“You having salbutes tonight, Mr. Dennis?”
“No,” I told the lady at my favorite roadside restaurant. “I’ll have two tamales.”
I took a seat at one end of the picnic table. At the other end, Mario, a local construction worker was having his dinner.
“Where is Jose tonight?” I asked him. “I’m used to seeing you guys together.”
“Jose had to meet with an abogado. I think you call him a lawyer,” Mario said. “He didn’t know what for.”
Eventually Jose came in and ordered. He took his seat near Mario who asked, “Why you had to see the lawyer?”
“Is kind of a funny story,” Jose said. “This lawyer is from Mexico.”
“Mexico? You ain’t been in Mexico since we went to Merida together four years ago.”
“That’s right. We got drunk in Playa del Carmen on the way back and spent all of our money. Remember that?”
“I sure do,” Mario said. “We had to walk and hitchhike almost all the way back.”
Jose said, “Do you remember when we stopped at that house and asked if we could spend the night?”
“Oh, yes. That is when the old widow lady let us sleep in her bodega.”
“Do you remember that she said we could stay there as long as we did not try to sneak into the house and fool around with her during the night?”
“U-m-m, yeah,” Mario said. “I think I remember that.”
“Mario, while I was asleep did you sneak into that house and fool around with that old lady?”
“Uh. . . I might have,” Mario said. “I was really drunk. O.K. the truth is that I did.”
“That’s what the lawyer was here about,” Jose said. “It was about one of us sneaking in there and having our way with that old lady.”
“You didn’t tell him it was me, did you?” Mario asked.
“No.”
“Oh, thank you, Jose. What did the lawyer want?”
“He came to tell me that the old lady died and left me her farm and all the money she had in her bank account.”
