Ernesto Cavazos

You are at a screen before the day has started, and the room is quiet in the way of early mornings. You have been reading about this for years: the films, the threads at two in the morning, the long fascination with waking up as somebody else. Tonight there was nothing on, and the site was a page with a wheel on it. You paid, you spun, and you did not believe it.

Then you are standing in rain.

It is steady and warm, and it drums on the shelter roof. A red sign says 3 MIN. There is a folded umbrella in your left hand, its tip against the concrete, and your right hand hangs open. The hood is up, and you step out into the runoff a beat early. You push the hood back with a hand that knows how, and the water lands on your face and stays there. You do not turn out of it.

The jacket is the first thing that gives. Its collar is stiff and cold under your jaw, and your fingers find the zipper pull. It is that morning, and his hands are doing it. He is in the kitchen before light. A woman's voice says something about the car, and he answers in Spanish, low. There is coffee he no longer sweetens. He pulls on the jeans, one leg and then the other, with a small grunt at the knee. The belt goes through the loops by feel. Last is the jacket, because his wife said it would rain and he said it wouldn't.

A toothpick sits in the corner of your mouth. You did not put it there. It is worn soft, and your teeth work it without asking you. Under it comes a taste of mint and wood, and a whole year of his arrives. He quit drinking in a church parking lot and sat in the truck afterward, gripping the wheel. The moustache twitches under the water. His wedding band is a plain, warm weight, and when your thumb turns it you get her laughing, an ex-wife's hard silence, and three, four, five children's names. They come one after another and they ache.

The umbrella handle is smooth and slightly tacky. Holding it gives you the glass conference room and the wall of charts. He is explaining a number that fell short, and his voice stays level while his stomach drops. He is good at this and tired of it. There is money somewhere, enough that he does not say so, and he still rides the bus.

Under you, the boots are soaked through. Your back is warm under the jacket and your belly is soft over the belt. One knee complains and the other does not. The body is sixty-one years old and it feels strong. It feels as if it has not been cold in a long time.

You lift your right hand out of the rain. The ring is wet and the knuckles are broad and brown. You turn it over and the palm fills with water. Then you look up.

"Well," you say, in his low voice, "hello."

The sign still says 3 MIN. You wonder how long you have him, and when the wanting will come back.