Special to El Rrun-Rrun
As the state and county get ready to "liberate" the local economy and "soft openings" sprout here and there, we met an old friend over at ar friend's apartment.
He was Joe, a white guy from up nawth we had met in one of our sojourns to the Midwest who was - like many Midwesterners - open, sincere and devoid of the thinly-veiled prejudices that plague most of his southern kindred.
We were all talking about the isolation, the contagion devastating the elderly, and the growing number of positive cases across the border in Tamaulipas and northern Mexico. In the apartment, all of us still wore our face masks, removing them only briefly to quaff on the ice-cold dregs."Hey, man," said Joe. "I didn't know that people loved pollo so much in Mexico."
"Pollo?," asked out host. "Oh, yeah, they come to buy it by 10-pound bags at the Globo or HEB. At 39 cents a pound, you can't bet it. For less than $5 you can eat all week."
"No wonder," said Joe, pointing at the TV. "Look at that, even the mariachis and street vendors and artisans in Mexico City and in the interior; everyone is crying for a pollo."
"What," said our host. "Where Joe?"
"There," Joe pointed at the screen. "See? Everyone want a pollo. See? They're even holding signs, except they spelled it wrong. It's a pollo, not apoyo, right?"
"No, dummy," said out exasperated host. "They want money, un apoyo, like a subsidy, not a pollo, the chicken. Chingao! Este bato!"