The Coffee King of Irapuato
Irapuato, Mexico
Luis doesn’t like Mexicans. He claims they’re stupid and lazy. The funny thing is that Luis is Mexican. He owns a coffee shop in downtown Irapuato. Every morning I sit at a table on the balcony, sipping his potent secret blend of coffee. I like to watch the city come to life from my second-story vantage point. When there are not many customers, Luis sits across from me.
The majority of his business is in the evening, so he spends most of the morning at my table. We discuss the perplexities of life and solve the world’s problems. He frequently talks about his undependable employees and how he would like to return to Canada someday. But then a group of customers comes in and he rushes off into the kitchen, ousting his employees from their sanctuary behind the kitchen door, barking orders in Spanish.
Luis lived in Toronto for four years. That’s where he learned to speak English. He worked construction on and off between stints as a dishwasher at a restaurant owned by a Croatian Mafia boss. He has never told me whether or not he did other jobs for the mafia and I haven’t asked him. It wouldn’t surprise me. Luis is very industrious. He is always telling me about his latest business scheme or divulging information about a new enterprise under consideration. “Yes, I would like to make business with this. But first I must to be thinking about it more,” he often says in his slightly skewed grammar.
Luis doesn’t sound like a Mexican when he speaks English. He spent most of his time in Canada with the Croatian and seems to have picked up his accent. He speaks with a harsh staccato lilt, more like an Eastern European than the typical English-speaking Mexican. But this doesn’t mean he has abandoned the Latin Lover persona that so many Mexican men affect. When a female acquaintance comes into his café, he is all charm and polish, even if his hands tend to roam when he offers a big bear hug. Women like Luis. He calls them mamacita and chicatita.
Sometimes I arrive early at Luis’s coffee shop before the metal front door is rolled up. I call up to him through the open French doors on the balcony. I hear him walk down the stairway and open the little door within the main door that always reminds me of an elf’s house in children’s books. He stoops his tall frame to squeeze through the elf’s door and says, “Let’s go for groceries.” We climb into his black pickup truck and drive two blocks to the tortilla factory where he charms the old ladies covered in corn flour, who stand behind the counter wrapping stacks of fresh tortillas in brown paper. Then it’s off to the produce market for papaya, tomatoes, eggs and bolillo rolls.
We pick our way through the piles of goods in the narrow corridors of the market, stopping at various fruit and vegetable stalls to buy produce or chat with the vendors for a few minutes. I don’t understand a lot of what they say, but between puffs on his Cuban cigar, Luis always introduces me as his gringo friend.
The stall owners usually smile understandingly when they realize why Luis’s friend is so silent. Or sometimes they speak to me in doble sentido so that I misinterpret their questions and remarks. It’s part of being a gringo in Mexico. I play the idiot and let them have their laughs – all in good spirit. Luis crunches out the stub of his cigar on the floor between green heads of lettuce and we say goodbye. It’s time to go back to his place and fire up the espresso machine – his pride and joy – an Italian-made Astoria.
Luis seems to know everyone worth knowing in Irapuato. He is originally from León but he married a girl from Irapuato two years ago. They met in Toronto. Her name is America, but I’ve not met her. She never comes to the coffee shop. America’s father owns a chain of furniture and appliance stores in and around Irapuato. He’s a bigwig in local commerce.
Luis has never said it outright, but I get the impression that his father-in-law is involved in other, perhaps less legitimate, enterprises as well. Luis tells me he doesn’t exploit his father-in-law’s connections, but he is not shy about taking advantage of certain family privileges. When the city manager comes into the coffee shop, he and Luis sit at a corner table talking in low, conspiratorial tones. I don’t know what they say, but I imagine that it is simply “business.” Luis plans to open a second coffee shop next year. With the miles of red tape involved in running a business in Mexico, I suspect he is working his connections to his advantage.
Luis is not Jewish, so I could never figure out why he has several Stars of David adorning the walls of his café. One day I asked him about it. He told me that he is a Freemason and that the Star of David is their sacred symbol. He has never offered much insight into this organization except that he uses it primarily for networking. When his Mason brothers come into the coffee shop, they exchange arcane embraces and talk in riddles concerning the latest news and gossip of their secret order. When he returns to my table, he often laments that his Mason brethren of Canada are such dynamic fellows in comparison with their Mexican counterparts.
Luis spends a lot of time standing on the balcony surveying the busy street and parking lot below. He recently emerged the victor of a lengthy feud with a neighbouring tenant over a parking space. The neighbour operates a side enterprise, importing vehicles from the United States to sell in Mexico. To Luis’s outrage, every few days a well-used jalopy with a se vende sign on the windshield would be parked in his coveted parking space in front of the entrance to his café.
Luis did not feel as though he should have to suffer such grievances, so he approached the neighbour about it one day. The neighbour told him to find a new place to park his car. For several weeks Luis and the neighbour were locked in bitter combat over the disputed parking space before reaching a stalemate. Then one day the cars miraculously disappeared. When I asked Luis about the matter, he smiled and said he went to see his friend at City Hall about it. Problem solved.
There is but one drawback. Because his hard-won parking space is directly below the balcony, out of his line of sight, Luis now lives in mortal fear of the snubbed neighbour sabotaging his new pickup truck. So, in spite of his stunning victory, Luis has been forced to abandon his spoils and now parks across the parking lot where he can keep a sharp eye out for the prowling neighbour.
When there are no signs of mischief near his pickup truck, Luis diverts his attention to other attractions. His eyes constantly scan the passers-by on the street. Between mumbled declarations of carnal longings directed toward scantily clad young ladies walking past, he frequently shakes his head and mutters about the ways of his people. One day another gringo regular at the coffee shop asked Luis why Mexicans frequently ride their bicycles with the seat adjusted so low that their knees come up to their ears when they pedal. Luis’s brow furrowed and his green eyes sharpened.
“I tell you why, Jeff. It’s because these people, they are so fucking stupid!” Jeff and I laughed at his odd comment.
One day I asked Luis why he doesn’t return to Canada if he finds his fellow Mexicans so generally unsavoury. He looked slightly morose when he told me that, with his new baby, it was impossible at the moment. But he vows he will someday return to his beloved second home. First, however, there is business to attend to.
Luis plans to become the undisputed coffee king of Irapuato. He sneers with contempt when he talks of the other coffee shops in town. They cater to peasants with no taste in coffee. Luis spends long hours concocting new blends of Mexican and imported coffee beans in his relentless pursuit of the perfect combination. With each latest experimentation he eagerly asks my opinion.
I always say it tastes like good coffee. He then goes into a lengthy lecture on the piquant subtleties of flavour established by the newest addition to his secret recipe, or the brisk, nutty undertones set off by rare imported beans. I would never tell him, but it always tastes the same to me. But with his passion for coffee, his offbeat charm, and his deep connections, I have little doubt that Luis will someday reign supreme over a coffee kingdom.
I will miss Luis when I return to the United States. Our spirited conversations on his sunny balcony over steaming cups of coffee have been a highpoint of my year in Mexico. I hope he realizes his dream of becoming a coffee baron and someday returns to Canada to capitalize on his concept. Perhaps in a land where the citizenry ride bicycles with properly adjusted seats, he may live in peace.
