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On The Outside Looking In At Age 30…Revised

The Gypsies would as soon buy a house and then raze it, erect a Gypsy-esque tent in its place and live there in community on the lot; houses on either side, now considerably worth, less. The older women along with the younger women and teenage girl protégés, all with the large silver crucifix, would read the palm for a gamba in the parks and greens; sometimes with the grimy naked five-year-old boy or girl for added sympathy of the unsuspecting.  
 
The younger Gypsy youths pick-pocketed the distracted or the unguarded junior office worker, construction laborer, high school student, housekeeper, the occasional expat English teacher from an uptown school, at rush hour on the sleepy, sweaty, swerving, at all times standing-room-only city buses, while the more senior Gypsy men, kings and princes, maybe, tended to repairing, restoring, and selling old Fiat 600’s on the main Gran Avenida; short walk from the last metro station. None were worried.  
 
I averted my eyes from the hag-like Gypsy women and girl princess protégés; they called to me with their Roma accented Spanish and flashed the silver crucifix. I was offered my future read but I politely refused; "wait, wait, you with the accent and ojos lindos." How did they see my eyes? Avoid eye contact, avoid eye contact, shake your head no, keep walking straight. They have the evil eye, if not the evil spirit I'd been warned.  
 
Then on the sleepy, sweaty, swerving, at all times standing-room-only city bus at rush hour I lost a "luca",  a 1,000 peso note to the flamenco-colored silk-shirted; lunch money, bus fare for tomorrow, ten gambas. A tribute to the Gypsy king or prince. We shuddered and were skittish at the sight of him boarding and pushing and elbowing through the bus. Purses were held a bit more tightly and we all took inventory; junior office workers with briefcases, laborers and lunch boxes, students and their mochilas. We were alert, we had been wary. Our hands clutched the loose pocket change.  
 
And once I did covet a somewhat restored relic orphan BMW Isetta in a sea of somewhat restored Fiat 600’s on the lot behind the gated iron fence on the main Gran Avenida; short walk from the last metro station. Valuable. I could adopt it for around two million pesos chilenos. Not likely now since the 1,000 peso note changed pockets to the flamenco-colored silk-shirted.  
 
Exciting times, but at day’s end I was still, just then, a poorer pedestrian with an uncertain future, palms in pockets, no loose change, poorer except for the tea and marraqueta that awaited me at home or for a completo and cerveza at paradero viente y cinco with my classical guitarist roommate Javier, a language I could still only speak with an accent, and the certain tomorrow English class in an uptown school. Past the Gypsy-esque tent, the Fiat 600’s, the crucifix and the evil eye (or so I'd been warned),it was standing-room-only, still on the outside looking in at age 30, what was a day on the margin in Santiago, 1993.
Written by bwilde
Published | Edited 23rd Dec 2016
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