Amigoland by Oscar Casares

Author:Oscar Casares
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hispanic American Novel And Short Story, American First Novelists, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), General, Fiction - General, General & Literary Fiction, Fiction, Cultural Heritage
ISBN: 9780316018838
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

They had taken a booth near the back of the little restaurant, where they would still be able to talk if someone put money in the jukebox. Steam billowed out each time the kitchen door swung open and one of the waitresses came out with a plate of food. The place was only half full. A teenage couple in hooded jackets sat in a corner booth where the owner couldn’t see them sneaking kisses while they shared the plate they had ordered. At the next table three men in cowboy hats sipped their coffees while the older one of the group did most of the talking. A pair of Border Patrol agents sat close to the door, one of them keeping an eye on the kitchen workers, the other more interested in the carne guisada he had on his plate in front of him.

The food was already on the table by the time Don Celestino came back from the restroom, where he’d checked his sugar level. He had ordered the enchiladas verdes, Socorro the taquitos, and Don Fidencio the menudo. Once the old man started eating, he barely looked up from his bowl. Now and then he stopped between slurping his soup to take a deep breath and chew a tougher piece of tripe. His few remaining teeth clicked in a staccato manner as he gnawed at the meat until he could swallow it.

“Do you remember the last time you ate menudo?” Socorro asked.

He raised his hand to indicate she had caught him in midchew.

“Sometimes they serve it there,” he answered finally, “but never with enough spices because people would be burping all night.”

“Maybe it’s better that way, so you can sleep.”

“I barely sleep anyway, at least that way I would have a good reason,” Don Fidencio said, and spooned up some hominy. “Last night I spent it lying there, staring at the ceiling. I would sleep for twenty or thirty minutes, then wake up and just be there. It came and went like that until the early morning, when I remembered something more from our grandfather’s story and couldn’t sleep anymore. And finally, after another hour, they served breakfast.”

“You should write it down,” she said, “so it stays with you.”

He looked up at her and then at his brother.

“It was nothing that important, just something about when the Indians were attacking them.” He slurped up another spoonful. “And anyway, nobody wants to know what an old man remembers.”

“Come on and say it,” Don Celestino told him. “We’ve been waiting to hear what you would come up with for the next chapter.”

“So you can make fun? No, I prefer to stay with my mouth shut.”

“Go on, we want to hear what more you remember.”

“I prefer to keep it to myself.” He stirred his soup without looking up.

“And if you forget it later?” she asked.

He hadn’t considered this. The girl had a point: so much had slipped away from him once. What’s to say it wouldn’t happen again? This afternoon he

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