The boy at the end of the bar tears into his hamburger with the kind of savagery generally attributed to hyenas on the Discovery Channel, desperate, desesperado, tomato juice dripping down his chin, pooling dejectedly in the waxed-paper lining of the french fry basket as he thanks God for American water and bathrooms with toilet paper. Tries to catch his train of thought only to find it’s left for a more hospitable station, over tracks parched with margaritas and saltwater.
The television blares, promising wars on terror and low, low prices with no money down. It is a language he knows and one to which he can no longer relate.
He remembers. The smell of salt, the beach-sand velvet beneath his feet, the sweep of stars and moon like a goddess’s fingernail. Meaningless whispers, a compromise he thought too precious to be spoken. A crumpled paper napkin and ballpoint pen, Porque te quiero, curvy like her body, strangely apropos considering he hardly speaks a word of Spanish.