Esteban by Leroy V. Quintana

ESTEBAN
para Esteban de Bernalillo N.M.

Esteban is sixty-five, on Social Security
Two weeks ago he bought a motorcycle.
su caballo, a Suzuki GS550L.
"I don't know what all those numbers mean,"
he says, "but its got lots of soup."
He wears tennis shoes and carries a slingshot
in his back pocket. "Pa los perros."

When he glued a jar lid on top of his helmet
everybody said he looked like a spaceman.
Nobody could figure out why he had done that
until he walked into the bar, removed his helmet
placing the end with the jar lid on the counter;
now he didn't have to worry about it
rolling around and crashing to the floor.

Every 5 or 10 minutes Esteban gets off the bar stool
walks to the door to see if his bike is O.K.
It's parked across the street
and Tony has parked his pick-up next to it.
Tony has only one good eye and a lot of traffic tickets.
This bothers Esteban.

When he returns, Esteban talks about the time
he was a young kid working in the bakery and
The owner sent him to deliver bread
to the nuns at the Catholic school.
Esteban didn't know how to ride a bike
and he fell, scattering the loaves all over the street;
an incident he'll never forget, he says,
then goes to the door and checks his bike again.

Another time he was riding his bike, heading home
from the grocery store with a package of meat
and a large dog attacked him.
Not knowing what to do, Esteban threw the package
at the dog in self defense, miss him
but the dog smelled the meat and ran away with it.

He gets off the bar stool again, this time goes outside
and cranks up his caballo, getting it as far away
from Tony's pick-up as possible.
While he's gone everybody at the bar wonders out loud
how long Esteban is going to last on his Suzuki
when he couldn't even ride a bike
"Se va a matar," everybody agrees.

This has to be one of my favorite poems. Written by Leroy V. Quintana is embodies the essence of life in a small New Mexico town. You can immediately feel the slow pace that allows Esteban to ride his motorcycle to the bar and sit around swapping old stories with the other men who are more than likely there every afternoon. Mr. Quintana is a Master at endearing Esteban to us from the very beginning. You can see yourself at the grocery store, laughing with the cashier about the jar lid glued to the top of his helmet. You can image the children playing in the street and teasing the old man as he passes. I love this poem.

I first read this poem in 1985 in a book called Ceremony of Brotherhood co-edited by Rudolfo A. Anaya and Simon J. Ortiz. It's a wonderful collection of works by writers from the southwest.