((Summer of 1844)(story form the book "Old Josh, in: Poor Black"))
Enrique Tapia came up to Ozark, Alabama in 1844 from Lima, Peru; he bought himself a restaurant from old man Ritt, the Banker in town; Enrique was a medium size fellow in height, with a large belly area, clean shaven and big hands. He was a good cook but didn't look much like a cook even with his apron on. He lived above the restaurant, and took his meals in the back, while his sixteen-year old daughter, Ximena took care of the customers; his wife had died early on during Ximena's formative years.
The younger Ritt, John, came into the restaurant often that first year they were in business, he liked the way Ximena looked, thought she was the neatest girl he'd have ever seen, and he always had a clean bright tie on when he came into visit the restaurant. even commented her on her legs He liked her face because it always had a smile on it, but he never thought about her otherwise.
Enrique, paid Mr. Hightower to have his slave Granny Mae, help him out occasionally at his restaurant, and Jordon, Josh Jefferson's son, who worked at the local grocery store, also came over that year to help clean the place, Jordon being in his mid-teens.
Ximena liked John somewhat. She liked the way he walked over from the bank and often went to the kitchen behind the counter, by the half doors to watch her make the food. She even commented on his ties. And she liked how white his teeth were, how clean he always looked, and he smiled, almost as much as she; he seemed well mannered and kept.
One day, he had come over early, and he found he liked her dark black hair, and her small arms, and tan copper skin, and he watched her wash up in the washbasin outside the restaurant, in the back of the building. But this made her feel funny; but he paid little attention to her feelings on the matter and just stared.
From the back of the restaurant, in the alleyway, you could see the Post Office, and the grocery store, the one Jordon worked for part time. And sometimes a wagon was hitched out in front of either building, or close by where the Bank was. Across the street was a small park, elm trees along side the road, the alleyway being sandy. This was farming country, plantation country. A church was down the road a bit. The restaurant was painted Green, called "Mamma Mea's," and the back end of he building faced a school.
All the time now, Ximena was thinking about John. He didn't seem to notice her as much as he first did though, and she noticed that also, and perhaps, just perchance, the enticed her even more. And when they did see each other they talked about the bank or restaurant business. In the evenings, John, if he worked late would walk on by the closed restaurant, talk to Ximena's father, Enrique, whom would be reading some old books, and its poetry and so forth, or the Ozark Paper, by a kerosene lamp he had sitting on a stool by him, on his porch, along the wooden side walk. Ximena would come downstairs, along side the building, join them, occasionally have to leave and go to the roof where they had two dogs and feed them and rush back down to her room, feed the puppy Rocco, then head on down another flight of stairs to see John, and her father, and he'd often times be gone.
It was John's birthday the 28th of July, and Ximena wanted to make him a cake, for when he came into restaurant, she'd surprise him with it, but was afraid to ask her father if he'd not mind, eggs and flour were expensive, and Peruvian's were quite conservative, and he really didn't like the idea she was seemingly chasing him, not him, her: otherwise it might have been alright.
And so the day came, his birthday, day, and she didn't make the cake, her father said no, and John ate breakfast, and then went out to the Hightower Plantation, to talk to Charles Hightower, to make a proposition on buying some of his back fields, some what he called loose acreage, he had over twelve-hundred acres. All the time, all that day, Ximena thought about him. It really was awful, while he was gone, not knowing he was over at the Bank, or coming for lunch (as she helped her father with the Peruvian dishes of food, ones that seemed to have become favorites with the clientele in town, such as: Lomo a lo pobre (rice, fried thin potatoes and beef strips, mixed together), Carapulcra, Pachamanca, a soup called Mondongo); matter-of-fact, he didn't show up for three days, and she couldn't sleep well from thinking of him. If she just dropped the subject of John it would be better, and that third night she had a dream.
In the morning of the forth day he, John had been gone, she saw John, coming down the road, on his horse, outside of the restaurant window, she became sick, felt weak, she busted out with tears, said,
"Papa, there's John, he's all right!" it seemed to her everything would now be fine, ok.
Enrique knew this was not a normal reaction that she had liked him much more than he had figured. He studied the situation at length, not saying anything for the moment, just sizing it up, watching, and deliberating within the vaults of his mind; looking at the expression on his daughters face, then onto John's.
Now John rode up to the bank, stopped and tied his horse to a post, walked over, across the street to the restaurant, the elm trees to his back, through the restaurant door he came dragging a sack. There were several men in the premises, with beards and long mustaches, and hunting cloths. Outside was a wagon full of boxes. Enrique, kissed his daughter on the cheek, told her to go in the back to do an inventory of what was needed for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch (kissing was a norm for the Peruvians, and the folk in Ozark was getting used of seeing this affection within this new café environment, although it was a strange custom at first).
