The baby's whimpering started the day. Fabiola got up to nurse the baby before he started to cry. Ervey heard everything but stayed put in bed trying to extend his rest as long as he could. With the baby nursing at her breast, Fabiola shuffled over to the windows shouldering the sole door to the apartment and cracked the curtains to let in a little light. Once she could see her way around the apartment, she went to the dining table and sat down in a chair facing away from the bed. Her sitting motion caused the chair to scrape on the concrete floor and emit a loud screech. The noise rousted the baby from his suckling. Having lost his hold of the nipple, he started to cry. Fabiola tried to help him back on, but they fumbled so long that the baby lost his patience and went into a full-throated wail.
"OK. I got it. I got the message," said Ervey angrily, "stop pretending I'm asleep."
"Sorry, pretty," said his wife, "I was trying to keep him quite so you could sleep longer, but he's so grouchy in the morning, you know, like his father."
Ervey got up and drew the curtains to the bathroom and to the front of the apartment to flood the room with light. The baby, who had since found his desired spot, pulled away from his mother's breast in reaction to all the light suddenly entering the room. He briefly made eye contact with his father and started crying again.
"Sí, güey. Hello to you, too. Remember me? I'm the monster. I'm back," Ervey said to the baby, "don't you know that baby animals do better if they hide and be quiet than announcing to the whole world exactly where they are."
"It's that he doesn't see you enough," complained Fabiola, "so the sight of you at this time in the day is unsettling to him."
"I wish there was an option," said Ervey.
"You going to work today? Again on Sunday?" asked Fabiola.
"No. We finished delivering everything yesterday afternoon, and Chonito took it upon himself to take the truck back to the warehouse last night," said Ervey, "or maybe not until today, knowing how he is. Either way, I don't expect to hear from Celso today because we called and left him a message last night and he never responded."
"That Chonito. Well, it's good you'll have the day off. You can spend all day with, Solomon, so he can warm up to his father better," said Fabiola.
Ervey sat down at the table beside her. The baby was now busily nursing at his mothers bosom.
"Always thinking of the breast. Going to the breast. Talking to it. Crying for it if it's not in full sight of you," said Ervey, nuzzling the baby cheeks, "you remind me of a lot of guys I know."
"Speaking of the devil, how did it go with that narco wannabe?" asked Fabiola, "overnight in Torreon, he must have been dying to show off his yellow ostrich boots and $200 hat."
"He did go out, even though it was very late when we got into the motel. I let him go alone because I was dead tired, having done all the driving down there and even helped unload some of the deliveries," said Ervey, "the next day he didn't tell me where he went and I didn't ask him. I didn't even here when he came in."
"Well, it seems he made it back. He's crazy. Going out dressed like a narco in a city like Torreon, where everybody knows is riddled by narco gangs," said Fabiola, "they see you dressed like one of their rivals, and the next thing you're on YouTube on your knees looking very sad."
"The good thing is that everybody dresses like him these days," said Ervey, "so the whole crowd looks like a huge school of fish, and the shark is mesmerized."
"Hmm. My worry is that he'll draw attention to you," said Fabiola, "with all his phony persona and big swagger. Iv'e never understood how it is that they call him Chonito when his name is Juan Jose, not Concepcion, Encarnacion, or anything near a what would justify a nickname like that that."
"It comes from being called El Hechón, the one who'll jump on you, for being a bully when we were in elementary school in Aquiles," said Ervey, smiling, "he was the biggest kid at our grade level, then he started to fall behind a lot of the kids. After a while, guys started to challenge his reputation and he kept losing, so they started calling him Chonito, meaning the little jumper, and it stuck."
"You said he also comes from money," said Fabiola, "and here he is a stevedore like the people who work for his family."
"I think his family once had money, probably associated with the Santa Bárbara mine, but that was long, long ago," said Ervey, "all they had when I was growing up in Aquiles was privilege, that they were the Abítias, the blondest in town. All of them pretty and conceited, except him."
"And now they´re in Ciudad Chihuahua," said Fabiola.
"He's harmless," said Ervey, "and we've been close friends ever since I was the first to knock him off his horse when he was known as El Hechón in Aquiles. Here in the city we're countryman. We're supposed to watch out for each other."
"I wouldn't count on him here or anywhere else," said Fabiola.
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