HOW MUCH IS THAT GENEROSITY THING WORTH?

                            Oh Captain...My Father Emilio Torres.

                                              By Arlette Torres

I am 12 year old again. It is Mexican time. Eternal illusion. Past, present, future suspended in amber.

My father's hand grasps mine. We walk briskly on a busy street in Torreón Coahuila, México.

Ahead, an elderly blind man sits on the filthy sidewalk outside a shoe store. He asks for metal mercy, copper confetti. The man holds a can between his ruined brown hands, crumpled like ancient parchment paper.

The young thug came like a left jab. Boxers work in milliseconds. He kicked the can from the old man's hands. I didn't see the blow. I heard the guy yell: "Gooool!" The thug ran. His blasé cruelty remained, thickened the air and made ribbons of my entrails.

The elderly man sat. Blind. His hands shaking softly while coins flew everywhere. The sting of his humiliation slit my eyelids. Tears welled between my skin and my soul. Before water spilled, my father sprang forward. Feral speed. Fierce grace. Senses refined. I saw my father become deadly. He excreted ferocity. I felt lightheaded; didn't want to see what came next.

But my father didn't chase the thug. Instead, he kneeled next to the blind man.

I went looking: around the newspaper stand and the lottery stand and the phone booth. The coins would not be reclaimed. They became part of the filthy pavement. The blind gentleman lost. Then my father gestured. "Come here, Arlette." He pulled me down, held the old man's hands between his own. Then he leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Those pupils, veiled and milky bluish danced they danced... he was alive.

Dad handed me something round, cold. He told the elderly man, "Don Eufrasio this is from my daughter. Take it and go home. I'll be watching." I squeezed the thing, placed it between those ancient palms, the cartography of our suffering collected in each deeply etched line. His skin was thick though, not delicate. He held on to my fat square hands. I waited. My father added his hands around mine and he knitted the tears that were and would be.

We stood up, walked away quickly hand in hand. Stopped at the corner. I looked back. Don Eufrasio sat on his cardboard. He was beautiful, petrified, luminous. His face remained turned toward us. Could he see us? Yes he saw us and then through us and beyond to a place only he knew.

Dad smoked. We waited. A couple of hours passed. Finally Don Eufrasio's grandson came to collect his grandfather, who tripped over words, yelling, smiling, shaking disbelief from his dry bones. The young man looked over at us. He nodded, discombobulated by his grandfather's wild gestures. They left. We left. Dad drove slowly. I broke the silence. "Papá, is Don Eufrasio your friend?" My father looked over and smiled with sad divinity. "Don Eufrasio was not my friend. But now we are. His friends."

At home, my mother scrutinized dad. Something was missing. Aha. She finally knew what was off.

"Emilio where is that ghastly gold Centenario you hang from your keychain?" Dad's Centenario, that cold, round thing. A fifty peso solid gold coin bearing the Angel of Independence, worth around $2100 dollars today. Dad looked at her. "Oh I got tired of it. I sold it. Gold prices are good." My father lied. My mother believed. I kicked ethics in the teeth. "Good. I don't know why you like to use them as keychain charms. They're so vulgar...ostentatious really."

That night my father sat across from me, elbows on his knees. He seemed somehow different. Human. Tired. Small. Beautiful leviathan. Endless. His eyes filled with crystalline belief and spoke:

"Never sell something you can give away Arlette."

My father died two years later. I was fourteen. His death the guillotine of my life. Before and after.

Don Eufrasio is also dead. I am 42. My hands are dirty and empty. Yet sometimes I feel pure because my father comes to fill them. I cup them tightly around his endless pour and then spread my fingers, giving it all away.