Becoming a Writer The Early Years, The Gato Negro

Becoming a Writer
The Early Years, The Gato Negro

My favorite watering hole in San Miguel these days (1989), is the Gato Negro bar. It’s my favorite for many reasons but especially because I was warmly welcomed by the bar’s owner and his son on my very first visit. At the time my income was very low, and my writing partner, Peyton Breckinridge’s was practically non existent. We were pleased to find a place where we could have an inexpensive drink or two of an afternoon, and not spend all of our time holed up in his place or mine where we collaborated on various writing projects.

Don Gory (short for Gorilla), the owner of the bar, was a stooped over old boxer who had spent his youth, and probably much more as a stevedore, hauling heavy bales of flour, sugar, etc. on and off trucks in a local, over the counter, grocery store by the name of La Balanza. The heavy labor permanently bent his spine slightly, which gave him a gorilla like stance and gait.

His son, El Niño (the boy) a law school graduate, is long haired bohemian, with an appreciation for the arts and artists which abound here in San Miguel. El Niño got his nickname from his early apprenticeship as a gofor in another local cantina named El Infierno. As in, “Boy, go get me some limes,” or “Boy, go get some ice,” etc.

One afternoon, we were having a break in the bar when my friend Peyton became very sleepy. One of the other patrons roused himself from the overstuffed sofa they affectionately called “La Plancha” the morgue slab and stumbled out the door. Peyton, seeing his chance, immediately took his place and stretched out his six foot frame for a snooze. The bar erupted in applause, and the “Gringos” were in.

One of the Gato Negro bar’s nicer touches was a very animated, friendly, black kitten named Tommy. Tommy, like all kittens, was very curious especially about the strange world outside the swinging barroom doors, and the patrons, good naturedly, would take turns shooing him back inside. Well, one day Tommy disappeared, and could not be found. He had been around long enough to have grown-on the bar’s owners as well as the customers, and the bar was plunged into melancholy.

One enterprising fellow, after quite a few tequilas, took it upon himself to put an ad on the local radio station announcing the loss of the kitten and offering a reward for its return.

The ad was supposed to run for one day only, but the radio station having practically no ads lined up, ran it for the whole week. No sooner did it air, but a parade of bums began arriving at the bar carrying cats to claim the reward. Either they couldn’t see, were color blind, or were just trying to show their concern in order to con a free drink for themselves, we’ll never know, but they brought every kind of cat known to man. Big cats, small cats, fat cats, and old cats in all colors of the rainbow. Day and night drunks, their faces, arms, and hands scratched to ribbons, struggled up the street carrying, dragging, juggling their varied asortment of spitting, screaming cats toward the Gato Negro which by now was overrun with hungry felines, who knew a good thing when they saw it, having finished off Tommy’s cat food forthwith.

The well meaning customer who started it all dropped by at the end of the week, when El Niño, armed with a broom and a garbage can lid was busily clearing out the last of the remaining free loaders, and was promptly cleared out himself. The radio station showed up to present their bill for a weeks advertising and was paid off in cats, and Tommy was found in the next door neighbors kitchen, hiding under her rerigerator….

Next I’ll begin posting a series of stories that Peyton and I wrote about this same time, called the It’ll Do. They were accompanied by a series of drawings by Don Carlos. Hope you enjoy them.