Salt

I’d read once that Salinas, the surname that graces every form of my identity, was born in the salt mines of old Spain, where many men surely perished. My uncle Henry, though I’d call him tio, was a Salinas if there ever was one, the salt so strong in his blood, you could almost taste it when the spit from his drunken mouth landed on your lips when he would talk up close to you. At that point, though, it was better to let it sit, to ignore, than wipe the spittle off or else. When he was in those dark moods, those frequent dark, drinking moods and the spit from his mouth flowed free, I would remind myself to listen, laugh, nod my head, listen, and remember that, as much as our lives were different, as much as our paths out of the mines were not the same, we were of the same salt and blood.

San Antonian Alex Z. Salinas earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s University in 2011. His flash fiction has appeared online in Every Day Fiction, Nanoism, escarp, 101 Words, 101 Fiction, and ZeroFlash. He has also had poetry published in the San Antonio Express-News.

Originally published in the San Antonio Express-News, March 2017.