The restaurant was empty that night, except for one man sitting alone.
He was clearly drunk, and as soon as I walked up to the bar, I knew I’d hear his story.
He said: “I was a Spanish teacher… a Spanish teacher!
Señor Obregón was what they called me I suppose.”
He took a sip from his drink and slammed his glass down hard.
“I was respected… I was respected!
They were gonna make me principal of the school next year!
But this year all that changed.”

“There was this new guy, straight from Mexico.
Thought he spoke Spanish better than I did.
From day one I could tell things were about to head south
His name was Pancho.”

“Day by day his influence grew in my classroom.
He became more and more disruptive.
By the end, he had the whole class under his thumb.
And so one day I asked him if he wanted to teach the class.
To my surprise he accepted and walked calmly to the front of the room.
He called for the students to rebel, and they locked me in the closet.
I called campus security, he was going to usurp me!
They burst in and shot Pancho dead.”

“I fled for my life.
Gunfire broke out between security and the students.
I knew I’d have a target on my back, so I came to this bar.
You can’t enter if you’re not twenty-one.”

The man finished his story and put down his drink and I ordered some crawfish and patted his back out of that vague sense of comradery you sometimes feel with the other patrons when a restaurant is that empty.

My heart was racing and I was sweating profusely and I wondered “where was that damn crawfish?” and my hands trembled and shook within the thick green pockets of my green jacket that would have made me feel right at home in Fidel’s Cuba.

I wiped my shining forehead with my green sleeves and I asked a waiter what the holdup with my crawfish was and he said “sir you only ordered it five minutes ago, they’ve only just started cooking it.”

I couldn’t wait any longer so I firmly grasped what I had in my pocket and he was right there next to me and I’d entered the room knowing what I had to do and I could no longer wait to tail him back to some alley, it had to be done.

“My name
is José
de León
Toral.
I’ve come to end your life.

His eyes
widened
he stared
with horror.
But he didn’t run or fight.

I raised
my arm
it held
the gun.
The noise
the smoke
the light.

I ran
outside
into
the dark.
The moon was shaped like a scythe.