his father's business

It is his father’s business and he knows it only from the shadows and the late night whispers that sometimes seep into his bedroom. He is not allowed to ask questions or even wonder. He crosses the border, everyday, and attends the best high school in the area. He will be educated, his father said. He will be able to communicate well and maybe even be able to write better than well, so someone, he in particular, someday, can tell the tale of what passes as commerce on the modern-day Mexico border with the U. S. His school friends may know more of what his father does then he and that sometimes makes him a bit uneasy. But when they jibe, he just smiles, diffidently, shrugs, makes a lame joke, purposefully lame, so that he looks as dumb as he truly is about the truth. He had a girlfriend, once, but her parents forbade her to see him after they did a little looking about, gathering most of their information in the parking lot after Sunday Mass. So, he’s mostly lonely. But it is all right, for now. Someday, though, things will be different. Much, much different.