1 de abril de 2017

"What'you doing here pretty?"

I explained I was waiting to be called so I could go up and clean an apartment.
"You clean like me", he smiled while mopping the floor in front of me not even staring at me. He was drawing with the mapo some serious vertical lines and the sound of the mapo hitting the wall each time was almost hypnotic.

"Toc, toc, toc"

I smiled back. Then I kept observing him working and thinking that he must be as old as Papi and I couldn't smile anymore. Don't we want our viejos to be resting and smiling while drinking beer or coffee at a porch while waving or talking to neighbors? Wouldn't that be nice and fair? I tried to change the topic in order not to be sad thinking about mi viejo aún mezclando cemento en la isla. It always breaks my heart to think about it.

"Don't you think this building is really ugly? Looks like a fish tank from outside with so many windows. Chicago has way better buildings".
He stopped mopping, laughed and looked at me asking: "You not from here, right?"

I laughed so hard it was even more joyful for him. "You?", I asked.
"From the Russia you will never see.."

..and "toc, toc, toc" he went till the end of the hall while I was still smiling.

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