Eva took a job with Rent
a Car, for whom she had worked for previously on Mallorca. It was a third generation family car rental
business that profited mainly from the German tourists in the resort town of
Paguera. She was popular with the German
customers who often made the trip every year, the same time and often stayed at
the same place. Eva had many customers
who insisted on renting their car only from her. Raul knew that with Eva he could count on a
loyal German clientele which meant more money for his pocket. Bringing Eva back into the business wasn’t
even something he had to think about twice.
When I first met Raul, I thought he appeared to be a bit of
a Mafioso, macho type. He was in his mid
fifties with thick mustache and medium length salt and pepper hair, unbuttoned
shirt revealing his gold chains. He was
maybe 5 foot 9 with a stocky build.
Eva had arranged a
job for me in the lavadero washing cars.
Since I didn’t have a work visa this was the only way I could work
without being detected as easily by the immigration officials. My job was going to be delivering and picking
up rental cars from the 14 offices Rent a Car had around the southwest corner
of the island. Raul felt that by being
mobile, my chances of getting caught were slim.
If I were pulled over, I was to say I was a tourist. I would bring the cars that were returned
back to the lavadero to be cleaned and delivered back to the next office. Raul had a pretty successful business going
with over 500 rental cars and 26 or so employees. I was to work with two other older Spanish
gentlemen, Tito, who was in his early fifties from Valencia, Spain. This guy was a real firecracker. I say this for his passionate and sometimes
explosive Spanish temperament. The guy
was full of energy and never seemed to tire.
I think in part because he had to prove his worthiness to keep a job at
his age due to the younger competition.
Tito was a friendly, warm hearted guy who spoke some broken German. He had told me that he was a licensed pilot,
which is how he lost his two front teeth.
This was the result of a rough landing back when he lived in
Valencia. He had knocked his teeth out
on the dashboard of the plane and refused to wear his dentures to work for fear
of losing them so I was told. The other
man I was to work with was named Roberto.
He was a few years older than Tito and was brought into the family with
the marriage of his only son to Selena, who was Raul’s daughter. He was a stout man with wavy gray hair and at
times, could be a bit grumpy depending on how much he had to drink the night
before. Roberto was hard of hearing in
one ear, so a conversation with him could be a bit of a challenge at times in
German. I mention German here because my
Spanish consisted of about 5 words of Spanish at the time. I really only knew the essentials, hola,
adios, cervesa and agua. The rest of the
time we either tried to communicate in German or spoke with hands and feet as
the Germans would say. I would also work
with two younger guys. Pablo, who I
hardly ever heard say more than two words at a time. He was about 28 and rather tall for a
Mallorquin. He stood about 6’1” and
weighed about 195 with an athletic build.
The guy was always in a hurry to deliver cars from one office to
another, often nearly taking corners on two wheels not to keep a customer
waiting. Antonio was about the same age. He was the nephew of Raul and was a friendly
guy but could suddenly turn quiet due to his struggles with depression. Overall, he was quite a talker when he wanted
to be. He was interested in learning
English and German and always wanted to practice when we were driving to
deliver the next car.
Mornings were the most hectic part of the day. All the employees met at the lavadero at 8:30
in the morning to speak with Raul about what cars they had reserved for the
day. It was already written on a notepad
that Raul kept in his pocket, but they liked to discuss it all once again
anyway. Once the office employees took
the car they needed that was reserved for their office, it was off to the races
for the next two to three hours. We had
to go around and collect all the cars that were left at hotels from the clients
that had left back for Germany. We would
all pile in to Raul’s four door Mercedez and he would drop us off one by one at
different hotels. We had to run in to
the reception, pick up the keys and run back out to the hotel parking lot to
find the car and drive it back to the lavadero to be washed. There would be three of us in the back and
two in the front. Now one thing I will
never forget is how the car would smell of garlic, fish and alcohol. The Mallorquins eat a healthy diet of fish,
garlic and of course, they like to enjoy their cervesa and vino tinto. The smell was nauseating and at times, I
thought I was going to suffocate from the deadly combination of the three
together. After a while, I realized that
the only way to combat the smell of garlic on someone else, was to eat it
yourself. That was the only way I could
sit in a car with my co-workers.
We would bring the cars back to the garage to be washed and
sent back out to various offices to be rented once again. It sounded like a simple operation, but with
the fiery Spanish temperament thrown into the equation, you would think we were
doing something as important as launching the space shuttle for NASA. You had Raul barking orders to Tito and Pedro
as to what cars needed to be done first.
All Raul would have to do is snap his fingers and Tito would run himself
into a frenzy. I had never seen somebody
so stressed out and worked up over such a simple job. Pedro on the other hand, didn’t seem to care too
much about anything and worked at his own pace.
There was one day when some party going tourist had left a half gallon
of Jack Daniels in the back seat of a car.
Pedro tucked the bottle away for those days Raul was off running about
to check on the offices. Pedro one day
looked at me with a smile as he pulled the half gallon from its hiding place in
the garage. He grabbed an ashtray and
started to pour himself a drink using the ashtray for a glass. He threw the drink down and looked at me with
a half smile and a hearty yell, ‘vitaminas, Miguel, vitaminas.’ He gave out a
healthy burp and rubbed his stomach in and then back to washing the next
car.
We had what I felt was the perfect work schedule in
Mallorca. We showed up at 8:30, did our
collection of cars at all the local hotels, brought them back to the lavadero
to be washed and vacuumed, and then delivered them to whichever office needed a
car. Summers were pretty warm and humid,
so you would work up a good sweat racing around to get the cars prepped for the
next customer. It was pretty hectic
until about 10:30, then all would settle down and we would just sit in the
garage and wait for the next delivery.
We could sit around doing nothing for 30 minutes at a time. By now, Pedro would be coming to life and
would start talking. He loved food and
would always ask me what I had for dinner the night before or what my plans
were for lunch. I carried a pocket
German-Spanish dictionary to start trying to learn Spanish. Slowly but surely, I was picking up a few
words here and there. We would work
until 1 and then take off four hours for the siesta. My German co-workers always complained about
the long break. Personally, I loved
it. I would walk home to my apartment
and change into my workout clothes. I
found a small fitness center about a five minute walk from my apartment. It was a quick stroll through the hotel
garden, passing all the pasty white Irish tourists who were trying so
desperately to get a tan, but to no avail.
These people looked whiter than a glass of milk. Living in a place that rained 9 months or
better out of the year made them desperate to get a little color. I always laughed at how they would arrive to
the hotel totally white and leave with a few random red patches. It was as if they had no clue how to apply
sunscreen. If a spot on their skin felt
hot, they would put a little sun cream on the spot and continue to drink beer
until they realized they were getting scorched and then apply a little
more. I would see some of the funniest
looking sun burns. I would walk past the
pool, noticing some of the topless girls laying out in their lounge
chairs. By this point, topless girls
were something you just took for granted.
I would go for a 45 minute workout, come back and swim a good 20 minutes
to cool off, then run up to the apartment for lunch. I would take a 20 minute nap and head back to
work shortly before five p.m. Afternoon
was another rush of cleaning cars and making the evening deliveries and then
the day was done at 9 p.m. It was the
perfect schedule for me since I loved having the nicest part of the day to enjoy
the nice weather. Everybody in Mallorca
would eat dinner around 11 p.m. or even later since it was so hot and a lot of
people didn’t have air conditioning.
Most people wouldn’t go to bed until around 3 a.m. They would get caught up on their sleep during
the siesta.
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