Periodicos

 

 

Periódicos 

Eileen Burnett

 

He sat there, cigarette in his mouth 

half-cocked, as if ready for a smile. 

He had mastered the art of holding his ash—

 that long testament to his paciencia, 

both with us and with the life that burned bright 

behind his glasses smudged deep with oil. 

Hands, deeply creased and weathered yet smooth, 

strong for his eighty-five years.

A lifetime spent in introspective meditation 

thinking about 

        what was 

            what could be 

                what never would be 

all because of what he knew to be 

        TRUE 

in those carefully folded periódicos of his, 

those barometers of a society that 

was really only meant to be

        a bookmark 

But here he was, forty years later 

Not much has changed.

“Me han robado todo” they say. . . . 

But have they?

Carlos set down his tools, tools he used to repair and restore furniture for the rich white people in Crescent City. The furniture was from the old colonial homes that were originals from the times of the slaves, slaves that may have come from the same land of Senegal as his ancestors, and the irony was not lost on him. That he would use his craft, a talent that had earned him a fine reputation as one of the finest bodegas in Matanzas, preserving a culture that had bastardized people, undermining an entire culture. They had raped and pillaged and now left their eternal monuments to stand as constant reminders to that insult, to that betrayal. . . . 

He shook his head to clear it. 

No, he told himself. He must not think in this way. 

He lit a cigarette, took a long, deep draw, and held it for a moment, feeling the smoke swirl into his lungs. The nicotine finding every avenue to make its way into his system, filling his head with a soft buzz of contentment. The ice in the glass of water at his side table had long since melted, and a ring of sweat was on the side of it, bleeding out onto the table. He reached over and took a drink, letting the cool water pass down his throat and clear what was left of that thought. He imagined it to be una cascada, like the ones back home: soft-flowing and cool. The kind that washed away all bad feelings and left a man feeling centered and refreshed and happy to be alive. 

Those people, the ones that did those things, they were dead now. And this? This mueble was a simple piece of wood and two-hundred-year-old horsehair all wrapped in a cloak of deteriorating cotton fibers. It was held together by nails that were hand forged, each one, by a craftsman, like he himself had once been. 

A craftsman who was now dead. 

He looked at the wood, the rich colors brilliant with hundreds of years of use. It was nothing. The wood could not speak for an era that had long since passed. It could not whip, or rape, or take away his dignity; it was only a chair, and he, only a man. 

This chair . . . it did not care about the size of his nose, the color of his skin, or the way his hair curled. It did not care if his grandchildren looked negros o blancos, what kind of house they lived in, or if they observed the right religion. 

The wood did not care if or how or why he had lost everything to come here, only to find that he received a fool’s welcome when he did. Whether he was spat on, laughed at, or condescended—that wood, that piece of furniture and all it signified, could not care because it was wood, and wood did not care. Lifeless and still, it sat in his shop, asking nothing of him except what its owners had asked of him. 

And if he were to truly see, he would realize that these clients had asked him to restore this eighteenth-century chair from a plantation that had once been a hub of slavery and misery in this area. They had just recently bought the place. They were investors from El Norte, and they had about as much to do with its history as Carlos did. Nothing. 

He looked again at the chair. There were no echoes inside of it to tell it of its hate for him and his kind, no laughter at the choices of his music or his drink, and certainly no reverberations of shouting for those whose lights could no longer be shared, whose inglorious industry called for something this world was just not ready for. No, the wood could not care, for it was only an old, weathered, inanimate thing that carried no resolve within itself. And for that matter neither can the horsehair, except that it stunk of two hundred years of rich white ass and needed to be washed. 

He brought the cigarette again to his lips, drawing in the smoke that reminded him of his homeland, trying to make it a part of him: the sights, the sounds, the feelings of a memory that seemed to grow dimmer by the day. He closed his eyes and listened to the cicadas in the trees, felt the trickle of a breeze that made its way into the garage, and heard the birds flying overhead. He caught the smell of frijoles negros from the kitchen where his daughter was cooking for her three young children. The rich and flavorful scent of onions and garlic simmering in olive oil made his mouth water, and he nearly dropped his cigarette. He sighed, sat down, and let the smell of bubbling beans well-seasoned with pickled-pork, cumin, and oregano wash over him. He could also detect the aromas of starchy and sweet yucca boiling and the garlic-lemon mojo that had been staples for him as he was growing up. 

He lit another cigarette and closed his eyes, thoughts drifting to the days of his youth as he rested: fiestas with the roasting pigs, pigs that seemed to be as plentiful as they were fat; the serendipity that one always just happened to be ready for a party or gathering at a moment’s notice; the dancing and singing that kept time with their lives, especially the singing. He and his brothers could sing all day and all night together, baladas that would make all hearts swell with a love for life, liberty, and country, or Punto Guajiro that made all the ladies get up and dance with a beauty unmatched by any in the world. They sang and danced for no other reason than for pura vida—expressing life in rhythm and song. 

Carlos thought on this for a while as he smoked his cigarette. Then another. He thought of the bourbon that flowed like water all through the night; the gasolina that kept his friends and family laughing and clapping barefoot in front of the fire. It was a portrait of life beneath the stars brighter than a man could dream of; it was more marvelous than the richest of paintings. 

Carlos opened his eyes and looked around his shop, glad for the good things in his mind that no one could take away. 

He looked over to the piece of furniture still awaiting his hand to make it beautiful once again and then to his periódico on the table. He thought of the article he had read earlier that day. This newspaper was his daily link to the outside world. Good or bad, he weighed its worth by its contents. He smiled and shook his head as he stood, satisfied that his question earlier had just definitively been answered. 

No me han robado todo, no, he thought to himself. 

He could still remember. He could still think. He could still dream. And that was enough for him.

Originally published in the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Volume 98. 2023  here