La Guanamera and the Return of The Senses

I was so hungry. I had groceries and was mentally building the sandwiches I could make with the fresh herb loaf and bacon and tomatoes in the back seat.

I drove down the main avenue past the seedy bars of the hamlet next to my hamlet. The low, beeming Café Guanamera winked at me through its open door. I used to eat there pretty often for breakfast before the hurricane. Only a block from the since menacing bay, when I went there I always felt like I was tucking into a warren, and a perpetual puddle attests to its relationship to sea level. Months of brown exhaustion, restraint of hope, and ensuing isolation cycled through the monochromatic late summer that bled seamlessly into a dusty winter. I abstained from trying my local havens, fearing the witnessing of their failure and opting for the more urban (if only in comparison) pubs and restaurants a few miles and worlds away from the disappointment of our own little forgotten ground zero. I was wishing I had bought the makings for Mojitos, and was thinking of doubling back for limes and mint at the extremely unlikely but more prosperous Asian stop n’ shop. It was untouched by surge, which assaulted, rather than rose above most of the town.

La Guanamera. I winced at the hammering as I opened the door and let in the coastal wind and its entourage of small, anonymous debris. Eyes met mine and I recognized a fourth student for the night, but the first one outside of Walmart. A memorable one.

Over a year ago, during my first week on the job, I was administering the state TAKS test to seniors who were desperately trying to pass it in the summer, after graduation, some a year after that. This student also tried. She used materials disallowed on a certain part. Did her limited English let her understand the rules or the consequences? Was she sober? Did she feel she could not pass any other way? She scored zero in her second language for opening a dictionary. I wrote copious state documentation.

Months later, her teacher told me she struggled against cocaine. The child had confided. She wanted help. The teacher helped, I don’t remember how exactly – so many strugglers, even before the hurricane, the storm that shall remain unglorified and nameless.

The student came over with my menu, her arms strong and toned, skin clear, the same nose ring and multiple earrings, not needing my Spanish. It had obviously been a long time since I had paid attention to her. The hammering continued while I ordered and then rang on while we talked about ways to get her past the language section of the TAKS test. The rhythmic bangs faded like a locust’s whine behind the shield of our planning.

A small child curled on the low booth behind me. His brushy hair tickled the back of my arm, a modern and sparsely drawn Porky Pig on television lulled him in Spanish. The toddler's chubby sister danced hip hop in her glasses, her thick locks, and her elementary school tee shirt. I ate my tender green chicken enchiladas, savoring the flood of color, and the relief I felt over the new dining room addition. I imagined myself seated across the low wall that would still let you see everyone over there, in the new room, chartreuse and hot orange from beam to bench. I congratulated a young man who might have been the owner on the expansion and renovation. He indicated the white haired hammerer, and gave him all the credit. The man demurred to his boss in a thick Texas drawl.

The chubby girl stopped dancing, and walked slowly over to the worker. “What happened to your fingers?”

I fell into memory. One summer recreation day in the basement of our 1920’s era brick school house in Polk County, Florida – it was Grecian style with two-story pillars too big for three little girls to circle – I asked that question of Mrs. Ross. She had only two fingers and a thumb on one of her thin, white hands, and that day, she was helping us form Super Elastic Bubble Plastic into wondrous caustic forms. I asked her, “What happened to your fingers?” and she said, “That is not a very nice thing to ask, young lady!” She knew my name but withheld familiarity. I had played at her house with her son. I withdrew. I found a corner seat near the carom tables and held back tears for a long time, knowing she would hate me forever, and knowing I had hurt her, but not knowing soon enough. I didn’t tell my Mom.

The hammerer answered the chubby girl in low, humming words I could not hear. He spent some time on it. He stopped his work for it. I glanced at his fingers as he displayed them on the fresh, yellow, pine. But I couldn’t see if they were missing or simply gnarled, or burned. He looked at her, and when she seemed satisfied, he smiled a little and went back to work. She took a pickle from a large jar, and went back to dancing.

I ate every bite of my enchiladas, ordered without cheese as if the whole basket of tostadas could be offset by this. I stood up and tried again to make a Spanish reference to my full belly, which was returned by polite, friendly smiles but not answered. I left a two dollar tip on my five dollar bill. Marina promised to come see me for help in Math. In English.