It is near the noon hour when the truck, with its quilted aluminum sides, begins to circulate through the neighborhood. The first hints of its presence are two bars of the tune from its musical horn, which is both evocative and familiar. Da-da-da-dum-DUM, da-da-da-dum-DUM.
The truck stops wherever its owner knows, or can surmise, that there are itinerant, and even possibly undocumented, workers having their lunch break. It carries to them an assortment of food items that are both inexpensive and appealing to the palate, and especially those palates partial to the maize-based, hot-chili-pepper-flavored, heavily leguminous diet of people from south of the border.
The tune that the truck plays to announce its arrival originated during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century. It is simple and cheerful, though the words that accompany the original song are not exactly innocent.
Here are the lyrics:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marijuana por fumar
(The cockroach, the cockroach
It's not going to walk
Because it does not have, because it lacks,
Marijuana for to smoke.)
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