Good Luck Tamales
James H. Lokie

This story is dedicated to my wife and very special friend, Rita, and the proprietors and patrons of the Tamale Factory in Lewisville, Texas, who gave us the gift of the spirit of Christmas as we waited for tamales on Saturday, December 23, 2006.

Mill Street was almost completely deserted that Saturday as we drove slowly looking for the Tamale Factory.  We knew about where it was, but we’d never been there before and weren’t exactly sure how to find it.

Mill Street is the main North-South artery of Old Town Lewisville, Texas.  It crosses Main Street a few blocks East of I-35 at the heart of old downtown and, in its heyday, was the center of a small, bustling farming community.  But as with a lot of small agricultural towns in the shadow of Dallas, urban sprawl eventually caught up with it, and all the new growth occurred West of the Interstate.  New housing tracts generated new malls, shopping centers and mega-stores, and left the old part of the town alone, isolated and insulated from the glitz of progress seen in the rest of the town.  As a result, it has a kind of random, spotty look – a few new buildings are mixed in with vacant lots, old, ramshackle wooden structures from the twenties and thirties and more substantial buildings from the fifties and sixties.  Most of the businesses are small, owner-operated and either related to automotive – transmission shops, repair shops, muffler shops, parts stores or tire stores – or industrial supply – welding supplies, plumbing supplies or building materials.  Just off the main streets, the housing is old, small and lower-end blue collar.

But I like doing business here.  People believe in quality work for honest pay and take the time to know you and treat you fairly.  Just up the street is Porter Tire where I’ve bought all my tires ever since I came to Texas.  Bill and Roy recognize me by name and are just as likely to want to talk about the town’s history as work on my car.  About a half-block down Main is Auto Start, where they practice the all-but-lost art of rebuilding just about any automotive electrical component but love to talk about hunting dogs if given a chance.  Just a little to the West tucked away on a little side street is Tiner Radiator, where Jerry Tiner can still actually fix a radiator but would just as soon talk about his upcoming golf trip.  People move slower, talk with a slow, Texas drawl, and are interested in more than how fast they can get your money out of your wallet.

But this Saturday, the eve of Christmas Eve, even the businesses that would usually be open Saturday are closed and the street is almost completely deserted.  The Tamale Factory is more easily spotted by the activity around it than the small sign hung on the corner of a tiny old building.  Cars are packed in across the front, around the corner, down the side of the building and even in the “No Parking” zone across the side street. 

“You want me to just drop you off here?” I asked Rita as we pulled around the corner and realized the closest parking was about a quarter mile away.

“Sure.  You can let Scamp out while I run in,” she said.  Scamp, our two-year-old Australian Shepard, has a little upset stomach and appears anxious to get out of the back of the Suburban.  Rita and I have kind of developed a system in the years we’ve been together – she goes into the store, and I park the car.  She’s a native Texan – outgoing, gregarious and never met anyone who wasn’t her friend.  I, on the other hand, am a little more reluctant and have a low tolerance for slow and stupid; plus, I fuss over where I park the car.  So it’s faster and easier for all of us if she just runs in and lets me park the car on my own.  I had barely parked the car and let Scamp out when she came walking back.

“That was quick,” I said before I noticed she was empty-handed.

“They’re all out of tamales.”  I stared at her, a little dumbfounded.

“How can they be out of tamales two days before Christmas?” I asked.  It seems that having tamales for Christmas Eve dinner is a Texas tradition and is supposed to bring good luck.  Growing up in California, I had never heard of tamales on Christmas Eve and wasn’t even aware of it for several years after I moved here.  I don’t know anything about its origin or how wide-spread it is, but I assume it stems from the rich Mexican heritage across Texas and much of the Southwest.  While Rita was well aware of the tradition, we’d never tried it before.  Neither of us really believed it would bring good luck, but it seemed like it would be an easy meal in the bustle of Christmas Eve, so we’d decided to try it.  But if we were going to have tamales, we really wanted good ones.

“I don’t know.  They just sold everything they had,” she replied.

“Well, shoot.  Now what are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know.  The lady said they had a truck on its way with more, but if we wanted them, we’d better wait because they’d go fast.”

