The Halfway House (New Directions Paperbook) by Guillermo Rosales

steps, the man calls out to us.
    “Are you hungry?”
    “Yes,” I reply.
    “Are you Cuban?”
    “Yes.”
    “Man and wife?”
    “Yes.”
    “Come in, I’ll give you something to eat.”
    We go in.
    “My name is Montoya,” the man says as he cuts two big slices of bread and starts to put ham and cheese on them. “I’ve also had rough times in this country. Don’t tell anyone I said so, but this country will
eat you alive
. I’m Montoya!” He says again, adding two large pickle slices between the bread slices. “I’m an old revolutionary. I’ve been imprisoned under every one of the tyrannies Cuba has suffered. In 1933, in 1952 and most recently, under the hammer and sickle.”
    “Anarchist?” I ask.
    “Anarchist,” he confesses. “My whole life. Fighting the Americans and the Russians. Now I’m very peaceful.”
    He puts the open-faced sandwiches, all ready, on the counter and invites us to eat. Then he takes out two Coca-Colas and sets them in front of us.
    “In 1961,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows over the counter, “Rafael Porto Penas, lame Estrada, the now-deceased Manolito Ruvalcaba, and I were all together in the same car with Fidel Castro. I was at the wheel. Fidel was without his bodyguards. Lame Estrada looked him right in the eye and asked, ‘Fidel … are you a communist?’ And Fidel replied, ‘
Caballeros
, I swear to you by my mother that I am not a communist nor will I ever be one!’ See what kind of guy he is!”
    We burst out laughing.
    “Cuban history isn’t written yet,” Montoya says. “The day I write it, the world will end!”
    He goes over to two customers who just walked in and Frances and I take the opportunity to eat our sandwiches. We eat and drink in silence for a few minutes. When we’re done, Montoya is in front of us again.
    “Thank you,” I say.
    He stretches his hand out to me. Then he extends it to Frances.
    “Go to Homestead!” he then says. “They need people there to pick avocadoes and tomatoes.”
    “Thank you,” I say again. “Maybe we’ll do that.”
    We leave. We walk toward First Street. While we walk, a great idea pops into my head.
    “Frances,” I say, stopping at Sixth Avenue. “Tell me, my angel."
    "Frances … Frances … ,” I say, leaning up against a wall and bringing her gently to me. “I’ve just had a magnificent idea.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Let’s leave the halfway house!” I say, bringing her to my chest. “With what we both receive from social security, we could live in a small house, and we could even earn a little more if we did some menial work here and there.”
    She looks at me, surprised by my idea. Her mouth and chin start trembling slightly.
    “My angel!” she says, moved. “And can I bring my little boy from New Jersey?”
    “Of course!”
    “And you would help me raise him?”
    “Yes!”
    She squeezes my hands tightly. She looks at me with her trembling smile. She’s so moved that for a few seconds, she doesn’t know what to say. Then all the color drains from her face. Her eyes roll back and she faints in my arms.
    “Frances… Frances!” I say, helping her up from the sidewalk. “What’s wrong?”
    I pat her face a few times. Slowly, she comes to. “It’s hope, my angel …,” she says. “Hope!” She hugs me tightly. I look at her. Her lips, her cheeks, her face, all of it is trembling intensely. She starts to cry.
    “It’s not going to work out,” she says. “It’s not going to work out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m crazy. I need to take four pills of strong Etrafon daily.”
    “I’ll give them to you.”
    “I hear voices,” she says. “It seems like everyone is talking about me.”
    “Me too,” I say. “But to hell with the voices!”
    I grab her by the waist. Slowly, we begin to walk back to the halfway house. A new car passes next to us. A guy with a thin beard and tinted glasses sticks his head out the window and yells at me, “Dump that bitch!”
    We