“Hey, everybody, come over here and taste the water from the urn. It’s a toda madres!” Boy’s jefito shouted when he arrived from work.
It was dinnertime and nobody was at the table. Even the family’s jefita was nowhere in sight.
The only one who poked their head into the kitchen was Boy.
“It tastes like the clay pot, like always,” Boy said.
“Where’s everybody,” his jefito asked.
“Pos since there’s no food…” Boy started to say but was cut off by his jefita.
“You have the paycheck?” she asked her husband.
He silently handed her the paper check.
She took it, got the car keys, and stepped out of the kitchen to fetch Boy’s big brother from the boy’s room.
“Flaco, let’s go to the store,” she called out.
Boy and his jefito were left alone in the kitchen.
“Where’s everybody else?” his jefito asked.
“Napping. Tired since yesterday when there was no refín,” Boy said.
His father looked down for a long while.
“You not tired?” he asked Boy.
Boy shook his head.
“Been hanging out with the Smith’s next door,” Boy answered.
“The pochos?” his jefito said.
“They’re funny,” Boy said.
“It’s not that they’re funny. It’s that they speak pocho. Y that sounds funny. Words don’t connect. You can’t tell where the conversation is headed. Or even if it’s a joke or not cuz they always smile.
He paused and chuckled.
“Know why they speak pocho, don’t you?” his jefito asked.
Boy shook his head.
“Cuz they’re coyotes. Mother and father. One set of grandparents spoke English but not Spanish, and the other set spoke Spanish but not English. So they couldn’t help but speak both at the same time. And since they’re a small family and keep to themselves, they only hear pocho,” his jefito said.
The jefita coming back into the kitchen and interrupted them.
“Whatchale listening to too much pocho or you’ll turn into a pocho and speak only pocho,” she said as she and Boy’s big brother walked by en route to the store.
“No it’s like comida? It’s not siempre what tu quieres. You gotta go sin it to appreciatelo?” the jefito said.
“Oh, muy smart. You gonna enseñar him to speak solo en pocho, and nobody’s going to understandle,” she said as she stepped outside.
“What?” Boy asked.
“Oh, good. That you don’t understand pocho well even after hearing is a bueno sign,” his jefito said as he walked out of the kitchen, leaving boy alone.
Boy squinted as the thought passed his mind that he might not have understood what they were saying because he was so hungry.
“I’ll ask him again what they were saying after I eat dinner,” he said to himself.
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