The Drive in Dairy

[Sam de Mattos]

Hoje não quero brigar por nada. É Sábado, é Shabat é descanso.  E descanso para mim, porque assim o decretei. Quero dividir com voces um conto premiado em Los Angeles, em 1976. É sobre o dilema de um homem simples das Astúrias, Espanha, que imigrou para os EUA. E no final da vida, ele viu que tinha feito bastante dinheiro, mas se empobreceu - e ratificou o erro. Abraço a todos voces. Sam.

 

 

The Drive-In Dairy

 

 

            Looking out from his drive-in dairy, through the blue tentacles of cigarette smoke, Pepe watched the heavy Saturday night flow of cars streaming over California Boulevard:  an inbound wave of white headlights and an outbound flux of red lanterns.  But his mind was in a little village in the north of Spain.  In Figueras de Castropol, on the Bay of Biscay, the slim Pepito had spend his green days toiling with his father in the Vineyards, eating cheese and home baked bread, drinking home-made wine.  Figueras de Castropol… Every Saturday, after kissing his father's hand to receive his blessing, Pepe and his friends Manolo and Raphael would rent a boat and cross the River Eo separating the states of Asturias and Galicia, to go dancing in the small village of Ribadeo, on the Galician side.  There he would drink wine, eat baked fish, and dance till dawn to folk music.  Later, back in Figueras, still half drunk, he would find strength to go to the Sunday morning mass and confess his petty sins, to obtain the Great Forgiveness through the good-natured Padre Jose….

            Mrs. Daniel's fat Cadillac pulled in off the boulevard.  Before Pepe could even nod at her, his son Benito, who had been sitting on the other side of the counter studying his comic book, was at her window.  Benito carried the half-gallon of Chablis which she bought each evening to the car.  Ilegal, taking wine to the car; but the young man would get to keep the change from her $5.00 bill.

            However, Pepe didn't want to wake up to his drive-in-dairy reality.  He refused to be bothered by Mrs. Daniels or the restrictive rules of the Alcohol Beverage Board; he dismissed the thought of Sergeant Bell, always ready to enforce these rules.  Pepe reached for the paper and tobacco inside his padded nylon jacket and carefully rolled a cigarette.  Half closing his big, black Moorish eyes, he lit up.

            Pepe visualized himself dressed in an awkward cassock at the Catholic Seminary in Bilbao.  In reality he had never wanted to become a priest, but, at the time, that was the only way for him to acquire culture.  After a couple of years in the Seminary, Pepe had been on the verge of becoming a true believer -- until he fell in love with Magdalena.  This woman had been the great passion of his life.  She had taken him out of a dull world of strict spiritual rules to a helpless life of secular values, and their lives had been interwoven in tides of billowing emotions.  Then came the Spanish Civil War, and Pepe had joined the Falange.  He had fought bravely against the troops of Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria.  Had been wounded three times, and had smelled death in Guernica, where the Falange won.  But victory for Pepe tasted of defeat, for he had lost Magdalene, and his faith.

            Pepe's dreaming came to an end.  His Moorish black eyes checked the dairy.  Everything was in its place -- plenty of milk, beer, wine, and ice; shelves well stocked with butter, cream, eggs and God knows what….

            The bell announced another customer.  Pepe didn't move.  Benito rested his comic book on a pile of beer boxes and went to wait on a beautiful young lady inside a shiny car.  Benito tossed her a charming smile, displaying a row of ivory white teeth and a "nice" face.  He came back to the refrigerator, took one gallon of milk, gracefully opened the freezer, and grabbed one quart of vanilla ice dream; then he reached for two loaves of bread from the shelves.  He put all this in a double paper sack and came over to Pepe:

"Dad, you're out of Marlboros."

"Did you check in the boxes in the back?"

"Yeah, I did…."

"Well, so we are out of them tonight."

            Benito returned to the young lady, squatted close to her window, looked straight into her eyes and made an unheard comment.  She stared at him for a full second and they both cracked up laughing.  Still smiling, Benito came inside the dairy and got a pack of Winstons; sarcastically servile, he bent his back in a theatrical gesture and delivered the cigarettes to the car.  She paid the bill and drove away, still laughing.  Benito turned off his smile and returned to his comic book.  The dairy was quiet except for the long and sad humming of the big freezer.

            Shelley drifted up from the neon boulevard and sat on an empty plastic crate.  She looked far too old for a high school dropout.  She sensed Pepe studying her and timidly she lowered her head; her long, reddish hair was partially covering her pale face.  Pepe inspected her blue, worn-our pair of tennis shoes, her faded Levi's, her old, high school T-shirt, covering a couple of stretched breasts above a sunken stomach.  Pepe wondered why such a young woman had such decrepit breasts, and he guessed it might be caused by the neon lights.  Through her cascading hair Pepe observed a rapidly wilting face retaining some young, fresh beauty.  She didn't remind him of the Virgin.  Hell no!  But she reminded him of Picasso's Guernica.  Exactly.  The woman with a stillborn cry.  That she was:  not the Virgin but a strayed madonita, without ground to grow roots, hanging around for countless hours in his drive-in-dairy, waiting patiently.  But, for what?

            The old man smashed his cigarette in the ashtray, grabbed the broom and started to sweep the front of his dairy.  He swept towards the darkness, avoiding the neon lights.

            Capitalizing on her private moment with Benito, Shelley with a heavy American accent spoke her long-rehearsed sentence:

"Como esta usted, Benito?"

