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| Hortensia's Routine | |
| By bwoz | ||||||||||
| 08 March 2007 | ||||||||||
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A follow on to "Last Chance Cafe". It takes place in the same cafe, Sarah being a repeat character. I tried to write as if with an accent -- pardon the goat. BW At 5:30 every morning Hortensia Pisconsit drove her beat up old Dodge pickup two miles to the Doby Mercantile and Exchange to throw out the daily stack of newspapers the drug store would sell. And every morning, as soon as she threw the stack of papers off at the doorway, she parked across the street and walked half a block to the Last Chance Café, where she would sit at the counter next to the donut case and order coffee and toast. After two cups of coffee, two pieces of toast, and two cigarettes, Hortensia would walk half a block back to the drug store, now open at 6:00 a.m., cut the paper bundle open and set the newspapers in two racks, one next to the cash register and the other at the end of the breakfast counter. Two weeks before Halloween, after following the same routine, Hortensia sat at the Last Chance sipping her coffee and smoking a Pall Mall Gold. Sarah asked her how her husband, Vernon, was doing – knowing dat he had just recovered from a broken foot. “Oh, hell kiddo,” Hortensia exhaled, “he jess don’t really ever complain, dat man I got”. Her broken Slavik/English accent reminded Sarah of a jack-in-the-box, never quite knowing what would pop out. “He been jess wurkin’ as hart as if he never boke his foot. I gotta handle it to him, dat man I got.” She smiled through a cloud of cigarette smoke. Sarah topped off both coffees and asked, “How did he hurt his foot, anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” “Oh no,” Hortensia laughed, “I luf to tell it, dis story. He makes me so mat all de times, I can tell you dis think, and we can laugh right back on him, dat’ll show dat man. Anyway, he got me real mat one morning, because he tells me I’m late for my papers, and he yells at me to ‘Quit yer lolly gagging and git dem papers in de truck’. And it makes me mat as hell, kiddo, ‘cause I don’t know this Lolly, whoever she is. And I yell at him, ‘Who the hell is Lolly, she got a truck too?’ And dat stupit man I got laughs right at me, and laughs ‘til he gets tears, and I don’t know why. So, now he is almostly choked from it all, and he says, ‘There ain’t no Lolly, I mean lolly gagging, like wasting time, dat’s what I mean.’ And I get mat as hell, ever more now, you see. I yell back on him dat, ‘I don’t gag lollies, you stupit man, what matters with you, I never gagged nothing, ever, you nasty man.’ Cause I vas tinking he makes fun of me, you see. “So, then I go out vit my papers, because he is right, I am late dis morning. And later dat same night, I am still mat as hell, kiddo, and I’m gonna tell him, too. I never have gagged lollies, or nothing like dat. But he goes to de Vee Eff dubbleYew all night to play pool and drink beers vit those dampt old army guys. And I don’t mind dat so much, he only goes there sometimes, but on dis night I mind more because I’m still mat as hell, and gonna tell him ‘bout it. But I haf ta wait for de morning to yell at him, because I’m too tired to wait up all de night. “But the next morning he is on the couch and all overhung, and he can’t even open his eyes. And when I start to yell at him for gagging lollies, he has forgot about dat and holds his ears because of his overhang, so I quit yelling because I can’t enjoy it enough if I can’t make him mat as hell too. Then he crawls to the bathroom to be sick all morning, and now I got two tings to yell at him for.” Sarah filled plastic drink cups with ice water while she listened to Hortensia’s story. “So, how did he break his foot?” She asked as Hortensia lit another Pall Mall Gold. Hortensia shook the flame from a match, “Oh yeah, dat I almostly forgot. He went to the Junior High School dat night to play basketball vit those same army guys, and the big fat one stepped on Vernon’s foot and boke it. “So are you still mad at him?” Sarah asked. Hortensia stood up and crushed her cigarette out. “No, I can’t never stay mat and dat man I got, kiddo. The next day he put new seats in dat old truck of mine, even vit dat foot so bad. I can’t be mat at dat, no way. But he never since then told me I am gagging lollies, and he never has got overhung since dat day, neither. But next time he does, I will still yell at him, for something by then, I’m sure.”
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