Rainy Days

It’s taken me a while to come up with a name for the exact kind of racist that I am. For instance, on the one hand I speak Spanish, but on the other hand, I boycott things like WalMart and non-free range eggs. On the one hand, I once worked at a bodega that sold things like swords and homemade IDs, but on the other hand, I have a few diplomas. One of my ex-boyfriends could tell rapid fire Chuck Norris jokes, another one learned English in immigration jail.

I am a Rainy Day Racist. To illustrate this phrase, here is a taste of my ethics in action. When I saw the overweight black women in teddy bear suits dancing back up for Miley Cyrus at the VMAs, I wrote an angry feminist blog about it. But then later, I saw an overweight black woman walking down the street and yelled, “Someone give that lady a teddy bear suit! She’ll be a star!” 

And then I moved to Miami.  The following is an account of my interviews with Hispanic male men. Please understand that the majority of the views expressed in this blog are not shared by any of my sponsors, as I have no sponsors. I am currently in email conversation with Paula Dean.

Interview #1: The Mayfair Hotel and Bar: Coconut Grove, Miami.

           

            Brief warm up to this first interview.

I am, above all else, a white girl in Miami. On this particular day, I am wearing the biggest gold earrings I could find, a short black skirt, 4 inch black spiked heels, and a lacy shirt that exposes all my tattoos. (On the one hand, she has a good vocabulary, on the other hand, bird tattoos)  I am driving a ’06 Nissan that I bought from a Mexican who worked at Five Guys for $1500 in cash.  I have just found a parking space ON THE STREET. You know who else finds parking spaces on the street in Miami? No one. Ever.

The last words I spoke aloud in the car to myself are, “HEHE! Suck it, Mr. There’s No parking in Miami! Just like taking candy from a baby—”

            And then, I’m rammed in the ass by a black Ford Wrangler, my SHOE falls off, the one stomping the clutch, and I stall out in what is ironically, an almost perfectly aligned parking job.

            And suddenly and for completely no reason than my Catholic upbringing, I actually believe that it is my fault. I scream out the three different words I know in Spanish for the word “fuck” and for reasons I can’t really describe, bang my head repeatedly against the steering wheel. When I stop doing that, a dizzy feeling of what the fuck am I doing here descends over the scene. Like when a branch falls on your head right before the bar exam and knocks the Whopper out of your hand (who eats a Whopper on the way to a BAR exam?) and you realize you were actually just meant to write a blog about weird requests you got while you worked for that bagel shop in Vermont.

            I am still gripping the steering wheel trying to think of more brilliant analogies for this particular realization when the shockingly handsome 30ish owner of the Ford Wrangler knocks on my window and motions for me to roll down the window.

            The car isn’t on, so I can’t and for some insane reason wrapped up in still believing in my own guilt and stalling for time, I begin miming a series of ridiculous gestures to communicate the problem, which begin with me rolling down a manual window and then shaking my head to demonstrate that I don’t have manual windows, all of this done with not even the tiniest bit of irony or sarcasm. Before this horrifying game of charades can go any further, the man opens my unlocked door.

            “I am so sorry!” he says. “That was entirely my fault. Are you okay?”

            I stare for a second, collecting myself. 

“Yes,” I say austerely, “I am fine.”

“God, did you hit your head?” he asks. There must be a bruise forming already.

“Oh—yes, I did do that. I did hit my head.” I say, pushing the door open to climb out.

            “I’m actually a firefighter here in Miami,” he says. “Can I call someone for you?”

            “Oh no, that won’t be necessary,” I assure him. “I have a very hard head.”

            “Are you sure?”

            I have a passing thought that this would be a great time to advertise my ex-boyfriend blog, episode 3, where I accidentally break his windshield with my forehead.

            We exchange information, and by habit, I begin writing his number on my wrist. He offers me paper which I gracefully accept.

I do not ask him if he has ever saved a kitten or small child from a burning building. He pats my shoulder before I go and tells me to put some ice on my forehead immediately. He even pays for my meter.