“What do you want to do?”  We just sort of looked at each other.  This definitely but a crimp in our plans for the day.  Our friends Curtis and Jana had flown in from New Jersey Wednesday afternoon and had just left for his mother’s in San Angelo yesterday.  My sister Beth and her husband were flying in from Oregon this afternoon, and Curtis and Jana would be back to stay with us Christmas night.  While all the Christmas shopping was done, we still had more to do today than we’d ever finish.  This morning had been set aside for grocery shopping.  We were on our way back from Central Market where we had put up with the already-huge crowds and long drive because nobody else in North Texas had anything close to the quality and selection of their meat and produce.  But it hadn’t been what you would call an enjoyable experience – people banging into you with grocery carts (Rita calls them “buggies,” but they’ll always be carts to me), pushing in front of you in line, and stopping in the middle of the aisles so you couldn’t get by.  Now it was almost noon, and we still had the liquor store and the local supermarket to go.  This afternoon, we had a ton of house cleaning and decorating to get done before we left for the airport to pick up Beth and Mike.  Spending time waiting around here for tamales wasn’t exactly productive.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” I asked.

“They don’t know.  But the truck’s already on its way.  Probably half an hour or 45 minutes.”

“Guess we could do something else.”

“Like what?”

“Dunno.  Grill hamburgers?”

She made a face.

“Tacos?”

“That’s a lot more work.”

We paused and looked at each other.  We both really wanted tamales, but we knew we had too much to do to wait around doing nothing for almost an hour.  “I could wait here and you could run to the liquor store and come back,” she broke the silence. 

“Yeah.  I could.”  But the liquor store was kind of a pain to get to from here, and besides, we liked picking out the wine together.  “We could get tamales at the grocery store,” I said, but I knew it was a bad idea the minute I said it.

I don’t know anything about making tamales.  While I like to cook and love to experiment with new dishes, I would never attempt to make them for one simple reason – there’s not a gringo alive who can make a good tamale.  It’s definitely an art known only to Mexicans.  But I do know the result.  When you take the corn husk off a good tamale, it will come off easily without sticking and leave a firm but tender tamale that doesn’t crumble.  The masa will be about a quarter-inch thick with a firm texture that sort of crumbles in your mouth with a kind of soft crunch.  And the filling – preferably pork – will be in a thick, rich, spicy sauce and so tender you can cut it with a fork.  I don’t know how the Mexicans do it, but I do know that grocery store tamales with a thick, soft, almost gooey crust and a little thin, wimpy sauce in the center definitely don’t cut it.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

She paused and looked at me.  “I really want the tamales.”

“Well ... then let’s wait.”

“Okay.  You take Scamp and have a cigarette, and I’ll meet you inside.”

With Scamp feeling more relieved and my nicotine cravings met, I walked down the street and around the corner to the front of the store.  It was a small, old, wood-sided building, probably built in the twenties.  At one time, it was probably a house facing a small, dirt road on the edge of the tiny town.  Now it faced a paved, four-lane road and was crowded on all sides by other businesses.  Behind it, in what had no doubt once been the back yard, was a some kind of car repair shop, and an air conditioning business crowded against it on the South side.  Across Mill Street, the Lewisville Meat Market was the only other place in sight where there was any significant activity.  Across the little side street on the North side, a huge sign proclaimed that the large, new, tin building was the Lewisville Christian Academy.  The front door was centered by wood-framed windows with small, square, glass panes.  It stuck a little but finally opened with a squeak and the ringing of a small bell.

Inside, a cash register on a small counter faced the door next to a now-empty heated steam tray.  The smell of the last tamale lingered in the small room that was filled with people – some standing jammed against the walls and others crammed into a couple of small tables on either end.  They all looked up as I came in, but nobody said a word.

It took a second, but I finally found Rita squeezed into a small chair in front of one of the windows.  On one side was a small, old table; on the other, a woman sat in a little chair between Rita and the door reading.  She kept her face carefully buried in her book.  I stood awkwardly facing Rita and the window, my back to the small beer cooler and four or five people crowded into chairs around another small table.  Rita smiled.  “How’s Scamp?”

“Still not doing too good.  I hope she’s okay in the car,” I said.  The woman with the book was careful not to notice.

“I’m sure she will be.”

“Any idea how much longer?”

“No.  Not yet.”

The owner came from the back of the store and stood behind the counter.  We all looked up expectantly.  She was a petite, attractive, thirtyish-looking Mexican woman whose bearing left no doubt that this was her store.  “Y’all help yourselves to some frozen margaritas while you’re waiting,” she said without a hint of a Mexican accent.

Everyone looked around, but nobody moved.  Unfazed, she moved past the beer cooler to a small margarita machine with blue margarita mix frozen inside.  “Try some of this,” she said, dispensing the frozen liquid into tiny plastic sample cups and putting them on a tray.  She walked around the room offering the samples.  “You just put the bottle in the freezer,” she explained. 

