Diego The Spark-Spitter Ruins Everything But Not Really

Oh dear - did I do that?

Some of my hobo stories are what I've never referred to as "one-drink tales," owing to their simplicity. They're mere anecdotes, the kind that can be imparted over the course of a single beer. It's easy to be succinct, I always say, when there's little to be said. I never say that. I don't know what I thought I was trying to pull off, there. Apologies to you all. I won't let it happen again (spoiler alert: I will totally let it happen again).

Diego José Ramirez Burchill was born in 1904 in a tiny, nameless village in Durango, Mexico. A year later his mother, Maria, carried him to a border crossing in the Big Bend area of south Texas, following the untimely gila monster- and habanéro-related death of his Scottish father, Ged MacMillan Burchill. They came to America in a caravan of approximately twenty migrants, and they weren't fleeing anything. This is because there weren't as many people, back then, and MS-13 had not yet been invented. They were allowed passage without question, because the United States was a LOT more chill, in 1905.

Maria found a job in a restaurant in Marathon, Texas, where she worked fifty hours a week and managed to keep up with the rent on a tiny room in a group house - and to raise Diego. They were poor, but she paid taxes and more or less learned English, and survived. 

She couldn't afford a proper dentist for Diego, so she took him to a cut-rate practitioner outside of town - the one with the sign that read, "Mexicans and Indians welcome." This man deserves his own story, but suffice to say here that he was a technically gifted dentist and oral surgeon; his work was impeccable. But, with so many destitute patients, he couldn't afford silver or gold for fillings, and instead used a blend of steel, aluminum, and nickel. By the time Diego reached the age of twenty, his mouth was full of this stuff. 

His fillings served him well, even after he left home to join the hobo nation, upon learning that his mother had voted for Hoover. But during his first frosty homeless winter in the central plains, he received his first crown - from a hobo dentist and traveling roofer who used an amalgam of ceramic plastic and flint.

From that day forth, the flint and steel in Diego's mouth created a spray of sparky spittle whenever he spoke. He instantly became Diego The Spark-Spitter. His incendiary breath was more blessing than curse, on the hobo road. He was invaluable when a campfire was needed and matches were nowhere to be found. He could scare off all manner of threats - both wildlife and human. His sparkling, smoky spit made everything he said more interesting. And his kisses, though seldom seen, were positively electric. "Just ask Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick," he would say with a crackling phosphorous grin.

But, there was that one time.

The original hoboes, as we've seen repeatedly in these little biographies, were first and foremost a migrant labor force, constantly seeking employment. Diego had a knack for finding temporary work, and in the summer of 1938, he landed a gig helping to unload fireworks from a boxcar to a freight house in Kansas City. It was on a sweltering July 1st that he ruined two dozen Independence day celebrations from Kansas City to Overland Park and beyond - with a sneeze. As he helped three fellow laborers in lifting a pallet of fireworks onto a forklift, a gnat (or possibly some manner of no-see-um) flew up his nose, got stuck, tickled him mercilessly, and caused the sneeze that ignited all the fireworks in western Missouri, three days too soon.

So, yes. Diego The Spark-Spitter did indeed ruin a lot of municipal fourth of July fireworks displays, that year. But he and his coworkers suffered only superficial burns, and he was still good for lighting campfires and whatnot, and the three dozen witnesses to the debacle all agreed that it was the most spectacular fireworks display that any of them had ever seen.

So, he wasn't all bad. And this beer is empty...