"Fine thanks," he snapped in fluent Californian.

"Why don't you answer in Spanish?"

"'cause I ain't Spanish."

"I've heard you speaking Spanish with Mr. Pepe."

"Listen:  Mr. Pepe is Spanish, follow?  I'm, and you're American," he overstressed the "r" in the word "American."

"Benito…."

"By the way, you can call me Ben, would you?"

"Don't you like your name?"

            Shelley was hurt and trying to create an issue.  "Your father calls you BENITO!" she challenged.

"Look, woman:  he also calls a bar, cantina."  Benito's voice was politely low and extremely acidic.

"Yeah…And he's also putting you through college," she said.

            They didn't realize that Pepe was back in his old place.  Behind the smoke, one could hardly notice any change in the old man's enigmatic expression -- except for his eyebrows slightly drawn together.  "Anyway," continued Benito, "you know girl, you're too junky, hanging around here ain't no good for the business!"

"You didn't tell me that week…"

"Shit…I was too horny -- and besides I was half-drunk."

            There was a faint smile upon Benito's face.  Shelley lowered her eyes, clasped her hands together and remained motionless.

            Pepe saw Benito as a dim silhouette, an apparition "nice" and empty.

            A police car swam up from the stream of neon lights and stop0ped.  The driver's door opened and a policeman wearing a navy blue uniform walked to the counter.  The badge on his chest named him Bell; but Bell named himself the "D.A.'s cousin."  His face bathed in the dairy's lights, was blue.

"Hello Big Ben!" called the officer.

"Hi Captain!  What's cooking," said Benito, promoting Bell two ranks.

"Shit…My brains, I guess."

"D'ya wanna see dad?"

"Yea."

"He's sweeping the front driveway.  I'll call him."

"I'm here," said Pepe from behind the counter.  The apparition of the old man scared Benito and made Shelley uneasy.  Pepe had a tired expression and greeted Bell with no emotion:

"Hello Bellini."  Pepe stressed the name.

"Hi, Pepe."

"Hungry or thirsty?"

"Thirsty, as usual." Sergeant Bell smiled.

"Coors?"

"Yeah."

            Benito was attending a customer and Pepe went to the front refrigerator to get a six-pack.  Officer Bell turned to Shelley and whispered, "Hey kid, you'd better stop popping this shit."

"Officer…."

"Stop that officer crap; you know me very well."  Shelley remained quiet and officer Bell went ahead:

"I'll be off duty in less than two hours; I'll see you around eleven in Sue-Ann's Coffee Shop."  Officer Bell winked at Shelley and, still chewing his gum, said:  "See, I can bust you anytime…"

"You fucker!"

            Pepe was coming back bringing a brown paper bag.  Officer Bell, now using his normal tone of voice, told Shelley, almost casually:  "You're dog-gone right, miss!  I sure am…"  Somehow his name didn't fit with his Southern drawl.  Pepe passed the bag to the officer.  Bell inspected the bag and said"  "H'mm…I sure like this iced Coors."  At the last moment Officer Bell decided he was also hungry and grabbed a pack of potato chips and tossed them into the bag with the beer.  Leaving, he just said, "See you later!"  As usual he didn't pay, nor did Pepe charge him.

            A blue pick-up truck missed the fast yellow light at the street intersection.  Bell aw it.  He started his patrol car with a roar, and slid it into the nocturnal neon river of California Boulevard, with a screech of skidding tires and blasts of his siren, leaving a polluted stench of burnt rubber.  Again, Officer Bell was back on duty, crushing crime…

            It was time to close.  Benito put the money in the safe and started to roll the shelves into the dairy.  Pepe put in a bag two loaves of brad, one gallon of milk and a big can of corned beef.  He called Shelley over and said, "This is for you."  She took the bag and was about to thank the old man, when she noticed Benito's scornful eyes watching.  Immediately she returned the bag to Pepe.  The old main understood that she would never take that bag in Benito's presence.  "Are you going home now?" asked Pepe.

"No Sir…I'd better wait 'till Mom's boyfriend gets drunk…"  The old man grew older.  Shelley kissed his cheek, floated toward Sue-Ann's place, and sank in the neon lights.

"Whatta bitch!"  Benito broke the tension.  Pepe didn't speak.  The big freezer in the back hummed a monotonous requiem.  Then, came Pepe's reply:  The old man's steady fist swung, landing on his son's pretty mouth.  Benito tripped over an empty box, losing his balance, and crashed over a pile of cans of chicken soup.  He didn't dare stand up.  He wiped his mouth, and panicked at the sight of blood on the back of his hand.  Pepe's Moorish eyes were flamed with the old Guernica expression.  Benito cried:  "What's happening, Dad?"  Pepe laughed.  It was a pitiful, sad laugh.  "Nada.  Nada hombre."  He threw the dairy's key on Benito's chest, and waved:  Mr. BEN, you can close this bodega, drive home, drive to hell and drive a la mierda."

Pepe walked away from the stagnant neon river.  But he didn't walk toward home.  Instead he walked east toward the Atlantic, toward Spain, toward his beloved River Eo, which flows to the sea.  He craved Figueras de Castropol.  There, he would sit at an outdoor table, among old amigos under the shadows of a well-rooted oak tree, sipping glasses of vino tinto and smoking rolled cigarettes in the warm sunlight.  Breezes off the Bay of Biscay would caress his face, blowing away the clouds of bluish smoke.

 

 

The End