“GLORIA”

    In my hometown, back in the eighties, life was simple and a lot of people walked from point A to point B. Air pollution was half of what it is now, and we had time to read the newspaper in the morning. We were fortunate enough to have the luxury of communication; we talked to each other face to face and looked into each other’s eyes with respect; the internet and cell phones were only elements in science fiction.

    The Central Park was one of the most popular rendezvous point for locals, especially students, and tourists. Our city had some of the best schools with students from different parts of the country. Students walked to the park along 14^th Avenue, known as “la catorce”, window shopping, talking, and having fun. That avenue was full of life and was the hottest avenue in town, it was lined with several cafes, restaurants, banks, appliance stores, and libraries; the youth liked to walked to see and be seen. I had no choice, my family didn’t have a car and I didn’t like to ride the bus, so walking was natural for me.

     I was very fortunate to live there in that period of time, my town was home to some of the most interesting characters who wondered the streets, either begging for money or living in their own universe. I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of them. One of those personages was a woman on her twenties; everybody called her by the nickname “Cocha Blanca” (white pig), a very derogative and terrible name for a woman or any human being. Somebody who knew her family told me about her, and he said that when she was a child somebody gave her pig milk which made her lose her mind and act very irrational for the rest of her life.

   She was the queen of the avenue, she was there all the time harassing the young and beautiful people, and it didn’t matter if they were men or women. If she liked somebody she started shouting “papacito dame un beso” (daddy give me a kiss) or “comprame un café” (buy me a coffee). Those people ran away from her and avoided her at any cost, while the “audience” couldn’t stop laughing.   One of my most memorable encounters with her happened one afternoon inside the newest restaurant in town, “La Taverna de Don Rodrigo”; I was enjoying some time with my favorite cousin Rey who was very athletic and handsome; his hair was black and long. We were there having coffee and cheesecake, it was January 21^st, our birthday, he was a couple years older. “La Cocha Blanca” came inside the restaurant, everybody avoided eye contact with her, unfortunately she saw us and walked straight to our table; I was very afraid and felt very uncomfortable, but not my cousin, she said hi and Rey said hi back. She asked my cousin if he could buy her a cup of coffee, he asked her to sit with us and ordered coffee and cheesecake for her. He introduced her to me, she looked at me and noticed how nervous I was; she smiled, put her hand over mine, and said “Hello, my name is Gloria”, I told her my name and she said “nice to meet you”. We had more coffee, and she was talking to my cousin for a while, he just listened to her. She finished really fast, she was hungry; I don’t recall the conversation, but I remember that my admiration for my cousin increased one thousand percent. She said before she left “happy birthday”, and Rey gave her a couple “quetzales”, a few dollars and she left the same way she came. We stayed for a while and he told me: “Sometimes all people want is to be listened to, she for example didn’t want to be ignored, and she wanted to have friends, not to be an invisible figure or a pest”. He told me that every time people called her by that horrible nickname, her feelings got hurt and that is the reason why she acted the way she did.  

    I learned the biggest lesson of my life that day, she never bothered me ever again; every time I saw her I waived at her and called her Gloria. She never forgot my name and was one of the few people who ever called me by my name Edwin Roberto; for her I was somebody, I was not “Pescadito”, “Lulo” or any other nickname I had as a young man growing up.

    Rey and I had many adventures due to our passion for soccer, and celebrated many, many birthdays together with coffee and cheesecake. When he died I lost my best friend, my cousin, my brother. To this day I never went to visit his tomb at the cemetery, and every January 21^st I go by myself to a coffee shop and order coffee and cheesecake for two; nobody knows about this ritual, it is my way to keep his memory alive.