Never Knew His Name

I NEVER KNEW HIS NAME

(The true story of how an author who doesn't speak Spanish and isn't Mexican could write the book I have)

Shortly after moving from the East Coast in 1987 to the Houston suburb where I live, I noticed that most of the workmen who performed maintenance and the gardeners who trimmed the lawns in our subdivision didn’t speak English. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they live? Intrigued, I watched them, vaguely fearing some injustice might be underway. Why did they care about my lawn and whether shingles fell from my roof?

Soon I learned most were Mexican. They seemed uncomfortable when I tried to talk with them too long. Possibly because they had work to do! Soon I gave up trying and just nodded hello.

Until the day I met my friend.

He was poised on a neighbor’s ladder, doing something to her roof. He looked down as I looked up and our faces spontaneously broke into smiles as if we’d always known each other and were happy to meet again. Silly, of course.

I said, “Good morning, señor,” that being most of the Spanish I knew.

He said, “Good morning señora,” and we kept smiling and nodding until I moved on and he returned to his work.

I saw him again soon after among the other men and was struck by his respectful, calm manner, his good-humored alertness — as if he knew a lot more than lawns and shingles.

I admit I began to spy on him from my car and my house, and came to the conclusion he didn’t belong on anyone’s roof. This man was a philosopher of people and of life.

I looked for him whenever I went out. He seemed to look for me, too, neither of us missing a chance for those nods and smiles.

Saying little more to each other than “Good morning, señor” and “Good morning, señora,” we achieved a friendship, a shared understanding, a mutual respect, or so it seemed to me.

Gradually, I became certain this was no ordinary man. I felt an urgent need to learn his story, perhaps do something to help him get off that roof. Not that he seemed to mind. Far from it. He was at ease with the other workers, with his gringo boss who came and supervised, with all the neighbors, with the birds and squirrels who flew and scurried around him as he performed maintenance on our homes.

Nevertheless, I’d made up my mind. Not having truly mastered a language other than Latin, I would take Spanish lessons so I could speak to him. I looked up a translation on the Internet, so I could tell him the news: Buenos días, señor. Planeo estudiar español. Good morning, senor, I plan to study Spanish.

A week went by. Two weeks. Three.

I never saw my friend again.

I’d never know his story, hadn’t even learned his name. At length I wondered if I’d imagined him in my neighborhood, as comfortable on our street as the flowers and trees. Missing his smiles made me realize I knew little about the country that spans the southern border of the state where I live—-nothing of Mexico’s people, its history, its triumphs and its pain.

I went back on the internet to research the earliest Mexican event I did know of, the conquest, and didn’t stop until I reached today. The result is The Sacred Impostor, a thriller featuring Luis Telpiltzin Moctezuma, a modern-day Zapata who wants to save illegal immigrants, and Luis’s handsome, dangerous cousin, Francisco Miguel.

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J R Lankford’s Amazon Page