When he leaves, I am re-inflated with the pre-interview belief that this man has offered to be of assistance because I, naturally, exude charisma. He may even be interested in me shall we say romantically. I’d spent 5 minutes getting insurance information from a complete stranger and it’s acting on me like the equivalent of spending two hours with my therapist in one of our Love Yourself sessions. By the end of it, I’m certain he’s going to call me and invite me to tour his fire house or have dinner with his amazing Italian godmother.

            I flounce over to the hotel at this point convinced that nothing could bruise my ego. I am still ten minutes early. I quiz myself on how to make a Manhattan and am not even fazed by the realization that I don’t know how to translate the words “bitters” or “sweet vermouth” into Spanish. Whatever! Who knows everything?

Outside of the hotel, there’s an older woman walking a small dog, and I decide to treat her to a bit of my charisma. Who’s to say that anyone else will even notice her? Why not take a little time out to brighten her day?

“Aw, what’s that? A Bichon Frishe?” I coo, wobbling quickly over to pat the dog.  

The woman yanks the dog away from me. She is visibly upset and I wonder suddenly if the forehead bruise affected my appearance so much that I look like a threat to a lap dog.

“Julia is a Maltese,” the woman snaps, and jerks the dog away.

And I genuinely feel bad. I am the asshole that moved to France and forgot to learn any French, I probably should have read a book about small dog breeds before I moved here. I mean, who am I kidding? I don’t even really know what a Shiatsu looks like.  I am starting to panic.

Two men open the double doors for me and a beautiful lobby greets me, the bar located directly to the left of the front desk.

A short Hispanic woman with the exact expression of Lupida from the TV series Weeds greets me at the bar, and looks me up and down exactly like I deserve. Her eyes widen when she gets to my earrings and go four complete loop-d-loops around the hoops before making it up to my face.

“Yes, I can help you?”

“Um, si, estoy aqui para una entrevista con Olivio?” I am practically panting, it’s the heels, the air is thinner up here. “Está disponible?”

“Oh. Okay, you may like to sit.” She looks at me, smiles, STOPS smiling and walks away.

I sit down carefully again, relieved at the opportunity to rest my earrings on my shoulders. I stay hunched over like this for approximately fifteen minutes before Lupida returns.

She slaps a menu down in front of me.

“You going to want to read this”. And then marches away again.

I look down at the menu; it’s a wine list.

A few things wrong with this exchange; okay, what am I, in a holding cell? Here’s your one piece of reading material, and no, there’s no information available yet about why you’re here. Secondly, what’s with the ‘you’re gonna want to read this’ routine? Am I going to get halfway down the wine list and find that’s it’s actually a user agreement with insane disclaimers? Notes scrawled in the margins from ex-employees “you no want to trabaja aqui!”

            After about another 20 minutes, Lupida emerges again from the kitchen.

            “Okay,” she says, and makes what looks like sign language for “Guess I’m going to take you this way now. What am I, a fucking caddy?”

            We meet who appears to be Olivio back at the front door of the hotel, who is laughing and shaking hands with another man who could also be Olivio except he’s WHITE, and yeah I’m just putting two and two together.

            I smile in the general direction of the men who are about two feet in front of me the way you do when you’re trying to interrupt a conversation that obviously doesn’t plan on ending just because you showed up.

Suddenly, Lupida pats my shoulder and whispers, “I think they think you bilingual. Maybe you should say something soon, you know?”

I turn around slowly to see if she’s serious, but she’s already walking away.

After some time, the conversation ends, and Not Olivio leaves.

Olivio smiles, crosses his arms, looks at me and greets me with “Ahhhhh. Haha.”

 Yeah, that’s what I get for hello. Two SOUNDS. And the look he gives me is the look you’ll get upon meeting any Hispanic man EVER:  Oh, that was funny conversation I just have and you just listen to, no? Was funny, no?

 “Hi!” I say. “I’m here for an interview?”

“Uh, ok, pienso que la forma está en oficina…”

            I can't understand the rest of the sentence because Olivio has already turned and begun walking away and my forehead is pounding.

