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Flaca
Yoli Garcia lived down on Abdella Street in West Tampa, over by the Humane Society, round the corner from Cacciatore’s market. The youngest daughter of Cuban immigrants, Yoli was much admired in her day for two things: her legendary beauty and her impossibly tiny 18-inch waist. “Just like Scarlett O’Hara,” the women of Tampa would recite whenever Yoli’s name was mentioned, with a mixture of genuine admiration and thinly veiled envy. Yoli’s miniature midsection earned her the nickname Flaca, Spanish for “skinny”. Nobody ever called her by her god-given name. She was Flaca until the day she died. Quite funny, considering poor Flaca was only truly “flaca” for precisely a nanosecond. With the birth of her beloved only son Baby (pronounced “Bobby” in Spanglish), those 18 inches turned into 50, and stayed that way forever more. I don’t think anyone was trying to be ironic. It’s just that everyone always knew her as Flaca, the girl with the 18-inch waist. No one seemed to notice that she now had thrice that amount. It was of little consequence. It was just a Tampa kind of thing.
Now poor Flaca did not have much in the way of talent or intellect, and as we’ve already established, her beauty faded early. What she could do like no one else was throw a FABULOUS party. Flaca was a rock-star party-giver. A Latina Elsa Maxwell. Her parties were well planned, ridiculously thematic, and WAY over the top, with le tout West Tampa always in attendance. One year she decided to do a “Chop Suey” theme (one could never accuse Flaca of political correctness). The entire house was decorated with paper lanterns and tacky inflatable dragons. She served “authentic” Chinese food like mini-egg rolls and water chestnuts with pineapple, wrapped in bacon. She pinned a miniature pagoda to the top her huge beehive hairdo and wore what has to have been the world’s largest Chi Pau. As a young boy who didn’t quite understand why he felt so “different”, this fashion aspect of Flaca’s theme parties fascinated me the most. I couldn’t wait for the next party just to see what she would wear! I once asked her why she dressed up so much for her parties. She answered “Because, mijo, Flaca always must look chic!” She pronounced “chic” like “cheek” and then gave mine a pinch till it turned blue. Why do Cuban women always do that to little boys?
Flaca’s crowning achievement was her Christmas Party, 1978. This is when I realized it was Flaca’s world and we just lived in it. As we walked into the little house on Abdella Street, which always smelled of onions, Flaca swooped around a corner with a tray of picadillo in one hand, balanced on one very large hip, and a pitcher of the world’s most lethal sangria in the other. She was singing at the top of her lungs (to nobody in particular), “We witch-you a Merry Cree-Ma and Appy Niuyear!” Her beehive this time was adorned, not with pagodas, but with huge blinking Christmas lights, powered by a small battery pack rigged to her huge butt. She was sweating profusely and shorting out one bulb after another. But she had backups that she kept running around with, asking every male party guest to help her install a fresh bulb. “Es-screw me in, mijo. Es-screw me!”
It doesn't get any better than Flaca.
