‘Ruminations‘ is a series about old strong memories of mine. As they float out of my mind I like to write about them to understand why they have existed in such stark clarity above any others. Maybe we learn something, maybe we can find common ground, maybe they only exist as lost images in the dark.
I had been in San Antonio for about thirty-five hours. We arrived at a housing site outside the city the day before in the early hours of the morning. I don’t remember the name of the school exactly. Yes, the housing site was a school. Marching in drum and bugle corps gets things pretty confused for the average reader.
Think of a marching band. Make it about a total of one hundred and thirty men under the age of twenty one and over the age of seventeen. No reed instruments or woodwinds, just brass. Include a drum line of nineteen musicians and an equally huge front ensemble of mallet and accessory percussion instruments. This group goes on tour all around the country during the summer and competes in judged competition with other groups of the same. The same except for the fact that they include women. We were unique in that fact. Only men in our group, it was originally formed from a boy scout troop so they just kind of kept that feel rolling.
We spend some months in spring creating a show with our world class staff, then spend the remainder of the summer till August touring that production around filling stadiums and pissing of other groups that didn’t quite design a show as good. It’s a tough life, you learn quite a bit, lose weight sprinting around in the heat of the summer, and can call it one of those “personality building experiences.” Learning that much material and doing nothing but sharpening your skills for months is really a great weight lifting class for the mind. That, and spending time with the same group of like minded individuals really grows your interpersonal skills. Notes have got to be clean, marching design has to be razor sharp… Because if it’s not, there’s a section leader or a staff member ready to climb up your ass in front of the whole crew.
It’s only a tough life in that first world kind of way, though. We have a tour medical staff. We have three meals a day from the finest industrial cafeteria supply company. Were not defending villages from terrorists. Impoverished children will maybe get vaccinated and maintain their ability to walk whether or not we can get the last few sets of the show clean.
We had arrived and de-boarded the tour buses into the school in the dark early morning the day before. There was a whole two hours or so of time in which we could sleep after we tossed our belongings onto the gym floor. You have to move fast. The quicker your shit is organized into the sleeping bag mosaic covering the floor the faster you can shut your eyes. After that brief bit of sleep, were up at… some time I cant possible remember to spend one hour eating at the food truck and preparing for the day. Then we rehearse. All day. Individual hours for lunch and dinner, maybe two hours for the evening before sleep to shower and decompress(and touch up on that one section you got reamed for)and sleep again. This is every day.
Except for today. Today is the much anticipated “free day.” Downtown San Antonio free day, to be exact. We get one of these once in a while when the staff knows were ahead of the game, or when were to busted up mentally and physically. From my perspective I never know which is which. We start the first few hours at a coin laundry to take care of the obvious and then the tour buses drop us off somewhere hopefully nice for a few hours. Today it’s the San Antonio River Walk. Should that be capitalized? Can a landscaped concrete gully around a narrow chocolate milk colored river be a tourist attraction? The decision is for brighter minds than mine.
So here we are. A brown network of aquifers beneath the streets of a major city. It’s painted far more brightly than the average roman style sewer. Restaurants, hotels dot the banks, if you can call them that. The concrete sidewalks channeling mud-water, that is. It’s kind of a weird environment, really. Ages ago I’m sure this was a network of nice little streams cutting into the Texas sand. A pretty little wetland oasis in an otherwise flat and bleak steppe. It’s as if they build the city around it, but also above it for some reason. As concrete replaced soil and sand whole place seems to have evolved into a kind of poorly drawn version of Venice, the streets and buildings a whole two floors above the water level to avoid the obvious flood hazard. When you stand below the buildings, not beside, on the concrete banks of the muddy deluge you really can’t shake the whole idea that this must be some sort of cultural basement level. The populace, the business, the roads, the money is up there. Not down here… in the basement.
But there’s great Tex-Mex tourist food. So at least we’ve got that going for us. Honestly that’s all you can ask on a free day. Steam soaked hamburgers and soggy chicken patties can only take you so far. If there’s anywhere that has great food it’s always going to be a place where you funnel the out-of-town tourists. I think that might be a business rule. If there’s anyone who can truly cause a ruckus and destroy a commercially popular area over time, it would be white people who think the cook should should have used less salt. Any restaurateur who wants to pass muster tends to keep a solid grasp on that population.
I had wandered for quite a while, met up with some guys from the brass line over here for nachos, seen the color guard over there for tequila tasting. I didn’t have much money for touristy tchotch, but I managed to get myself feeling full and save a few spare bucks for an extra drink or two. Wandering from storefront to storefront I happened to take notice of the number of tobacco shops. I couldn’t imagine why these would be popular but yet, here they were. Every few shops, or within other shops selling whatever, there would be a stand for cheap novelty cigars. I thought it must have been a Texas thing. Each shop had the same ones. They all had official sounding but basically gibberish names and brands. Just a bunch of handfuls of the cheapest tobacco money could produce rolled up into a paper sock for bottom dollar, but priced like top dollar. Nothing too complicated or deceitful really. Typically they were sorted right next to some real cigars. when you look down and see an appropriate sized Montecristo for eight dollars next to novelty baseball bat sized General San Herrero-whatever for the same, it cant be hard to figure out which one is the vacationer bait.
