Late one afternoon I stood in the middle of an aisle talking to a customer,
when
suddenly, a Latino whose hair was ruffled, whose clothes looked unkept,
came running
into the store, breathing, harsh, hard breaths as if a pervading violent
terror had opened
a hidden, unused cavity of his lungs. I could have been witnessing
an unhappy man
having a heart attack. But no heart attack, there were scratches, cuts
and bruises,
perspiration and dirt, strong retrograde body odor, and I knew what
it looked like - he
had been in a fight and had been mugged, he was a victim. He could
have just escaped
from being killed.
I went to him, asked if he was all right.
His mouth, his nose, his lungs opened wider. He drove deeper for breath.
His chest
heaved. His lungs blew bursts of air, faster and faster. I felt the
alarm in him, the fear
on the sweat that flowed from his forehead to his nose and to his mouth.
He made loud
grunts.
My own anxiety rose.
The front wall of the store was completely glass, glass window and door,
and that was
where he stood, near the glass door. His eyes searched through the
window, out at the
sidewalk and towards the parking lot like his eyes belonged to some
overly keen small
animal, a hunted fox, that was doped on the scent of a pack of hunting
hounds. As he
peered through a whole lot of glass, he looked like a pursued prey
holed up in a hole
clearly visible in a field of very little grass. As I watched him watching
out of the window
for whatever he feared, I could tell that his feet were set, and were
ready to break and
to run to the back of the store like a beaten fox run a-ground. His
eyes never dropped
from the window. My own feet took me closer to him. My eyes joined
his at the window.
I searched, felt my thoughts reach to try to touch his, but what was
I looking for? I
wasn't sure: Muggers or friends of his with whom he might have been
fighting?
He was in his early twenties, lean and wiry, his shoulders looked strong
like a laborer.
He was sweaty and dirty like he'd been working construction or tussling
in the gutter,
wrestling, pinned under the weight of a pile of land fill. His grunts
became no less
quieter or quicker. His chest continued to go like a pump.
I asked him, what was wrong.
He answered loudly, hurriedly. The replies were all in Spanish and they
tumbled out,
rumbling like a thousand words, like ten thousand words, words coming
fierce like
they were being forced out through a tunnel with his spit, like the
rain that comes on
a big blowing, frightful wind. He waved his arms, wildly, still trying
to explain in
Spanish.
I knew no real Spanish. I could understand his body language and gestures,
but not
his words. I made signs with my hands and repeated the few Spanish
phrases
I knew. My tongue twisted, tied and tangled, shredded mispronunciations,
spewed
unlanguage from my throat. My mouth juiced with spit as I stumbled
over misspoken
stuff that sounded somewhat, kind of, like Spanish to me. It wasn't
Spanish, just gasps,
and exaggerations of the Spanish-English I've heard in movies and on
TV.
He wanted so much to tell of what had happened to him that he explained
again in
Spanish. His mouth worked hard, furiously too, trying to bridge the
language barrier.
He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, opened the collar wide
and pulled to the
outside of his shirt a golden necklace. As he spoke he gestured to
the necklace. I could
see that the necklace was a fine piece of jewelry, like something a
successful hustler
would covet. He showed me bruises and abrasions on his neck which were
fresh and
which he got while he struggled to protect the necklace from a thief
or more. As he
pointed out the abrasions over and over again he spoke rapidly, his
lips did not pause.
He pointed at his head. Maybe he had been struck there. There were
cuts and bruises.
Some of the bruises did not look fresh. Some of the cuts had scarred.
He pointed to
his forehead. His finger stayed at his head as he drew my attention
to a peculiarly
wicked looking raised bruise. I couldn't tell if this bruise was new
or old.
In between him telling me in Spanish what ever he was trying to tell
me, I told him
in English that he shouldn't have been wearing the necklace for it
was a temptation
for thieves. As I told him that he should remove the necklace and put
it safely into
his pocket, I took an imaginary chain from my neck and tucked it into
my pocket.
