Don Chan arose before the sun. At his age, he didn‘t need much sleep. In Nueva York, the streets remained dark and impenetrable until much later than he liked. If he were in Los Llanos, he would‘ve walked out of his house and seen the stars, or the cobalt sky, or the pink emerging from the horizon. The roosters would accompany him, along with the dogs that never went too far. He would relish the sound of the dried leaves that crunched under his feet, and sit on the old rocking chair that no longer rocked because the salt air had rusted off the back end.

It was a warm day for winter. As he left the apartment to buy his daily newspapers, he damned people for global warming. He tried not to think of the inevitable: a future where people would have to walk underground to protect themselves from the sun and pollution. —We‘re burying ourselves alive, he said to the nosy old woman who always opened the door to survey the hallways. And then he got angry at himself: After so many years of living, he still got hung up on something he couldn‘t do anything about, especially since any day could be the last day of his life. Ever since his wife died, he couldn‘t stop thinking about the statistics. Most widowers don‘t make it a year after their partners die. Not at his age. And while the actual days felt long in Nueva York, it felt as if it was just yesterday that he was sitting by his wife‘s bedside, four months ago.

Don Chan looked up and down Quepasó Street before he stepped out of the building. And although he had lived on the street for only one month, he knew its rhythms. When the cars were double-parked on the left side of the street, it was Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, they were parked on the right. Styrofoam trays peeked out of the garbage cans from last night‘s dinner specials. Arroz, habichuelas, and tostones if it was Monday. Tuesday, moro and steak. Wednesday, chicken and gandules. On the days the sanitation trucks came by, Don Chan greeted the super who piled up the garbage bags for the trucks to pick up. On Saturday mornings, the streets were a potpourri of cigarettes and beer bottles propped up against buildings.

It was Monday. The van driver headed to the factory in New Jersey was already warming up his car, waiting for his passengers on the corner. The music blasted against his fogged-up windowpanes as he woke himself up with a cup of coffee. Don Chan liked Mondays much better than Sundays. Sunday always felt like the end of something.

¿Hola, Chino? the man at the newsstand said as he pulled up his gates to open for business. —When will I beat your arrival? He shook Don Chan‘s hand.

—When I‘m dead. And that could happen any minute now.

Don Chan paid him with the exact change and carefully folded the papers in half, tucked them underneath his arm, and headed over to the corner luncheonette to order his second cafecito of the day. The first café he drank at home before Esperanza woke up. He liked the second coffee to be served at the luncheonette, that way he could be away from home when she was putting on her face for work and Santo slept in.