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the picture by now, anyway, the old man, after one of his frequent attacks of hyperventilation, said to Freddy, listen, boy, I’d like to ask you a question, and the young man approached and said, how can I help you, Mr. de la Salle?, are you in pain? and the old man, whose wrinkled face was like a railroad map of the United States, said, come closer, I’m not in any pain, I’d just like to ask you a question, come, and he said, who are your parents? to which Freddy replied, I don’t have any, sir, apart from the Eternal Father I don’t have anybody, I wasn’t fortunate enough to know them, and the old man asked, why don’t you know them? and Freddy said, because they must have abandoned me, sir, that’s the likeliest thing given the circumstances, and the old man continued, and do you have any brothers or sisters? to which Freddy replied, no, sir, no brothers or sisters or anybody, I’m alone, there’s only me.
    The old man didn’t ask any more questions, but the next day the director of the hospital called the young man to his office and on going up there he discovered to his surprise that the old man, Ebenezer J. de la Salle, who was 87, wanted to adopt him as a son, and that he was being asked to sign a series of documents the old man’s lawyers had prepared. The one condition was that he had to change his surname immediately, and Freddy agreed without any hesitation. The lawyers and an attorney-at-law held a simple ceremony, with Freddy and the old man sitting side by side. Then old Ebenezer Jeremiah de la Salle asked, now that you’re going to change your surname, would you also like a new first name? and Freddy replied, you choose one, Father, I assume that if you wanted to have a son you must also have thought of a name, and the old man said, yes, you’re right, I want your name to be Walter, Walter de la Salle, which was my father’s name, and there and then they recorded that and so in that office the young man was baptized for the second time, with the name Walter de la Salle. As those among you more accustomed to stories may already have guessed, three weeks later they put a date on Ebenezer Jere­miah’s death certificate, the old man checked out in his sleep, gave up his ID and passport and handed over his soul to the Boss, the Big Enchilada, the Man Himself.
    Then the lawyers came back to the hospital and told Walter that his new father had left him an inheritance of seven million dollars, plus a couple of properties: a house by the sea, in Coral Gables, and another one, a stately home, in the city of Charleston, which was where the de la Salle family came from, and so young Walter, thanks to his natural goodness, turned from being a spawn of the streets into a rich young man with a French surname, how does that grab you, eh? It’s the carnival of life, my friends, some people start off with a lot and others gain as they go along, but what’s really unusual is to go straight from the sewer to the tearoom with no stops in between. And that was what happened to him.
    So begins Freddy’s second life, or the appearance on earth of Walter de la Salle, which was the name he used most, as I forgot to say that before going to the hospital, when he was first preaching the Gospels to the underclass, they called him José de Arimatea, or he called himself José de Arimatea, but he’d long since left that name behind, and there aren’t or weren’t any witnesses, as far as I know. Walter was the name he used most, and how could it be any other way when he’d been so well provided for by old Ebenezer J.? An old man who, by the way and as far as Walter was able to establish some time later, had been the end of his line, the last member of a rich, industrious, and influential family, with important ancestors all painted in oils, and, as is typically the case with dissolute members of the idle classes, had also been a faggot and a