Chaparro

By the way, all names in this blog are changed!
Chaparro was the first person my boss introduced me to on the day I started working at the restaurant. It went along the lines of: "Chaparro, this is Guerra. Teach her what to do." I looked down and shook the tiny hand of a man easily under 5 feet and followed his rapid footsteps to our station: the host area. My lessons started with learning how to most effectively wipe down the menus, when to wash the glass doors, and how to charm the customers. I noticed that Chaparro used his tiny frame to his full advantage by overdoing the cute poses, childlike smiles, and "But of course, Señorita"s to every female who demanded a table. He ended up having the effect of an adorable, less fortunate child on the stuffy, upper-class customers who frequented the restaurant partially just to be seated by the overly-animated little host. Even I was shocked when, washing the glass front doors after the lunch rush, I asked Chaparro how old he was, and he said 29.
I think customers loved Chaparro because he embodied the novelty of a simple, innocent, untainted-by-complicated-American-life foreigner. Our boss, Jefé, loved him because the customers loved him, but it didn't take long working next to him to notice that though he was very happy, there was nothing innocent about Chaparro.
He was born in Mexico City, a very big, very dangerous place where he lived with his mom and sister until he came to America. He never told me directly that he came illegally, but I figured it out. He did tell me that he learned English "on the streets," and apparently the streets were good teachers; after 3 years in America, his English was damn near perfect, and he could work entertaining restaurant guests 70+ hours a week. Even at a host's pay of $7.50/hour, he made enough to survive in America and send money back to his mom and sister in Mexico City. That's because money is worth 10x in Mexico what it is here, meaning the tattoos across Chaparro's fingers that he paid a guy 50 pesos to do cost about $5, but 50 pesos is a lot harder to come by than $5 is here.
Thus, my little host friend was obsessed with money, and he kissed ass as much as he needed to with a grin if it made him more money. That statement makes him sound a little miserly, but he wasn't. Chaparro was a very happy, energetic, and resourceful man(he always found a way, though everything was against him), and he was the best trainer and coworker I've ever had.
When he had been a host for about 8 months, Chaparro decided he wanted to try waiting(where the real money lies), but he needed a liquor license to wait tables at my restaurant, and liquor licences require social security numbers, so he went to a restaurant in an area where he didn't have to have one.
As far as I know, he's still working his way up and screwing the system, but he was a damn good man.