AFTER BREAKFAST FLIP LINGERED AROUND the house, but his mother was always checking on him and after a while it started to get under his skin. He took a shower and put on fresh clothes and told her he was going out for a while.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Just out. Don’t worry, Mamá.”
“Stay out of trouble.”
He walked the streets of his mother’s neighborhood first, unconsciously making note of who was home and who was not. When he caught himself thinking that way, he pinched himself and forced his thoughts onto another track. He wandered far afield, down alleys marked with tags and along busy roads.
Flip wanted to be where people were and eventually he found them. These kinds of people didn’t mind if he looked at them a little long, or if he met their gaze. And there were women. At a busy food truck he saw two young women in matching blue shirts and jeans getting lunch. They worked for a maid service. The younger one looked his way and he tried a smile. She turned her head.
For an hour he sat at an intersection as the cars went by. He heard snatches of music out of open windows, watched drivers when they weren’t watching him, enjoyed the feeling of being somewhere things were happening. There was no standing around in the city, no endless waiting. It made him feel good to be a part of it, even if he wasn’t doing anything himself.
The weather turned warmer as the afternoon wore on and eventually he found himself back in his mother’s neighborhood, retracing his steps to the house. There was a pick-up truck in the driveway.
His mother was there, greeting him, when he came through the front door, hugging him as if he had only just appeared. She led him into the living room where a man Flip had never seen waited on the couch.
The man stood up when Flip entered and offered his hand. He was tall and rangy, his skin dark. When Flip shook with him, he felt hard calluses on the man’s palms. “This is Alfredo, Felipe,” his mother explained. “He came by to see you.”
Alfredo sat down again and Flip took the chair across from him. The man had the sleeves of his denim shirt rolled up and Flip saw his tattoos. They were blurry, as if done cheaply. Flip could not figure out how old Alfredo was. Maybe as old as his mother.
“It’s good to meet you finally, Felipe,” Alfredo said.
“I didn’t know anybody was interested,” Flip replied.
“Silvia told me all about your… problem. She thought maybe I could help you out once you came home again. That is, if you’ll let me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Alfredo’s here to offer you a job, Felipe,” his mother said. “You said you needed a job for your parole.”
“Mamá—”
“Just listen to him, Felipe.”
Alfredo smiled and showed nicotine-stained teeth. He clasped his hands in front of him. “I work at a warehouse. We handle groceries for local businesses. I’m the manager there. If you’re interested, I can offer you part-time work. It’s not easy work – a lot of loading and unloading trucks – but it’s honest pay. I can start you right away.”
“They’ll let you hire a con?” Felipe asked.
“I get a choice of people to hire. If I choose you, nobody will complain. I can’t say that about everybody out there.”
“It’s a good job, Felipe.”
“You want it, it’s yours,” Alfredo said. “As a favor to your mother.”
“As a favor to my mother?” Flip asked.
“Right.”
Flip sat forward in his chair. “You know what I was in for?”
“I know. It’s not a problem for me.”
“What if I told you I stabbed someone? On the inside.”
“Felipe!”
Flip saw a muscle in Alfredo’s jaw working. Finally the man nodded slowly. His hands came apart and he gestured to the ceiling with them. “What can I do?” he said. “That was on the inside.”
“How do you know I won’t stab someone again?”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t have anything to worry about.”
Flip tried to read Alfredo’s eyes and failed. There was something in them that he recognized from prison: hesitation or the rudiments of fear. The man did not show it, and that was good, but he felt it.
“Do you want the job, Felipe?”
“Okay.”