Ask The Dust

Arturo goes to a bar called the Columbia Buffet and spends his last nickel on a cup of coffee. The coffee is disgusting, and so he waves the waitress over to complain. She ignores his attempts to get his attention. Although he is critical of her appearance, it soon becomes clear that he is attracted to her. He notices that she is wearing “desperately ragged” huaraches, and, to annoy her, he begins to stare and sneer openly at her shoes. She becomes angry and embarrassed and finally comes over to his table. When he confronts her about the bad coffee, she laughs. He replies, “Maybe this isn’t coffee at all…Maybe it’s just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it” (36). She tells him that she hopes that he “[dies] of heart failure right there in that chair” (37). Before he leaves, he spills his coffee all over the table so that the waitress will have to clean it up. After he goes back to his room, he lies awake all night thinking of the girl and “the way she danced from table to table, and the black glance of her eyes” (38).

The next morning, he goes to the Columbia Buffet with a copy of “The Little Dog Laughed.