Seattle, Washington - where it’s cooler, with clouds, and shorter days . . .
Written September 16, 2009
THINGS ARE NEVER QUITE WHAT THEY SEEM,
BUT REALITY WORKS WELL ENOUGH SOMETIMES . . .
A true story.
Here’s the first frame of a short video:
There is a shiny black Mercedes sedan - with flashy chrome wheels - a car so new that the dealer’s paper license plate is still pasted on the inside of the back window. It’s parked a little far out from the curb - in the three-minute loading zone in front of a downtown office building.
Just ahead of the front fender of the Mercedes is a beat-up green Ford pickup truck. It’s piled full of used lumber. The truck has almost run a red light, stopped, and backed up to clear a pedestrian zone. The driver didn’t notice the Mercedes and hit the sedan’s wing mirror, mashing it back against the side of the car.
Roll the video . . .
As I walk out through the door of the office building, the sharply-dressed young Black man ahead of me screams: “OHMYGOD MY CAR, MY CAR!” and runs out onto the sidewalk toward the two young Hispanic men getting out of the pickup truck.
“YOU CRACKER-ASSED SONS OF BITCHES, YOU’VE RUINED MY CAR!” shouts the young Black man.
What the young Hispanics shout back I do not know. They shout back in Spanish - something about the young Black man’s mother and sister. Probably not complimentary.
Out of the knot of pedestrians who have stopped to watch the violence unfold, moves a matronly Latina lady. Recklessly she steps into the explosive space between the young men. “This could be ugly,” I think.The Latina lady smiles, takes the young Black man gently by the hand. He, too surprised to resist, follows her as she leads him over to his car’s mirror."Look," she says, “It’s not broken or even scratched, only folded.” And she snaps the mirror back in place. Folds it back again, snaps it back in place again. “They’re made to do that, you know. It’s alright now.”
“Well I . . . well I . . . well I . . .” stammers the owner of the car.
The matronly Latina lady takes his other hand, smiles, and says, “By the way, they’re not cracker-assed sons of bitches. They’re chili-eating wetbacks who don’t speak much English. But they didn’t run away and they’re scared and sorry.”
She turns and speaks gently in Spanish to the two men from the pickup truck. They hang their heads. She speaks again. They smile. “Si, si, senora.” They get back in their truck.
She turns and speaks just as gently to the Mercedes driver.
He hangs his head and gets in his car.
The light changes and both vehicles drive away.
The sidewalk crowd moves off, maybe a little disappointed. No fight.
The Latina lady starts off down the sidewalk, with me following along thinking she must have touched the driver’s hearts and minds with words of great wisdom and loving kindness.
“That was amazing,” I said to the lady. “What did you say to them?”
She smiled. Placed her hand on my arm.
“It wasn’t very polite, senor. I’ve been around, you know. Mostly I said if they didn’t put their cojones back in their pants I’d call the cops on my cell phone and all three of them really wouldn’t want that, would they? Those two Mexicans probably don’t have papers, and who knows where that young Black macho man got the money to buy a car like that. You understand?
You saw what they did - moved on down the road in a hurry.
Nobody needs trouble. Nobody. You understand?”
Si, si, Senora.
One more score for a Wise Latina.
Author : Robert Fulghum
