I was sitting in the 4:36 winter light of my apartment’s living room, thinking of nothing in particular, stroking Papi sleepily wincing in my lap, when—suddenly I went plunging back, head-over-heels into the swamp of old shame.
Otis was tedious to talk to but it wasn’t really his fault. He was by nature focused and practical, the most reliably invisible person I’d ever met. He was neither late nor early, over- or underdressed.
Tía Consuelo, with her big mouth and big earrings and eighties perm, sits me down at the kitchen table and says, “I don’t want you to work for that puto.” By puto, she means Johnny González, owner of Speedy G Car Wash on San Mateo.
