theMystery.doc

by Matt McIntosh

  M: Zaida was one of them?

  Zaida was one of them, yeah. She knew I was pleased when I called her Zaida… And uh……………… They had made… there was—I think there was 20 of us—pretty close to that, with the kids and all—and we started driving back, and uh—

  W: With all the food in the car?

  No, no! It was going to be served right at the restaurant.

  Oh! I see!

  That was the—the whole idea! You go down and pick your food, and take it back to the restaurant—

  Oh, that’s cool…

  You’d make an appointment, and they’d give you a a an hour—you walked walked back in the restaurant and, right away there’s a table reserved for you, and, you know, there’s no big hassle, and uh, the wine and salad and bread, is already on the table. So you start with the wine, salad, and bread! And you talk and talk and talk—and finally they say—they come out and say, Are we ready to eat?

  I said, Yeah.

  And they brought out these… Huge……… of paella. Have you ever heard of paella?

  Yes.

  Spanish rice and seafood?

  Yum. Seafood.

  M: Just caught out of the water.

  Ahh! Lickin your lips, just like that!

  W: Oh, you’re making me hungry!

  And—

  Yum!

  after about two bottles—or three bottles of wine, and bread and salad, you’re hungry—I mean, you’re hungry for good food!

  Yeah!

  And they brought out this—the the the paella was in a round platter—see? Right out of the oven—see that’s the final touch, is the oven!

  Yum.

  So… brought it to our table, and uh, uh, whatchyoucallit—the businessman, the leader, of the pack, he says, Now we gotta make an a a…

  Toast?

  An appropriate toast! To this occasion, you know— Hands Across the Border! Was—

  M: Eisenhower?

  President Eisenhower’s… uh… program! He believed in hand-to-hand, face-to-face, uh, diplomacy. It was a good program. Good program.

  So… we all reached over, and we we hugged, and shook hands, and all that. And he says… God, I can’t think of his name… he says, OK, everybody sit. I’m gonna start servin.

  You know like the… Godfather in the—in the film.

  And we dug into that uh—and that was, delicious. I mean, forget about the forks and all that—when you picked up those crabs, those miniature crabs, and the large uh prawns, and you just crack—CRRRACK!—Oh!……

  So, we sat there from one, pretty close to four thirty. Just talkin, just eating, just blazing away. You know, our programs, his programs… the American Way of Life… the pros, the con—but it was a friendly situation you know.

  We’d say, You know, we could do this.

  They’d say, Yeah, if you do that, then the government would do, something else, and so on.

  But uh, we sat there and ate—even, I remember, my son, my oldest son, Mario, comin up to my side and said, Dad, that was delicious! That was good! Can I have some more?

  W: How old was he then? Was he little?

  Yeah… uh… I would say……… he couldna been more than seven years old. And he was a picky eater! See, he was a very picky eater. But uh, now my other one, the uh the second one, he had a sweet tooth! He always found someone who had candy! Could be a stranger, made no difference to him, as long as they had candy!

  He could sniff it out, huh?

  Yeah! But uh—

  M: Hey, how’s your blood sugar right now?

  I could take it. Just give me the……… So…

  W: Probably pretty good because of that OJ and soy. The combination.

  We uh………………………..

  That’s pretty nifty!

  It’s portable.

  Is that it?

  Oh, no no! No. I gotta—I gotta set it up…….

  That’s pretty cool.

  After a while you, you know.

  You get pretty good at it.

  Yeah. It becomes a—second nature…….

  When you guys get hungry, I’m taking breakfast orders.

  [laughs]

  I make good potatoes and eggs…

  M: How about paella?

  …I make good toast and eggs.

  Paella! [laughs]

  I don’t have any paella. I got soy… I got—

  She does make good potatoes and eggs, though.

  And good toast and eggs.

  Hey, that’s fine. That’s fine. Uh…

  Or whatever you want.

  What are you looking for?

  Tissue. I’m sorry.

  I got it……

  We came out of that… that feast… because we had been there—yeah four thirty—five o’clock—somebody said,

  Let’s get back to the beach!

  And uh, I said—I sat with Aida—and I said,

  Let the kids go down.

  And uh……………………………………………………uh…………

  So the kids went, and I slumped over the table. I must have slept for a good thirty minutes, you know, the respar they talk about a lot, that you’re able to just haul off and fall asleep no matter where you’re at, because you’re so, satisfied, and uh…… We sat there for another thirty minutes—forty-five minutes or somethin—and the restaurant could care less because each cubicle held a family, and they’d just draw the curtains… Draw the curtains.

  That sounds pretty good.

  Well, you know. And I hope they still have that—that method of living. Because, for all the misery they went through in World War II and civil war and all that—they deserve that respite. And… it was uh… it was not very many people at that era—in that era—that could afford to to do that. It was just a few of the businessmen that were just starting and uh, foreign tourists, wherever you you found them.

  But uh, yeah, finally, you know, you you feel a… ping! Somebody’s throwing something at you. And you looked up and he’s throwin—bread, you know, crumbs from the table! He says, You awake?

  No! Well…………

  Are you sure it was the food? Or the three bottles of wine!