Those were the fun ones by the way. A twelve inch cigar with a ring gauge the same as a lead sewer pipe. Dirt cheap, too, if you taking quantity into account… and only quantity. I’m no expert but by that time in my life I had enjoyed a few cigars and I’m pretty sure they weren’t supposed to feel like a rolled up magazine and smell like ragweed. There was the thought that a cigar would have been nice, but those last few dollars were already spent on cheap tequila. Also, I had no intention of smoking a garbage bag full of yard clippings. The most these guys would get out of me was a giggle and a quick inspection.
At one place, I think it was selling glass trinkets and indigenous American looking things, I spied a group of kids. Young kids, right in that, “I have now grown exactly 4 mustache hairs.” age.
They were four or five of them in total, I didn’t take the time to count. They were bouncing back and forth in the store marveling about this thing right here, that thing there. I couldn’t tell exactly what because they were speaking Spanish. But I had made the same ruckus back in the shops where I’m from when I was younger, so it was obvious enough. The Spanish speaking was new for me. I was from what could be considered one of the whitest cities in the country in the northeast. Hearing another language other than poor white person in the day to day chatter was unique. These guys seemed perfectly fine, though. Had it not been for me remembering being the same way but for a different language I wouldn’t have even noticed. One little guy had been standing next to me as I was chuckling at the novelty cigars. Fresh faced short kid with long wavy brown hair down to his chin. He had that, extra curious wide-eyed look that most kids have at that age. His mouth was agape as he was focused on the tobacco rack. He looked like one of those happy old time Disney characters with his bright expressive young face and oversized black t-shirt and jeans. I happened to take note of him as I walked around him to leave the shop.
I had moved on with my wandering. The whole River Walk area was circular in nature to keep everyone contained and in a spending mode I guessed. I had made about two loops already throughout the day. I had circled back around to a little eating area under a ledge with an elevator. There were these big square concrete planters and a staircase that led up to the next lever. The area was full of tropical plants and ferns, it could be quite private if you wanted to get out of view as the other side of the river was almost a cave. As I turned to head up the steps. I spied the same little Spanish kid.
He was turned away from me towards an alcove in the planters and was holding one of those ridiculous footlong cigars. He was just standing there all alone marveling over it, none of his group were anywhere in sight. his head was faced straight down to his hands and his long hair was blinding him from the environment. The little kid was just turning the cigar over in his hands and feeling it out. The touristy plastic wrapper was still intact. I was making my way towards the first step just a foot or two away and he hadn’t noticed me yet. I found his amazement itself to be compelling and I naturally slowed down and decided to say something.
“Whoa! that things huge, man!” I laughed it out to him.
He didnt miss a beat, his head came right up and I saw that same childish glee and anticipation I saw in the store. He smiled and Said, in a heavy accent, “I stole it!”
His accent had a playful quality to it. The way he over enunciated the spanish “oh” sound and finished with the hard “ee” like, “eat.” I couldn’t help it, I loved the kid right then and there. He seemed so proud and exuberant,so happy. I just didn’t quite know how to reply to that in the moment.
“Well be careful, bud!” I replied in a playful but judicious tone.
He lifted his head to smile again and went right back to his ruminations over the cigar. I continued on my way and he barely noticed.
…
This kid lives in my memory like a light house beacon. I will remember that moment for ever. I don’t know who he is, or who he became. I know nothing. I only remember the incredible contrast in that moment from his existence to mine.
I never stole anything when I was young. I’ve never been able to. My brother and sister both tried once or twice that I know, in that same young barely-know-anything age. Both did it to impress some friends that did it all the time and made a game of it. I never did though. Was it because I was such a good boy, or because I just didn’t have any friends?
Who cares that he lifted a novelty cigar from a tourist shop? I’m sure no one misses an un-smokable high priced tourist hook anyway. In moments like these, sometimes you truly catch a glimpse inside someone else. The kid is there alone. He didn’t even steal it to impress anyone, just himself. Have I ever wanted anything so much that I would steal for it? What is stealing anyway? Is taking something that was basically there to steal tourist’s money really stealing? It was practically not even a cigar, its quality would preclude anyone with even basic knowledge of cigars from trying it. Sure hes a child… ish, but he didn’t look stupid.
What was he thinking?
I’ll never know. I got on the bus and went about my business play acting a musician for the rest of the summer. I’ll never truly know why this kid has stayed in my memory for so long. I think that might be the point. I don’t know anything. I don’t know anyone. I don’t know what it’s like to be anyone else. I do know that the look on his face was so genuine that couldn’t possibly blame him for anything. I don’t know if I have ever been as excited as that kid’s face looked. That makes me envy him, the little Mexican kid and his stolen cigar.