“Cómo estás, Luisa?” Gabby asked the small woman in the window seat as she sat down beside her.
“Bien,” Luisa answered. “A little tired. I cleaned a lot of rooms at the motel today. Y tu?”
“Si, bien. Un poco cansado, tambien. I scrambled a lot of eggs at the Scrambled Egg. I can’t wait to put my feet up and rest them. What you doing this evening?”
“I’m going to cook for my family and take my daughter to help me clean the doctor’s office. Then I’ll rest.”
Gabby put her arm around Luisa’s shoulder and hugged her.
“Eres una buena mujer,” she said. I’m glad you’re my friend.
“Y tu, mi Amiga. Y tu.”
Gabby got off the bus in front of her apartment on the west side of the city.
She and her neighbors didn’t have much money, but they did have a lot of kindness for each other.
‘Sup Gabby. How you doin’?” asked Bryant, who everyone called Big B.
He had just come home from his job as a mechanic at the auto shop.
“Hola Big B. Not much. Just glad to be home. How was your day?”
“It was all good. The squeaky wheel got the grease, as they say, today and ev’ry day.”
“One of these days I’m gonna buy a car and the only person I’m gonna let work on it is you.”
“Deal. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”
“Sure thing! Same here.”
“You could come over and cook up some steak and eggs for me, you know.”
“Ugh, anything except that. I’ve cooked enough steak and eggs today...and ev’ry day!”
“Bet. I’m jus’ kiddin’ wit’ cha. Night Gabby. Be safe.”
“Night B.
You be safe, too., mi amigo.”
She took her key out of her pocket and opened the door to her apartment.
It was one room.
There was a holey sofa that pulled out into a bed with a small table and a lamp beside it.
Three books, The House on Mango Street, The Old Man and the Sea and Poems for a Brown Eyed Girl, were on a bookshelf made of a cut board and two concrete blocks against the wall.
An ancient transistor radio was in the corner.
A painting by Jasper Johns of three American Flags, one on top of the other, smallest to largest, was on the wall.
It was a gift from one of her regular customers at The Scrambled Egg.
The room was simple and beautiful, like her.
She picked up the small book of poems, turned on the lamp, sat down on the sofa, and stretched her legs in front of her.
She opened the book to the poem An Ode to Feet.
her feet,
calloused,
cracked,
rocks
in plowed ground,
stones
in turned soil
she walked over
the ground
barefooted
as her grandfather
turned the earth
with donkey
and plow
she had
the feet
of her grandfather,
had walked
beside him
down long rows
of beans and corn
he
walked
up and down
those rows
until his feet
were bent,
broken
until
he
continually
genuflected
to God,
to the wealthy land owner,
to the land itself
her feet
in the soil
were part
of the land,
held the secrets
of the earth,
knew the mystery
seed,
dirt,
water
become
beans in pods
corn in husks
tomatoes on vines
her heart
was her feet,
her heart
was the land,
her heart
was the mystery
itself
her feet spoke,
"Estoy aquí,
I am here.”
Her feet
were signs,
"I am
a human being”
“Estoy aquí,” she whispered to the world.
“I am here.”
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