“Does it have the alcohol in it?” a woman asked from the other side of the room.  There was a little laughter.

“Oh, yeah,” the owner laughed.  “You just freeze it and pour.”

Rita took one.  I declined, and she looked at me with that odd look she has when she thinks I’m about to create a scene.

“Do you have any cold beer?” she asked the owner.  She knows I’m a lot more patient when I can drink a beer while I’m waiting.

“Sure!  I’ve got plenty of cold beer.  Just help yourself.”

I looked longingly at the beer cooler. 

“What time is it?” someone asked.

A young guy near the door was also eying the cooler.  He pulled up his sleeve to look at his watch.

“Gotta be five o’clock somewhere!” I joked.

“Ten to twelve,” he said.

Several guys were looking surreptitiously at the cooler.  I had to move around someone who was now standing in front of it to check out the selection.  Nothing I liked.  All the domestic was light beer, and most of that was in cans.  The only thing worse than light beer is light beer in a can.  All the rest was imported Mexican beer which I don’t really like.  I hesitated.

“You can have one if you want,” Rita said.

I shook my head.  “Nothing there I really like.”  Besides, I didn’t want to be the first one.

Someone else opened the door and looked around hesitantly.  “Come on in,” said an older man in a grey turtleneck sweater at the far end of the room.

“Where’s the end of the line?” the new person asked.

“There’s no line,” Rita said.  “We’re all just waiting for the truck.”

I was not alone in wondering how we were all going to sort this out once the truck arrived.  No one knew how long the supply would last.

“We all know who was here before us,” the man in the grey sweater said.

“We’re keeping track!” Rita quipped.

More and more people began joining the conversation as others kept arriving.

Since I was facing the window, I was the first one to see the truck.  It was a just a white van with “The Tamale Factory” lettered in red on the side.  There wasn’t any place to stop in front, so it pulled around to the side.  “Truck’s here!” I said.

We all waited.  A young, cute Mexican girl came from the back and stood behind the counter.  “We need you all to move to this side of the store,” she said, waving her hand back-and-fourth across the room.  We all looked at each other, confused by her hand motion that seemed to equally indicate both sides of the room. 

“Which side?” someone asked.  The girl evidently didn’t hear the question and returned to the back of the store.

We all looked at each other.  “Which side did she want?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” the man in the sweater said.

So we all just stood where we were.

The girl came back and repeated her request with the same gesture.  “Which side do you want?” I asked loudly.  But she just turned and left.  “Hell, I’m not sure what she wants.”

“Me either,” said a large woman with brown hair.

The owner came out, and a small, middle-aged woman with dark red lipstick showed her a paper and asked her something I couldn’t hear.  “Oh,” the owner said, “rain checks over here,” and she tapped the end of the counter nearest the beer cooler.  Several people moved to that side of the room and started a line.

“Who was here first?” asked an older woman in a flowered dress.

“You’re in front of me,” Rita said, moving behind the woman as a line started to form.

“Well, you were here before me,” another man said to Rita and moved behind her.  I just stayed close by.

“You were here before me,” someone in the front of the line called across the room to the man in the grey sweater.  “Come over here and get in front of me.”

Someone else opened the door.  I was standing near it by now and held it open.  “Where’s the end of the line?” she asked.

“We’re not sure!” I joked.  “We think it’s over there.”

She looked at me a little confused and walked to the other side of the room.  Slowly an informal line began to form.  Someone at the front of the line looked at Rita.  “You were here when I got here.  You need to be in front of me.”

“No.  You were here before me,” Rita told him.

“No,” he said, “you were sitting in that corner reading a book when I walked in.”

“That wasn’t me.  She was sitting next to me.  Where is she?”

We all looked around for the woman with the book.  There she was at the end of the line reading.  “You need to come up here.  You’re first,” the man said.

She hung back.  “Come on.  Get up here.  You’re first,” Rita said.

The woman came up to the front looking a little embarrassed.  “Thank you,” she said.

A young Mexican man pushing a hand truck loaded with crates of tamales tried to open the door.  I opened it for him and held it while he wheeled in the crates.  The cute young girl followed carrying another crate.  I took on the unofficial role of doorman as they carried in more and more crates.  “Looks like there’s hope for us,” said a blond woman next to us.

“I hope they have enough after all this!” I said.

The cute girl loaded sealed boxes of a dozen tamales each in the steam trays.  We waited.  The owner was in the back doing something.  The young man kept bringing in cartons of tamales.  Nothing happened.  “Are they planning to get started anytime soon?” I asked Rita.

