Read Online Pig's Foot by Carlos Acosta - Free Book Online

chef. ‘I’ll only sleep next to my brother Melecio.’
    Benicio and Melecio were the only ones who did not eat. They decided that they would never speak about what had happened and that Melecio would never cook again. They made this vow in silence, locking their lips with invisible keys they tossed over their shoulders towards the mountain. The following day when they woke up, José, Betina and Geru remembered nothing. Geru woke up next to Melecio and ran to ask Benicio why she had not slept next to him as usual. Benicio suggested that perhaps the food had disagreed with her, but privately vowed that this could not happen again.
     
    The following day was El día del Nacimiento – the Festival of Birth – something celebrated every Sunday in the village. Fathers would set out stools and earthenware bowls filled with food beneath the flame tree, garlanded with flowers, a table would be set with a tablecloth and the place turned into a rustic tavern with drums, cans, dogs and people who came along with the sole intent of forgetting their constant gloom and celebrating their miserable lives. José and Betina told their neighbours about the bad luck they had been having, how two nights earlier a wild animal crept in and devoured their only chicken, leaving bones and feathers strewn all around.
    ‘We don’t have anything to bring. We’re sorry,’ said José, ashamed. Abel Santacruz said it did not matter, that in Pata de Puerco the Mandingas were almost a royal family, and Evaristo the kite-maker immediately sat them next to Silvio and Rachel Aquelarre from where they had a perfect view of the faces of everyone in the village, with the exception of El Mozambique and Ester the midwife who never joined in these feasts.
    ‘Today’s game involves telling tales. Old and young alike are welcome to take part. The person to tell the funniest story will be the winner,’ said Evaristo, sitting in the crook of the red flame tree where everyone could see him.
    ‘What kind of stories?’ asked Pablo el Jabao.
    ‘Any kind of tale at all,’ Evaristo replied, ‘anything that will make people laugh.’
    ‘In that case,’ said Epifanio Vilo, ‘I’ll start.’ He stood up on his stool and began. ‘A tomato was walking with a lettuce along the Callejón de la Rosa. “Hurry up, tomato, there’s a cart coming,” said the lettuce. But the tomato, being stubborn, refused to listen and the cart rolled right over him. “Tomato!” yelled the lettuce, but it was too late. As the cart trundled off into the distance, the lettuce looked at the red splodge on the road, walked over to his friend and said, “I told you ketchup !”’
    There was general hilarity. People slapped their thighs and doubled over with uncontrollable laughter.
    ‘That’s nothing,’ said Justino the coal merchant, and clambering on to his stool he began: ‘A little black boy wanted to know what happens to Negro children when they die. “They go to heaven, where God gives them a pair of wings and they become little black angels,” his father told him. The little boy thought for a minute and then asked his father curiously, “And what happens to white children, Papá?” “Exactly the same,” his father replied. “They go to heaven, God gives them a pair of wings and they become barn owls.”’
    This time the laughter became hysterical. Betina clapped her hand over her mouth. José laughed until he cried. Some people collapsed on the ground and were writhing with glee. ‘That’s a good one, Justino.’ Evaristo raised a hand to calm the bedlam. ‘Let’s see if anyone can beat it. Who else has got a tale to tell?’
    ‘I do,’ said Juan Carlos el Jabao, the eldest of Pablo and Niurka’s children. He was a tall lad with hair as red as fire. ‘A man went to the doctor complaining that his son had died from a strange fever that made his face turn yellow. The doctor, who was a drunk, looked at him and said, “There’s no need to be sad, señor, at