So Noah and Kim and I
don't have anything to do
except ride around in Noah's clunky funky
beet-red Carmeghia
and smoke camel straights
and talk about how there's nothing to do
on this hot stale still friday night
in El Paso

Kim says, let's go to Rosa's
as in Rosa's Cantina like the country song
"Out in the west Texas town of El Paso...."
let's go to Rosa's, Kim says, cause they got a pool table
and mariachi and cumbia music on the jukebox

but Noah says no
because he always says no to Kim's ideas
and Noah looks just like a hick
that the latinos and mexicanos like to pick on
and Noah doesn't understand Mexican music
even though he's lived here on the border
all his life

Noah whines for awhile
but we all know we're going to Rosa's
cause Noah loves pool and beer and camels
especially all together with his buddies

So we get to Rosa's
which is as shitty and cheesy as one might expect
a bar to be that was in an old country song
fake, peeling wood paneling
Gringa women on posters smiling while caressing
american beers with spanish slogans
an ugly surly barkeep who's out of everything we order
except Dos Equis
lots of barely conscious fat Latin men
slooped on barstools

I fall in love with the place instantly

and there's this drunk Latina woman
who starts talking to me
who keeps asking me where I'm from
"So where you from?"
"No really, where you from?"
"De dondé eres?"
"No, don't lie to me. Where you from? Cause you're not from here."
"Really now, I'm not kidding. Tell me where you from."

And she doesn't believe any of my answers
in English or Spanish
which would be real funny
except for her enormous drinking buddies
that follow our conversation
with a dangerous humor in their eyes

meanwhile Noah's taking on the local pool champ
and wiping the floor with him
running them balls like Fats
crack bam!
crack bam!
crack bam!

and this is becoming one of those scenes
from an action movie
where our heroes get cornered by the bad guys
"Oh think you can hustle us, huh, tough guy?"
"Who you think you are coming into our bar, pinche gabacho gringo."
and then there's a hilarious barroom brawl
and our heroes do lots of kung-fu kicks
and chairs and bottles get broken
but no one get's really hurt or pulls out a gun
and our heroes race away laughing

but this isn't no friggin movie
not even a fictional poem
it's just something that happened once
at Rosa's Cantina
where some friends played some pool
drank some beer
talked to the locals
and then went home
on a still stale friday night
in El Paso.



rikpanganiban
april 1994