two bells

The two cooks are speaking only Spanish, and laughing with each other quite a bit. I catch a few words here and there, some English, some Spanish, but still don't know what's so funny. I haven't heard the words "pinche," "pendejo," or "gringo," so I assume they aren't laughing at me, though I might be wrong. I take a drink of my beer and look over the cook standing nearest to me.

He's a rotund man of about forty wearing a pair of denim Carhart overalls and a salt and pepper fu-manchu beard. His eyes smile when he laughs, and even though I have no idea what he's laughing about, I can't help but laugh along with him. Some folks are just infectious by nature. I think he knows I don't know what he's saying, but I think he enjoys my reactions.

A tall, skinny woman with mousy brown hair and waxy skin walks into the bar and hangs her camelhair coat on a hook by the door. The bartender mutters something to her that I don't quite catch, and she immediately begins talking about the coat. Loudly and incessantly. Louder and more incessantly than is necessary for a boring, brown coat I'd already seen on ten women on my walk from Pike back to Bell. And I'm not even sure that's what the bartender asked her about.

After the momentary and annoying distraction, I turn my attention back to my delicious, medium rare burger, but catch the eye of the rotund cook before I do.

"No body, No brains," is all he says to me.

That's right, I'm no gringo.