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  • The Pancake Alley
  • Deborah Taffa (bio)

(1975)

These memories are like the dreams I recreate; the apparition of details may or may not be true. Dad parked the car. We ran down Main Street, in a hurry to enter the restaurant and escape the cold. The Pancake Alley sat in downtown Farmington, New Mexico—between a couple of old pawnshops and the Totah Theater. Totah is the Navajo, or Diné, word for three waters; the San Juan, La Plata, and Animas Rivers flow down from the mountains and converge on the high desert plateau. The bracing ventilation and high elevation were new to me. The north wind from Colorado felt like it never stopped blowing. It was so different from what we'd always known, the Sonoran Desert's relentless heat. The Guinness Book of World Records cited Yuma, Arizona, as the sunniest place on earth.

We got inside, hung our jackets, and took a booth. I loved the Pancake Alley because the restaurant had big windows that gave a street view of big-hatted Texans, light-skinned Hispanics, Navajo cowboys, and hawkers. Navajo grandmas with their grandchildren wandered inside the restaurant to sell their jewelry to diners: juniper berry necklaces, turquoise rings, concho belts, beaded bracelets with geometric patterns, and horsehair bolo ties. They always talked to us in Diné. "Yá%át%ééh" meant hello, even I knew that, and then Dad had to say that we couldn't understand.

The grandma before our booth modeled her jewelry on small-boned wrists and skinny fingers. She reminded me of my grandmas, except this grandma wore a long velvet dress and a velvet button-up blouse. When Dad said—"we don't speak Diné"—she shook her head and looked down. I hated disappointing her. I wanted her to like me. Even Dad shrunk up a bit after saying it. He opened his palms and shrugged, embarrassed by his ignorance.

Occasionally it happened that a grandma selling wares refused to believe him. She would insist on speaking to him in Diné, as if she knew the words would come back to him, as if he should try harder to listen, as if it [End Page 110] hadn't occurred to her that we might be from a different tribe. On such occasions he'd get angry and grumpy.

Today was one of them. Only it wasn't him, it was me she took an interest in. She had glossy eyes. She pointed at her mouth and then at mine and said, "Shi'ka a'diil'wot."

Dad's upper lip pulled tight. He rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, and sat up straighter. "Go wash your hands for supper," he said in a loud voice, without looking at me because gruff was his style, and because he would have been focused on the Navajo grandma. In such instances, I shrank back in my seat, embarrassed to move.

I caught a glimpse of our waitress at a nearby table. She had noticed Dad and looked toward the cash register, waving her hand to catch the attention of the manager. When their eyes met, hers grew—until they reached an implicating size—and then she looked, pointedly, at our table. The manager saw what she meant and nodded. Staking a receipt to a metal spike, he moved away from his station to come over.

I wasn't sure who had done what to warrant the attention, but my father's involvement made my ears swell and feel hot.

Dad and the Navajo grandma had broken their gaze. Dad lifted his chin and pointed with his lips at a juniper berry necklace the grandma's granddaughter had on her display board. "We'll buy that one," he said and looked away.

The granddaughter smiled and started untangling the necklace. The manager arrived. Despite the fact that the granddaughter was my age— somewhere around eight years old—the manager talked to her and ignored the grandmother completely, "I told you I don't mind if you pass through politely, but I don't want—"

"She ain't bothering me," Dad said.

"I thought—"

"Uh-uh. You thought wrong." Dad didn't try to keep the...

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