Waiting For The 311 Bus

He could have been a pirate.

His hair was black and grey and wiry and hung down just short of his shoulders. His beard was as wiry as his hair, and a close look revealed short, neat braids along his jaw from his chin to just below his ears.

He spoke with a raspy voice. And as he spoke, he looked at me with his head askew with his right eye closed, unless he was making a point, in which case both eyes opened wide.

And he had an earring hanging from his right ear.

But in spite of his cursing about the couple who stole all his tools one time when he was away from home for a while and his comments to a woman sitting behind us about how he wouldn't bite (unless she asked him to), he had a gentle air about him.

He showed me how to collect prickly pear fruit. How you have to use welding gloves and long-bladed garden shears when collecting the fruit. How you have to put them in a bag held well away from your body. And how you put them on a skewer and burn the spines off them before cutting them open.

He told me how to slice the fruit and scoop out the meat. He talked at length about jalapenos and Hungarian peppers and chile pequins and how to make them hot (or not). He talked about how to de-seed jalapenos and mash them and mix them with prickly pear fruit to make jelly.

And he told me how you can sell a few jars to friends to earn some extra money.

Yes, he could have been a pirate, but of course he wasn't: pirates don't share their secrets.

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waiting for the 311 bus at Westgate Mall
Austin, TX USA

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