Oscar Casares Read Online Free PDF

subdivision on the north side of town. Four months later another family moved in across from us.
    But what sticks out in my mind about the hurricane happened the afternoon before it actually hit. I was waiting in line for almost an hour at De Luna. It looked like half of Brownsville was there buying lumber. Bannert was towards the back of the line, but neither of us made an effort to say hello. The other men were talking about what they'd been through with the last big hurricane. An older man with a cane told everybody how he'd lost a sister in Matamoros when she drowned in her front yard. He said the two boys with him were her children but that he had raised them as if they were his own.
    As I stood in line, I could see a policeman directing traffic on International because the lights had gone out. People tried to get in and out of the Lopez Supermarket on that side of the street. My wife was inside there buying all the food and candles she could fit into a shopping cart. The parking lot was full of women loading their cars with enough groceries to wait out the worst of the storm.
    I was sliding the last board onto the bed of my truck when I noticed Bannert and one of the De Luna workers unloading a cart stacked with boards. Anybody could tell they weren't going to be able to fit all that lumber in the trunk of Bannert's car, and if they did, he was going to cause an accident. Some other day they might have delivered the boards to his house, but there was a line of men still waiting to buy lumber.
    “Looks like you could use some help getting that back to the house, Bannert,” I said.
    “You have room in your truck?” he asked.
    “I think I can fit a few more boards.”
    We each grabbed an end of the first board and started loading, one by one, neither one of us saying a word. We hadn't talked in almost four years—why start now? He drove out of the parking lot first, and I followed him back to the neighborhood. On the way there, I saw him keeping an eye on me in the rearview mirror like I might forget where he lived. When we were at his house, I backed my truck into the driveway. Again, we grabbed the boards one by one until we had them all leaning against the carport.
    “Now I just have to get them up there,” he said and laughed.
    “Maybe one of your boys can help you.”
    “Nah, they're still too young. They'd only get in the way.”
    I thought about his situation and what I should do. He was right about his boys getting in the way. Mine wouldn't be any help, either, but at least I knew I could board up my house without any help. I remember looking at Bannert's overalls, a little faded now, but still with the creases.
    “Two can work faster than one,” I finally said. “Why don't I help you get started with some of these windows?”
    I had my old hammer in the toolbox in my truck. Bannert brought out a stepladder so I could reach the top of the windows. He held the boards against the house and I hammered the nails in. I could hear the sound of banging hammers and the grinding of electric saws coming from every direction. I stopped a couple of times just to listen. I wanted to believe the hammers were somehow sending messages all over the neighborhood. Messages saying what we didn't have words to say ourselves. Regardless of what had happened between us, I didn't mind helping Bannert this one afternoon. His family lived in this neighborhood, just like mine. If I could lend a hand, why not give it? And I had the sense that if he had been in a position to help me with something that he wouldn't have hesitated. That's what I believed. But I also knew we would've never talked if the situation hadn't turned out the way it did. And after this work was done, we would stop talking again. We'd go back to ignoring each other, and that's just the way life would be around here. I knew it even back then.
    I ended up doing most of the work that afternoon, but when we were at the last window I thought he might want to do