“I’ll probably be at Don Beto’s wake all night,” I told Sherry.
My friend, old Señor Norberto Duarte had passed away while he was with his family in Cancun. The family brought him home and tonight the wake was to celebrate his life before the next day’s funeral.
“I never understood why he was in Cancun,” Sherry said. “Was he seeing a doctor in Mexico?”
“No. Nothing like that. He never went out of his house anymore and his kids thought it would be a treat to take him out to get some sun and breeze at a Cancun resort.”
“Hey, Don Dennis—over here,” someone called, when I reached the Duarte’s house for the wake.
Vernon, one of the members of our Nosenada Club had arrived earlier to grab a table for us to play cards. At a San Pedro wake the men play cards and drink rum all night. I’ve never figured out what the women do.
Vernon said, “Moses and Mario is both here, too. They just gone to get us some tamales and beer.”
After we finished our tamales Mario said, “Let’s go toast Don Beto before everybody gets too drunk.”
“Here’s to Don Beto,” I said, as we stood around the casket to down a last drink for him.
“It was nice of his family to take him to Cancun,” Moses said. “I hope somebody does that for me when I’m old like Don Beto.”
“Me too,” Vernon said. “Especially if I’m real sick like he was.”
Mario said, “He looks good the way they got him laid out—all tanned and everything.”
“He does,” Vernon agreed. “Those two weeks in Cancun sure did him a lot of good.”
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