Humans of Rockaway: Edwardo Lopez

By Shaun Smith

“I’m from Mexico City. I’ve lived here for maybe twenty-something years—I don’t remember exactly.”

If you have ever been to Happy Jack’s Burger Bar, you have almost definitely eaten a meal prepared by Eddie Lopez. I went to Happy Jack’s to sit down with Eddie last Tuesday, when he told me he’d be at the restaurant. I poked my head in the kitchen where Mike Dalton was trimming pounds of fresh prime rib, laughing because Eddie had told me to come in on his day off. Mike called him for me and handed me his phone. His name was saved as “Fast Eddie.” He said he would be there in two minutes. Ever hospitable, Mike offered me a drink while I waited. A few minutes later, Eddie rode up on his bike. “So you need my story?”

We sat outside Jack’s Corner. School had just gotten out, so the schoolyard to our left was filled with the excited shrieks of elementary schoolers.

“I lived in Brooklyn for 16 years and, now living separate from my ex-wife, we moved to Rockaway. Now, four years almost. My son lives with me. I’m very happy, really. Life in Rockaway is amazing, thank you,” Lopez said, as if it were me making his life here amazing. I knew the thanks was meant for the community.

“Mexico City is amazing, really, it’s so beautiful. My mom and my sister are living over there. They’re an amazing family, really, but long time no see,” Lopez shared. He hasn’t been able to return to Mexico City since he left almost two decades ago. “It’s impossible for me to go and come back. But I have a big relationship with them because my mom is happy when I am happy here. So we call all the time, three, four times a week, same thing with my sister. It’s a bigger relationship, it’s not here but, I’m happy really because my family is healthy, happy, and God is with everybody.”

In Mexico City, Eddie was a computer programmer. When he got to Brooklyn, his work looked different, “I worked in…” he exhaled through his mouth and rolled his head back with a smile, reminiscing. Now, a cook at Happy Jack’s, Lopez has worn several hats.

“It’s a big change in my life. When I was working in Mexico, I was a supervisor in computers. I worked in the systems with computers: programs, doing the maintenance and the systems of computers. I was working for the city for maybe three years in different places in the city. I did the maintenance for their computer systems,” Lopez said. “But when I moved here, it was like, ‘What are you doing?’ The first time when I came here, I was working cleaning cars. My first job in Brooklyn.”

Lopez worked several jobs, often simultaneously. He primarily learned English from his jobs—from talking to people.

“When I came here, everybody told me to go to [English language] school, but I really didn’t have the time. I had two different—three different jobs when I came here. Bagel store, from four in the morning. Finish, eight in the morning. Then go to the car wash from eight to seven, and seven to twelve o’clock: cleaning a kitchen…so go to school for maybe two hours, but I really learned nothing. When I went to school, it was the moment for sleep. So, I would go to the school and fall asleep at school until class finished, so I really put more attention on talking with people,” he said. “When my son was born, my ex-wife told me, ‘Don’t talk to him in English, your English is bull.’”

Working in kitchens was not something Lopez had expected for himself, but he quickly grew to love it. One of his first kitchen jobs was nearly two decades ago. “I worked in one restaurant, Outback Steakhouse. I worked there for maybe five or six years. I started in the kitchen and moved to prep. They gave me a bigger offer to be the kitchen manager,” he said. Shortly after the promotion, his son was born. One night, he came home so late, his son questioned whether he still lived there. It hit Lopez hard. Fatherhood quickly took precedence. “[Work] started at seven in the morning and finished at maybe nine or ten at night. So I didn’t see my son. At this time, he had maybe two years. So the decision to not work for this company anymore was him.”

Lopez moved to Rockaway only about four years ago. “When I finished working in the city and moved here, Mike gave me an opportunity to work in his place, so I live here now.” About his life in Rockaway, he gushes, “Life is more beautiful here. This place, I don’t know what about it, but it gives peace, love, respect. For me, it’s important.

“When I lived in Brooklyn, it was much different than here,” Lopez said. “For example, in Brooklyn, the people don’t respect nothing really, you know what I mean.” (No offense, Brooklyn). He gave an example: In Brooklyn, “if you forget your bicycle on the street, go to your house for five minutes, come back, you’re not going to find your bicycle. But here, you forget your bicycle for one week and come back, your bicycle is here. Everybody respects, you know what I mean.” He eulogizes Rockaway’s position as NYC’s best-kept secret, commenting on the tendency of those in the outer boroughs to stick to routine, often failing to look beyond their turf. “They hurry all the time. All the time. Go to the train. Push in the train. It’s late. It’s not working. Here, I enjoy my life. Ride my bicycle. And really, when I want to go to the city, I take my time. You know, why hurry? Life is not like that, you know what I mean?”

He continued, “That’s why I say the people here are so different. The streets: nothing is dangerous. In Brooklyn, there is music all day; it’s crazy, guys in their cars, music everywhere. You try to sleep, and there’s people in the street, police, music. But here, oh my God, totally peaceful…the ocean…it’s amazing.”

Lopez is not much of a swimmer himself, but he braves the waves for his son. “I do it because I have to show my son swimming, but I don’t know why I’m scared of the ocean. I go and walk around, but that’s it,” he said. “It’s my brother, it’s infinite. I talk all the time with the ocean, I tell him, ‘You are the bigger man in the war. I respect you, and you respect me.’ The ocean, it’s amazing to me.”

Lopez cares deeply about his son, who is on the road to becoming a history professor. He mentions him several times, his face lighting up at the chance to discuss his son. “He really,” he hesitates, struggling to form the right words, “he really changed my life completely.”

His family and his health, “my person,” he says, are the most important things in his life. “I don’t take the drugs, I don’t take the drink. Now, no sugar. Now, diet, you know. My son is my teacher, really. I understand now when you have your son, he teach you, your son…being with my son; this guy shows me really, you know, ‘Pa, you need to change this. You need to do this. You don’t do this.’ I love it. I love it really. He’s my best friend, you know what I mean,” Lopez said. “All the time when I have something to do or talk with someone about, I call him.” The two of them do everything together, work out at the gym, bike rides, trips to the city: “eat something, walk around, you know. Really enjoying the moments with him.”

He tells me, “If you have good relation with your family, you have a bigger relation with everybody.”