Montezuma’s Revenge

“You will not feel insulted if I disagree. The uncle of my wife who recently died left in his will a small sum of money which I now have. He was a good man, this uncle, and liked to drink, so I will buy a bottle with uncle’s money and we will drink to him.”

“That is a very fair and loyal idea. I can tell he must have been a fine man.” Pablo rapped loudly with the thick glass and the bartender hurried with their order.

When the level of the bottle had crept lower, at the end of an interesting anecdote involving some stolen chickens, Tony mentioned a certain feeling of hunger and Pablo nodded solemn agreement and rapped again with his glass.

“Two sandwiches.”

Tony watched, with a measured amount of trepidation, as the bartender cut two rolls in half and from a hulking glass crock removed two very green, large, and exceedingly hot peppers, each of which he mashed into one of the rolls. Then, as a further savory, he poured some of the pickling sauce from the crock over the bread, this sauce being a little bit hotter than the peppers themselves, before placing the finished product on the wood before them. Pablo ate his in regular bites, masticating each mouthful with bovine thoroughness before swallowing, and when he was finished he licked the last drops of flavor from his finger tips. Tony ate his as well, enjoying every bit of it although tears streamed from his eyes all the while; he was out of practice. They sipped at the tequila to hold the nourishing sandwiches down.

Farther down the bar a very drunken man loudly proclaimed that Jalisco was the finest city in Mexico and all other towns made of goat droppings, which is not the truth, and when he became too pushing in his claims someone hit him and he was thrown into the street, so naturally the topic turned to place of birth. Pablo was from the village of Tenoztlan here in the state of Guerrero, not far distant, and he knew, since he cared about these things, that Antonio was not from Guerrero but from a more distant state.

“You are correct. I am from California.”

“That far! But at least we are upon the same sea.”

He assumed that by California the state of Baja California was intended and not the North American state above it, but before Tony could correct him, or decide if he should correct him, another man standing close by spoke first.

“My village is Cuajiniculpa which the uneducated call Cuijla which you can tell by looking at me.”

Pablo nodded agreement but, squint as he may, Tony could see no reason for this interesting statement. This man looked very much like all the others in the cantina, though his skin was darker than usual, so he was moved to ask why.

“You are not from these parts so your ignorance is understandable. Many years ago when slaves were brought to this country from Africa a very proud tribe would not be enslaved, they were called the Bantu. They captured the ship on which they were imprisoned, killed their captors, horribly with great justification it is said, then landed and escaped and founded our village. It is a very old story.”

“They were very big for slaves in those days,” Pablo said as they all drank in the memory of the escaped slaves. “What they tell you in the schools is garbage. The Spaniards made slaves of all the Indians.”

“When they did not want slaves they killed the Indians,” Tony said. “I should know since I am an Indian.”

“I am an Indian too.”

“I am a Bantu.”

“My tribe would never be enslaved. Have you heard of the Apache?”

“I have. They live far to the north in Chihuahua.”

“Exactly, and in Sonora as well and in the states of North America. We were never enslaved. We fought and we died but we were never enslaved.”

“But we are enslaved now,” Pablo said with deep bitterness, his continual expression of gloom intensifying. “They say the revolution is still being fought but it is not. What we need is a new revolution and get rid of the old party of the revolution. They have all the money and we have nothing.”

“None of that kind of talk in here!” the bartender called out. “Outside with that kind of thing.”

“I talk the way I please,” Pablo said as, with a very swift motion, he seized the almost empty bottle of tequila by the neck and broke the bottom off against the edge of the bar adding another deep scratch to the others, also possibly caused in this same manner.