The best job Kristie ever had was selling Mexican pottery by the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere… Four Corners, CA. There wasn’t much there. It was just a stopping place for travelers to get gas, take a rest, get a snack, and use the facilities.
There were two gas stations with mini-marts on opposite sides of the highway. They each had fast food operations, and restrooms for public use . One corner had a small funky motel, a coffee shop, and a large vacant lot for the truckers to park their vehicles. One place had a bank of showers for rent. There were always a couple of past-their-prime hookers hitching on one or two corners. You could rent the rooms in the motel by the hour in case you just wanted a shower and a “nap.”
The fourth corner was the Mexican pottery corner. It was quite a set up really with a trailer, a camper coach, a large pick up truck, and various displays of the pots, statues, and leather goods. Speck was the boss of the operation. He had gotten some kind of great deal on the corner and he was making good money on it.
Kristie was on the morning shift. The desert is beautiful in the early morning. Many times she sat for an hour before sunrise just watching the light play with the pink sand and the purple haze on the horizon. She met a lot of interesting travelers from all over the country and the world. They all stopped to buy a painted pot or a frog for their garden or a statue for a fireplace accent.
Speck said, “I’ll bet you don’t know how I got my name? Because it doesn’t show so much anymore…. But back when I was a youngster, I had bright red hair and little brown specks all over my skin – freckles!” He smiled. “So they called me Speck.”
Everyone played with the binoculars. “Hey!” Speck would say as he was focused in on a long haired bearded hippie standing on one corner with his thumb out. “Here’s one for you! I know how you like ’em!”
He was a big teaser, so Kristie teased back when she spotted the fifty year old washed out over-made hooker. “Oh! And here’s one for you! I wonder if she’ll take her teeth out for you?”
Every month or so Speck would make a trip down to Tijuana to load up on some more pots and such. He decided to take Kristie along on one trip. They left before dawn and drove for about four hours. Four hours in which they listened to every eight track he had of the two kinds of music he listened to – “Country and Western.”
They stopped just before the border at a cafe with rest rooms. “You’ll want to go here… before we cross over,” he warned. We took a few side roads after crossing the border and ended up in pottery row – a street lined with various shacks that specialized in the cheap shit that we sold.
Speck looked up at some imaginary focal point, chewed on the butt of his morning stogies and said, “I’ll give ya 25 cents a piece for all of them big green frogs.”
The Mexican man grinned back and nodded his head in feigned agreement knowing that this was to be the first of a very big sale.
“I’ll take ten of them conqueestadories and fifty of them painted clay pots too,” he had a way of exaggerating his Oklahoma accent to make it sound even Oakier than was normal. You could tell he was enjoying himself, enjoying life, every moment by the constant smile and joking demeanor he kept even when he was ill or doing business or scolding one of his children or an employee.
“This here is one of my wives,” he said pointing at Kristie. Actually she was going out with his son, but he enjoyed this game of deception with the Mexican pottery sellers.
“How many wives you got?” they would joke back with him. “I think I got four and this one ain’t even the biggest neither; I got one back home who’s twice as big as this one.”
The four wives he was referring to were Lenna, his real wife and mother of his three children. Lenna was a beautiful slim woman with a quiet manner and a gentle way about her that attracted more men than Speck would have liked to admit. She had the body of a teenager and was currently having an affair with Charlie, the Indian, behind Speck’s back.
Charlie had started working for the family about four or five years previously. With Speck being gone so much and with all the rumors about Speck and his secretary down at the wood shop -another business Speck owned that made cabinets to order. It wasn’t any wonder that Charlie and Lenna ended up together. Sleeping in the same empty house night after night eventually led Lenna to Charlie’s back bedroom where they warmed each other’s souls and bodies secretly whenever they got the chance.
Kristie really didn’t know if Speck ever knew about Charlie. If he did, he didn’t let on because he would have had to do something about it if he had. Likewise, Lenna never let on that she knew about Speck’s secretary, Sheila. Even though it was rumored that Shiela’s barren marriage of thirteen years amazingly produced a son who looked remarkably like Speck only two years after she began working at the cabinet company.
Speck’s second wife was Connie, short for Consuela, a very large Mexican housekeeper who made a fresh pot of coffee whenever she heard Speck’s truck roll into the driveway. She also took care of Sheila’s son during the day. She didn’t actually live there, but was available for house sitting whenever they needed her. She was “the big one” Speck was referring to. She spent her days doing the family chores, washing, ironing, and watching soap operas on the tube.
Lenna used to tease Speck about him having an affair with Connie. Connie would get embarrassed and vehemently deny the accusation and Speck would literally shiver at the thought of it.
Kristie often felt sorry for Connie who really had no life of her own. She would go home to care for her aging parents after her day of housekeeping. She had no friends her age and spent her weekends at the local Catholic church doing good deeds for people and praying for their souls.
Although she respected and feared Speck, she was loyal to Lenna and knew all the gossip about everyone in the family. Speck used to tease her about Charlie and suggest that they “get it on” since they both needed somebody but Connie knew that Lenna was what Charlie needed. And Charlie knew that Lenna would never leave Speck.
Years later Speck had a series of heart attacks that ended his life. Right up to the end he was flirting with the nurses, sneaking in a bottle of apricot brandy, and trying to smoke his stogies without getting caught…. Kristie was really glad she had known him – Speck.
(First published 8/23/11)
