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All eight "Spanish Guys," on the Latino house painting crew were slightly annoyed. They were well aware that the American white guy-- the ex-High School football player with the thick neck and missing tooth, had been drinking the night before.
The Spanish Guys knew this because the white painter sometimes (when he had been drinking the night before) came to work sullen and miserable, and uncommunicative, without even so much as a "Good Morning" in response to any sort of a greeting from the Spanish Guys.
As the painting crew would gather together in the parking lot of the Condominium Development, and chit-chat in friendly, early morning tones, the white painter guy would sit by himself in his beat up old clunker car, and sip his coffee, with a scowl on his face, and a cigarette in his left hand hanging partly out the window, so as not to fill his sagging jalopy with smoke.
The ex-football player white guy would have a look of latent fury, as a feeble tide of dim and untutored ideas washed and passed through his mind, back and forth and back and forth, like waving kelp in a low tide current: insignifigant, erratic and irregular, in a muddy and forgotten, urban marsh--a polluted current of ideas, without which, stagnation would set in, and abcesses would form on the surface of his brain, and ultimate eventual cerebral decay would quickly take hold, and eat its way into the cortex.
Such was the conceptual and reasoning and spiritual effluence, which passed for the phenomena of thought in the case of the white painter guy with the thick neck and missing tooth who used to play American football in high school, and who had evidently been drinking the night before, and who was now wroking on a house painting crew at age 32, hung over, and miserable, waiting for his workday to start at 7AM.
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After it happened; after the incident that I would later reflect upon as "Jose's revenge," and after the oafish and loud rock and roll music playing white guy with the thick neck, the skull tattoo and the bad attitude, now with two missing front teeth, was really and truly gone, things on the job settled down quite nicely.
If a work enviornment can ever be said to be enjoyable and fun, that was how it became that Spring, and the pleasant good will among myself and the six or seven, and sometimes eight painters from Honduras, and the only other white painter on the crew, a New York City Fireman who worked with us on Saturdays for a little extra money, continued all through the summer and fall, until the weather eventually became too cold to paint outdoors.
The Honduran painters seemed to be fond of me, and I think that that was because I was a very soft taskmaster as far as strawbosses or foremen go. A pushover in fact, and it is a weakness on my part, I'll admit.
That is probably why they nicknamed me: "Chilito", and they taught me a few words and expressions in Spanish. We would go over these words as we worked, and I would try to come up with little memory tricks in my mind so as to remember them.
For instance, they told me that the word for the devil was: diablo, and I would think of the name "Dee" and a fanciful exclamation: "Aaah!" as I got a blowjob or was blown. Put them all together and one has: "Deeahblow".
Or, for instance, when Nestor taught me spanish word for tree: "Albu" (Spelling) I would visualize the distinctive face, with a large nose, of the character from the old Happy Days Television show, whose name was Al, and picture Al jumping out from around a corner where he was hiding, and startling someone, Fonzie for instance while crying: "Boo" Hence I had the word: "Alboo" in my mind.
As crude or crazy as these memory tricks seem, they did cause me to remember many of the words that were taught to me by my new co-workers, colleagues, and friends, the Hondurans, or rather the Latinos, or, Spanish Guys.
If someone sneezed I learned that the repsponse, instead of: God Bless You, was: "salut", and to remember it I pictured myself giving a military salute to someone after he or she sneezes. And so forth and so on.
At the time, I had met and was dating my future wife, and I asked them for a few romantic words and lines I could say to her in Spanish, and Jesus taught me what I extrapolated as "Day Key Air Oh!"
Jesus also suggested that I tell my future wife that I was her "Poppy" and to compliment her eyes by saying: "Kay Bonita Too Ohos" or her body with: "Kay Bonita Too Cuerpo"
I used these lines on my girlfriend/future wife with great success, as she was both amused and intrigued at my efforts to please. At least I thought so at the time.
Around ten years later, when I was taking a class for an insurance broker's license, I met a very lovely and pleasant and rather stately and tall (and very married, as I was ) woman from Columbia, and we innocently sat next to each other for most of the duration of the course. Before the class, and during the breaks, we would discuss various things, including underemployment, for she was a somewhat chagrined former bank manager and, like myself, perceived selling insurance as a step down in life.
