Welcome to America, Sal thought as he angrily threw the sauerkraut down on the hot-dog, now learn to speak our fucking language.
“And hows much ‘vor… Coke?” the man asked as he took the dog.
“Two fifty.” Sal replied, not because it was, but because that’s how much this tourist had left in his hand. The foreigner thought nothing of it and handed over the cash for the drink and left, another reminder of what an expensive city he had visited.
Sal then watched as the lost man walked down the street, passing Ahmad. Of all the towel-headed street vendors Sal had to compete with, it was the Arab man he had named Ahmad that he hated the most. They had never had any encounters (or conversations) and he had no real reason to dislike him, but the camel-jockey had opened up shop, day after day, on the same street as, excuse me, on Sal’s street. “Ahmad” had come here from god-knows what country and opened his own hot-dog stand right next to a actual American. They wanted to bomb this place, Sal thought, fly planes into it’s buildings, but had no problem coming here and taking it’s money.
The Arabs
had
tried to
destroy this city,
but the
Mexicans were rebuilding it.The Arabs had tried to destroy this city, but the Mexicans were rebuilding it. Piece by piece. Early morning by early morning. It was 2pm when that rebuilding temporarily halted for lunch. And three Mexicans walked down the street, their overalls tattered and dirty, their shoes worn out, their hands covered in grime and an unnamed white-substance. They were laughing their asses off, as usual; whispering to each other in what was probably the only language they knew. Sal already began to tense up, pre-angered at all the difficulty that would be involved in getting an order out of them. Wondering if today would be the day he would finally “snap”.
Thankfully, they passed right by him, as many had been doing lately.
“Ahmad” greeted the three workers with a smile and joined for a second in their laughter, knowing full well himself the exhilaration felt when those who rarely stop working get a minute to breath. The Mexicans (actually they were Guatemalans) gave their food orders to their fellow inhabitant of god-knows-where by simply pointing to the items.
“¿Cómo está”, Ahamd said slowly as he removed their hot-dogs from the warm water, speaking their language with his accent, then laughing with them again, this time at his bad pronunciation. He tallied up their total, adding–with a backup display of fingers, “cuatro….dolar”, laughing once more while shaking his head. They paid him with crumpled dollar bills from their worn-out pockets.
“si….si….gracias” Ahmad said, these words he could pronounce rather well.
The workers didn’t answer him, but shook their heads profusely to thank him and made off, almost sadly, back to lifting and digging and sweating. But they would be back tomorrow, as they had come back today.
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