I spend the next seven to ten minutes chasing Olivio around the entire hotel. It’s like getting a tour of every room except without conversation.

At one point, Olivio disappears around a corner, and when I finally fly around it and burst into the room, I realize it’s the kitchen. I take a few tentative steps inside before about ten men in chef suits notice me and make it abundantly clear that I shouldn’t be there.

As I’m backing away, Olivio emerges from a separate room with a stapled pack of papers in his hand and gestures for me to follow him back out of the kitchen. At this point I realize the last ten minutes would have made a lot more sense if the end of his sentence earlier had been, “so you just wait here. I’ll be right back.”

After another hike back through the hotel, we arrive in a basement office. Another Hispanic man is chatting and laughing into a phone.

Olivio drops the papers on the man’s desk and leaves. Apparently I haven’t made much of an impression because he doesn’t say goodbye.

I plop into a chair across from the man behind the desk just as he hangs up.

“Hello!” says the man across the table from me. “Olivio! And you are?”

Oh so this is Olivio. I am delighted to discover that I have wasted the last half hour trying to make a good impression on someone with the authority of a bell hop.

“ I’m Katelyn,” I say. I point to the stack of papers in front of him. My resume.

“Oh yes, okay.” Olivio picks up the stack and straightens it for a second.

Suddenly he squints at me and points to my chest. “What’s your tattoo say?”

“Oh that?” I laugh. “Uh, when born we inherit what’s burning.”

“Okay, when born we inherit what’s…?”

“Burning. Yeah.”

“Burning…” he repeats slowly, and smiles. “That’s nice.”

Okay, call me old fashioned, but if your first words to someone of the opposite sex are, tell me more about the words permanently positioned on your boob, you are obviously not trying to make them feel comfortable. Also, no, that is not ‘nice’. In fact, it’s not even nice-ish.

I smile back. “Thank you.”

“So tell me about Katelyn. Who is Katelyn?” He props his chin on one hand and smiles at me as if expecting my answer to take a while.

I consider repeating my previous statement. The one where I pointed out that I was Katelyn.

“Well,” I say instead, “I just moved here from Virginia less than a week ago, I’m going to be a student in January, and I really need a job. I’ve been in food service for about eight years and have done virtually every aspect of it. The whole gamit.”

“Ahhh, Virginia? I have cousin in Roanoke. You know Roanoke?”

“No, not really.”

“Yes he works for Planet Sushi Aha. You know Planet Sushi Aha?”

“Uh---“

“It’s very nice bar. Very nice. They grow mint for the drink right outside. You know for mojito? Pero it’s like sometimes you don’t even know who should be working there. Girls are not very friendly. You ever work for a place like that?”

“…Well, I used to grow mint for mojitos. Which was great. Very fresh.”

            “Hmmm.” He’s quiet for a second. “You know, sometimes I tell my bartenders you know, I come up, I’m guest, you are working behind the bar, you know, come say hey! Say, ohhhh, I can take your picture? Maybe you take their phone and make a joke, say, I take it for free haha. You have to! How are you going to make the tips when you don’t talk to me, you know? Even nice looking girls have to say something you know!” He laughs and wags a finger at me.

            “Haha, yes,” I say, noting that Jewish and Hispanic men suddenly seem to have a lot in common, “conversation is very important.”

            Suddenly a man walks in the office, scowling.

            “I’m going to the meeting,” he says.

            “Good,” says Olivio.

            “The price of olives is going up.”

            Olivio laughs. The man leaves.

            What the hell kind of food service gang code is that?

            Olivio then tells me about several other places in the United States which he has traveled to and/or lived in, including Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and New York which takes another twenty minutes, at which point he tells me that I should come back in a week for an interview with his boss.

            It is safe for me to conclude either one of two things 1) Miami is, indeed, a foreign country or 2) Olivio was hired to fake interview people while his real boss stalls for time in some other part of the castle.

            I guess we’ll see in a week.