Often in this car we get pulled over, and sometimes the cops make us get out and put our hands on the warm hood and they frisk us. They run their hands over our back and sides and along our inner thighs. Tomas complains about it at family dinners and says they are perverts and racists, but Tita Dina tells him he is getting what comes to him for dressing like a Mexican and driving a hoodlum car.

Finally we get to a white brick house that has narrow columns, fronted by a circular drive. I can see all this through the gate, which is wrought iron, unlike those of the neighbors’ houses. Through a window above the front doors I make out that this house has a three-story entryway, and an enormous chandelier of dangling glass hangs from the ceiling.

This is it, I say after spotting the numbers above the country mailbox. As we pull up closer I can see it is aluminum, with a little red metal flag.

Dang, he says. That’s some kind of a house.

I don’t know. I think I’d like mine to be closed in like the neighbors’.

You mean you want it to be all fenced up and hidden?

Sure.

Why? he says. You afraid some photographers are gonna try and take your picture?

I do not answer him.

His eyes stay on me, then he looks forward and grins. I wouldn’t count on it, Junior, he says. You’d have to be pretty famous for somebody to want to take a picture of a person with a face like yours.

Mom has said he should not tease me like this, but I do not remind him. I look out my window.

He continues observing me, carefully.

What you looking at so intently, Junior? he says. Haven’t you ever seen a bush before?

There is a white rosebush before me which I have not noticed until now. But I do not look away from it.

I got news for you, Gabe. Celebrity bushes are the same as the ones owned by you and me.

You don’t own anything, I tell him. Only Mom owns bushes. You have to have a job to afford a house.

I make plenty with the dogs and stolen stereos.

That’s not a real job. It doesn’t count.

Okay, Mr. Stockbroker, he says as we pull up to the gate. He stops and lowers his window before a white intercom perched on a metal stand. Tomas pushes a red button. We wait. He tries again and after a minute a lady’s voice that sounds Mexican—probably the maid—asks what we want.

We’ve come to sell some dogs, he says into the box.

Again, the sound of static. Then the crackled voice comes on and says they don’t take solicitors.

No, listen, Tomas says. We have the dogs with us now.

We no take solicitations, it says.