Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
“Are you mad at me?” I asked while slicing cucumbers at work.
I had it down to a science. They had to be cucumbers-cucumbers, not squash or zucchini, because those spoke to the mandolin the best.
“No,” Manzana replied, staring at the slices of cucumbers.
“Why do you cut them like that?”
“Like what?” I looked at her, almost afraid that asking two rhetorical questions consecutively would merit my face with a slap.
“Like lily pads?” Manzana explained, taking a deep breath.
“People always ask me why I cut them like that. It’s an art form, but you have to be careful, it requires a lot of patience, skill, and accuracy. And thinner means they last longer, and that shit looks fancy. We ain’t just slinging bagels here, we slinging a lifestyle.”
“I bet I can do it,” she took the mandolin and half manicured cucumber out of my hand.
“Like this, right?” She continued. I knew she wasn’t going to cut it correctly. You need to cut it with a glide, but work with the glide, not against it. The blade of the mandolin was also inches off; she was creating small hockey pucks. I remained avant-garde as I witnessed her butcher the bottom half down to a stump.
“Yeah just like that,” I lied.
“Shit’s too easy,” she bragged, half smiling, half focused.
“Your blade is too thick.” I advised. “Gonna slice off your finger.”
She stuck her tongue out at me like a five year old who got away with a tantrum and a lollipop for good measure. I didn’t hover over her labor anymore, and tended to brew a fresh pot of Stumptown coffee. I was separating coffee filters and dropped a bunch on the tiles. When I knelt and picked them back up along with my dignity, drips metronomed the ambiance; drip, drip, dripping into the pot for tired souls searching for happiness at the bottom of their cups.
“Ouch!” Manzana was muffled; I smirked.
“You good?”
“You ask the dumbest fucking questions.”
“Why don’t you watch your mouth?” I asked, staking a claim.
“Do I look okay?” Manzana asked me, while her finger ran a pool of blood over the cutting board. She in fact, did not look okay.
“I told you,” I said.
“You gonna stare or?”
“Right,” I nodded, and motioned her to the hand washing sink.
I grabbed as many rags as I could cup into my hands and let them loose over the countertop like white flags pleading for a truce. I doubled back to the sink and created a tourniquet for her bleeding finger. It was outlandish but we also didn’t have time to run to the storage room for the first aid kit, this would have to do.
“Got anything smaller?” she asked.
“Yeah I can wrap it with a dollar bill and see if that holds up.”
“I look like a jibara.”
“You are,” I said, and went about my way to tend to the coffee, smoke eddying above the kiosk’s structured awning, signaling something sacred.
“I’m not even from there,” she said, satisfied by sending sonic sounds of soursap across the symbiotic sadness.
Manzana and I worked at a small bagel shop in the heart of downtown Manhattan, where Wall Street wolves, Goldman Sachs savages, and Time magazine machines all came for their fix. Most of them preferred their coffee black. Then there were ones who weren’t sure what they wanted, except to be at a coffee shop, doing coffee shop things. Most of them preferred their coffee black.
“Good morning, what can I get for you?” I asked, my fingers impatiently droning around the order screen, predetermining every order.
“Let me get a medium-sized latte, with almond milk,” the Sachs savage said. He had golden hair, slicked back with moco de gorilla, and a jawline that looked like he was Thor’s posh primo.
“Sir, we do not serve lattes. Only drip coffee or iced coffee. And we only have small or large sizes. And we don't carry almond milk, we have soy milk.”
“Um okay, large coffee. And let me get a cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese too.”
“Sir, I apologize, but we don’t carry cinnamon raisin bagels or strawberry cream cheese.”
My favorite part of the day; I found comfort in not living up to people’s standards.
“I have everything, plain, sesame, poppy, multigrain, whole wheat everything, and salt.”
“Okay yeah I guess I’ll do a salt toasted with...”
“Plain, scallion, veggie, horseradish—.”
He cut me off before I could finish. “Yeah let me get the chive,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Okay your total will be six—.”
He cut me off again. “Charge it,” he said, passing me an American Express black card. I should have charged him for the latte and the cinnamon raisin bagel too.
I rang up orders this way so Manzana wouldn’t be overwhelmed with a scroll of tickets slamming her. The line was the line no matter how you tried to sweeten it; rush hour.
“Baby, I’ve got five egg sandwiches and two BLTs, do you need any help?” I asked.
“Yeah, if you want. You don’t have to help me. Only if you want.”
I hated when she said that; no, I fucking despised when she said things like if you want. I ran from the register to the station and began cracking eggs into the oven since there was no grill on site, and the fire marshall ruled it a hazard.
“Be careful, the plates are hot,” Manzana said as my finger met a hot metal tray, dropping the tray and eggs all over the floor. My finger was throbbing in torture.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I just did,” she rolled her eyes as she cleaned up my mess.
I collected whatever was left of my breath and stared at her while gently kissing her left cheek.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked, wondering who suffered worse based on our injuries.
“Why do you always ask that?” she asked while slicing an everything bagel in half.
“I don’t know, I like getting you mad,” I said.
“Well I’m not mad, you’re just stupid. It’s a hot plate, of course it’s going to be hot.”
“Yeah, you are right,” I said.
“And you are stupid.”
“You’re right.”
“Y te amo.”
“I love you too,” I said, very matter-of-fact, almost coming to an emphatic moment. Yes, I did love her. I do love her.
` I held the hot plate in between a pair of tongs this time, as I opened the oven door, letting the steam smack my glasses and cloud my vision; I didn’t wipe the fog off my glasses, that’s how love was supposed to be. You can’t see directly in front, and you can’t look behind because the past pressure cooks pain. You could only hold what is in front you, cradling what is in your hands.
Bio-Fragment: Daniel Barrios is interested in the small moments people survive: a haircut, a joke between brothers, a long silence at a kitchen table. He writes to understand those moments a little better. Most of the time he is somewhere between New York and the Caribbean, listening to the splishes and splashes of seagulls cackling while hovering over ferries along the Hudson and mermaids swirling foreshore during shimmering overcasted beaches in Borikén.