Marinko

My neighbors, Marinko and Sharon
invited me over to their back yard last Saturday
for his take on American BBQ,
complete with pork shoulder, salad,
sliced canteloupe, red grapes,
and the almost dessicated looking blackberries
that grow from the tree
straddling our backyards.
He even made the chicken wings that he used to make
back home in Croatia,
before he fled to Germany,
"Der Deutschland."
I cannot find the words to describe the spice,
and what he did to the onions accompanying them
is beyond my skill as a chef.
For it is the simple peasant food,
the kind you’ll find in homes
and outdoor bbq’s around the world.
I conversed with them,
and with Marinko’s brother, Petre
(Peter)
about life, food, and what still needs to be done
to fix up our houses this summer;
the driveways that need resurfacing,
the patios that need installing,
and the gardens that need tending.
"Patience and sunlight."
Sharon insists.
After several shots of Jack,
which my neighbor pours far too generously,
(this is the Eastern European stereotype, after all)
and innumerable weak American beers
the conversation shifts to taxation,
to the Boston Tea Party
and how my country was founded.
Of course, I bitch.
I bitch about the war,
about the erosion of freedoms,
about all the new taxes since I became an adult.
And from Petre
I received an unexpected response
in his thick, broken English.
"Mark, this is f*cking heaven!"
"First I come Germany from Croatia.
In Europe there is nothing, there is nowhere to go.
I moved to Texas in 1998.
I am cowboy, you know!" He says excitedly.
"Then a few years ago my family and I move here.
We have worked hard on this house."
"Yes, very hard.", I tell him.
"Eastern European, we are very hard workers." I stave off the inevitable:
"and I know, Americans are very lazy,"
I say, matter of factly.
"Unlike Mexi…"
"F*ck the Mexicans!" Petre shoots back, in drunken, yet friendly
guy talk.
"Why did you leave Croatia?"
"It was bad there, very bad during war." Marinko nods, but stays silent,
a sharp contrast to his usual jovial self.
This is a tender subject with him, and I can see it.
"when in the war, it was Christians and Muslims,
and these are smart people, you know?
Smart, young people killing each other.
Marinko and I were in army,
Croatian Army,
and on both sides, you would see
children, boys, 10 - 12 years old
with guns strapped to them,
AK-47’s.
Killing people,
being killed.
In Europe there is nothing,
there is nowhere to go."
Here was the human face of everything I had heard
as a rumor,
about Vietnam, and the children with bombs strapped to their backs.
Sharon brings out a coconut cake,
and homemade brownies.
We’re eating this in their driveway
on a riccety patio set,
drinking Coors Light,
and bitching about our government.
You know what?
He was right.
It was f*cking heaven.