Luis Alberto Urrea - The Water Museum

“Eggs? In spaghetti?” Dexter demanded.

“Claro!”

“Who the hell eats eggs in spaghetti, is what I’m asking you.”

Juan looked stricken.

“Nosotros. Is my father’s recipe, pues.”

He said receipt. The “p” was not silent.

“Juan! The idea was to make real American Eye-talian food. This is… this is …Mexican spaghetti.”

Juan sat.

“This is very hard, Jefe.”

Dexter tasted the food. It was weird. But, he had to admit, tasty. Eggs. ’Bout made him barf. He ate some more.

Beto the busboy was watching soccer on a small TV near the register. Carmela, Juan’s vastly pregnant wife, sat sideways in a booth with her feet up, snoring softly. Across the room, Preacher Visser was digging into a plate. A good Presbyterian — he had done the funeral for the Bowers. His hat sat on the table.

“Rev,” Dexter said.

Visser waved with one hand and kept eating.

“What are you having?” Dexter asked.

“Chicken parm, with a glass of Chianti. Delicious.”

“Early for wine,” Dex couldn’t help noting.

“Good enough for Jesus,” the reverend replied.

Juan grinned at Beto and said, “Mira este cabrón.” They laughed.

Juan leaned across the table. “Jefe?” he whispered. “It’s Hungry Man. Microwave.” He raised his hands. “They don’ know the difference.”

Dex was rankled.

“Look here,” Dexter said. “I told you — you want Americans in here, make pizzas. And not like that tostada you made last time. Not—” he hissed so the pastor wouldn’t hear—“ television dinners! ”

Juan sighed.

“Pizzas,” he said, as if someone had just suggested something deeply heretical to a priest. He called them peeksas. “I would have to get an oven.”

Beto ambled over and refilled the pastor’s glass.

“Peeksas,” Juan continued. “I know, I know, Jefe. Peeksas and calzones.”

“Meatball torpedo would be nice,” the rev said.

“Submarine,” Dexter corrected.

“Guah?” said Juan.

“In Boston,” the rev announced, “we called them grinders.”

“Qué?”

Dexter made a what have I been sayin’ gesture.

“Pizzas. Calzones. Get the oven. Take orders by phone. Make Beto deliver.”

“I ain’t driving no delivery car,” Beto said and went back to his game.

Calzones. He smirked. Gringos didn’t know that meant underpants.

“If you won’t do it, Juan can give that fine job to a deserving white man!”

“Now, Dex,” the rev chided him.

Juan shook his head. “No like. You hurtin’ me now.”

Dexter had just about had it with this happy horseshit and was thinking about driving back to his house and cracking a beer and to hell with it. There was a Deadliest Catch marathon on the dish. Not a Mexican in sight!

“All right. I am sorry.”

“Have beer,” Juan said.

“Sí, sí.” Dex rubbed his forehead. “Cómo no?”

* * *

The three of them stood out on the sidewalk. Juan, Dexter Bower, and Preacher Visser — who had a plastic glass of wine in his mitt. Across the street, Pedro’s Velvet Dragon Chinese Restaurant seemed to be doing fair business. Better than Juan’s Italian.

Dexter looked down at Araceli’s Mom’s Cantina. He had scolded her—“cantina” was not American in any way, and didn’t go with “Mom’s” no matter what language you were speaking. Christ on a waffle — these people were like children.

Pinches gringos, Juan was thinking. Sangrones.

Dex had told Araceli to call it Mom’s Café, damn it! He had bellowed, “I am just trying to help!” and all the staff at Mom’s had hidden in the kitchen and wondered why gringos shouted their heads off all the time. They thought that if you had an accent, you were deaf. If they just screamed their idiotic announcements at you, real-slow-too-just-to-get-the-p-o-i-n-t-across, you’d somehow understand them better.

Just then, Arnie and Ina pulled up to the Velvet Dragon in their Buick Regal. Arnie waved across at Dexter and shouted, “Last month it was Mexican. Now it’s Chinese. Ain’t had Chinese in ages!”

Dexter nodded expansively, so it could be seen from across the street. He was acting mayor and president of the Chamber of Commerce for the moment.

“Ina,” he called.

Ina steadied herself with one hand on the hood and proclaimed “Spring rolls” before they vanished inside.

And now Dexter almost fell off the curb. He was looking down the block at Araceli’s joint. She had changed the sign, all right. It said MOM’S COFFEE.

“What the hell is that?” Dexter cried.

“A sign,” Juan explained mildly.

“That’s wrong.”

“No, Jefe. Is correct. A sign.”

“The wording, man. The wording. It’s wrong.”

“No. Is one hundred percent correct. We put in apostrophe and everything.”

Visser patter Juan on the shoulder.

Dexter shook his head.

Juan said, “You tell us to never write in Spanish. But you made the mistake, Jefe. You said put ‘café.’ Pues ya sabes—‘café’ es espanish.”

“No, no! ‘Café’ is not Spanish.”

“It is.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Is too,” said Visser. “Everybody knows that.”

“Oye, no mames,” Juan snapped, patience about evaporated. “Is coffee. ”

“No,” said Dexter. “Not in this context.”

“Con qué?” said Juan.

“Lookit—‘café’ means restaurant.”

“Guah? Are you joking me right now?”

Yoking.

“A café is a fancy li’l restaurant,” Dexter explained. He huffed. He spit. “It’s French or something.”

Juan cursed: “Cheezits krize! French is American now?”

“Wel-l-l,” sputtered Dexter, forging ahead in a manly fashion, “it’s more American than Mexican.”

Juan sighed.

“You people, Jefe. You no make sense.” He shrugged. “We must go tell Araceli,” he said.

They headed that way.

Juan noted, “You language is for locos.”

“You’re welcome to go back to Tollackee-packee and speak Mexican all damned day.”

“Now, boys,” said the rev, sipping his wine.

* * *

Araceli was unfazed by the whole crisis.

She had just heard that her sister, uncle, and nephew had made it safely to El Paso and were catching a Greyhound north. She was considering opening a liquor store. Maybe a bar, which is where her heart was. El Farolito, she was thinking. Or El Bar No Seas Burro. Araceli was always happy. But she was done with signs.

“I can sell coffee,” she said. “The sign? No big deal.”

“We need food. American food. Not coffee.” Dexter grabbed Visser’s glass and swallowed the dregs of the wine. “Grilled cheese. Chili dogs. What I wouldn’t give for a chili dog. Hell, there hasn’t been a decent hot dog in this town for months.”

Araceli turned her huge eyes upon him and stroked his arm.

“Pobrecito,” she cooed.

She had plans for the Bower spread. As soon as she landed Old Man Dex, El Jefe. She could just imagine her new American kitchen at his place with some molcajetes and jarritos and a nice bright red ceramic crowing rooster statue and a tortilla press.

“Pobre Deysterr. Estás tan cute!”

She pinched his cheek and cracked him a cold Corona. He blushed. This is how she knew she had him hooked. She would make him fat and happy and would rub his feet.

Dexter watched her bottom work the bright blue skirt like a couple of tractor motors under a tarp. Holy smokes, that was fine, right there. He drank.

They were seated at a table. Dexter was thinking of them as The Three Amigos now — he, Juan, and Visser. Getting into the swing of things. Trying to apply the therapeutic concepts of the rev, who had given him some good sessions of the talking cure after the funeral. Bend like a reed in the wind, Visser had advised. The rigid break in strong wind, Dexter. Bend like the reeds. Bend like the grasses. Weather every storm.