Strawberry Bleach

the assassin's mother

The Sicario (retired) is back in town after working in Hermosillo “on cars”. He stops by and looks for work at my house and since it’s been since March, I do have stuff for him to do. Dragging huge dog feed bags filled with poo and leaves out to the curb for example. Opening the side gate on patio because I got stuck inside the other day from a rock wedged under the door and I need multiple exits where I live. It’s bad enough I’m in between these houses on all sides. Sometimes I just go out on the street and stand there.

I have him check my water tanks because I’m afraid to get on the roof and I don’t think the pump is working. I had him change the pump because it was, in fact, not working. I can handle chores in normal weather but the Swamp Desert that is July in Sonora, Mexico is beyond reproach.

The power’s been off again and yesterday I had to resign that this would just be how I would die. There’s no reprieve. Even Tucson goes down to 76 overnight. You can flip your schedule and do things when Satan goes to lunch. Here will be 96 overnight. A 4 degree cold snap. I said last summer I wouldn’t do another here.

Still, I can’t stop walking the hounds, even if we just go around the block, they too think better of it after we start moving. And everyone just likes a little sniff to see what’s happening and where the band of rogue cows have been eating. It actually made the news, the cows. It used to be 2 and now there’s a herd. No one knows who they belong to and people are concerned. It’s a traffic menace.

Today the Sicario’s mom was walking toward me slowly with her safari hat, carrying 6 bags of groceries. I was just giving in to the heat and heading home but she’s 80 and where is her goon son by the way? I grabbed the bags from her left hand and we walked together. I’ve been feeling old, sloppy and sweaty lately, this was just the ego boost I needed. Oh you’re so young and strong she said.

She was beside herself with grace and much gracias-ing. She insisted I come inside and she’d lock up her teacup Chihuahua and I could bring in Rocky and tie him on the patio. We talked about her avocado tree that took 12 years to grow but gives her 78 avocados a year. She speaks slowly and not with slang so I can understand her Spanish/Mexican even though it is gravely. She said, you’ve been here a long time. I cried a lot when I first arrived here. I hated it and then my husband died and I was stuck. it’s been 45 years.

My heart sank.

I don’t want to go inside. Not for the reasons I’m not supposed to go inside that the carne asada guy warns me about, (no second location, no going inside where doors can shut and you’ll be kidnapped) but because I need to walk two other dogs and it’s nearly 9 and I spent a bunch of time trying to coax out the sweet runt dog from a truck undercarriage. Also I’m aware that I smell like a ripe goat. I have no business standing in this lady’s kitchen.

Sientate! (sit)

She proceeds to unbag a bunch of bones that I recognize because I buy them for the dogs, neck bones, the rollo Norteno. Sometimes I get lucky with lots of meat on them, yes she says it’s her son’s favorite. I am aware that I don’t have anything to talk about besides dogs.

She continues to wash the bones, salt the bones, fill another stock pot with water from the tap which makes me wonder if we’re all using bottled water for cooking because we’re idiots.

She dumps a bunch of strawberries in a bowl and tells me how in all her years she’s only had diarrhea once and I find that a random comment. I start thinking about all the news from the US about some poo parasite that has taken over the produce market and other scare tactics. More washing and cutting meat with a butter knife. Washing of meat and not of berries My life as a kitchen professional has me a little uneasy about all of this. Just relax.

I don’t eat berries unless I grow them myself and even if these are Mexican berries they’re totally covered in pesticide and poo water. I pull at my shirt collar. I see a plate of over ripe mangos on the table that will definitely give me a rash so I push it away slowly. Rocky is high pitched mama’s boy whining outside. For such a big dog with a Rottweiler head he yells like a parrot if he’s left out of activities. A girl parrot.

I’m starting to fidget as she turns on the gas stove with no vent hood and windows closed. The diarrhea talk, the poison berries she didn’t soak and the itchy mangos…I blurt out “I always soak my produce in baking soda and water for 15 minutes to get rid of parasites and pesticides!” and I hate myself for saying anything. In her kitchen I’m going to tell this Mexican grandma what’s up. Rude.

She says, “Oh I splash them all with bleach it’s fine. I’m going to make us some licuados sit, sit!”

My nerves and my nose smelling the propane and thinking that I was going to die in the heat yesterday but actually I’m going to die in this lady’s not terribly clean kitchen. The daughter has a business making beans and somehow that has built her a house and an SUV even though no one ever buys the beans. Is she putting bleach in there?

I jump up like I was stung by a hornet. Me voy!

You don’t want a licuado?

Oh, thank you so much but I don’t like fruit really, to be honest, senora. And I’m allergic. And I have to go before it gets too hot.

Way too many excuses for a smoothie bail out. Why am I like this?

Because I don’t like sitting, I don’t like consuming foods around other people unless I know them REALLY really well. I don’t like unplanned meal service and propane smell and it’s all just enough that I’m speaking Spanish and now there’s talk of bleaching the fruit and I just cannot. My neighbor in a small town in Veracruz used to knock on the door and say, lets go get Bolis! and she was so nice but I hated sucking on dirty random hand touched plastic bags filled with fruit water.

Like the street dogs I give space to run, I always look for an escape route in case shit gets weird. I head to the door which goes to the hall which goes to the patio and there’s big Rocky thank God and muchas gracias and I’ll see you again, I must finish my chores before the heat is too high and I can’t stop talking and she can’t stop saying but I was making us SMOOTHIES! Are you sure?

And I know she’s lonely and I feel bad but not bad enough to stick around literally anywhere for very long, my entire life. I hope she lets the Chihuahua out of the bathroom.