Canutito goes ‘a la porra’
Una tarde Grampo Caralampio and Grama Cuca were sitting en la cocina jugando a la baraja while they waited for Canutito to return from school. Canutito came home de la escuela todo excited. He rushed pa’dentro de la cocina and he exclaimed: “¡Grampo! ¡Grama! You’ll never guess lo qué yo vide as I was viniendo pa’trás from school! I saw a un chota arrestando a man outside! Lo había hecho chase por todo el camino until he finally caught him. That’s when the policeman jumped de su carro and ran over to where el hombre estaba waiting for his turn to go.”
“A cop was arresting a un hombre allá fuera?” grama asked. “I wonder lo qué that man had done para ser arrestado?
“I don’t know, grama,” Canutito answered pero el policeman estaba holding the man around his neck con un small bat.”
“I remember cuando todos los policemen used to carry them,” grampo said. “Ahora no los hacen carry any more. Ese small bat que el chota was using se llama ‘una porra’,” grampo volunteered. “Yo pienso que en inglés it is called un ‘billy club’.”
“I thought que ‘la porra’ was otra cosa,” Canutito remarked un poco confused.
“You mean like whenever somebody tells you to go ‘pa’ la porra’, m’hijo?” grama asked.
“Sí, that’s it,” Canutito agreed. “I always thought que whenever somebody told me to go ‘pa’ la porra’ it was the Spanish way of telling me to go get lost.”
“Irse uno a la porra does mean to go get lost,” grampo remarked, “pero it also means a small club or bat and it can also mean ‘a bag full of rocks que se usa como una weapon.”
“When I was young, m’hijo,” grampo began, “habían muchos gangs diferentes in every town. A veces they would get together to go beat up a las otras gavillas in the next village. Since que they were just small town boys no podían hacer afford real porras o de esas brass knuckles so they would just put piedras en un parquete and then swing the rock bags at each other in order to hurt a las otras gavillas.”
“When the guys got hurt ¿cómo los hacían cure?” Canutito asked.
“They would curarlos con alcohol o con turpentine,” grampo said. “En esos días nobody knew anything about acupuncture noodles.”
Canutito smiled at el mistake de su grampo, so he corrected him: “Grampo, no se llaman ‘acupuncture noodles’; son acupuncture needles.”
“It’s easy de hacer un mistake de vez en cuando,” grama chimed in: “La otra noche, después que I had put la carne del brisket into the oven to roast, I went to bed. Esa noche I was dreaming about the brisket en el horno and scratching my nose a la misma vez. I remember mientras que I was pressing the bridge de mi nariz, que I was thinking: ‘bah, este brisket roast is so skinny; no tiene casi nada carne’. I woke up laughing.”
Canutito laughed at both de sus abuelitos. A veces ellos los dos would go astray: su grampo con sus ‘acupuncture noodles’ y su grama with her ‘skinny nose brisket’.
“I guess que ‘la porra’ can mean ‘to get lost’ y también ‘un billy club’ y ‘un saco de rocks’ and it can also mean ‘irse uno astray.” Canutito mused. He was glad que tenía a sus abuelitos who would explain munchas cosas to him en español .He thought de sus amiguitos who only spoke English and who didn’t understand muncha de la cultura because they had never been taught a hablar en español como él.