“El Don”

by Amaris Castillo (Dominican Republic)

He drives his 1975 Cadillac Coupe deVille he named Bella – gleaming from a recent wash – into the parking lot of Altagracia Grocery. Don Pedro glides in real slow, with music reverberating so all can hear. This morning it’s a depressing bolero from Leo Dan. But the song does not match his mood, because Don Pedro rolls down the driver’s side window and smiles his toothy grin. The other men are already there, leaning against the ice chest. Their usual spot.

“Eyy!” Don Pedro’s voice booms when he sees his friends.

He sticks his hand out of the car, raises it in acknowledgement. They do the same. He then creeps around Altagracia Grocery to park behind it so as not to anger Jose. Don Pedro is already on shaky ground with the store owner, and he’d very much like to continue being allowed on the property.

It’s a Friday, a few minutes shy of 8 a.m. Altagracia’s doors are still locked, but a few customers are already waiting outside. Thanksgiving is days away.

Don Pedro turns off the car engine and inspects himself in the mirror. The deep grooves on his face tell a weathered story, but his outfit tells a grandiose one. He’s dressed impeccably, ignoring the unusual chill for Florida with a light blue linen button-down shirt and caramel-colored trousers, his mahogany neck draped in gold chains, one of which has a pendant of the entire island of Hispaniola. Don Pedro never did understand why it was split in the first place, and the subject is part of an endless discourse the men love to engage in: politics, history, and women.

Today he keeps his thinning hair tucked under a straw fedora hat and his milky gray eyes behind aviator glasses, the bridge tight over his wide nose.

The man is 71 and insists he’s still a papi chulo.

When he finally makes his way to the front of the store, Don Pedro picks up a stride and joins his two friends.

“Bueno dias,” he says.

Rogelio and Lazaro pat him on the arm and move over so he can also lean on the ice chest. The trio of viejos like to get there early to claim their position, even though other customers could care less about what they do.

“How’s Rosa?” Don Pedro asks Rogelio in Spanish. His friend shakes his head.

“She’s fine,” Rogelio says.

Don Pedro and Lazaro tell him they’re glad his wife is doing better. He thanks them.

“But now she won’t stop checking her blood pressure. She’s up every morning for Zumba. She’s eating salad every day,” Rogelio says. “Trying to get me to do the same.”

“El diablo,” Don Pedro says.

“Ñooo!” adds Lazaro.

In a second, the trio are chuckling about the thought of Rogelio - a sturdy dominicano - eating a dainty spinach and kale salad instead of dripping ribeye.

A loud click interrupts the moment as Jose unlocks the door. He glances at the men and offers only a terse nod. He begins to push out a few shopping carts that were stored inside overnight. The three old men rush to help, eager to be useful. The store owner thanks them begrudgingly and goes back inside.

There used to be an unassuming round table with worn plastic chairs out front, but the trio – as they often did – dominated it. Other customers who stopped by for some lunch – people who actually purchased more than the cortaditos of coffee the old men nursed all morning – could never sit and eat out front. The viejos occupied the chairs all day, ogling at women and yelling over one another about the latest corrupt president of the Dominican Republic or how expensive life is here in the United States. But oh, how grateful are they to be Americans now!

Then one day, the table and chairs disappeared.

But the man can stand, at least through until early afternoon. It’s time for a cafecito. Don Pedro pats his pocket, where he keeps his wallet. The trio gets their first cup at 8 a.m. sharp and maybe a second round close to noon.

Don Pedro fixes his linen button-down and straightens up. He hopes the new cajera is working today. The first time he met her a month ago, he was entranced. If he had to guess, she’s about 20 or so. A gorgeous dominicanita, from his island, who arrived here from Higüey to stay with a tia. He took in every inch of her shapely brown body. He dreamt of her thighs, so meaty they threatened to rip the red jeans she wore. He thought about what lay underneath. He agonized, wishing he could bring her home.

That first day, the young cashier-in-training smiled at him when he went to the register to pay for a cup of coffee and a tostada, the young cashier-in-training smiled at him. So young, so pure, he thought. When she gently dropped change into his hand, he caressed her face. Leaned forward.

“Eres bella,” Don Pedro whispered.

She immediately pulled away. Her smile faded. He tipped his hat toward her and dropped the change into a donation jar on the counter.

This morning, to his delight, the cajera is behind the register. Rogelio and Lazaro and Don Pedro wish her a good morning. Don Pedro thinks his friends are cowards because they drink in her beauty silently, but he knows they’ll all talk about how good she looks once they’re back on the ice chest.

No one has to tell Don Pedro he’s a viejo sucio. He knows he is and delights in it. There’s a freedom to being a sinvergüenza, to being shameless. Women should always be admired, he reasons.

