The Nicaraguan exodus hit Miami hard, Oliver North and Tres Leches were the fashion
I was the tallest busboy at La Carreta on west 16th Ave, near Westland Mall.
My uniform consisted of a black satin vest that I picked up at the Opalocka Flea Market, a white long sleeve shirt that I had worn to my fathers graduation from Biscayne College and pleated Dockers.
My duties were to toast the bread, smother it with garlic butter and place it on the table and fill the patrons glasses with ice water.
Sixteen years old and this new curve had me feeling heads above. All smiles was I when I learned the French benefit my job had.
I was as you can imagine the clean up crew.
Being 6' 3" and some pounds over two hundred made for a great full tray delivery guy to the Haitian dishwasher.
The leftovers, oh the leftovers. It started elegantly with the half empty pitcher of Sangria.
Indoctrination to any road crossing is slow. Being the latest arrival and probably my youth, I got a few drops of the left over Sangria and no fruit.
In the busboy stations we would stand and talk ourselves out of boredom.
Observing the veterans I learned to stave hunger away by eating olives from the bartender and some of the garlic bread, washed down with a Coke.
The regulars dined every night we knew them by name and were well aware of their pitfalls.
These cats ate well, they didn't mince words when it came to their consumption of goods.
These gods of Hialeah ordered and over ordered, we would snicker about them, all and all wanting to be them.
Learned was I in what today my friends might have a tough time accepting.
I became aware of left overs.
It wasn't like my mother and father weren't there for me, I don't want to impress that upon you.
Un bistec de milanesa or a lobster was not something my parents could and I wouldn't ask for.
Minimum wage at the time was $3.35 an hour but we would only get half that, the rest was supposed to be tips.
Mind you, waiters receive the tip and then you as a busboy are at their will.
A few months back I was sitting with my new friends Xiomara and her husband Urban in a typical bar on the Camino, I had bought them some beer just like they had done for me.
As I approached the bar a lady pilgrim from Germany was struggling to order something to drink, being forward I ordered her a pint y un pedazo de tortilla.
As we exit the bar to sit outside in the terrace she tells me in a concerned fashion and with a tender voice not to spend my money so loosely.
I smiled and drank.
I never saw her again, yet our exchange caught me.
If I would have had more time with her I would have impressed upon her that generosity is the savior of the meek.
We might move from station to station in life but it's in our kindness to each other that our humanity is revealed.
From the busboy who lives in me...
