I was welcomed into Painted Wind like the prodigal son. Sharon and Geoff told me they had been very worried about me, that they had even made some kind of attempt to have me found. They told the police what they had seen. But they hadn’t got very far. They didn’t know my last name, and the hotel receptionist said I hadn’t properly registered. That was one person who would have a hard time if he ever had to live his life with Balarubu. They called the British Embassy in Santiago too.
‘Do you know how many of these Gap year people there are in Chile?’ the Embassy asked.
‘We spend more time replacing lost and stolen passports for out of their depth eighteen year olds, and calling their parents for money wire transfers than you would believe,’ they told Geoff.
‘I told him you were only sixteen. They said they had been sent some information about a sixteen year old travelling independently and to send back details if help was sought. But they wouldn’t tell me the name and I didn’t know yours: the whole conversation was a bit of a bust. They didn’t seem to keen to make the ID, because that would have been volunteering to have a problem on their hands, and they sounded like they’d be happier without the problem.’
Geoff sounded like he sympathised with them, as if he had to make the running because his Spanish was better than Sharon’s and because men are taken more seriously down there, but that he’d as soon have shrugged and let it go. But he was devoted to Sharon, and Sharon wanted to make waves. Sharon liked me, she worried about me.
‘Thanks for the effort,’ I told them.
‘We had to,’ Sharon said. ‘I was petrified for you. It was so awful. Those terrible men. Right there in broad daylight. It was just like that film about the army in Chile. The one with Jack Nicholson and his son…’
‘Gene Hackman,’ Geoff said.
‘I’m sure it was Jack Nicholson.’
‘Gene Hackman,’ Geoff said. ‘The movie’s called Missing. Except this wasn’t the army, it wasn’t our son, because our son’s right there in the kitchen where I should be, and Micky’s not missing any more. So it’s a happy ending, huh? Also not like the movie, as I recall.’
‘You’re right,’ Sharon said, squeezing my right hand tight with both of hers. Sharon had one son, Don, who was almost thirty, who worked in the kitchen now Geoff was semi-retired, and also for the most part ran the restaurant. He was a big, dour man, and didn’t seem to express himself much. As an adult, I don’t think he provided much of the outlet for mothering that Sharon still needed. I guess she would rather have had more than one child, and what she had was Don. Who was now in motherhen terms less than one child’s worth of mothering. Now I was having some of that desire poured over me. But it wouldn’t last. They were back on their travels in a few days.
‘We’d ask you to stay with us,’ Sharon said. ‘Until you get back on your feet, you get your money through from your mom. But as you know, we’re away again Friday.
‘No sweat,’ I said. ‘That’s not why I’m here. I ended up in Nogales by accident, I saw Painted Wind, and I thought I’d say Hi. Let you know after the stuff in Punto Arenas that I’m OK.’
‘No, but I didn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. You can stay around as long as you like. We have an old mobile home. Sometimes we’d have someone in the kitchen or a waitress needed a place to stay, and we could help. It’s no palace, it’s quite an old one, but it keeps the weather out. I had a couple of cooking rings put in, and a fridge and a TV.’
‘A place to put my head down,’ I suggested.
‘Exactly,’ Sharon said, beaming. She’d wanted to help, didn’t think she had much to offer and seemed so happy that I felt almost as if by taking her up on the mobile home, I was doing the favour.
‘Sharon, ‘ I said, delighted I could for once to combine dollops of sincerity with absolute honesty, I couldn’t think of anything I’d like better right now. A place I can clean myself up, get some comfortable sleep, and most of all, shut the door behind me and feel like I have my own space.’
‘As long as you like, though if Don needs it for someone in the kitchen, you may have to share. That OK?’
‘OK? It’s perfect. It’s better. That way I don’t feel like I’m keeping anyone out of a place. I’m just kind of parked.’ I paused. When someone has just done you a big favour out of pure kindness and a good heart, in some ways they’re the last person you want to ask a favour, because you feel like you’re abusing their good nature. But before I even had chance to ask, Sharon picked it up.
‘What is it? Come on, Micky, it takes a man to know when he needs help and be big enough to swallow his pride and ask.’
This was one smart woman. She knew just how to press my buttons, little Micky trying so hard to be a big man out on his own.’
‘When I was robbed, It left me with just a couple of dollars.’
I could see a tinge of disappointment in her face. Of all the favours you can do someone, money is the worst, the best at messing things up. There’s something so cold about money, so easy to seem calculating.
‘But when I told you about coming up in the ship, I didn’t tell you I worked in the kitchen. It’s not a lot of experience, but I can work hard. I wondered if Don could use anyone in the kitchen—just for food, say, just until I sort myself out?’
I’m not kidding about—you know I can’t any longer in case Balarubu was to take it the wrong way, (some Gods can be so damn humourless)—but when I said that, Sharon actually clapped her hands together like a gleeful little girl. I guess it helped her keep her good opinion of me just when she thought I was turning into a scrounging panhandler.
‘Don is always short in the kitchen. We always have an ad in the local paper, he pays the waitresses and the kitchen staff a bonus for introducing staff. What can you do?’
I can clean, wash up, prepare veg, the usual kitchen porter stuff, and I can bake.’
‘Really?’
I nodded.
‘Wait here.’
She disappeared after Geoff into the kitchen. I sipped a glass of water while she came back, bringing Geoff, and Don behind her. Don had a huge platter in his hand.
‘Here you go, kid. Mom said you wanted to work in my kitchen, and that’s good with me. And when she said you were down to your last bucks, I guessed a plate of food mightn’t go unwanted.’
‘No danger of that.’
The food smelled great. There was a big bean burrito with what smelled like good, home-made refried beans, a big overflowing chilli taco, and another giant beast, that I was told was a crab chimichanga—kind of a fried burrito. He’s also brought small dishes of salsa, sour cream and red beans. It turned embarrassing pretty quickly. Even when you’re trying to impress, this is difficult food to eat tidily, and I was already messy and I was extremely hungry. After a few minutes of enthusiastic gorging, I looked, slightly shamefaced at my dripping hands and wrists, and felt the food caked on my face. Don shrugged and pointed over towards the corner of the restaurant dining room. I hadn’t seen it before, but there was a giant sink with huge elbow controlled taps.
‘Mex is messy, man. Don’t sweat it. I like to see my food get eaten by hungry folks. Beer?’
‘Seven-up?’ I mumbled through a face full of beef and bread.
‘A kitchen porter who ain’t a drunk, too. My lucky day.’ He yelled to a waitress for my drink.
‘If ma takes you to the trailer park, and you start tomorrow, that OK?’
‘Good with me.’
‘You start 11 in the morning, you’ll have to work out a way to get here, the park’s a mile or so outside town. You get a couple hours off in the afternoon, then you work five ‘till maybe midnight, twelve thirty. For pay, guess it’ll be roughly a twelve hour day. Six bucks an hour your first week while I figure if you’re worth the space.’
Sharon frowned at him but it was his kitchen.
‘I told your mum…’
‘A guy’s going to put in a day like that, work his butt off, he needs pay. So, six bucks, then eight, and if you work out, I got another guy due back from visiting family over the border, cleans up normally, he comes back and you can cook some, and that works out too, your cook kills no-one so clean they can pin it on Painted Wind, you go to ten-fifty an hour. And it’s a kitchen, so you get to eat, although if you’re like most folks, you eat Mex every day, you’re like to go crazy, so you’re going to end up sending out for pizza.’
‘I could make pizza for the kitchen.’
‘You can make pizza? Real pizza?’
‘I can make bread, so sure.’
‘You can stop as long as you want.’
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