“Don’t abandon me now,” was a line he seemed to be uttering all too often those days. He wasn’t quite sure to whom it was directed. It might have been God or maybe the spirit of his dead grandfather, but either way it helped him feel slightly less alone on his improbable quest.
This moment at the Mendelssohn’s front door had been over a year in the making. Since that first day at the drugstore, Fulgencio had finagled himself into the Academy of San Juan del Atole, a revered institution typically reserved for the region’s monied class, and he’d worked diligently for Mr. Mendelssohn before and after school. At the crack of dawn, he arrived at the downtown storefront eager to impress. He was always the first one there, striding urgently past the shuttered shops lining the streets, rousing the pigeons as he whistled the Mexican tunes he adored. The cobblestone streets had just been paved over with concrete, and there were no city buses to ruin them yet. He glided across their smooth surfaces. He admired the newness of downtown, frozen in the sleepy repose of the cool, blue dawn. In the distance, the mourning doves stirred, their lamentful cries breaking the morning silence. While he waited for Mr. Mendelssohn to arrive, he would find something constructive to do. Mondays, he would wipe the store’s display windows with a bucket and rag stashed in the alleyway. Tuesdays, he cleaned up the mess left by the garbage men. Wednesdays, he hosed off the sidewalk. Thursdays, he ran a quick tour of the nursing homes in the downtown area, picking up new batches of prescriptions for the viejitos inside. And Fridays, he sneaked into the kitchen of Maldonado’s Cafe and cracked jokes with the cooks while he made breakfast for the pharmacy’s staff.
Several months after he’d begun working at the store, Fulgencio was startled to hear Mr. Mendelssohn call his name from beyond the shelves. Mr. Mendelssohn was a quiet man who rarely raised his voice. Usually, he’d walk to wherever a person was in order to address him. So, it was with mild trepidation that Fulgencio hurried to the back of the store.
“Yes, Mr. Mendelssohn? How can I help?”
Mr. Mendelssohn sat in the small corner office where he kept the books. It was little more than a broom closet stuffed with a small desk and chair, stacks of paperwork lining the walls.
In the dingy light of the windowless room, Mr. Mendelssohn removed his reading glasses and motioned for Fulgencio to take a seat on a packing crate that doubled as his guest chair.
“Fulgencio,” he started. “How long is it now that you’ve been working here?”
“Four months, sir,” Fulgencio answered quickly.
“And in all this time, every single morning you’ve been here ahead of the other employees, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve cleaned and organized. You’ve hustled to the nursing homes for prescriptions. You’ve even cooked breakfast at Maldonado’s Cafe and brought it to us free of charge.” Mr. Mendelssohn recited as if he were reading from a list.
“Oh, they don’t charge me for the food at Maldonado’s, sir.” Fulgencio shrugged. “The cooks like to joke with me in Spanish. They say I remind them of life back home in Mexico.”
“That’s beside the point, Fulgencio,” Mr. Mendelssohn continued. “You are the hardest working person I have ever known. If you continue to live by this work ethic, you will go far in life.”
Fulgencio felt a rush of blood within his chest and head, a surprising swelling of pride. He wasn’t accustomed to compliments.
Mr. Mendelssohn quietly slid his desk drawer open and pulled out a shiny key. Extending it toward Fulgencio, he continued, “I want you to take this. You are the only person other than me with a key to this store. You’ve earned it. You can open the store and get it ready for business. And since you’re always the last one to leave, you can lock up too.”
Taking the key, Fulgencio thanked him.
“Just remember. The medicines behind the counter can be touched only by me. Only a pharmacist can handle those. Don’t trust anyone that tells you otherwise. If you ever have a question, just ask.”
“I won’t let you down, Mr. Mendelssohn,” Fulgencio promised.
“I know you won’t, Fulgencio.”
Armed with Mr. Mendelssohn’s trust, Fulgencio was poised to pursue an even more precious prize: his daughter’s heart.
Throughout the course of that first year, Fulgencio took every chance he could to chat with Carolina when she came in with her friends. She, in turn, seemed intrigued by him, his olive skin, his dark hair, his boundless energy. She had even gone as far as telling him that none of the other Mexican boys in town ever dared even look her in the eye, much less muster up conversation with her.
“I hope you don’t find me too bold,” Fulgencio had responded.
“I find you refreshing.” She smiled mischievously. “My parents say it’s okay to be friends with all kinds of people, but I’ve never tested their resolve.”
“Friends?” Fulgencio pondered aloud. He hoped to push the boundaries of her parents’ principles as soon as possible. To that end, he offered to help Carolina with her Spanish homework, right there at the soda fountain beneath her father’s watchful gaze.
Gladly, she began availing herself of his tutoring services. She loved listening to his tongue roll the r’s, and his accent swept her imagination away to more exotic lands.
After Mr. Mendelssohn gave him the drugstore key, Fulgencio began to draw upon his entrepreneurial instincts to make the business increasingly profitable. Before, the soda fountain had never opened for business prior to lunch, but now—thanks to Fulgencio’s budding culinary gifts, breakfast was served bright and early. And unlike at Maldonado’s Cafe, Fulgencio’s patrons could complement their breakfasts with any of a number of herbal concoctions he had learned from his mother.
Pancho the Carpenter came in every morning at 5:30 a.m., ordering chorizo con huevo with a te de yerba buena. He’d leave with a full belly, the town paper, and a candy bar for the midmorning hunger pains he experienced. The yerba buena soothed his troubled stomach (and if that didn’t work, the Milky Way would).
Cruz the Plumber religiously ordered chilaquiles with a side of papa cocida con hoja del chile piquín. Fulgencio’s potato piquín production cleared Cruz’s mind, enabling him to see plumbing problems more clearly. Of course, now that he was stopping by Mendelssohn’s Drugstore every morning, he also filled his mother’s prescription there, instead of at Riley’s Pharmacy uptown. Just like Pancho and Cruz, a steady stream of other hardworking immigrants found comfort in Fulgencio’s soda fountain breakfasts. Fulgencio would recount stories his grandfather had told him on the ranch. He began singing the songs his grandfather had taught him. Old Mexican favorites like “Sin Ti” and “Cuatro Vidas,” tunes from the golden age of romantic Mexican songwriting. Soon, Fulgencio was bringing in more money for Mr. Mendelssohn before he rushed off to school than the store made the rest of the day. Such was the trend that one day even Old Man Maldonado from the eponymously named Maldonado’s Cafe poked his head in and—gawking at the crowd assembled at the soda fountain, the trio strumming their guitars, and Fulgencio Ramirez flipping an omelet while belting out “La Barca de Oro”—shouted, “So, this is where everyone went! Well, what the hell, Fulgencio Ramirez. You can have the morning. I’ll take the rest. Now serve me up some chilaquiles, and I’ll pay you a buck to sing ‘Veracruz.’ ” The crowd burst into laughter as Old Man Maldonado pulled up an extra chair and slapped a George Washington on the countertop. Even some of Maldonado’s cooks emerged from the shadows of the store’s shelves to share a cup of te de yerba buena with their jovial boss, who had shown such graciousness in the face of utter defeat.