After always washing my car myself, I got a little flush working part time at Ace Hardware and decided I would go the car wash and have it done. A dark-skinned woman with a clipboard approached my car. Her eyes were the color of obsidian and her smile was hesitant.
“What do you need for your car?” she asked in understandable English.
“Washed,” I said. I smiled. I like to play with people’s minds. My wife says I’m weird.
“How do you want it done?” she said.
“Shiny,” I said, still experimenting with my concept of levity.
She gave me the price. Of course, I always ask for a senior citizen’s discount. If that doesn’t work I plead for a wounded veteran of World War II discount even though I wasn’t wounded. I did break my ankle stepping onto a pier in Marseilles. I was told that was not war related and wouldn’t qualify for a Purple Heart.
I asked where she was born. I do that when trying to learn to say thank you in several more languages. She hesitated. “I am from Mexico. Your people do not like us,” she said. I thought she might begin crying.
I remember being in a number of countries in WWII where I could sense that those people did not like me. That awareness then was uncomfortable,
“I like you,” I said.
Her smile brightened up. I said, “I like Mexicans except for thugs, drug pushers, killers, rapists, voyeurs, vandals and the Los Zetas drug cartel. As a matter of fact, I don’t like several whites, blacks or any other colors. I don’t like Charlie Manson or Bernie Madoff. I didn’t like Jeffrey Dahmer. I like some Muslims but I don’t want to live next door to Muslim crazies.”
She agreed, and began to smile a little more.
“I like the Japanese but I don’t have good memories of the Bataan Death March and their attack on Pearl Harbor or their Rape of Nanking in China. I like Germans but Hitler wasn’t a favorite.”
She perked up a little and we talked about other stuff. She said, “I worked hard to learn to speak your language.”
She opined that Gov. Nathan Deal is anti-Latino. I explained that Gov. Deal is anti-sponging-Latinos, those illegally here that we can’t afford to support. I explained that there is a process by which millions of foreigners come to the United States fitting right in the system the same as my ancestors did a couple hundred years ago.
She said there were too few jobs in Mexico. I said there are too few jobs here and that most of the hostility is caused by too few jobs for too many people. That it makes no difference as to nationality when you are hungry and losing your home; people can’t be cordial to anyone when a financial bombshell is mangling their lives.
I watched my car being detailed by two other Latinos, another young woman and an older man. The car was spotless.
The first young lady came to the front and asked if the car looked OK.
I smiled. “It sure does.” I said, “Gracias, señorita; gracias, señorita; and gracias, señor,” as I handed them a tip.
They smiled and the first woman said, “Gracias, señor.”
We meshed. “Bienvenido a nuestro pais, mis amigos,” I said. She smiled broadly.
Bill York lives in Stone Mountain. Reach him at sioux2222@gmail.com
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