I don’t know how to do that
“So you wondering what I was doing hanging out in the alley alone that evening?” Salomón, and old childhood friend, asked Boy while standing by his table at the café at La Buena Bakery in the Southside.
The morning had started out more exciting than usual for Boy that day. He’d met up with Meche for coffee at her café after she’d finished baking the morning’s empanadas. Sunny spring morning. They knew what they were gonna talk about—had known it for days, and now was when it was gonna happen. They were gonna spend the weekend together in El Chucho to go to a dance where Liddy Joe was gonna perform, a voice from the past. It was gonna be their first date ever. This was something that should have happened in high school, almost a lifetime ago. That they were more than friends was something they should have declared in grade school. But life had taken them in different directions, and it was only now decades later that they were able to make the correction.
Yet just as the talk of their lives was about to begin, like if they were gonna get separate hotel rooms, an old childhood acquaintance appeared. And the conversation quickly and forcefully turned to ghosts.
“I was there looking for the devil,” said Salomón.
“Nambe?” said Boy, looking across the café table at Meche.
Meche leaned back in her chair, eyebrows raised.
“Siról, ese. When that marionette in the church twisted its face at me, it took my soul. So I had to get it back,” said Salomón.
“In the alley in the Southside, not in OJ where the marionette lives?” said Boy.
“Nel. Because I felt he ran off with my soul right away—right when the face went back to normal,” said Salomón.
“And you figured it had run into the ally in the Southside, half a day’s drive away?” said Boy.
“I had a feeling,” said Salomón.
Boy looked over again at Meche, who looked back at him with a look of incredulity.
“You find him?” asked Boy.
“Simón! And I told him he better ponerle o I was gonna put the quajidas to him,” said Salomón.
Boy didn’t say more. What could he say?
“I got better and been better since then,” said Salomón.
With that, Salomón stood up, grabbed the bag of freshly baked bread and walked out of the café with a far away look in his eyes.
“I don’t know how to carry on with conversations like that. I never know what to do,” said Meche, when the door closed behind Salomón.
“I’m ñango about things like that too,” said Boy.
“And he’s ñango about having normal conversation.”
Meche nodded.
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