The men order their cortaditos and line up to pay. The young cajera sees Don Pedro and – to his dismay – pulls her gray cardigan on. She’s wearing a tight white shirt underneath. Don Pedro hands her two dollars. He accepts not being granted the privilege of seeing her delicious cleavage. But then the cardigan opens up a bit, and he notes how her big, round breasts appear to be suffocating under her shirt. Almost abruptly, his penis goes erect.

When she hands him her change, the cajera avoids eye contact. Don Pedro hopes she sees his passion for her. She does not.

As the day wears on, the viejos lean on a familiar topic – the past: Don Pedro and Rogelio’s lives in the Dominican Republic, and Lazaro’s home in Cuba. They discuss U.S. current events and make ignorant generalizations about the president. They opine on local news, or the derivatives they’ve gathered from others – in a telephone game that breeds misinformation. Squinting at their phones, they scroll through WhatsApp messages and share memes that are only funny to men like them.

Women continue to filter in and out of Altagracia Grocery for some last-minute Thanksgiving Day shopping. Some walk in with cell phones glued to their ears, rattling off all the ingredients and viandas needed to someone on the other line, oblivious to the men scanning their bodies. For Don Pedro, it is a glorious runway show, even with unwitting participants. He stares in deep thirst at the tetonas, caderonas – all the mujeronas.

The men nod at a tall trigueña with dark, waist-length hair. Their collective gaze follows the woman’s hips swaying left and right, left and right. He imagines how good it would feel to be alone with those plump hips, grabbing them. Don Pedro steps forward just before the woman reaches for the door handle to enter the store. He grabs it and opens the door for her.

“Buenas tardes, mamacita,” Don Pedro says.

His friends look on, amused but with bated breath.

The woman’s lips thin and she steps in without a word.

Don Pedro turns around to face his friends. He gives a small shrug.

“She’s not ready for all this,” he says.

They erupt in laughter.

A short time later, Don Pedro compliments a woman in her 20s, who is with her mother, who appears to be in her 40s.

“Suegra!” he calls out to the older woman.

The woman looks back in disgust at being called his mother-in-law.

“Viejo loco,” she sneers as they pull out of the parking lot.

He smiles wide, his right front gold tooth glinting in the sun. He tips his fedora at the car’s trunk peeling away.

It’s now just before 5 p.m. Don Pedro’s legs are sore. He has been shifting his weight in his favorite pair of brown leather shoes. They’re flashy, but bad for his plantar fasciitis. He used to wear these shoes only to church, back when he sought out God. He’s on shaky ground with Him, too. He pats his friends on their backs and returns to his car.

In less than ten minutes, he’s home. Don Pedro parks on a side street and ambles – with his walker this time – to the one-room efficiency he rents behind a young couple’s house. Inside, he removes his shirt and trousers and hangs them in a metal rack pushed up against a wall. Lies on his twin-sized bed and stares up at the popcorn ceiling.

He reaches over to turn on his radio, forever dialed to 92.5. He’s grateful for the added voices in his home.

***

The rustling palm tree outside Don Pedro’s window casts ever-changing shadows on his face. He is up with the sun.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving. Rogelio and Lazaro can only be at the bodega for an hour or so. They are spending the rest of the day with their families. A tinge of something washes over Don Pedro, but he waves it away.

Soon he’s dressed in his usual attire and drives over to Altagracia’s.

His friends wave. He waves back.

After parking, he ignores his walker resting on the floor of the backseat and steps out. Strolls to the front of the store, where Rogelio and Lazaro are waiting.

The men go inside to get their cortaditos. The gorgeous girl from Higüey is there, stone-faced.

His friends pay and Don Pedro nods at them to go on without him. He’ll be out in a second.

“Mira, linda. Every day I am blessed to see that beautiful face of yours,” he says.

The girl fidgets, says nothing.

“You have a beautiful day. God bless you,” he says in Spanish.

He blows her a kiss and steps outside.

Because the men only have an hour or so together, the political discourse is hot this morning. Don Pedro plays the part of a passionate orator, complaining about gas prices and how this is all a setup from the federal government. Before his friends can say anything, their eyes focus on someone behind them.

Rogelio lets out a low whistle.

“Hola, mami,” he says sweetly. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“Welcome to Altagracia’s,” Lazaro adds. “If you have any questions about anything, we’re here to serve you.”

Don Pedro’s interest piques. He turns around and sees a young woman with long, wavy dark brown hair that reaches her hips. His estranged daughter.

She had been avoiding eye contact with them but something about his shoes must have jogged her memory. She looks up at them. Don Pedro is stunned. Letters, words, are unable to arrange themselves in his brain to his mouth. Linda nods at him slightly and hurries inside the store.

Don Pedro’s friends, like they always do, jump into graphic descriptions of the beauty they just saw, of her hips and hair. But for the first time, he’s silent. And, for the first time, he’s ashamed.