Santiago
As Amy asked, “Where is, what you said, ‘Puerto Natales,’ down in Chile?” Santiago’s thoughts drifted back to his childhood.
“It’s a little town by Patagonia. It’s a tourist town, mostly, as people would make their way to Patagonia.”
“You must have met a lot of people down there?” Amy inquired. “I had a friend who went to Patagonia and said it was beautiful. They might have even come through your town.”
Santiago thought back to his time in the small village of Puerto Natales and began talking:
“I always remembered seeing tourists on their way to Patagonia. Growing up, my parents insisted that I learn English. They wanted someone to be able to talk to the tourists so they could sell their hats, scarves, and gloves that my mother knitted.
“They were the warmest items, made from the wool of the sheep of a nearby rancher. My mother had a little stand on the corner of the street, but she only knew the local Spanish and didn’t want to learn English. It was hard for her to try and sell things.
“The tourists used to call me “cute little boy,” and were always surprised when I spoke English. I was told that they would tell their friends at the hotels to get a hat from the “cute little boy.”
“I didn’t mind, it helped money come in. I would yell at the corner, “Warm hats! You’re going to need them!
“I was also really good at, what is that called, upselling? They would come to buy the hat their friend told them to buy, and I would get them to buy a scarf and gloves. I kind of felt bad because the gloves weren’t that great. If they would get wet your hands would freeze, but it was fun getting their money, and they all smiled when they put them on saying they really felt warm, and the wool was so soft.
“‘Better than alpaca,’ I always told them, but I didn’t know if that was true. I just knew they seemed to know what an alpaca was, so it sounded good.”
Santiago caught a glance of Ben, looking out the window, not really paying attention.
“I’m sorry, I talk too much. I can stop if you’d like.”
“No, your story is fascinating,” said Amy. “I love hearing how people end up where they are.”
“Okay,” said Santiago, “I don’t know why, I guess because I could speak English, but many of the tourists would tell me things, of their trips, and I would ask them where they were from, what they did, and where they were going. Many of the people would say how they just needed to get away from their ‘daily grind,’ and thought Patagonia would be a fun adventure. I don’t know, didn’t seem like an adventure to me.
“At night I would write down their stories the best I could remember, but I usually forgot most of the stuff they told me so I made up a lot of it in my notebook.
“I always loved talking to the tourists and writing down their stories, but I remember my mother and father always talking about my uncle, how he left our village to go to North America. They called him a “brain doctor,” but he never did anything with brains, just the stuff around it. They always talked about how he made more money than they could dream of.
“Back then I dreamed of being a ‘brain doctor.’ I felt bad for how my mother had to knit all the scarves and hats and gloves, and thought that if I could be a doctor, I could take them to the excitement of North America, and she wouldn’t have to knit any more.
“I think I was around fourteen years old when my uncle came to visit. I was old enough to see how my family was mesmerized by him. I remember he seemed like the smartest person I had ever met. He had this big, gold watch, showing up at our little house in a car driven by a chauffeur, like the tourists. It was so cool to me.
“He told me stories of Chicago, how the buildings were as tall as the mountains, and all I thought about during my classes at Enseñanza media, that is what we called what you call high school, was how much I wanted to be a doctor and move to Chicago. I kept helping my mother sell her things, but it got harder for me to be the “cute little boy” as I grew up.
“I still talked to people a lot, and kept writing down their stories.”
Amy was mesmerized by Santiago’s story about growing up, “I know you mentioned your uncle, and don’t take this wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it would be easy for you to get to Chicago?”
Santiago continued:
“When I was seventeen, my uncle came back to visit. I was studying science, and at dinner my mother was telling him how good of a student I was. I didn’t think I was that smart because we are a small town, even though I was the top of my class, but my mother couldn’t stop talking about me.
“My uncle never really cared about me when I was small, but on that trip he seemed to be interested in what I was doing. It was like he realized I wasn’t a little boy any more, and I was almost an adult.
“I remember one of the nights he was there. My parents went to bed, and we were sitting in our living room. He asked me what I planned on doing, and if all I was going to do was keep selling hats and scarves for my family. I told him that I wanted to be a doctor someday, maybe even have enough money so that I could get my parents out of Puerto Natales and to America. That they could probably have a nicer life there.
“He started asking me about school, if I was really doing as well as my mother said, and seemed to care what I was going to do with my life.
“I guess he saw something in me.
“When he was leaving he told me that, if I wanted, he could put in a good word where he went to university in Chicago, that I might be able to get a scholarship.
“I was so excited that night that I couldn’t sleep,” finished Santiago.