Tino

I no longer know what to do about Tino. It’s easy when he’s sprawled out on the side of the street, drooling unconscious with the merciless rays of high noon beating upon his face. The children sidestep him like a fallen tree branch on their way home from school.

Sometimes I see him walking up the hill from our colonia, our paths due to intersect. As he wobbles towards me I tell myself I won’t even acknowledge his existence. He doesn’t even deserve that. But whether it’s guilt or curiosity, I often end up making eye contact with him. His glassy eyes brighten as a smile shoots out across his face. It’s a smile of desperation, a smile that seems forced yet somehow genuine. It’s as if he wants me to smile back like we’re old friends, as if he hadn’t burned his life to the ground and that he won’t die alone after all.

A greeting always escapes my mouth.

If he were to ever stand straight he’d be close to six feet tall. His jeans and sloppily tucked in buttonups do little to hide the frail figure that a lifetime of neglect and abuse has given him. A permanent gray and black scruff clings to his face, his sunken eyes hidden beneath the brow of his dirtied white sombrero.

I always wonder where he goes. How he manages to scrape his cents together to go and buy his vices. The woman I live with is named Catalina. One time she said he propositioned her, “I’ll give you $40 if you come to my house right now.” She scoffed as she told me this. “I’m worth much more than $40.” she exclaimed, only half joking.

All the houses in my neighborhood were donated after the civil war. They’re all identical tiny squares with black tiles, dusty gray cinderblocks and tired red and yellow tiles. Many times a family of eight or more will share the same four walls, yet Tino lives alone.

Our lives are intertwined by proximity. I could underhand a mango and hit the roof of his house from my front door. I can’t help but see him as I walk by, swinging in his filthy hammock, a blaring radio his only company.

Late last year his advances at Catalina became more persistent. With her husband having left more than a decade ago, he must feel like she’s an easy target. The propositions continued, along with the catcalls intermingled with outright insults until early one morning he found her alone at the restaurant where she works. It appeared as if he hadn’t slept but spent the night drinking instead. He ordered a liter of beer. He quickly drained the bottle and then tried to make an advance only to be told off. Enraged, he curled a fist and threw it into Catalina. In one swift movement she grabbed the bottle off the table and shattered it over the side of his head. Catalina called her brothers and sisters and as Tino stumbled, bleeding back to his house, they intercepted him. Fists and feet rained upon him until he managed to get away and lock himself in his house. He didn’t come out for two days.

It was then I decided to never speak to him again. And I didn’t. When he finally emerged with the tattered bandages covering the side of his head, I went by him without a word. And so did a lot of people. Drunks are normally ignored and ridiculed here, but Tino managed to find a level below worthlessness and moved right in.

Soon his unreturned greetings began to show pangs of desperation. With watery eyes and a child like expression he would call my name out. This gets me because very few people actually call me by my name, opting for “Gringo”. I don’t necessarily mind being called gringo but sometimes it irks me. Any American could move here tomorrow and they would call him the same name. It’s to say me living and working here for the past year has done nothing to embellish my identity in their minds, I’m just an interchangeable “Gringo” and not “Daniel” the person. So when Tino calls out my name it naturally makes me stop.

This man is a predator, a sleaze, and a drunk. In large part he is the author to his own demise. He has repeatedly hurt and terrorized one of the kindest people I know. So why is it that I can’t ignore him?

Maybe it’s like how I feel with my name. I dream of being more than the “Gringo”, for someone to recognize my humanity. Maybe by the same token, maybe he wishes to be more than the invisible bolo (drunk). Because despite all of his faults and all the terrible things he’s done, he is still a human being capable of feeling pain. Pain that is so palpable that when you look into his welling, sullen eyes you both know that the best he can wish for is that someone simply acknowledges that he’s still alive.