18th June 2004, mid-afternoon | Comments (18)
Sitting in Delores Park reading my book, I look up to see a middle-aged woman standing a few metres away from me. She has her hands held out in front of her, is shaking slightly, and spasmodically thrusts her hips from side to side. Every now and then she collapses at the waist, flopping forward so her head and ankles meet, before jerking back upright again. I wonder if she’s mental, and decide to keep an eye on her lest she get some momentum up and come jerking and thrusting my way to attack me.
After a few minutes of watching, something about her behaviour strikes a chord with me, and I realise that she’s not a mental, but is in fact practising a form of modern dance (an easy mistake for me to make, believe me). Endowed with this new knowledge I watch in fascinated horror as she removes most of her clothing, until she’s wearing only a yellow Nike sports bra, a pair of black lycra shorts, and about fifty pounds of excess flab. Her hip thrusts and torso flops continue with gusto, becoming thrustier and floppier with every passing moment. I change my mind again, decide that she is indeed a mental, and move further away from her…
As I move I become aware that the park, previously occupied only by myself, the mental lady, and a bum, is now overrun with Mexicans. Closer inspection reveals three distinct groups:
The fat men are yelling and blowing their whistles, the small children are yelling and running, and the parents are sitting in blissful calm, happy in the knowledge that for the next hour the small children are the responsibility of the fat men with whistles. It seems a Mexican soccer school is in progress…
The fattest of the men with whistles heads off to mark out the playing area, walking slowly down a white line, laying out little yellow cones after every set of four exaggerated strides. Behind him a tiny child scurries along carefully picking up the cones one at a time, and cradling them in his too-small arms. I can see this, the yelling children can see this, the parents can see this, and the other fat men with whistles can see this. The chaos subsides as seventy people stand and wait for the scene to unfold.
Eventually the fat man reaches the end of the line, dusts his hands off and turns around to survey his handy-work, only to perform a comedy ‘start’ (think Laurel and Hardy) at the sight of a three-year old kid smiling up at him through a heap of yellow plastic. I laugh, the children laugh, the parents laugh, and the other fat men shout things in Mexican before laughing a lot too. One of them blows his whistle in appreciation. The child is relieved of the cones and runs happily back to his mum and dad, windmilling his arms in joy at being the center of attention.
I check on the mental woman, and then go back to my book.
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