DESERT RAT JOURNAL -- Installment 7, May 27, 2008

This will be the last entry in the Desert Rat Journal. I’m about to fly out of Phoenix to Atlanta.

I decided to stay the night near Phoenix so I could get up in the morning and get to the airport on time – I had been late getting to the flight leaving Atlanta, and didn’t want to make the same error again. So I picked a campsite on the eastern side of town, but decided to catch one last Mexican-style meal in Phoenix before setting up camp. I was tired and feeling a little irritable from some difficulties I’d had finding a car wash (I didn’t want to return the rental car muddy for fear of extra fees), and I wanted to eat food that someone else prepared.

I drove past a small taquerìa painted light green, and saw two taxicabs parked outside. If this is where the cabbies eat, I figured, it might be good. I parked and walked in.

The place was small. The cook was a wide-waisted man, his size all out of proportion to the building he occupied. He wore an undershirt and a thin gray moustache. He stood beside the griddle a few yards behind the counter, and turned his head when I came in. One eye was pale blue; the other was clouded like someone had spilled milk on his eyeball and never wiped it off. “What would you like?” he asked with a strong accent. He held a metal spatula in one hand and his stomach was only a few inches from the edge of the griddle.

Two middle-aged Hispanic women with short hair sat at the short counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the room. They looked at me as I walked in. A few feet behind tem three unoccupied stools stood facing the window. I looked back at the cook. He was bouncing his spatula expectantly. From the corner of my eye I noticed that the nearest woman’s face was still upturned toward me, but I didn’t pay any attention. The cook shifted his bulk from one leg to the other.

“Carne asada, please,” I said. I ordered two tacos, then laid my hat on the windowsill by one of the stools. I sat down with my back to the window. The woman closest to the door watched as I sat. Without acknowledging her I took out my Blackberry, which had data service for the first time in a few days, and started to look up the Braves score.

Mexican music played from a small radio. The room had fallen silent when I entered, but before long the women were speaking in Spanish again. The cook commented occasionally as he worked over the griddle, also in Spanish. The woman glanced at me again and I ignored her again. I thought maybe I should stop being a jerk but it looked like Jair Jurrjens had beaten Brandon Webb to win the final game in Atlanta’s series against the Arizona Diamondbacks and I wanted to read the story.

Before long the deejay put on a catchy salsa tune and the woman nearest the door stood up to dance, her styrofoam cup in hand. She looked at her companion, who wiggled on her stool in time with the beat. The woman who had stood moved well and I grinned. After awhile I looked up and called out oooow-ooooow, like a drunk man in a lounge chair at the beach might shout when a pretty señorita passed. She was taken aback at first but when I did it again she smiled. Her companion clapped her hands and the cook grinned. Hell, I thought, this is my last day. I sat my Blackberry down beside my hat and got up and moved toward her. She turned to me.

First we danced without touching facing one another and it went pretty well and I thought I’m pretty good for no drinks and no warmup and a bum foot then I bowed and extended my hand and she gave me hers and I twirled her a few times. She liked that. She put her cup down. I took her other hand and we did the arm slide, and the pretzel, and she liked that. I twirled her a few more times, and then I could tell by the way she watched my feet and followed my leads that she expected me to lead her in some organized, pre-choreographed dance. But I don’t know dances like that, and anyway I figured we’d danced long enough, so I bowed again and said “Gracias, señorita” even though she was twenty-five years my senior.

She laughed and said “Thank you.” She asked what I did for a living and lowered her chin disapprovingly when I told her I was unemployed. So I explained that I had been a student and I had one more test to take before I could begin my profession. She liked that better and wished me luck. She asked where I was from and I told her, Georgia, but I’ll come back for you. She crossed her arms. I said it will be a few years, though, because I am going to be working very hard. “But in forty years I’ll come back,” I said. “I’ll meet you right here,” I said, pointing to the floor, “in 2048.”

She laughed derisively and mimicked and old woman hobbling around on a cane.

“No, no,” I said. “You are only twenty-three.” She looked at me suspiciously so I pointed at her and said “veinte-tres.” She liked that too and she laughed at me and touched my arm then the cook came over and she relayed the conversation in Spanish and he put a hand on his stomach and chuckled. Then he said,

“We show you to dance in Spanish.” He took the woman’s hand and they went behind the counter and danced a salsa in what looked like perfect time and I knew that in the face of this man’s rhythm and culinary skills I had no chance. I clapped when they finished, and bowed, and took the bag of tacos the cook had laid on the counter. I started to leave, opening the door with my backside. I pointed to the floor, looked at the woman and said “two-thousand forty-eight” one more time just for fun. The woman smiled, holding the cook’s hand, and with the hands not clasped in that embrace each of them waved goodbye.