I feel a hand on my shoulder, and when I turn around, there's a little man with a Freddie Prinze mustache handing me a roll of Mexican bills.
He points to the street and makes a motion that looks to me like "waterfall," his fingers shimmying toward the ground. "You drop," he says. His eyes smile, warm and deep, like the desert that surrounds the town. When I take the money, he reaches to squeeze my shoulder.
I shove the roll of bills into my pocket, and as I turn to go, catch the man who sells tooled leather in his concrete market stall watching me. He holds my gaze for a moment and then shakes his head. The ironic crease of his brow says, 'How foolish, to be dropping money in the street. How would you get home to your country and the people you left behind?'
A third man steps toward me then and produces from the pocket of his overalls a white string hung with a hundred silver rings. "You buy for your sweetheart, Senor Peso?" he says. "Mr. Rich Man?" The white of his teeth is unctuous and menacing.
I buy two rings and leave the market, crossing the busy street in the direction of my hotel. I catch sight of the beautiful girl who sits on a stool outside the bodega reading a paperback novel. She's probably fifteen, and her expression is both bored and in love, with everything.
I get back to the hotel, and because it's only three o'clock and the water hasn't yet been heated for showers, I sit on my balcony and sip from a quart of beer. When the world begins to glow with the warmth of alcohol, I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. I start writing a letter in my head to my sister, encouraging and reassuring her, but soon lose track of my thoughts. When I open my eyes, a bright shaft of sunlight is slicing the dusty air. It's terribly lonely and lovely as it illuminates the brown tops of my shoes.