Estrella gets out, marshals the family, and marches into the clinic.

In fact, they only managed to get here by luck – after hours of laboring over the car, some piscadores showed up and helped them push it out of the ditch. The men look briefly at Alejo but seem determined not to talk about him or his illness. Petra feels disappointed that they put so much effort into arriving at this uninspiring, makeshift building. Perfecto tests the poles that uphold the clinic and notices how they wobble, hoping to barter his services for care.

Inside, the empty clinic smells like “bad plumbing.” Estrella guides Alejo to a chair and everyone waits uneasily for the doctor. As the fan rotates slowly and no one appears, they wonder if the clinic is even open. Perfecto runs his hands over the walls, looking for “signs of disrepair.” The twins explore the long counter full of gauze pads and cotton balls.

The cotton looks white and fake to Petra, nothing like the material she harvests in the fields. Seeing the scale reminds her of all the times she wet her cotton or put rocks in her sack to make it weigh more. For her, scales are the arbiters of how much she’s worth and how much she gets to eat. Perfecto catches sight of himself in a mirror; his reflection looks dirty and old.

Suddenly, a young woman emerges from the bathroom; she’s wearing fresh lipstick and seems disappointed to see them. As Estrella explains that Alejo is ill, she realizes how dirty she and her clothes are, especially compared to this uniformed woman. The nurse is clearly annoyed to postpone her departure, but she retrieves her stethoscope out of the door. On her desk is a photo of two grinning boys.

The nurse asks Estrella about Alejo’s personal information and origins. Estrella lies about his last name and says that he’s a relative. She has to translate everything the nurse says to Petra, who is standing by impatiently. Estrella asks how much the doctor will charge, but the nurse says that only she will examine Alejo, since the doctor won’t come to the clinic for another month. Cloyingly, the nurse asks Estrella to tell Alejo to get on the scale; she tersely explains that he’s from Texas and therefore speaks perfect English.

With difficulty and Estrella’s help, Alejo drags himself onto the scale. The resistance of his body reminds her of the futile task of pushing the car out of the hole: both moments seem to prove that “God was mean and did not care and she was alone to fend for herself.” She wants to return to the cool, dark barn and cry.

The nurse makes some notes and then helps Alejo to an examination table, asking why Estrella didn’t bring him in sooner. She banishes everyone from the exam room except for Estrella, who speaks English. Petra mistrusts all the nurse’s writing, and she’s annoyed by her carnation perfume, which is so noxious to pregnant women that she wants to vomit. Everything on the nurse’s desk – from the boys smiling too hard to the cloyingly sweet kitten statuette, and even the nurse’s overly clean appearance – seems like a sign of falsity.

Alejo says he doesn’t want Estrella to watch the examination, but the nurse reassures him that she’ll stand behind a curtain. Petra spits into a trash can and wonders aloud about the cost of the visit.

The nurse concludes that Alejo has dysentery, but she has no way to test her hypothesis; he needs to go to the hospital in Corazón before he becomes too dehydrated. Petra and Perfecto are frustrated and resentful when Estrella translates this verdict, saying that it’s not their responsibility to take him to the hospital. Estrella angrily reminds her mother that Gumecindo has gone back to Texas; there is no one except them to take him. Petra points out that Alejo doesn’t have papers with him, or money to pay for medical care. The twins ask if Alejo is going to die, and Petra sends them outside. Perfecto asks where Corazón is.

All the while, Alejo lies on the examination table and Estrella holds his hand. She notices that his body is unnaturally white. The nurse returns to her desk and says magnanimously that although the visit is supposed to cost fifteen dollars, she’ll only charge ten, because “times are hard these days.” Estrella looks at the nurse, thinking about “how easily she put herself in a position to judge.” She tells Perfecto the price and Petra explodes in anger, asking why they have to pay so much simply for the nurse to confirm what they already knew.

Perfecto opens his wallet and pulls out eight dollar bills. With the change in his pocket, he’s able to put together $9.07. Estrella asks if Perfecto can fix the toilet and the wall in exchange for the visit, but the nurse dismisses this offer and collects their money. She says that she’s not allowed to authorize repairs. She carefully sorts out all the coins into a cash box, which she locks in the drawer.

