Abueyate!

By Oscar Rodriguez

Published January 22, 2025 at 6:00 AM CST

Órale, the feature of this episode of Caló is the verb abueyar. It’s based on the Spanish word buey, or ox, but it’s use as a verb in Caló. It invokes the image of a big water buffalo submitting to the whims of its master. A somewhat close term in English is kowtow. In Caló, the general idea conveyed by abueyear is that of a mighty and willful agent accepting its subjugation. The term refers as much to the act of the subjected as to that of its master. It speaks to an unnatural relationship, where a huge and powerful being comes under the control of a smaller, otherwise unlikely master. In this sense, you can’t abueyar a weakling or dependent being that’s already bent toward submission. They’re already owned, like a dog or parrot. Only the indomitable are subject to being abueyados. Nothing else fits the description.

Tita’s tiny house was full of guests anxiously awaiting the countdown on TV to midnight to begin. But the party spirit was interrupted by Tita yelling as she came out of the restroom.

“What pendejo left the seat down? Speak up now!” she shouted as she came out of the restroom. She held the door wide open. The light emanating from the bright light in the restroom beamed into the adjoining darker lighted living room. Everybody turned toward her as if she was Moses bringing forth the ten commandments.

The room was immediately charged with tension. There was so little time left before midnight that Tita’s shouting brought the excitement already brewing to a boil. Would it interrupt the midnight celebration?

“You want the seat up?” a young woman in the crowd asked.

“Yeah. It’s your house. Shouldn’t they’ve put it down?” a girl’s voice further in the crowd added.

All the men and boys in the house looked at each other but otherwise stayed out of the fray.

“Simón! We should make them go outside, if they don’t know how to use the toilet,” Chabelita’s loud voice boomed.

“Who was the last mamón who went in?”

“Hey, hey. Abueyate. Abueyate!” Tita said.

“The bronca is that the seat’s up in a party with a lot of little boys. You leave the seat down and a la madre with the seat, esa.”

“You keep it up so they don’t pee on it.”

Tita stared a Chabelita, who after looking around and seeing everybody look sideways at her, turned her eyes down and began to back into the crowd, all abueyada.

“No you don’t have any kids yet? I do. I’m a grandma. Watchas all these huerquitos? Puro wet seat when they’re around,” Tita said in Chabelita’s direction.

The young boys in the crowd looked around for instruction on how to keep up with the conversation, but their attention span was already waning.

“Pos tell’em get trucha,” Chabelita said.

“Chale. They’re still too sonsos. No matter what you tell’em, you put the seat down and these mesitos will get it wet,” Tita said.

“So if you don’t wanna sit on a wet seat, put it up if they’re around. Laters, when they’re older, don’t abueyate to tell’em to not be so mensos.”