Elenamary

Reina Elenamary

Originally uploaded by elenamary.

I don’t usually like to buy food from the vending machine but I was hungry at work and the only thing left in my food drawer were Dum-Dums and peanut butter…and I am allergic to peanut butter. The other thing is that you folks out on the west coast probably take for granted the fact that you can get everything with chili, while here in Ohio people find tomatoes to be too spicy (I am exaggerating).

So, I am blankly staring at the vending machine, disgusted by my options and wondering why is it that the Cheetos don’t come with a little packet of salsa valentina and why the Cheetos don’t already come with chili spices like they do in Mexico, when I remember a childhood friend—“Cheetos”. I don’t know his real name and I swear everyone in his family called him “Cheetos” as well. He was a couple years older than me, taller than the rest of us, lanky and with a head that was too big for his body. I meet him in the small rural Mexican town where I was baptized, queen of the village and later would set up an English school. I also loved going to this town to play soccer with the boys, use slingshots to shoot down mangos, and ride burros to the river in order to bring back water for their families (the town doesn’t have running water). I remember at the age of 14, I declared that I was going to move to this town and spend all day sitting under the mango trees reading and eating mangos.

I ended up moving back to the states and from the age of 14 until a few weeks ago, I never saw Cheetos. We completely lost contact. However, he did come by our house in the city. Our house was in the “city” that is we lived in an area with electricity, running water, and telephones. He came one day, when I was probably 16 or 17. I was laying in my bedroom reading when the doorbell ring but I hadn’t bothered to get up. Some time passed and then I overheard my mother saying to my aunt “He is from Tecalpulco. He said his name is Cheetos. Cheetos?! Said that he knew Elenamary. He said that he had made something with his life and has joined the police. Like that means anything. And then he asked for me to allow him to marry Elenamary. Do I look like I am going to let my daughter marry some man just because he joined the police? He’s crazy. I told him to go away, that he couldn’t marry her.”
I found the whole thing amusing.

My mom has had to deal with suitors at the door, multiple times now. I had a boyfriend who once when he came to serenade me (he serenaded me multiple times) my mother dumped a kitchen pot full of cold water on him and told him that he sounded like a cat in pain.
I saw Cheetos a few weeks ago. He was in the “city” guarding the town hall. I smiled at him as I walked by and he smiled and winked. Uncomfortable, from the wink I kept on walking and wondered if unlike me he knew when we were children that our friendship wouldn’t last.