"Hello Ximena," said John, before she got to the archway entrance to the back pantry.
She turned about, grinned, "What happened to you, I haven't seen you for four days?" remarked Ximena.
"Not a thing happened, I was out at the Hightower Plantation looking at his back lots, his fields, and I want to buy fifty-acres of it. You know what I'm talking about, it's where Jordon's father is, where Jordon lives when he is not working here or at the grocery story, his father's that old big nigger called Josh, he's kind of bullheaded if you know what I mean-my dad and him don't get along all that well, too bold for a nigger in these parts of the country-he says, but Charles puts up with him, not sure why. And I stayed with Charles Hightower and his family for those three nights, and we did a little hunting, snake hunting," said John.
She thought about what he said, about Jordon's father, then said, refraining from any other question on the matter, "Did you shoot them?" asked Ximena.
"No, isn't it a beauty?" he commented as he pulled a four foot dead rattlesnake out of a potato sack he had dragged into the café.
Ximena jumped back, somewhat frightened, her father looking,
"You got an inventory to do, don't you...?" he hollered, reminding her, if not asking her.
That evening, John came over to visit Enrique, brought a two gallon jug of homemade corn whisky over with him, bought it from Granny Mae, it was awkward to even lift and drink out of, and as such, they drank that night-sitting on the porch of the café, Ximena, by her father's side, John ended up pouring whisky down his shirt trying to hold onto that heavy jug, while Enrique smiled, and his daughter smiled, as Enrique drank his out of a glass-casually as if to be a good host, John took it right from the jug, as clumsy as it was.
"Well, Mr. Tapia, here's looking at you," and down went another big gulp of corn whisky, then he pulled up another potato back, he had it sitting on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, took out a six foot snake,
"Damn, big one haw?" he rhetorically, asked, looking at Enrique, who just stood there in dismay, confused at what his intentions were, thinking they were originally for his daughter, but perhaps they were just to have a drinking friend, to get drunk with, but he was not that accommodating friend.
"They taste good for a man to eat raw," said John, trying to straighten out the long dead slippery snake, and he started to take bite out of it, after cutting into its flesh, saying at the same time "It's good for what ails you, especially for potency!" (Then laughed like a hyena.)
Then he looked at Ximena, she was not laughing, nor was her father, and so he said, "How about another, drink?" and he took one.
It was obvious, John was feeling great.
Then John stepped back to talk to Ximena, thinking her father could not see what his intentions were, what he was about to do, try to do, and his small white hands went around Ximena's shoulders, she said quietly, "You mustn't," and moved a bit to her right, in back of her father's rocking chair.
But John didn't pay any attention to her, and his hand went back over her shoulders and an inch or two down her spine. It became obvious he wanted to do something, and she was getting frightened.
"Let's leave," John said to her, a statement not a question, because he stared to pull her his way.
"No, John," said Enrique, "she isn't going anywhere...."
"Oh it isn't right, I really like her," John said.
"Oh John, go home, go home," said Ximena, knowing her father was getting upset, and she also (John being in his late 20s, and Ximena, only sixteen, but that wasn't uncommon for a marriage to have taken place in at such an age, in those days, but it was a heavy scene for Ximena to see this man drunk, playing with snakes, and making her uncomfortable and cramped in the back by her father's chair; it was in, if anything, showing another side of John, one she didn't know, hardly expected, and didn't really want to put up with now, nor later on in life.
She, Ximena, tried to work her way out, from around him, and he, John wouldn't move, he tried to do something to her hair, then Enrique pulling himself out of the chair, pushing it in back of him, lifted and pinned his head-pushing it against the wooden wall of the restaurant, and shook it, and he rolled his head back and forth, and he started to cry, and she saw all this, and whatever she saw in him before, it was now all gone, a mist had come up, and unveiled the real person he was.
She walked to the side of the building, back up the stairs to her room, to where her puppy, Rocco, was sleeping, she wanted to cry, but couldn't, it was all so funny, and here a few hours before, it was all so serious.
"Rocco," she said, "please stay nice as you are!" Rocco stirred and curled up by her feet as she sat on her bed. She took off her shoes and leaned over to cover him up with a blanket, and did, along with tucking it under his belly, neatly and carefully. A cool breeze was coming through the slightly opened window, all the way from Main Street, and John, he was dragging his sack of snakes across the street to the bank, and then she shut the curtain.
Written 7-28-2008
Dedicated to EH and XH
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