The rain poured off the bus stop shelter, pooling into a puddle around Juan's feet. Juan had given up his seat on the bench in the shelter to worn-looking Latina and her son, a nene no older than three or four, and now he was standing at the corner of the shelter, his back protected from the rain, his head getting pelted by rain drops. Today it would actually feel good to get out of his own clothes, his skin pimpling from the cold, and put on his chef's coat.
He worked as a chef's assistant, a prep cook, after washing dishes for a year and learning more English, kitchen English. This is a knife. This is a cutting board. This is ajo -- garlic. This is broccoli rabe, angry broccoli, porque rabe made him think of the word rabia -- brocoli rabia. This is endive. He still couldn't say that word. He had looked it up in the dictionary -- parece edeevay.
Juan looked down at the rain pooling around his feet and took a step back. A car on wet wheels wooshed by. Juan pulled his beanie cap over his ears. When he got to work, he would take off the hat and put on a hair net, so it didn't really matter what shape his hair was in once he got there. Maryanne, the owner would fuss over him anyway, worrying that he'd catch a cold from being in the rain so long, and she'd make the chef's assistant, bring Juan a bowl of hot soup to eat before she let him start his shift.
Maryanne had given Juan a dictionary. A heavy, hard-covered English-Spanish dictionary. It was brand-new. She had gone to a bookstore and bought it just for him, so they could communicate, so he could communicate with the chef, when his number of English words were missing those needed, and when hand signals weren't enough. It embarrassed Juan to have to lug the book off the stool where he kept it in the kitchen, thumb through alphabet to find the word in Spanish he was looking for, and point to the English version of the word to be understood. He hadn't told anyone, but when he first got the dictionary, he had taken it home one night to practice thumbing more quickly through the pages, and he had enrolled in an English class at the adult school.
Oh Juan, I love reading stories about you. Stories that elucidate your struggles of the mundane.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part is the second paragraph. It really lets the reader experience first hand how Juan is assimilating his new experiences. The way he has to say to himself, "This is ajo -- garlic. This is broccoli rabe, angry broccoli, porque rabe made him think of the word rabia -- brocoli rabia. " Angry broccoli - awesome.
What a sweet boss lady Juan has! I love the image of her arranging hot soup for the beginning of his shift, getting him a dictionary and encouraging his English acquisition, wanting to communicate. The metaphor of the cold rain on the way to work contrasting against the warmth of his workplace works really well. And yeah, angry broccoli is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI love how Juan takes the dictionary home in order to learn to thumb through it faster. Not to read it, but to thumb through it. This, in combination with his embarrassment at having to "lug the book off the stool" and then the combination of the following actions to find the word and then communicate it, really highlights the fight he's having with his self-doubt.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful to root for a character. It's easy to do so with Juan.
Oh, and "skin pimpling from the cold" and "kitchen English"...nice!