Estrella explains to Alejo that he will get sicker unless he goes to a hospital. Alejo hazily asks her to take him home, which frustrates Estrella since she doesn’t know how to do that. The nurse urges them to hurry up, because she needs to pick up her kids. Estrella doesn’t know what to do; they can’t really leave the clinic, as they don’t have enough money to go anywhere else. The situation seems especially unfair given that the clinic visit was so unhelpful.

Estrella stares at the exhausted Perfecto and tries to think. She wonders if she’s experiencing the kind of panic that has plagued her mother for years. She wishes that the nurse would agree to barter – then she would at least have enough money to get Alejo to the hospital. She resents the woman’s refusal to compromise; after all, she was suggesting a trade, not begging for money.

Estrella thinks back to the tar pits. It seems that her family’s bones create the oil in the pits, the oil that makes the nurse’s car to run and allows her to pick up her kids. Really, the nurse owes them more than they owe her.

Estrella walks out of the clinic towards the car, where Ricky and Arnulfo are playing. She opens the trunk, pulls out the crowbar, and stalks back in. Perfecto, Petra, and Alejo watch as she holds the crowbar over the nurse and tells her to give them back the money. She threatens to smash everything in the clinic; when the nurse tries to protest, she brings the crowbar down on the desk, shattering the photograph of the children. The nurse starts to cry. Estrella holds out her hand.

Shakily, the nurse retrieves the cash box and counts out $9.07. Now that she has it, Estrella doesn’t even want to hold the money. She feels like two girls: one who does chores for her mother, and another who threatens people for money. The bills feel as sweaty as her dirty body. She says that the nurse should have let Perfecto fix the plumbing, but the other woman is too busy sobbing to listen.

Near the clinic, Perfecto buys five dollars worth of gas. Estrella looks out the window, where she can see a valley full of grapes and some piscadores. Alejo asks weakly if Estrella hurt the nurse. Wearily, Estrella muses that “they make you that way” by refusing to listen until “you pick up a crowbar.” Alejo asks again if Estrella hurt the nurse, and tells her that it’s not worth it. She becomes frustrated and thinks that he’s being impractical. Alejo tells her not to “make it so easy for them.”

Still looking out the window, Estrella remembers a long-ago visit to a ranch store filled with bell peppers in brilliant colors. At the time, the arrangement of fruits had seemed miraculous, and Estrella was about to point it out to Petra when a woman plucked up a few peppers, disrupting the work of arranging the fruit in an instant.

Frustrated, Estrella tells Alejo that he’s being stupid, but he insists that “they want us to act like that.” Estrella doesn’t want to keep talking about this, because none of Alejo’s protests can change what she did. She reflects that for her, neither “Elvis’s glitter” nor “the heavenly look of La Virgen” are as beautiful as the idea of the bell pepper.

Petra says that the nurse had better not call the police. Estrella reassures her, saying that she and Perfecto will start tearing down the barn tomorrow. Perfecto feels the car struggling beneath them, and knows that it makes “no promises.” Ricky says hopefully that they should stay in one place for a while, but when Petra, indulging him, consults Perfecto, he concurs without really meaning what he’s saying.

Perfecto exits the highway and follows signs for the hospital. The twins are fidgeting and drawing faces in the window. When he pulls into the parking lot, Perfecto keeps the ignition running because he’s worried that the battery will die. He instructs Estrella to take Alejo inside and leave him; the nurses will take it from there. Estrella thanks him and hauls Alejo out of the car. Watching them walk away, Perfecto reflects that although he’s “given this country his all,” no one has ever thanked him as sincerely as this young girl.

In a few minutes, Estrella reemerges from the hospital, feeling empty without Alejo by her side. To impress the twins, she makes a big show of exiting through the automatic door. Cookie and Perla can’t believe their eyes; they fight to sit next to Estrella in the car and feel warm and safe all the way home, thinking that their sister has the power to “split glass in two.”