Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Jeremy B. Jones
almost everyone along the way; even if I am going to buy something
specific, I still feel like this—Saturday—is something that I can’t really
be a part of. It is thoroughly Honduran. I am the gringo looking in.
The music came from a passing-by truck. There is music every
Saturday morning; though, normally it starts later. Normally it
doesn’t sound like a marching song from the 18 th century—a snare
drum rolling. Most Saturdays battered pickup trucks drive slowly up
and down the cobblestone streets with old silver speakers on top. The
speakers look like gramophones, and the music is crinkly with static.
They play Latin music or American eighties songs. There was an entire
month earlier this year when every Saturday morning I woke up to
Bryan Adams asking me if I have ever really loved a woman. I have,
Bryan, and she is sleeping somewhere too.
A half an hour later, the colonial music is coming again. When I
look out the window I see a nicer pickup truck. The paint isn’t chipped;
the windows aren’t cracked. It has speakers on top, but they don’t look
nearly as rusty as the speakers I am used to. I catch a few words of the
song and realize that this is political music. The truck passes as quickly
as it approached. The sound’s waves slam together until it passes, and
they chase the truck down the road—the pitch lowering.
At 8:00, the normal Saturday morning trucks start their rounds.
The town is coming alive. Women from the villages around town have
come in for the market. Other women with bright aprons carry huge
baskets of bread on their head door to door. They yell through the
closed door, ¿va a querer pan? Will you want bread? Horses clatter
down the street. An old man leads a mule loaded down with sticks—
he’s selling firewood for ovens.
The trucks with the speakers are selling fruit from the back.
The music crackles and wails, and then a man comes over it and
says, recuerden que hay sandía fresca (remember that we have fresh
watermelon). He pokes along the street as men bounce by on their
bikes. With the microphone in one hand and the steering wheel in the
other, he interrupts the music like a DJ on the radio. A short sentence,
music, a few more words, music, talking. Adolescent boys sit on the
sides of the truck bed, with their feet hanging into the street. When a
door opens and a large woman emerges into its frame holding a small
wad of money, a boy drops down, grabs a watermelon with two hands,
jogs it across the street, and makes the exchange. The driver/emcee
releases the button on the microphone (which looks more like a CB
receiver), and the fuzzy music starts up again.
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 199