I don’t know why they’re laughing, but I’m gonna do it too
Boy was on his own for the rest of the day. He’d just finished having coffee with Meche, his early childhood sweetheart. They were supposed to talk about their upcoming trip to a dance in El Chuco that morning, but the café got so busy with old friends coming in and wanting to chat that it kept him and Meche from talking to each other.
“Pos we heard you’d moved back into the Southside and were hanging out here …,” several people he and Meche knew in elementary school came by their table and said.
“Been a long time, ese. Meche, the stories I could tell about this vato,” more than one person said that morning.
“I’m sure, it’s mostly true,” said Meche.
“He would hang out with raza several grades ahead of him in school. He started out as a chapete tirilongo with no rights to say anything, but then he quickly became the main raquetero,” a man who stopped by their table said.
“Soon we were asking him what to do next.”
One woman stopped by to tell a story about a memorable date she had with Boy in high school.
“Boy and I went to the prom together with my brother and his chapete girlfriend. Boy the started talking about the news of the day, like how the weather was changing so much that it might bring the world to an end. We were all happy to be at the prom, but when he started talking that way, we all felt sad. Then my brother’s chapete says, ‘then I’m going back to OJ so it doesn’t get me.’ We all stared at her to see if she was joking o qué. But when she didn’t pick up on anything, we busted out laughing de amadres. I don’t really know why, but everybody around us started laughing with us. And when we looked at the chapete, she was laughing too, which made us laugh even more. We couldn’t stop laughing all night,” the woman said.
With that, Boy and Meche and a ruquillo who came in with the woman telling the story started laughing.
The commotion attracted a small crowd.
“What are they laughing about?” a tall man asked.
“Something about a chapete,” somebody said, and everybody started laughing.
The tall man didn’t seem to get the joke, and everybody could tell, which brought on another round of laughter. With that, the clueless tall man looked around bewildered then started to laugh to fit in. Everybody noticed that, and the laughter got louder.
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