Estoy aquí

from Fragments

“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.”

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 out 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.

She read,

Her feet 

were calloused

like rocks in plowed ground, 

like stones in turned soil, 

the soil she walked over 

barefooted 

as her grandfather 

turned the earth with donkey and plow

She had 

the feet of her grandfather, 

for she had walked 

beside him 

down the long rows 

of beans and corn 

since the time 

she learned to toddle.

When her feet 

were in the soil

they were part 

of the land, 

held 

the secrets 

of the earth, 

knew the mystery 

of seed,

dirt,

water

and sunshine

becoming

a bean in a pod,

a kernel 

on an ear of corn

Her heart 

was in her feet, 

her heart 

was in the land, 

her heart 

was the mystery,

spoke quietly and firmly,

"Estoy aquí.”

“Estoy aquí,” she whispered to the world. 

“I am here.”