Sep 3, 2016

Hey bro, do you espanol?

I went to pick up some Mexican food the other night at a new Mexican restaurant in a really shitty part of town. It's across the street from a flea bag hotel where shitty people live.  Just two days before there was an incident that involved a man with a hatchet attacking people.  Yeah. But it's really good food and they have reasonable prices.  While I was waiting for my order a clearly homeless guy wearing cut off jeans over dirty pajama pants, two different shoes and a tattered blanket comes in and mumbles something about a jalapeƱo plate.  The guy behind the counter seemed to know what he was asking for and the vagrant pulled out a crumpled up dollar bill, gave it to the clerk, took a paper plate covered with tinfoil and made an elaborate salutation to everyone in the place and left.

Right before I got my food a potentially, but not fully homeless looking Latino guy came in and said "hey bro, (then in a perfect accent) ¿se habla espanol?"  repeated it again along with something else in Spanish.  At this time the woman from the back calls my order and I take my bags but stick around to watch this exchange.  After a few seconds the cashier came out from the back and answerd him in Spanish.  Then in perfect English the Latino guy says "yo bro can I get a couple dollars to take the bus" Now the poor kid working there is thoroughly confused.  At this point he's probably thinking he is trying to bum 2 dollars from a business at the same time not sure if he should be speaking in Spanish or not.  He sort of laughs and replies in English "I'm sorry what do you want?  First you asking if I speaking Spanish then you talk in English"  the guy starts reaching deep into his pants pockets and says "I'm multi-tasking bro I can do it all!  Haha!"  then puts two handfuls of random loose change on the counter and says "I need two dollars for the bus can you help me out bro?"  the cashier has a confused laugh "oooh you want the paper dollars ok"  and helps the guy count two dollars in change then hands him two dollar bills. 

It was completely bizarre. Then as I'm walking back to my car I see flashing lights and it's cop cars and an ambulance in front of the Budget Inn.  The excitement never stops on the  east end of 4th St.