I’m not sitting behind my desk/counter yet, but rather where the customers sit. A man comes in and sits down, wearing a baseball cap that I glance at quickly. I get a big grin. It’s in Spanish. I lean over conspiratorially and tell him, “When I looked at your hat, the R was not very strong (not so clearly an R at a quick glance), so I thought it was a P and saw ‘The Gourmet Whore,’ not ‘The Gourmet Route.’” We both enjoy a laugh together.
An adult daughter comes in with her mother. They are Hispanic, and the mom doesn’t speak English. They get a repair done which was the result of a ticket and need it signed off on by the Inspector to show completion, who will not be in until 11am. “Is he old,” the mother asks? “No, he's black,” replies the daughter. “There's the problem,” the mom says. Laughter.
After Trump was elected, my boss says, “Trump is going to the White House to see a black man.” “I can’t believe you said that,” says my older paleface coworker jokingly. We get four people in for business first thing in the morning, and my boss says, “Trump is bringing me money already.” Hilarious laughter.
Lots of jokes between immigrants, citizens or not, about who will get deported first.
There’s a young man who comes in later. He’s from Saudi Arabia but a citizen, because he was born here but went back home at the age of two. He speaks English with an accent and studies at Morgan University. He says he could have voted but didn’t, because he felt like he was on the outside of it all, and it didn’t mean anything to him. "I know what you mean," I said.
I also met a retired boxer and stick fighter, during the week, who like James, doesn’t feel well without being able to fight but is too injured to fight. In his case, he can’t work out even a little, so he is depressed. He tells me his name, rattles off his fighting lineage and last fight stats, location and opponent. Super nice guy who calls the owner Papa. Calling someone papa or mama in Latino culture shows care, respect, affection, and maybe some other things which I don't know because I'm not a native speaker. I feel for him. He’s a great man like some other fighters I know, and being incapacitated prematurely is a tough way to age. I think fighting must develop qualities in a man which can’t easily be developed otherwise, which is why we are experiencing the mangina apocalypse in this country. Maybe there are a few paths to manhood, not just fighting, but when you take away all of them…
Lili told me the name of this fighter's last opponent, Billy Banks, who trained the man who first trained me with a stick, Arturo Gabriel. Some worlds are smaller than others and the stick-fighting world is tiny.
-James
