Where’s Emmet?

While wandering down Antigua’s cobblestones on the way to Spanish class I wonder at the activity. It’s still early in the morning. The bakeries are buzzing. Citizens hose down the sidewalks. Meats hang in the butcher’s window like birthday piñatas waiting for adoption. Fix-it shops plow through mounds of damaged goods, busy fingers sprinting toward mid-morning breaks with coffee and tortillas.

My tranquil home in Ouray seems light years away. I stop and watch a young woman sew together a pair of ripped trousers. Two doors away someone’s grandfather tests a compact disc player, smiling when he hears the bouncing sounds of salsa. Sure, turn it up…You know you want to. Buenos dias and a smile. Before I reach San Francisco Church another shop door hangs open. Inside a cobbler bangs away at an army of shoes while his infant son watches from a nearby basket.

A brightly painted bus passes spewing diesel and smoke upon each take off. It’s one of countless chicken buses that troll the streets in search of passengers. These trademark transports are derelict school buses, discarded by the folks up north who like their things brand new. Here in Guatemala where quetzals don’t go far, the bus has been born again.

Back in Colorado I was talking to a man who works at the dump, oh excuse me, the landfill, the other day. He asked me about Central America. Says he’s going there after he gets off probation. Public service and all…

Somehow we get onto the subject of trash. The power of suggestion and the odor must have a hand in it. He swats at an almost bankrupt fly, saying he was reading a piece on landfills and the desperate situation facing the country.

A vision of a ghost garbage barge teaming with refuse comes to mind. That image was New York City’s tons of discharge looking for its place in the sun. Bring me your tired, your poor, your throw away society filling up the sea. New is better, ain’t it?
“We’re running out of room,” he says. “The dumps are full of televisions, tires, bottles and furniture. They won’t go away.”

Skeletons of affluence.

***

In Antigua, our neighbor, a thirty-five year old taxi driver named Hector, jacks up his ’64 Chevy to replace a badly dented wheel.

“These streets are tough on a car,” he smiles.

We take his photo next to the car. He asks how much we paid for the camera and is shocked when we tell him.

“But you can buy a throw away model for a whole lot less,” I insert. He looks at me but cannot think of anything to say.

His wife, Iris, is a seamstress. Her small shop next to the tienda is crammed full of well-worn clothing fresh from the United States. Rips and tears and holes and hanging threads greet her each day. Some of the trendy logos are difficult to make out in the shadows of mid-afternoon.

“Well, I don’t know what to say, Barney, if Aunt Bea can’t fix it you’ll have to take it to Emmet,” smiled Sheriff Taylor from behind his desk. “It could take a while. He’s busy this time of the year.”

“Maybe I’ll just buy a new one. Who knows how many slices of bread have been toasted in this one,” said the deputy, looking at the small toaster on the desk.

“You don’t need a new one,” popped the sheriff’s son Opie. “The one you have is perfectly fine. It just needs a little attention.”
He looks at his father, “Pa, don’t we have an extra toaster to lend to Barney until his is fixed?”

“That’s a good idea, son. Why don’t you both take a ride over to the house. It’s in the cellar. Take the patrol car.”

“I don’t know what we’d do around here without Emmet,” said Barney.

“Yeah, a good fix-it man is hard to come by,” answered the sheriff. “I remember when folks had to travel all the way to Mount Pilot to get a radio fixed. Now we have Emmet in the fix-it shop and Gomer down at the gas station. This is really living.”

May 18, 2016