comprised the draft dodgers.
Juan Diego and Lupe had little luck communicating with the potheads. The mushroom hippies were too busy expanding their consciousness by hallucinogenic means; they didn’t waste their time talking to children. The mescal hippies—if only when they were sober—enjoyed their conversations with the dump kids, and occasional readers could be found among them, although the mescal affected what these readers could remember. Quite a few of the draft dodgers were readers; they gave Juan Diego their paperback novels. These were mostly American novels, of course; they inspired Juan Diego to imagine living there.
And only seconds after the early-morning gecko had vanished, and the screen door of the shack slapped shut behind Juan Diego, a crow took flight from the hood of Rivera’s truck, and all the dogs in Guerrero began to bark. The boy watched the crow in flight—any excuse to imagine flying captivated him—while Diablo, rousing himself from the flatbed of Rivera’s pickup, commenced an ungodly baying that silenced all of the other dogs. Diablo’s baying was the bloodhound gene in Rivera’s scary dog; the pit-bull part, the fighter gene, was responsible for the missing lid of the dog’s bloodshot and permanently open left eye. The pinkish scar, where the eyelid had been, gave Diablo a baleful stare. (A dogfight, perhaps, or a person with a knife; the dump boss hadn’t witnessed the altercation, human or beast.)
As for the jagged-edged, triangular piece that had been less thansurgically removed from one of the dog’s long ears—well, that one was anyone’s guess.
“ You did it, Lupe,” Rivera once said, smiling at the girl. “Diablo would let you do anything to him—even eat his ear.”
Lupe had made a perfect triangle with her index fingers and her thumbs. What she said required Juan Diego’s translation, as always, or Rivera would not have understood her. “No animal or human has the teeth to bite like that,” the girl incontrovertibly said.
Los niños de la basura never knew when (or from where) Rivera arrived every morning at the basurero, or by what means el jefe had come down the hill from the dump to Guerrero. The dump boss was usually found napping in the cab of his truck; either the pistol-shot slap of the closing screen door or the barking dogs woke him. Or Diablo’s baying woke him, a half-second later—or earlier, that gecko, which almost no one saw.
“Buenos días, jefe,” Juan Diego usually said.
“It’s a good day to do everything well, amigo,” Rivera often answered the boy. The dump boss would add: “And where is the genius princess?”
“I am where I always am,” Lupe would answer him, the screen door slapping shut behind her. That second pistol shot reached as far as the hellfires in the basurero. More crows took flight. There was a disharmonious barking; the dump dogs and the dogs in Guerrero barked. Another menacing and all-silencing howl followed from Diablo, whose wet nose now touched the boy’s bare knee below his tattered shorts.
The dump fires had long been burning—the smoldering mounds of piled-high garbage and pawed-through trash. Rivera must have lit the fires at first light; then he took a nap in the cab of his truck.
The Oaxaca basurero was a wasteland of burning; whether you were standing there or as far away as Guerrero, the towers of smoke from the fires rose as high into the sky as you could see. Juan Diego’s eyes were already tearing when he came out that screen door. There was always a tear oozing from Diablo’s lidless eye, even when the dog slept—with his left eye open but not seeing.
That morning, Rivera had found another water pistol in the basurero; he’d tossed the squirt gun into the flatbed of the pickup, where Diablo had briefly licked it before leaving it alone.
“I got one for you!” Rivera called to Lupe, who was eating a cornmeal tortilla with jam on it; there was jam on her chin, and on one cheek,
Juan Diego and Lupe had little luck communicating with the potheads. The mushroom hippies were too busy expanding their consciousness by hallucinogenic means; they didn’t waste their time talking to children. The mescal hippies—if only when they were sober—enjoyed their conversations with the dump kids, and occasional readers could be found among them, although the mescal affected what these readers could remember. Quite a few of the draft dodgers were readers; they gave Juan Diego their paperback novels. These were mostly American novels, of course; they inspired Juan Diego to imagine living there.
And only seconds after the early-morning gecko had vanished, and the screen door of the shack slapped shut behind Juan Diego, a crow took flight from the hood of Rivera’s truck, and all the dogs in Guerrero began to bark. The boy watched the crow in flight—any excuse to imagine flying captivated him—while Diablo, rousing himself from the flatbed of Rivera’s pickup, commenced an ungodly baying that silenced all of the other dogs. Diablo’s baying was the bloodhound gene in Rivera’s scary dog; the pit-bull part, the fighter gene, was responsible for the missing lid of the dog’s bloodshot and permanently open left eye. The pinkish scar, where the eyelid had been, gave Diablo a baleful stare. (A dogfight, perhaps, or a person with a knife; the dump boss hadn’t witnessed the altercation, human or beast.)
As for the jagged-edged, triangular piece that had been less thansurgically removed from one of the dog’s long ears—well, that one was anyone’s guess.
“ You did it, Lupe,” Rivera once said, smiling at the girl. “Diablo would let you do anything to him—even eat his ear.”
Lupe had made a perfect triangle with her index fingers and her thumbs. What she said required Juan Diego’s translation, as always, or Rivera would not have understood her. “No animal or human has the teeth to bite like that,” the girl incontrovertibly said.
Los niños de la basura never knew when (or from where) Rivera arrived every morning at the basurero, or by what means el jefe had come down the hill from the dump to Guerrero. The dump boss was usually found napping in the cab of his truck; either the pistol-shot slap of the closing screen door or the barking dogs woke him. Or Diablo’s baying woke him, a half-second later—or earlier, that gecko, which almost no one saw.
“Buenos días, jefe,” Juan Diego usually said.
“It’s a good day to do everything well, amigo,” Rivera often answered the boy. The dump boss would add: “And where is the genius princess?”
“I am where I always am,” Lupe would answer him, the screen door slapping shut behind her. That second pistol shot reached as far as the hellfires in the basurero. More crows took flight. There was a disharmonious barking; the dump dogs and the dogs in Guerrero barked. Another menacing and all-silencing howl followed from Diablo, whose wet nose now touched the boy’s bare knee below his tattered shorts.
The dump fires had long been burning—the smoldering mounds of piled-high garbage and pawed-through trash. Rivera must have lit the fires at first light; then he took a nap in the cab of his truck.
The Oaxaca basurero was a wasteland of burning; whether you were standing there or as far away as Guerrero, the towers of smoke from the fires rose as high into the sky as you could see. Juan Diego’s eyes were already tearing when he came out that screen door. There was always a tear oozing from Diablo’s lidless eye, even when the dog slept—with his left eye open but not seeing.
That morning, Rivera had found another water pistol in the basurero; he’d tossed the squirt gun into the flatbed of the pickup, where Diablo had briefly licked it before leaving it alone.
“I got one for you!” Rivera called to Lupe, who was eating a cornmeal tortilla with jam on it; there was jam on her chin, and on one cheek,
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