  You know—

  Combination?

  It was a good combination. It was a good combination. Because, the whole idea was not to get drunk. The whole idea was to socialize and to uh, be able to hold a good conversation.

  W: Yeah.

  And I loved—I loved talking with these people, because they—they never lost their idealism… that Spain at one time was a great country. See? And they always, always had it in the back of their mind that their country was a great country. Even though—

  M: That it was going to be again, or that it still was?

  That it was going to be again…… That it was going to be again…

  END OF ACT III

  ★

  Once upon a time

  there was not a little girl named Helen. She did not have long blond hair and blue eyes. She did not like to hop around in the snow with her little sister Millie, and race down a hill fast on a sled while sitting on her dad’s lap. She did not like to play with toys. She especially did not like to play with the dollhouse at her aunt and uncle’s house which had belonged to her aunt when she was Helen’s age. Helen did not like to have parties in the dollhouse on the coffee table, and invite all the animals from her purple backpack, including the squirrel and tiger and elephant and Boris the owl. She did not like to serve them pizza in the kitchen, and then move them all to the big room upstairs. The animals at the party did not dance in the bathroom and they did not go out on the balcony. And when someone new would ring the doorbell, Helen would not answer it. And when they said, May I come to the party and have some pizza please? Helen would not say OK! cheerfully, and invite them in. And when they were finished with their pizza they would not ask Helen to take them upstairs so that they could play with the other animals, and she would not say OK! The party was
not always the funnest party anyone had ever been to, and there would not be so many happy animals there that they would be stacked up to the ceiling.

  When Helen went to Spokane to visit Baby Margaret at the cemetery, she would not bring her backpack in the car and hold the flowers her dad had cut from the yard on her lap. She would not get out and go hopping across the grass. Her mom would not tell her to come back so she could zip up her coat. And when her aunt and uncle met them there they did not walk with her to the stone. They did not look down onto Margaret’s name, and her dad did not get down on his knees to show them how the flower holder worked. And when she was riding in her aunt and uncle’s car back to their house Helen did not hold her backpack on her lap, with all her toys inside, and then open it to show her aunt and uncle her favorite ones. She did not say, Wanna see? Her aunt did not say, Cool! Wow! Awe-some! Her uncle did not say, You know something, I think that might be the most incredible thing that I have ever seen! Helen did not carry around her purple backpack everywhere she went, and inside the backpack she did not keep all her favorite toys. Helen didn’t help her dad and grandpa scoop dirt onto Margaret’s box. Margaret was not inside, and Helen was not dressed up in a pretty dress, white, maroon, and black, with matching ribbons in her hair, and shiny black shoes. She didn’t take turns with the little shovel, because Millie wanted to do it too. She did not live in a town called Moses Lake, and planes would not fly very low right over her house sometimes when she was in the front yard smelling the wildflowers that her dad had planted. And when she’d see another one, she would not go hopping inside, yelling for everyone to come and see too, then lead them through the house, saying Hurry! and out the front door. She would not point up at the sky and say, Look! The planes were not big and they were not gray, and they did not have stars under their wings.

  Helen did not have to wait by the door for permission before she went into Baby Margaret’s room. She did not have germs that could make Margaret sick. And when her mom or dad were with her and said it was OK, Helen would not go in and stand by the crib and say I love you to Baby Margaret, and if her hands were washed she would not hug her, and when her mom was holding Margaret Helen would not watch carefully to make sure the thing in her nose that helped her breathe did not come out. Helen did not like to dance around in circles when her dad put her favorite song on the CD player. She was not a rabbit. She did not twitch her nose like a rabbit and wiggle her fingers in front of her. She did not eat imaginary spiders and hop from place to place to place to place

  to place. She wouldn’t make sure everyone was in the elevator before the doors closed each time they left Baby Margaret in the hospital and went back down to the parking garage. She would not hold Millie’s arms down to keep them from being cut off. Sometimes they wouldn’t all go eat lunch at the Old Country Buffet, except for Margaret, and Helen wouldn’t lick sugar off the table when her mom would open up a white packet for her and dump it out. She didn’t like hearing her mom laugh when all that sugar made Helen silly. She didn’t like going to the duck park and feeding the ducks. She didn’t like feeding the baby ducks most of all. She didn’t worry about Margaret, especially when Margaret got sick and her mom said Margaret might go up to heaven soon to see Jesus and the angels and all the people in their family that Helen would meet herself someday.

  Helen didn’t draw a picture for Margaret, and the nurse did not attach it with scotch tape to the inside of Margaret’s crib. Helen had not drawn it in black and white and it was not of all five of them—Dad, Mom, Helen, Millie, and Margaret—and all the nurses didn’t tell Helen that Margaret would lay in her crib staring at the picture all day long, and how each time Margaret looked at the picture her eyes got stronger and that meant that when she grew up she would probably see just fine. It did not make Helen happy to know that her picture was helping Margaret’s eyes get better. It did not make Helen happy to think of Margaret looking at the picture. It did not make Helen happy to know that Margaret knew that Helen was her big sister. She could wait for her to come home!

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