Ch.3 of my book: Papi

Chapter 3
    It was a dark and cold Saturday morning.  The tiny apartment that Fernando and his family lived in smelled of mold, and there were maggots eating up rotted bits of drywall that had fallen to the ground.  Fernando’s weary head was glued to the pillow.  His mother, Consuela, was in the kitchen washing the dirty dishes in the sink and stirring up enough noise to wake Fernando.  Fernando covered his ears with a heavy pillow, and went back to sleep.  Consuela was a dignified woman, working 5 days a week at the children’s hospital.  It was hard on her, especially in her advancement into old age.  The long hours had worn her back, and the rigorous work had ailed her with a mild form of arthritis in her right hand.  Carefully, being sure not to clench her right hand too much, she cleaned each crusted dish with a warm yellow sponge.  She tried looking out the window above the sink, but the rain and long naked tree branches blocked her view. “That’s okay. There never was anything to see there anyway,” she mumbled quietly to herself.  Fernando walked in the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of milk.  His eyes, barley managing to escape the depths of his thoughts, seemed to open and close as if there were something pulling down his eyelids every time he opened them.  “Good Morning,” Consuela said.  “Good Morning,” Fernando grunted.  “I have to take your father lunch at the plant.”  “Do you want to come with me?” Fernando moved his sleepy head up and down, as he sat in the hard, wooden chair, still awakening from his divine slumber.  Fernando got up, walked to the bathroom, and turned on the shower faucet. The building that they lived in got no hot water, so Fernando had adapted to the cold shock he felt every time he stepped into the shower.  Fernando wondered about how much longer he would have to deal with the shock, and when they were going to get the now infamous phone call clearing their paperwork to become u.s citizens.  He got out of the shower and dressed in warm clothes.  It was a cold and windy day outside.  As he walked into the main room of the small apartment, he heard befuddled sounds of the news weatherman talk about a cold front coming in from the south. A consistent rain was pattering down on the tin roof of the apartment. He wondered why they couldn’t have gotten a Mexican made car, but dismissed the thought shortly after. Consuela was in the car already, warming it up.  The drive was quiet, Fernando looked out at the tall buildings, and the bright graffiti that surrounded the bottom of them, and wondered why there was never any graffiti at the top of the buildings.  At the stoplight he watched a homeless man approach car windows, knocking just loud enough to irritate the people inside.  “Try not to look at him Fernando. We need all the money we can get. We have ourselves to worry about. We can’t worry about others right now.” Fernando wondered why her mother worked in a children’s hospital if she didn’t worry about others, but then he realized what she had said right before.  He watched the homeless man walk down the street get whipped in the face by the cold rain.  They drove up to the entrance of the meat plant.  It was a giant building with a strange emblem on the front of it.  It was an American company that owned the plant, and Fernando wondered why there were American plants in Mexico.  Lorenzo walked up to the car.  Fernando could see his whiskered face through his mother’s foggy window. He must have forgotten to shave.  Consuela rolled down the window, and handed him a brown paper bag.  Lorenzo smiled, as the two talked about their day.  Lorenzo discreetly passed Fernando one Mexican peso, and sent him a subtle wink. Fernando’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.  Just then, a loud buzzer sounded, and Lorenzo had to go back to work.  They waved as they drove away, and Fernando looked down at his peso.