One day, we happened to be talking about the Spanish language, and I repeated the words and phrases that I have related above.
She frowned slightly when she heard me say them, and muttered something about that style of Spanish being: "Street Language" or something to that effect, which surprised me a little, and caused me to regard her as stately and proud to an even greater degree, to say the least.
Even so, I have retained those words in my memory, even if I never went on to learn the Spanish Language. Why I have not done so I cannot say. I suppose that I do not feel that there is a dire necessity to learn Spanish, nor any other language, given the fact that I live and work on Long Island. True, I do encounter many Latino workers during the day, be they other painters, or landscapers, or masons, or tree trimmers, or auto mechanics etc., but most of them understand and speak English very well, and the ones that do not, seem to catch on pretty quickly.
And then there are the few that never seem to learn much English. Jose was one of them,and I wondered why.
Sometimes, Jose and I would work together, and away from the rest of the painting crew that might be ahead of us as they painted their way around the Condiminium unit.
Jose and I would be looking for drips and runs on the freshly painted clapboards, and spots that had been missed, and touching up spots that needed touching up.
Jose would be quiet, and methodical,and the silence between us was a comfortable silence, and sometimes for me, a welcome one, for I find that I am not a social person in general all day long, and that I like to break and then return to the speaking company of people. I suppose I have been like that my whole life, and maybe that is why I welcome the company of people that are not very expressive, or shy or non-talkative, though not unfriendly either.
Maybe this sort of dryness, or even taciturnity I speak of is simply a personality trait that can be found in certain professions or even endeavors: engineers can be that way, and so can accountants. Some specialty carpenters, particularly the cabinet makers I have met, can be very concentrated and quiet at times. So can other intellectual types who have studied a hard intelletual discipline. Or maybe it is not a personality trait at all, and I am projecting that personality trait upon them. Maybe the calm and relaxation I feel when with a non-communicative, perhaps intellectually absorbed, though not unfriendly, type of person is something peculiar to myself. An idiosyncrisy. The pleasure I take in being ignored perhaps, or the pleasure in not having my own thoughts intruded upon because the other person is too busy thinking to do so.
And so, like I say, I sometimes preferred to go round and do touch ups with Jose and give my mind and attention a break from the more talkative and expressive Painting crew. But I would sometimes steal glances at Jose, and watch the way he would elevate his head when working below waist level, so as to make up for the up and down rotation that left eye could not do. Above waist level, Jose would often keep his head at a 45 degree angleto the left of the work in front of him, andmake favor the right eye.
I wondered if depth perception was a problem for him, since, as I say, Jose heavily favored the one good eye. I wondered if Jose had ever had his left eye, the one turned downward and with the half closed lid, examined by an Eye Doctor, either in Honduras, or in the United States.
I started to wonder a lot of things about Jose's left eye, and finally one day, and in the middle of the day, while we were painting the brownish tan clapboards of a Condiminum "Unit" or building within a complex of many such units that we were painting that summer, I breached what I thought was a sort of decorum, and simply started asking Jose questions.
Jesus was standing nearby, and helped act as an interpreter as I quizzically asked:
"Jose, I see your eye. I see your left eye."
Jose grunted, then said, in his slightly raspy way: "Yes. Yes!"
"Your eye." I said. Can you.....see? Can you see out of it? Do you see with it?"
Jose nodded, and Jesus answered first: "Yes"
"You can see with that eye?" I asked again, for I was somewhat amazed.
"It's good?" I followed up. "It's good? You see good? Or a little?"
"No no" Jesus said. The eye is good. He sees good"
I was somewhat incredulous, and I asked: "You see OK? Blurry maybe? Cloudy? Maybe not perfect? Uh...like you see only a little with that eye?"
But Jesus reaffirmed what he had said before, and he spoke a few words in Spanish to Jose, and Jose agreed with Jesus and said: "Yes, Yes. Is good. Is good. OK. OK.
And I could not help saying to myself, and aloud: "Wow." And I wanted a better look at the eye and I leaned in towards Jose and asked: "Can you look up. Just look up.....a little. "
Jose did so, and I was able to see the eye now. Jose even pulled his left lid up, and the eye was indeed clear.
I persisted: "Can you move......can you move it? You know, move it?"
