Yesterday I rode the bus with Sammy to meet Boyce and Charlotte for lunch at Charlotte’s new favorite Mexican restaurant. Charlotte doesn’t talk very much, but when she’s eating chips and salsa you might as well move to another booth. I’m pretty sure the only reason she wanted Boyce to invite us is so the waiter wouldn’t hesitate in bringing a sixth or seventh basket of chips. One of the saddest I’ve ever seen Charlotte is when we drove past her former favorite restaurant, Senor Frog Wearing A Sombrero and a Bandolier, or something like that. The restaurant had instituted a two-basket limit on chips and salsa, and as we drove by it Boyce forgot, and said, “You want some chips, babe?” She dropped her head; didn’t even bother sobbing. When we stopped at a red light Boyce told us about the restaurant’s new policy, and Sammy demanded we turn around and drive by it again. As we did, Sammy grabbed an old, lukewarm Arby’s coke from the cup holder and heaved it at the restaurant. Thing was, we were in the outside lane, and all he did was heave that paper cup against the driver’s window of the car approaching in the right lane. Needless to say, those two men inside the car were both confused and angry. Boyce is a big man, and Sammy looks like he could get one good shot in, but we were all terrified. Charlotte was in the back seat with me and didn’t even react because she was still thinking about the chips policy. Before we got to the next red light we were frantically trying to figure out what to do. I think out of fear, I shouted, “Ram them! Ram them!” until Boyce told me to shut up. He tried to do a U-turn but traffic just wouldn’t let him. And those men in the car next to us just kept right by our side. When we were forced to stop at a red light, Sammy told us he’ll take care of it. He rolled down the window, leaned out, and shrugged his shoulders as he said, “It happens.” I don’t know what was going on in the lives of those men next to us, but when they saw Sammy do that they burst into laughter. The guy in the passenger seat started trying to rock their car side to side. The driver held down the horn. When the light turned green, Sammy even leaned out to hi-five the driver. When he got back in he said, “Angels among us,” and Boyce explained how awesome they were through a dizzying string of obscene modifiers. I leaned over to Charlotte to say that clearly the chips policy wouldn’t last.
So yesterday we met at a different Mexican restaurant, one much more authentic based on the Western Union signs in the window. As Sammy and I went inside, a Mexican woman in the parking lot began talking to me in Spanish. She tried to communicate with me, but I didn’t understand. She got really excited, and then she walked away.
When we sat down with Boyce and Charlotte Sammy told me that my behavior with that woman was one of the more incredible things he’d ever seen, including those lovely reefer addicts from the coke-throwing incident. According to Sammy, I didn’t even nod my head or squint when she spoke to me in Spanish. I did nothing but stare right at her with a completely blank expression, and this expression did not change no matter how many times she got excited or pointed at different things in the parking lot.
I asked Sammy what he expected, but he ignored me, saying, “That was spectacular. She was trying to bring a street sign to life.” I asked him why he didn’t help her out, and he claimed he was too impressed with “the most brilliant impersonation of death by something that breathes.” I told him that the woman was probably crazy, since I was the last person at the restaurant she should speak to in Spanish. Surely, if she was in danger she would have just walked inside and asked one of the workers. We spent a lot of the lunch talking about different situations that made her speak to me instead of anyone else. We came up with several scenarios that involves car bombs, kidnapping, arson, and prostitution. I was going to say maybe she thought I was good looking, but didn’t because then Charlotte joined in, saying the woman had just lost her son’s dog, so why ask people in the restaurant who had been inside all day. So we raised our glasses to finding the dog. It was a few seconds later when Boyce said, “I bet it was a Chihuahua.”
When we left Sammy said my complete lack of sympathy through body language was inspiring, and he was going to try to make it a week without giving a single courtesy laugh to anyone. Boyce said that was impossible, that especially in his line of duty he wouldn’t make it a day. They wanted to bet, so I placed the odds at 10:1 Sammy fails.
Tomorrow I go to Boyce Jr.’s classroom! Turns out Boyce caved and is going to go in with me to talk about his record collection. He told Boyce Jr. not to tell his teacher that though, so I’m not sure what she’s expecting.