“I don’t know,” she said.  Then a little louder so her voice would carry, she said, “Let’s get this show on the road!”  Still nothing happened.

Finally, the owner and the cute girl came out.  “Who’s first?” the owner asked.  The woman with the book stepped up to the counter.  “These are pork.  These are beef.  And I have some spicy beef, too,” the owner told her and the rest of the room.  The woman placed her order and turned to leave.

“Merry Christmas!” Rita called across the room.

The woman turned and smiled shyly.  “Merry Christmas,” she said as she walked out the door.

“Merry Christmas!” the rest of the customers called after her.

One-by-one, we placed our orders.  The man in the grey sweater.  The woman with the red lipstick.  The woman in the flowered dress.  When it was our turn, Rita paid for our tamales.  They put the five-dozen tamales in a bag along with a bottle of margarita mix.  As we turned toward the door, Rita called out across the room, “Y’all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

“Merry Christmas!” the room called back to us as we left.

“What’s next?” I asked Rita as we got in the car.

“Liquor store.  Then the grocery store.  Then home.”

We made it through the liquor store and two more grocery stores before we had everything we needed.  But somehow, the crowds didn’t seem quite so bad.  And we got home and got the house pretty well finished.  Devon, our oldest son, picked Mike and Beth up from the airport, which helped.

The next night after all the presents were wrapped and under the tree, we stood around the stove unwrapping tamales and spooning out chili while the trains ran around and around under the tree and through the little village.  Mike and Beth were spending their first Christmas with us since the Christmas before Dad died.  Devon and Trevor were young men who had both just recently graduated from college.  The tree dripped with lights and ornaments.  The fire crackled in the fireplace.  The house felt warm and cozy.  Rita smiled at me across the room.  Christmas hadn’t felt like this since the boys were little.  I wondered why and remembered the warm feeling at the Tamale Factory.  But why didn’t Christmas feel like this every year?

As I thought about it, I was struck by how ironic it is that the Sprit of Christmas is so elusive.  Every year we spend the month after Thanksgiving in a frenzied search for it without much luck.  We look frantically in the trinkets of the crowded aisles at Super Target or Wall-Mart.  We believe the ads screaming through the TV that all we have to do is spend more money, but it eludes us even in the expensive gifts from Neiman’s or Nordstrom’s.  We think maybe it’ll turn up in more elaborate meals and recipes, so we crowd the aisles of supermarkets in vain.  We look desperately under the tree, thinking maybe it’s in the lights and ornaments and piles of presents, but it still seems empty. 

In our desperation, believe the TV and decide we’ll find it if we just spend more money and get more stuff.  We don our best battle gear, mount our mechanical steeds, and venture fourth into the urban battlefield determined to lead the charge to find it.  We fight for parking spaces, push and shove to be first, and battle our neighbors for the last must-have item of the season.  And when we get home and plaster our loot all over the house, we still can’t find it.  And we wonder, “Why?”

But in the heat of this hyped-up, screw-you, it’s-all-about-me battle, we’ve made a critical error.  We’ve almost universally mistaken the symbols of Christmas for the real thing.  The real Sprit of Christmas isn’t about what we have, or what we get, or even about how much we give.  It’s about what we give.  After all, the man who’s birth we’re celebrating said, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.”  And it’s hard to “love thy neighbor as thyself” when we’re wrestling with them over the last gotta-have-it item of the season.  A battlefield isn’t the best place to look for love – or for the Sprit of Christmas, either. 

Yet sometimes, if we remove ourselves from the hyped-up, media-induced battle, we find it’s really always there.  In a small gesture of kindness given to a stranger.  In a bag of cookies handed over the fence to a neighbor.  In countless small ways you can treat others as you would want to be treated.  And when you give the gift of caring for your fellow man, you just might find you receive much more than you give – not in terms of monetary things, but in terms of how you feel and how you act.

As we sat in that most unlikely place – a little old store called the Tamale Factory in Old Town Lewisville, Texas – we were given the gift of the Sprit of Christmas.  We weren’t shopping for it.  You can’t buy it.  You won’t find it on any store shelf.  But you can give it.  For us, the gift was given – and returned – in that little old store in an off-the-beaten-path place.  Maybe tamales really are good luck.  Or maybe we were just forced out of the battlefield long enough to find what we really wanted.  Whatever the reason, whatever your “tamale experience” is, our Christmas wish for each of you is that you give the gift of the Christmas Spirit this season.