Nothing fishy (PT.2)

I ask Pedro how his exhibit was.  He lights up and says, “Fantastic.  It was great.  There were 16 paintings and I only brought two home” Quite a pull.  We are congratulating him and he tells us about who bought what.  Seems that the family that owns the King Ranch outside of Dallas bought up loads.  I was curious about some of the work I had seen before the exhibit, “What about the tomatoes?  Did someone buy the tomatoes?”  He smiles and nods, “Yes, they did” Tonya takes the words out of my mouth when she asks about the bananas.  He turns to her and nods, “Yes, the bananas too…” I am crushed.  We had talked about acquiring this piece.  He looks across the table at me and shrugs his shoulders.

Those bananas we were bananas for.

Carla complains about the lack of sleep from last night.  When asked why, she says she is worn out.  She is one of a panel of judges, who are in the midst of rating poetry books for a national contest.  She points to a big box of books sitting on a table, “There’s more too” she says and rolls her eyes.  “I have so much to read as well as translate a book for someone.  You can’t believe how bad some of the entries are”.  I ask her if she cheats, if she starts to read it and skips around when she realizes it may be boring.  She looks me straight in the face and says, “It is horrible.  I can tell if it is crap from the first few lines.  Some of them are so boring…it is horrible.  If I think it is bad, I go to the middle of the book, and then read the last page.  If it looks as if it never progressed, then I declare it worthless” She is laughing and dropping her shoulders to show despair.  I ask if that is really an option.  She says it is, one can hand out a literary rating of ‘desierto’, a desert, full of nothingness.  Yes, she adds, and she has done it before too.

I turn back to see what I am missing between Pedro and Leonor.  I know it was something good because as soon as she realizes I am back in her audience, she switches to English and tells a great tale.  “There was this very odd man from Chihuahua.  He was illiterate, and could not read.  He did not want people to know, and he would always pick the paper up, and hold it up in front of him like he was reading,” she says starting to laugh. “We would all sit and smile because he would be sitting there acting as if he was reading the paper, not knowing he had the paper upside down.  He was so cute.  One day someone finally went over to him and asked what eh was doing.  When he replied he was reading, they grabbed the paper and turned it around for him, saying ‘If you are going to read, you have to have it right side up’” She says he was old, so it was just accepted as who he was.  Leonor says that he was from Juarez, and would frequently go back and forth into El Paso.  She reminds us that this was a long time ago, and says that he was a simple man.  He would just go across the border whenever he felt like it.  One day, border officials stop the old man and asked him for his papers.  He said he didn’t have any, and didn’t need them.  He was born and raised in Juarez, and has gone over this border all the time, his whole life and never been asked for papers before.  The guard realized that he had nothing to hide, but wanted a few pieces of information before he let him cross into Texas.  “Sir, I understand.  Can you just tell me how long you have been crossing here?  Can you tell me when the first time you crossed was?”  The old man looked at the guard and with utmost pride tells him, “Yes, I can tell you the first time I crossed into Texas.  It was with my general, General Villa…”  This, of course, got a good round of laughs from us all. 

Once again, the world gets really small, as everyone at the table talks about another neighbor, who supposedly is a medium and used to hold séances in a cottage behind their house.  This leads to ghost talk…and Pedro’s new house. “Well, do you have any friends here?” I ask him.  “No, nothing.  In my old house though, there was Juanito” he says as he points over his shoulder in the direction of his old home.  He tells of how there were a few odd instances with other family members, and then one particular instance involving himself.  “Before I had the studio, I was painting in a room at the top of the house.  It was late, and I was alone.  The doors to the room were open.  They were double doors.  I am in my room painting and everyone else is asleep downstairs.  All of a sudden I hear laughing.  I look up, it is coming from the doors…Someone was laughing at me really hard, ‘Ha ha ha ha’  I went to the doors, and no one was there.  No one had gone down the stairs either.  The very next morning, as soon as I woke up, I immediately went to our local priest and told him what had happened.  He came over to the house and did a blessing right away” This gets a chuckle from all of us.  Pedro’s face is so animated as he tells the story.  He gives accounts of the different episodes the maid had with Juanito.  He said that after the priest visited, Juanito had disappeared.  He said he had been told about JuanitoJuanito lived in a certain lamp, like a genie.  Pedro had said they had eventually gotten rid of this certain lamp, and must have thrown Juanito out with the lamp.  The previous owners could not comprehend Juanito not being around anymore.  The fact that he invited the previous owners back into their house to take a look around, and they were only interested in their ghost, seems quite comical to Pedro.

