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A Two Peso Bill by
When the man comes into the bar, the boy has already been there for hours. He has spent all afternoon going from table to table, collecting coins in exchange for tiny postcards of saints that he drops on people's laps or places delicately by their coffee cups. It is one of those big, old bars with tall ceilings, marble pillars and wood-paneled walls. The boy wears nothing but a pair of old jeans, and as he walks the coins he collects at each table jingle in his pocket. His hair is black and straight and his skin brown, but his eyes are olive green. The boy watches the man as he weaves his way in and out between the tables until he finds a suitable one, against a low wooden wall, with a slab of smoked glass separating it from the row of tables on the other side. He watches the man because it is siesta time and not many people come into the bar now. And the man catches his eye because of the way he walks, in small tight steps, with his shoulders slumped forward. The man takes off his jacket and hangs it neatly on the back of a chair beside him, smoothing it out carefully with his white hands. Then the man sits down. He is almost completely bald, and with one hand he combs two or three strands of hair back over his shiny scalp. He signals the waiter with his thumb and forefinger. An espresso, he says with his hand, and he knows the waiter will understand. Then he sits back in his chair and waits, closing his eyes, and tossing his head back to stretch out the muscles at the back of his neck. The man has spent his life in bars like this, idling the time away over coffee and a newspaper, or chatting with friends over a glass of wine. He can think here; his mind is clearer. In the bar the man sees things that he does not see elsewhere. He sees things in the past as if they were here today. That is why he comes. Now he looks about, letting his eyes slip over tables and chairs. The room is almost empty, only a handful of couples scattered throughout, curls of smoke rising above them. Perhaps then the man sees the boy, he sees him sauntering across the bar, his arms swinging, he sees him translucent almost, outlined against the white light coming in behind him through the open door. But if he does he hardly notices, because his thoughts are elsewhere. The boy has settled into a corner, and rests his back against the wall. The boy is tired. He is tired with the itching and fiddling tiredness boys have. He swings his arms and sways his body back and forth, rolling on his feet. The boy has traveled a long distance to be here. He has traveled huddled on a train seat, or hiding from the ticket collectors that roam the train in smart brown uniforms. He has traveled from places that people in the city hear about on the news but have never been to. The boy does this nearly every day and has never thought of it as a long trip. In fact he hardly thinks of it as a trip at all, woven in as it is with his mornings and nights. Sometimes, on warm evenings, the boy will sleep in the station with his friends. He will search them out after the bar closes, idling by the ticket counters, or riding up and down on the escalator to the subway below. At night the boy and his friends will lie by the door of the Ladies Waiting Room where no policemen will chase them off. But now it is only three in the afternoon, and the boy has nothing to do but wait, wait away the hot and still hours. He leans against the wall and looks through the cards he has left one by one. The cards have pictures of Saints on one side and little prayers on the back. San Francisco and a flock of birds, San Damian nursing the ill, Santa Ana and a baby girl. Then one by one the boy turns the cards over. Silently his mouth shapes the words. He is just beginning to learn to read. Across the room, the man tears open a sugar packet. He pours in the sugar and stirs slowly, his lips drooping, the bags under his eyes sagging, his forehead shining under the white fluorescent light that the bar's owners have set up to replace the old chandeliers. With a slow, heavy movement he brings the cup to his lips and takes a small sip. All the while he keeps his eye on the revolving doors, looking up and over the rim of the white porcelain cup as he drinks. He sees the woman as soon as she comes in, and for a moment his eyes light up and his body tenses. He stands courteously as she approaches the table. Hello, thank you so much for coming, please sit down, he says to her, motioning with his hand to the empty chair in front of him. The woman nods and smiles and asks him if he's waited long. "No," he says, "not long." The man calls the waiter and orders her another espresso. Then they lean towards each other over the marble-topped table and in quiet, hushed tones, they speak. In his corner, the boy taps his feet on the floor and drums his fingers against the wood-paneled walls. He too has seen the woman come in and has followed her to the man's table with his olive-green eyes. Now he watches them as they speak, surrounded by empty tables, under the dark chandeliers. From his place against the wall, he watches them with his head turned to one side. He watches out of boredom, because there is nothing else to do, and he stays because it is hot outside and the waiters in this bar do not chase him out as they do in other places. Big ceiling fans spin above him, and the air feels cool on his shoulders and arms. So he cocks his head from side to side and jingles the coins in his pocket, and watches. Like other boys his age, the boy is by nature curious. The man smiles at the woman. He smiles a tired, lopsided smile. The man is grateful to her for having come. He is so grateful that is eyes almost fill with tears. "I don't know what to do" he says. "She won't speak of it, she won't speak of it or let anyone else speak of it." "I know" the woman answers, " but it is her way of fighting it, you can't force it on her". The man already knows this but he likes to hear it. He likes to hear someone repeat it to him as he repeats it to himself, lying in bed awake nights in the room filled with his wife's breathing. "If it is money," the woman says, "I will lend you money." Every morning the man leaves his home early. He kisses his wife goodbye. He wears a salesman's suit and tie and carries a black brief case. But all day he does nothing but sit in the park on his own, watching the old men play chess and the little children play in the sandbox. Now the man shakes his head and looks down into his empty espresso cup. But he knows that finally he will take the money, because the loathing he feels towards himself for not having it is greater than the loathing he feels for taking it. The boy is watching closely now. He watches as one watches a movie or a show on TV, he watches openly, staring straight at them, his arms