Chapter 10
Short Straw: The Maid and Mrs. Bubbles
Bike riding in Panama was its own experience.
But it was right along the base fence almost the whole way.
I waved to the MPs that guarded the gates to Fort Clayton.
Everyone called them guards, but in fact they were military police.
No stopping on the way out!
Turn here!
Dang. Railroad crossing.
Listen to warning signs.
“Walk your bike across the tracks.” That nugget of wisdom came from the PX cashier.
Just get off and walk across. Dang. Deep gravel.
She was so right!
Back on, back to pedaling
One foot, then the other.
You see the high school now.
Go to the car lot.
Lock up the bike like it’s a normal thing.
Nothing new here.
Act like that’s where it belongs even though you don’t know.
It was a typical day at school.
Later that day, it was my first ride home on my bike.
But I went back and forth in the car with Robert, so I was used to the route now.
Panama seemed eighty degrees all the time.
The humidity only showed up when it was about to rain.
I obeyed all the road laws.
I stayed in my lane.
If there was a rule, I followed it.
I wasn’t missing another one.
The men at the bus stop are catcalling me.
Irony.
The parrots are too.
Is it raining?
It is raining hard!
Panama had its own special kind of rain. It did not blow sideways.
The hotel manager told me that.
He was also right about it not coming in through the bullet holes in the window.
Ow. These raindrops are the size of a coffee mug.
And they hurt.
This is almost as bad as hail.
My papers were in a plastic liner, so they were safe.
Water resistant and waterproof are two very different things.
My backpack was water resistant.
Rain was flowing between the plastic and the nylon.
It’s getting worse.
I’m slipping off my bike.
There’s a lot of water.
I stood up on the pedals.
Now my feet are slipping too!
This isn’t making sense.
I approached the straight stretch of road between the fire station and the bamboo forest.
I looked down at myself.
Then I looked again.
Floating down my arms and legs were bubbles.
Huge soapy bubbles.
I smelled great.
I looked like Mr. Bubble.
“Don’t pack the washer full. The clothes won’t rinse right.”
That was my dead mama’s voice in my head.
“It wasn’t me, Mama!” I shouted toward Heaven.
“It’s Rhonda’s fault—her and that memo of hers!”
At first, I balked at the idea.
It seemed like such a short memo.
It was easy to ignore.
Then, Rhonda had a talk with me.
It seemed the colonel who lived in our house before us had a maid.
When he left, all the maids on her list got bumped up a notch.
With the draw-down, the list of available jobs got shorter.
If we didn’t hire Flora, her son would not be able to finish college.
That put a third world lens on my first world upbringing.
Well, you need to get home.
Stopping now won’t fix anything.
Eventually the rain will stop.
Eventually the soap will run out.
Only the first part was true.
The rain never stopped the entire trip.
And my clothes never ran out of soap.
The bubbles kept flowing.
As I approached the gate to Fort Clayton, I could see the military police arguing inside the shack. They were the same two that were in there on my way to school. Twelve-hour shifts were common for the military.
Leaving the base was easy. Entering it wasn’t.
I had to show my ID.
The MPs would hunt me down if I didn’t stop and wait on them.
So, I waited patiently.
In the rain.
Making bubbles.
Eventually a young red-headed soldier stepped out of the guard shack.
He must have drawn the short straw.
He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Ma’am, I know you have to show your ID before you enter.
But you come through here every day with the Warrant Officer.”
I tilted my head sideways to get the water out of my ear.
“But Ma’am… if you don’t mind… just for today… could you enter without showing it? Tomorrow we will go back to looking at it.”
He was fidgeting from foot to foot, not looking up.
“Y’all are going to laugh disrespectfully at me when I am gone, aren’t you?”
“Yes Ma’am. We are.”
“Of course.”
I got back on my bike and rode home.
In the rain.
Still making bubbles.
I did need to remember to call Rhonda when I got home.
The soap wasn’t really Flora’s fault.
Yesterday, Patrick had announced himself by throwing his backpack across the living room.
“Son… problem?”
“Problem? Yes, I have a problem. I’m starving.”
“Oh dear. Not again.”
“Once, I get. Twice? No. I can’t eat peanut butter and bologna sandwiches.”
Someone had apparently told Flora that American children liked peanut butter sandwiches. Someone else had told her they liked bologna sandwiches. Flora had reached the logical conclusion and combined the two.
For two days in a row.
“If you don’t fire her, I will!”
“Son, you can’t fire her. You’d have to fire me. I forgot to explain it after the first sandwich.”
The look he gave me suggested he was considering the offer.
“You promised.”
“I know.”
After watching him throw that backpack across the room, I wasn’t entirely opposed to being fired.
The good news was that Patrick eventually forgave me.
The bad news was that I still needed to explain the sandwich situation to Flora.
I finally made it to the driveway.
Flora was in the driveway sweeping in the rain.
She didn’t speak a word of English.
But there is time for more about her later.
For now:
She saw me.
She wasn’t afraid to meet my eyes.
She laughed.
I pointed my finger at her and shook it.
“You did this to me.”
She laughed harder.
Then I laughed.
Daniel's Den 