Jesus repeated my question to Jose and Jose smiled and said "Yes" and rotated his eye for me. It did move, although not as much as a normal eye would. But it did move.
"And the lid" I asked. "The lid" Jesus repeated for the word. "Why the lid?"
It was a stupid question, and a confused one. But I felt confused, or rather perplexed, for I had never seen an eye condition like the one Jose had. I had heard of a condition known as "Lazy Eye" and I remembered a kid from when I was growing up that had a wandering eye that was later fixed with surgery. Several kids in fact, with eyes that were not in correct alignment to a greater or lesser degree, and that had had the eyes fixed with surgery.
But I never saw a lid that was half closed like Jose's eyelid was. And I wondered why.
To be Continued.
As with a lot of my stories, they are works in progress, and now I see that I have to somewhat fictionalize Jose's story for a number of reasons.
It was Jose's left eye that was the "bad" one. He could see out of it, but the lid was always half closed, and the eye itself looked downward. He was born with this condition, and he adapted to it by favoring his right or his good eye which, in all respects, was normal.
When I first met Jose, I had graduated from Law school several months previous. We were both standing in front of a Deli in Roslyn New York, drinking our morning coffee while waiting for a Painting Contractor to pick us up in his truck for work that day. Jose was standing on my right, and I couldn't help noticing his left eye when he turned and asked me for the time. But after that first encounter, and especially after a week or so of working with Jose, I hardly noticed the eye at all.
It was probably because of the way that Jose wore the brim of his cap a bit lower than most people would, and also the way in which he habitually angled his head so that the right side of his face was partially, if not fully profiled and turned slightly downward whenever I was near him.
But also, I don't generally go about peering very closely at people's faces during a typical day, be it a day of work, or even leisure for that matter. If I greet someone for the first time-say in the morning- I might shake a hand and smile as that person usually smiles back. Then, if a conversation ensues, I might carry on my part with a lot of inflection in my voice, and a lot of hand gestures-- but all without too much eye contact.
Maybe that is my peculiarity, or maybe it is an American cultural thing. I don't know. I did notice that the Latino "Spanish Guys" I worked along side of tended to do a lot of staring directly at people all day long. Someone once explained to me that this was because many of them did not understand the English language very well, and therefore augmented their informational intake with a lot of visuals.
That person, deceased now, was probably correct, but still, as I came to know the workers more and more as the weeks and months passed, I also mused that perhaps the greater eye contact was an extension of a Latino culture that was more open and honest, and that greater eye contact was simply another way of expressing themselves with greater frankness.
Some of the American white guys referred to Jose as "One -Eye", in a crude way which was both cruel and amusing to them.
Thinking he could not understand English, they would sometimes say it directly to him and, as always, Jose would respond with a smile. Jose never seemed to mind, although his friends did.
There was one large and rather oafish (in my opinion) fellow in particular who latched onto the nickname and used it quite often and with delight; and he always, in the typical and universal pattern of abuse, followed the use of the nickname up with a conciliatory remark such as:
"I'm just kidding Jose." Or: "You know I'm only joking Buddy, right?" Or: "You know we're Pal's right?" and the ex-football player would sometimes buy Jose coffee later on without being asked.
This softening, though still very strong and imposing ex-Jock was, as I say, a large fellow. A big boy who used to play football in High School, and the evidence of heavy weight training still showed in his 220 pound plus frame at the age of 28, especially in his thickly developed neck.
This softening, though still very strong and imposing ex-Jock was, as I say, a large fellow. A big boy who used to play football in High School, and the evidence of heavy weight training still showed in his 220 pound plus frame at the age of 28, especially in his thickly developed neck.
Jose couldn't have been taller than five foot seven, and must have weighed about 150 pounds with not an ounce of fat on him at the age of 42, which made him "viejo" as his friends would playfully remark sometimes.
I was only 31 at the time, and to me Jose seemed pretty old as well, although, looking back from my now 46 years, he really wasn't viejo at all.
To be Continued
Top Row: Mike (A great guy and not the ex-football player from the story) , Me, Nino, Nestor
Bottom: Jose, Tony, Jesus of "Chungo" (Spelling)
Go here for more Re: this pic:
http://esquirepainting.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-first-job-after-law-school.html
Go here for more Re: this pic:
http://esquirepainting.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-first-job-after-law-school.html
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