hanging limply by his sides. No one notices, not even the man or the woman, because he is just a dark boy in a bar. First he watches the man, the glistening white of his scalp, the shape of his shoulders and arms, the way his flabby cheeks move as he speaks. Then he watches the woman. Her hands are soft and quick. When she speaks, they flutter like birds. And her skin is golden, a golden brown. She is tanned, the boy thinks, she has been to the beach. The boy has been to the beach too, but river beaches with water he can't see through and no sand, just mud that brushes the tips of his feet when he stretches his legs out, and pulls him down. He has inched nearer to them along the wall, sliding bit by bit, acting like he is not moving although he is, slowly stealthily. Father and daughter, or uncle and niece, or maybe husband and wife, the boy thinks. He is not sure. He sees their mouths move and their bodies open up and then close again as people's do when they are speaking of something near to them. Bits of words float towards him over the tables and chairs, snippets of phrases, pieces of questions and answers. They come to him separately, disjointedly, as over a badly tuned radio, and the boy does not understand. He watches, and bites his lip, and scratches the back of his neck. Then, still watching, he fingers the coins in his pocket one by one. He feels the faces and edges of the big coins, and then one by one he fingers the other coins, the little ones people give him, the worthless ones that take up space in their pocketbooks, his father says. Now the woman leans forward, and the boy cannot quite hear what she says. But he sees the man close his eyes and draw his wrinkled hands over them. The espresso machine hisses somewhere behind the counter. One of the waiters turns on a radio. For a moment everything hangs suspended, still in the afternoon air. It is then that the boy tries for it. He is doing it even before the thought of doing it has fully formed in his mind. His legs are moving and his arms swing and the sound of his feet on the wooden floor echoes through the bar. The boy runs as fast as he can, toppling over a chair, and in a split second he has taken the man's briefcase off the table. He hears the man yell, and the waiters in their white coats try to block his way to the door. He sees them move in against the glare of the light, like moving white statues holding silver trays. But the boy is good at zigzagging and he darts and slips between them as fast as he can go. "Get him, stop him, thief, thief!" he hears the man yell behind him. "Stop him! My wallet, he has my wallet!" The man has stood up, and he shakes his fists. His face is red, and he looks as if he is about to cry. As the woman turns, her face white and round, you can tell that they both have the same eyes. But the boy does not look back. He does not see the man's body shake and crumple into a chair. He does not see the woman bend over him, her brown hair swinging and falling as she bows her head. He does not hear her tell the man to leave him, to let the boy go. "It is just a boy," she says. "Just a boy." The boy runs holding the briefcase tight against his chest with both arms. Colors and lights blend together as he runs. He darts in front of buses and in and out between the black and yellow taxis that swerve to avoid him. Cars screech and men swear. He runs across the plaza and into little side streets jammed with cars and buses. The boy runs like a scared animal. He runs till his sides hurt and his stomach swells with nausea. Then he turns into a small alley. Doubled over, panting, with his hands shaking, he opens the briefcase and pulls out a brown leather wallet. With his thin brown hands he shakes the wallet up and down. Photographs spill out over the cobble-stoned street. Pictures of the man young, his hair black and shiny, the man with a woman in a red dress, the man with two small children under a flowering tree. The boy sees them out of the corner of his eye, he sees them fall upside down and right-side up, jumbled and on top of each other, on the cobblestone street. But now the boy has no time. The briefcase is at his feet, and the wallet burns in his hands. He looks through all the pockets, pulling them inside out. He runs his fingers through the leather flaps. He tears the wallet open at the seams till the thread that holds it together comes out in little black loops. But inside he finds only a two peso bill, which he crumples and thrusts into the bottom of his pocket. Standing in the middle of the street, the boy looks up, and shading his eyes with one hand, he watches as thick dark clouds move swiftly across the rectangle of blue sky. The boy knows it will rain. But now it is quiet in the alley, and by his feet the photographs on the cobblestones rustle softly in a warm breeze. For a moment, the boy hesitates. He has learned not to waste time; he has learned not to take things with him. And so without looking back he makes his way toward the avenue, sliding swiftly along the cement wall in the narrow sliver of early afternoon shade. Back in the bar the woman has paid the waiter, and she and the man swing one after another through the revolving doors. The man smiles and nods at the woman as she offers to walk him home. His jacket is on crooked and his white empty hands hang awkwardly by his sides. Outside it has turned windy, and the man smells the childhood smell of coming summer rain. He knows that at home his wife awaits him with a basket of toast and a pot of five o'clock tea. He knows they will sit in the kitchen, speaking of the weather, and family, and of the noise children make in the street. He thinks of all this, and for a moment, it comforts him. The man has not remembered the photographs yet, but perhaps the next morning, sitting in the park under the purple trees, he will. He will count them slowly on the fingers of his right hand. He will see each of them in turn, holding it for an instant in the hollow of his mind. Then he will think of when they were taken and by whom. Perhaps then, for a moment, he will again see the boy's brown figure swing across the bar. He will see him faintly, just his outline, through a layer of yellow time. Now the man closes his eyes, and combs a few hairs back with a shaking hand. And neither he nor the woman speak of the boy as they step into the crowded sidewalk, the man recovered and upright, but leaning slightly, just slightly into the woman's arm. From the door of the bar the waiters watch the couple inch their way across the avenue. They watch the crowd swirl around them, men, women, and children encircling each other without touching. They watch until the man and the woman disappear into the crowd's brown currents and spirals. They watch without speaking, their hands on their waists, the last of a yellow sun reflecting off their silver trays. |