Some Gringo

Illustration by Kat Morgan

He must have known he would pass the men, because he’d been on this stretch of Salsipuedes before. He’d driven through this part of Ventana Beach two years earlier when he was visiting his mother for Christmas. That time, he was looking for a place called Corazón Cocina that sold enchiladas with rice and beans for ten bucks a plate, and he turned left on Zapatero instead of Torreón. Three blocks later, after pulling into the parking lot of a Jack in the Box to get his bearings, he passed the men—a dozen guys standing on the corner across the street from a place called Churros Calientes, next to a red truck with a large wooden sign displaying handwritten prices for things like Glovos Especiales and Manteles. At first, he wondered what the men were doing, which was stupid if you thought about it, because what else would they be doing but waiting for work, hoping some gringo would drive by looking for a day laborer to mow grass or paint a shed or chainsaw a tree that had fallen in a chingadera’s driveway. 

It was pretty obvious the men weren’t cruising, but seeing them there in that desolate part of town, away from the restaurants with scallops and haricots verts, and the stores that sold couches for $5,000 and handmade glassware from Italy, sent a current through Stewart’s groin, because whenever he was home visiting his mother it didn’t take long for him to feel like a caged animal, catering to her whims, managing her mood swings, doing his best to seem devoted and appreciative and loving. 

Stewart was forty-three years old and had a 401(k). He’d lived in New York for over two decades, but when he flew to California to visit his mother once a year, he was a child again, or if not a child, a teenager. His mother prodded him to eat foods he hated, came into his bedroom unannounced when he was trying to sleep, told him she loved him and needed him and wished he’d move back to live with her. “I have no idea what you see in that dirty city of yours,” she complained. “I’m an old woman. I’m all alone. I need you here with me.”

This year, because he’d been fired from his position as a senior paralegal and was now unemployed, Heike paid for his plane ticket, though that offer had come with certain conditions. “You always cut me so short,” she said on the phone when they were negotiating the length of his visit. “Stay with me for a while. Why rush back right away? I promise to leave you alone. I let you do your own thing.”

There was the customary haggling, and in the end she prevailed, and he booked a ticket from December 19 to January 9. Once he arrived in California, however, it didn’t take long for him to realize he’d made a mistake. It hit him at church on Christmas Eve, when the pastor was talking about the birth of Jesus and God’s love for the world, and Heike reached out to hold Stewart’s hand. He hadn’t meant to pull away, but he did, and she burst into tears. She riffled through her handbag for a Kleenex, and he felt the eyes of everyone behind him watching them. He hated it when his mother cried, especially in public. She cried constantly—at the movies, when they were looking at old photo albums together, when they went for walks on the beach (most recently, that morning when she asked him what she’d done to make him hate her so much). 

As soon as she posed the question, he inhaled and counted to three. “I don’t hate you,” he replied. 

“Of course you do. You come here out of obligation. I’m just a burden to you.”

“Jesus, not this again.”

“I should just commit suicide once and for