This elicits a quick eyeing up at everyone at the table, and everyone shaking their heads 'no' when asked if they have any ghost 'problems'.  Pedro is still giggling over Juanito, and says he will have his priest come and bless this house just to be safe.

Leonor is truly enjoying the fish.  Now it is almost completely gone.  In the midst of all the chatting, I have kept an eye on her and lost count at how many servings of the fish she had taken.  Easily a 5:1 ratio compared to everyone else.  She loves it so much as a matter of fact, that she calls the maid in to compliment her.  She then puts the skeleton of the fish on the platter and sets in front of her.  She has to get a final look at the dish she so enjoyed.  She arranges the skeleton exactly how she desires and turns to Pedro, "Perhaps you should paint this fish.  It was so good, it deserves to be painted for a keepsake!"  She is not joking.  She then unwinds a tale about a Picasso painting, in which he enjoyed his fish so much he painted it and made a sculpture of the skeleton.

One of Picasso's ceramic fish plates...obviously before devouring

(One wonders if she knew that Pedro had already painted fish on plates himself, like this one;)

Pedro's own take on fish...and with fruit!

As the maid cleans up the dishes, Pedro asks who is up for coffee.  I chirp up and raise my hand, Tonya too.  Pedro orders coffees for three (himself included).  Carla is talking about a myriad of subjects, then nudges me on the leg.  "I am going to give you a phone number of someone.  I want you to call him.  You and he will get along marvelously" she says.  He's English, supposedly well to do and is a music freak.  She assures me that I will love his home too, a very big nice one in a great part of town.  She follows with how well connected he is, namedropping a certain Mick Jagger as a friend and a dinner guest last time the Stones were in town.  I promise her I will call.  The maid brings in the coffee and a small plate with broken chocolate heaped in a pile.  She sets it down and I see Leonor immediately grab chocolate and dig in.  She is a tricky one.

The room gets darker because of the heavy grey skies hovering above.  We talk a bit more and decide we should head out before the rains come.  Leonor came via cab, and asked if she could hitch a ride home with us. Of course.  We get up and exchange goodbyes, with hugs kisses and handshakes thrown in.  As we open the door, the raindrops are starting to get hefty.  We tell Leonor to wait, and we run to fetch the car.  We pull up and I lean over to push the door open for Leonor.  Pedro walks her to the car and leans in to take a look at our ride. He nods with approval and says we should keep this car.

As we drive away, Leonor asks me if she should help with directions, or if I know my way back.  I smile and tell her it is OK, "Ride with me, and I will show you parts of this city most Mexicans don't even know about".  She laughs and agrees.  We don't get far before we are sitting at a red light.  I recognize a guy, and he is walking up beside the car.  I roll the window down, "Hey, buey..."  He stops suddenly and looks in the car, not recognizing Leonor.  When he sees me he smiles and sticks his hand in, over Leonor.  She is a bit panic stricken, and then starts to laugh when she realizes that the guy sticking his hand in is a friend of ours.  She said she was worried that I yelled at some 'stranger'.  Me...yelling out at guys in the street...in this city.  Imagine.

Driving home we get stuck in rain and drive-time traffic.  It is OK though, Leonor is in the passenger seat and we are chatting away.  She tells some tales of the old days and says she is concerned over people not preserving the past.  She says that she thinks it is a tragedy that really nothing has been historically significant in Mexico for over the last 50 years.  If you sit and think about it, she is right.  Her husband was one of the gang who last did anything significant here...for the people and culture.  She talks about her home in another town.  her husband built the home on some old colonial ruins form the 17th century.  "When I go there, that is where I truly feel at home" she says.  She also tells another story about the old man who she mentioned earlier as well as her travels with her husband and an old hotel they used to like to visit in El Paso.

The drive home is nice, if a bit lengthy.  I check with her periodically to make sure she is OK and comfy.  She smiles and says she is alright.  The closer we are to home, the quieter everyone gets.  I think we are just tired and ready to relax.  Turning on to Leonor's narrow stone street, she starts up, pointing to all the homes and telling us who lives where and what they do.  "The lady on the corner from me is English.  I don't know why, but we never built a friendship" she says. 'It's not from not trying.  We say hello and chat once in a while...but I just think she is one of those people who I just don't care to build anything with..."  As we pull in front of her house, she starts thanking us and telling us what a nice afternoon it has been.  We like Leonor, and this afternoon's surprise lunch visit gave us a glimpse of her we hadn't known.  It definitely strengthened our hunch that we already had.  She's a live wire, fun, and full of stories.

And she definitely likes fish.