Armando and Fernando

Edit: Moderator: Moved from Life at Work to Original Writing

I believe it is time to introduce Armando and Fernando to the board. They were Cuban brothers whose paths crossed mine years ago. I'm not sure where they are now or if they're still alive, but I'll never forget them.

Armando was the bigger of the two, but he was more of the teddy bear type, while Fernando, slightly smaller, looked like he was chiseled out of granite.

Armando was a nice guy, but a pathological liar, while Fernando was not a very nice guy, and had already killed several people when I first met him. ( manslaughter charges, and he had already served his time before I met him )

But we won't discuss Fernando any further. That will come later. Today I will share an Armando anecdote with you.

Like I said, Armando was a pathological liar. He had been everywhere, had seen everything. If you had been to France, he had been there twice. If you once owned a sports car, he had a dozen or so.

One day I walked into the lunchroom at work and saw Armando wildly gesticulating as a young African-American stared at him, mouth open in amazement. Armando was telling him about his world travels and all the homes he had around the globe.

His audience was obviously buying it, hook, line, and sinker.

I sat down and said, "You ever been to Chad, Armando?"

"What is Chad?"

"A country".

"Where?"

"Africa."

"Oh yes", Armando said, "of course I have been to Africa"

At this point the young African-American stared at Armando and said in an awestruck voice, "You've been to Africa?"

Armando looked at him and said, "Yes, I have been to Africa, but I didn't like it. There are animals there that will eat you. There are people there that will eat you. I said fuc this place and left."

The young African-American ( let's call him Bob, so I don't have to keep typing African American ) said, "Did you ever see any of those people that ate other people?"

"One time" Armando began, "Me and a friend of mine were hunting in the bush. We were walking along slowly, looking for animals to shoot, when suddenly my friend stepped in one of those rope traps and was whisked into the air where he hung upside down from the tree branch. I started walking toward him to cut him down, but I was too late. They were all around me."

"Who was all around you?" asked Bob, his eyes now as wide as saucers.

"The men with spears" continued Armando. "They came from everywhere. I knew they were after my friend so I raised my rifle to begin to kill them. But before I could fire a single shot one of them snuck up from the side and before I could react I saw him raise a blowgun to his lips and the next thing I know there is a poison dart sticking in my neck. I don't know what was in that dart, but I could not move. I was paralyzed; frozen in position. Even my finger was paralyzed. I wanted to pull the trigger, but nothing on me worked. I could only watch."

"Watch what?" Bob said. "What did they do to your friend?"

Armando stared into his coffee for a second, seemingly deeply disturbed by recalling the demons of his past. After a few minutes agonizingly ticked by for Bob, who was now imploring Armando to continue with the story, to tell him what happened, Armando cleared his throat, and tears welled in his eyes as he said in a barely audible tone, "They took him. They cut him down. They cooked him..... and they ate him."

Armando's story, and the sincerity with which he told it, had me on the verge of busting a gut. My neck muscles were straining and I did everything in my power to control myself from breaking into uproarious laughter. Thus far, miraculously, I had restrained myself from laughing. But Bob's simple response to the conclusion of Armando's story proved to be too much.

He looked at Armando as he finished the story and said, "Damn!"

I lost it. I started laughing. I fell out of my chair and rolled on the floor. I was gasping for breath I was laughing so hard. Other people in the cafeteria, unaware of the solemn conversation which had just taken place, were a bit mystified as to why I was on the floor laughing, and Armando and Bob were staring at me as if I had just spit on the pope.

It took a few weeks for Armando to forgive me for laughing at his story. In his mind I was making light of the death of his friend. I finally convinced him that I was laughing at the look on Bob's face. Eventually we became friends again, and I was able to once again hear the stories of Armando's travels. Fascinating stuff, really.

Next installment: The Fury of Fernando