Tortillas

We are in an immigrant farm community in Florida, traveling with students while spring break marches onward in another life. Today, we have been tasked with rebuilding parts of a fire-damaged home. We are, for the most part, terrible at this, and I am seriously questioning the efficacy of our task force when María, the matriarch of the house, insists on making us lunch. I wash my hands reluctantly when someone suggests that I help make tacos.

María’s hands had been a hummingbird blur just moments before, smooshing tortilla dough onto an old metal press, extricating the dough from two shimmers of recycled plastic wrap, slapping each round moon onto the hot griddles that hover over the small stovetop. She doesn’t use a spatula. She doesn’t even wince when her hands graze the searing metal.

"I don’t cook," I explain in my Neanderthal Spanish. "My cooking is bad." She is amused. Humor etches politely constrained lines around her eyes. I don’t know if she’s laughing at my Spanish or my poor cooking skills. Both, I decide.

She demonstrates how to make the tortillas again. I place the dough into the press, flip the top, and press down on the handle. The press is held together by a rusty nail, shot into the pinhole between the lever and the metal flaps ages ago. This tortilla press was never new. Adam and Eve had discussions over this tortilla press during taco night in the Garden.

My first tortilla squishes out of the sides of the press, and I can’t wrangle the dough out of the flimsy plastic. I flop the goo onto the griddle and it wrinkles up into itself--a Sharpei with a head cold. María shakes her head and shows me again, slowing the hummingbird hands to the speed of a weed whacker. Otra vez y otra vez.

A tortilla bloodbath commences when María leaves me alone with the dough. The students have smelled the battle. Like sharks, they have come circling around the stove to witness the carnage. Some of them try to help. Together, we produce a few dozen tortilla-like imitations and shove them into a plastic bowl covered with an embroidered cloth. Dinner is served.

Outside the house, María chuckles as we cram tortillas on plates and load them with meat and onions and homemade cream. The tortillas break apart easily. There are lumps in strange places and a few burned spots. In the end, if you hold your mouth right, they work.

I look at my students, at my dirty hands, at the people who deserve better aid than the kind teenagers can give. Metaphors, every one.