wednesday (werito bonito)
Qué más quieres güerito bonito? I had been laughing at something she was saying, I didn’t understand her, her mask was blocking her mouth and blurring her words, like someone talking into a sock, something about not able to always be doing what you want.
When I looked at the purslane she said, ah sí son muy bonitas. They were, in the dull red glow of the morning sun filtered through the red plastic tarp covering her stall. They were pretty. I got a huge bunch of it. Of them? In Spanish purslane is verdolagas so I think of the vegetable as plural. What vegetables do you think of as plural? You’re walking down the street and someone walks up to you. They hold a microphone in your face and say, what vegetables do you think of as plural? You smile shyly and say, no. Faggot, they say.
Just now, in the dusty, hot, lurid afternoon sun — can you tell I’ve been thinking a lot about Truman Capote, specifically Truman Capote as portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman? — anyway in the hot, lurid, dusty afternoon sun a pretty teenage girl approaches me with puppy-dog eyes. Me puedes pedir un Uber con tu teléfono? she asks. How else would I order you an Uber? I retort, snorting into my martini. By clicking my heels three times? My white linen seersucker joggers flow behind me like the train of a wedding dress. Swish swish swish. Puto, yells the pimply friend of the pretty puppy-dog girl. I twirl around effortlessly without spilling a drop of my martini. I lower my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses and peer at him intently. Oh yes, I say. I am a faggot. But I’m not going to order you an Uber. The boy starts sobbing uncontrollably and falls to the ground. Concerned, the three of us gather around him. Estás bien? the girl asks. Soy gay! the boy yells. See?
Of course that didn’t happen, although I am wearing flowing joggers and the boy did call me a faggot. I said, sí soy puto, which I’m not even sure is grammatically correct. He didn’t yell puto, he kind of just said it in my general direction, I imagine his eyes were looking at the ground. I didn’t yell sí soy…, I kind of just said it in his general direction. I know I was looking at the ground, or más bien looking at Nacho, hoping he wouldn’t react. Nacho did not react, he was focused on walking into the gated dog area and taking a shit, which he did. As we walked into the dog park the group of kids was walking past us. Ya cálmate, a second boy was saying. Yo no lo huberia hecho tampoco.
I wouldn’t have done it either. Would you?
There’s a dish here called carne de cerdo con verdolagas. It’s that: pork meat with purslane. Usually it’s pork neck, slow stewed in green salsa (roasted tomatillos, onions, and serrano peppers blended with cilantro) with purslane. The purslane turns soft, almost mucilaginous. The fattiness of the pork blends perfectly with the tang of the green salsa and the almost sour flavor of the purslane. It’s a good dish.
I made a bad dish. As I sit here, next to the leftovers that I am going to throw away, I remember that I made this bad dish once before. I thought a lot of the same things: I will stir-fry purslane with garlic and ginger and one dried red chili. It will be tangy, spicy, garlicky, and bright. Delicious. I’ll put a little too much salt so it’s salty too. I sliced up the garlic like my ex told me too (“Cantonese food is basically just anything stir fried with sliced garlic,” he told me once, he loved it, he loved going the restaurant by where I lived even though they called him Chino que no habla chino because he couldn’t speak Cantonese, he spoke Hakka, he said to them once, in Hakka, I speak Hakka and they just looked at him like he’d asked them to order him an Uber on his telephone), I cut the ginger into matchsticks, I find my jar of dried red chilis. I season the wok and heat it up til it’s smoking, pop in the chili for a second, then the garlic and ginger, then the verdolagas, which I’ve washed in several changes of water because they were in fact pretty dirty. At some point, getting cocky, I add a splash of chicken stock, a little soy sauce, and maybe a tablespoon of oyster sauce. I pick out a piece of purslane with my hand and try it. It tastes bad, I keep cooking.
The last time I cooked purslane I convinced myself that they were dirty and that’s why I didn’t like them. I could see the dirt coming off of them into the cooking liquid, I told someone. That’s why I washed them so thoroughly this time. The cooking liquid did turn dark, but not from dirt, from the soy sauce and the oyster sauce, which are both dark sauces. I had this vision of beautiful stir-fried purslane, the spicy cucumber & tofu salad I made the other day, and little bowl of Costco wonton soup. I could eat the salad and the purslane like little salads with the soup or put them in the soup, which felt like it was going to be fun. Unfortunately I hate purslane.
I always think purslane is going to be watercress, berros. At the last dinner we had together I ordered a salad with watercress and bacon, which was delicious. I wanted to make that, I thought, I should stop by the butcher on the way to the park and pick up some bacon — what a bad idea that would have been, bringing bacon to the dog park, all the dogs would’ve asked me for some and called me a faggot when I said no — but then I realized that I hadn’t gotten watercress, berros, I’d gotten purslane, verdolagas. Which I hate. I was even going to film myself making the salad, the bubbling bacon on the cast-iron skillet, the berros bouncing around the delicious pork fat, then the drained bacon crumbled on the berros, how luxurious. Instead I filmed myself singing “My Funny Valentine” and messing up one of the lyrics, can you tell which one?
Purslane is sour and leaves a weird film in my mouth. I washed it so many times, don’t tell me it was dirty. I went and got an HIV test the other day, negative, so don’t call me dirty. Not that having HIV makes you dirty or that a vegetable that has a little dirt on it isn’t beautiful, or edible, HIV is no longer a death sentence, honestly if you’re afraid of people with HIV get a life, puto, why is it always the men who say puto who are the most like the putos they’re think they’re insulting? Weak I mean. Pathetic. Worthless. Machismo is so gross, ugh. Ugh, I say, downing my martini and reaching to light my paper thin cigarette at the end of a seven-foot-long ivory cigarette holder. Ugh.