Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles Read Online Free PDF

eagerly rendering themselves obsolete.

I t turned out that the man I’d beaten up could read after all, and spoke conversant English to boot.
    His name was Roberto. He installed DISH TV service for a living, and played bass in his church band, and hadn’t touched alcohol for nineteen years on an island where all people did, the locals and the gringos alike, was drink. I learned these things when Roberto came to the pink stucco casita to return my teeth.
    I don’t want,
señor
, he said when I answered the door. He held the envelope out to me. You are sorry for what you did, I can see. That is enough.
    I am sorry, I told him. Can I buy you a drink?
    And this was how I discovered that Roberto had given up alcohol: when I took him to Duffy’s on the
malecón
he ordered a club soda. He winced, shifting his bulk on the barstool in a vain effort to get comfortable. The ribs still bothering him, as broken ribs will.
    How angry you were, he said. That day on the bridge. Where is the woman who made you this angry?
    I looked at him, and he smiled knowingly. After a moment, I just shrugged.
    You were drunk, too, and that makes the anger grow, of course.
Pero
the drink does not create the anger. He hoisted his club soda, a silent toast to whatever sort of man he’d been before his last glass of rum. This is the truth, he said.
    We were quiet for a minute. On the other side of the bar, a glass hit the floor and exploded, to the delight of half a dozen locals.
    You love her? Roberto asked.
    I do.
    And she? You?
    I shrugged again.
    Ahh! Roberto clapped me on the back, his laughter cut short by the pain in his ribs. It would not be fun if they just gave in, though, would it?
    She’ll never give in, I said.
    The locals across the bar, inspired by the accident, were now breaking things on purpose. They hurled shot glasses against the back wall, laughed and slapped five. A few gringos got up from their stools, eying the group warily, and sidled out into the street.
    How long have you loved her? Roberto asked.
    Since we were children.
    And you are how old now?
    I’ll be thirty-six this year.
    And she has been dancing away from you all this time.
    I extended my arm and flexed my fingers as if grabbing at something. Always just beyond my reach, I said.
    Roberto nodded sagely. She maybe never love you. It does not matter. You love her. She can dance all she wants.
    We watched in silence as the bartender hustled the vandals out. Roberto finished his club soda and slapped the glass down on the bar and told me to drive him home. He had something he wanted me to see. With his bulk listing the Jeep to the passenger side we crossed the island, past wild horses munching straw grass on the roadside, past the beaches and the island’s one school, past roving dogs pocked with mange, to Roberto’s modest house in barrio Monte Santo.
    He did not invite me in. We sat in the Jeep on the shoulder opposite the house and watched a young man pace the short, yellowed lawn inside the chain-link fence. The young man held what looked like a curved cylinder of Styrofoam in one hand, waving it back and forth in front of his face. His lips glistened wetly. His eyes were empty and far away, and he took shaky, stuttering little steps around the yard.
    Mi hijo
, Roberto said, pointing.
Autista.
    I thought I knew what Roberto was driving at, here: get some perspective. It could always be worse. Note your blessings. Contemplate the misfortunes of others and recognize your relative good luck. Your heart is broken; so what? Be glad you aren’t a sad crippled drooling boy, trapped forever inside the prison of your own mind.
    But that wasn’t what he meant, at all. We watched the boy pace small circles for several minutes, and then Roberto said, You see my son there, yes? You see how happy he is? With his little piece of plastic, and a warm day to walk around? He is happy. He teaches me to be happy. He shows me every day, for nineteen