He did not understand. He lifted his shirt, showed me bruises on his abdomen.
I repeated my advice on putting away the necklace.
He showed me the trickle of blood that flowed from a scape at the nip
on his elbow,
and he went into a pantomime, dramatizing how he was attacked. Narrating
in
Spanish spoken in hard fast tones, he put on a show, graphically gestured,
demonstrated being slammed into the dirt, having his head slapped and
smacked,
yelling and fighting. Finishing the showing, the re-telling, of what
had happened, his
arms and feet stood still, but his chest kept lifting and falling like
he'd just come in
from a long run, his eyes asked mine, "Now, do you understand?"
I asked, "Shall I call the polica?"
He looked dumb sense.
I pantomimed, pointed to the phone. I repeated, "Polica!" I lifted the
phone, pretended
to dial and to call. I spoke into the phone: "Police, polica!"
His body seemed to tighten. He didn't want the police. His eyes asked
me to
understand. Again, he showed his arms and elbows, where he was bruised.
His
Spanish tongue did not rest, and hearing the word "Polica," repeated,
he gripped the
necklace, and the looks that told of him barely escaping a terrible
attack took hold on
his face again. His windpipe was a shaft with no bottom, noisey grunts
and Spanish
words rung out and hung in the room like a fog.
He looked at me, and both of us stretched our brains and tried to find
a word around
his alien tongue. Then suddenly, while I was groping patiently with
both hands,
pantomiming, etc., to find a word, he grabbed a seat. He sat in a chair
meant for
customers trying on shoes. This chair was in the farthest part of the
store away from
the window and the door. Maybe he thought this was a safe place to
rest because he
stopped the almost constant talking and he rested.
A few customers came into the store, and my assistant handled them.
But the mugged man had an odor. He smelled of perspiration, dirt and
anxiety, and
customers began to complain.
One customer came in, said, "Somebody's got an underarm problem," and
the customer
turned around and walked out.
I turned on the air conditioner to clear the smell from the store. I
went to the mugged
man to shoo him out before he got too comfortable in the seat.
I asked in English, "Who attacked you? Do you see them outside?"
Before I could finish the question he opened up again with pantomime
and Spanish,
retelling again of the attack on him.
I asked, "What would you have me do? Call the police?"
I received a response: more long winded Spanish and more pantomime.
I said, "If you won't accept me calling the police, you can't stay inside
the store. I
have customers. You will; have to go outside." I repeated the word,
'outside,' and
pantomimed me getting up and walking outside the door.
Outside was the place where he obviously did not want to go. I saw a
wild look in
his eyes. He rested back into the seat, hard, weighted by dread.
My assistant insisted that I must call the police.
"You don't know what this guy's into," my assistant said. "The police will know."
I told the mugged man once more, "I shall have to call the police."
The man did not respond with words or pantomime. I sought his eye contact
and he
withdrew, so I sent my eyes to the phone and said the word "Polica."
He said nothing.
I went to the phone and dialed. I told the police dispatcher what I
surmised had
happened to the man, and I told him that the police should send a Spanish-speaking
officer.
Three minutes later a policeman arrived. I explained the problem to
him. The mugged
man watched as I did. His eyes got big, long, and had thick stares,
and his eyes kept
sliding towards the door, the way to the door. The policeman went to
the mugged man
and asked in English, "What happened? Can you give me a description?
Where did it
happen?" The mugged man looked passed the policeman to me. I said to
the policeman,
"The man doesn't speak English only Spanish." The policeman asked the
man. "Do you
understand any words of English? Understand some English?" The man
spoke back in
a slug smog of Spanish and resorted back to pantomime, and he encountered
the
officer's blank stare.
The policeman turned to me, "Do you speak Spanish?"
I answered, "No."
The policeman's eyes locked on to the man, "No problem."
Bang!
The policeman shot the man dead and dragged the body out the back door.
[END] (c) Copyright Franchot Lewis, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
