He sat on the toilet seat and studied his arms under the fluorescent lights and wondered when exactly did his skin start to wrinkle, when was the first time he could see his bones so clearly, his veins like rivers on a map? Time was slipping, and his memories were slipping even faster. He became faint from the smell of talc, the humidity from the hot shower, the hiss and clank of the radiator like the crackle and pop of the wood chunks in the campfires back in Los Llanos.

When the boys in the back alley playing basketball yelled to celebrate their score, Don Chan longed to see his friends who gathered in the fields of Los Llanos, who after a long day of labor sat around the campfire in anticipation of his telling a story.

—Tell us a story so the heat becomes bearable, the crowd shouted at him.

—Are you ready? Don Chan teased.

—Like a dog in heat.

Don Chan took his cigar, clipped the end, lit it in the blazing fire, and cleared his throat. The only competing sounds were the howling dogs and the rustling of all the surrounding cane fields.

—My friends, I‘m invisible.

—Invisible?

—Invisible! Don Chan insisted. —Invisible enough that I‘ll walk into the president‘s palace and bring back a souvenir for all of you to see.

The crowd laughed and cringed. It was a time when Dominicans were too afraid to say Trujillo‘s name out loud without looking over their shoulders. When Trujillo‘s men ransacked their homes looking for counterrevolutionaries and shook up their sisters without any warning. For a poor man from Los Llanos to steal a souvenir from under the president‘s nose was a death sentence, as far as they were concerned.

—We dare you, some yelled out.

The day Don Chan took the dare, he‘d had a few too many drinks. But no amount of drinking could excuse him from keeping his word.

Don Chan borrowed a suit from a dead man in a mortuary. The suit pants were an inch too long and the shirtsleeves an inch too short, but Don Chan wore it with confidence. Even the women gossiped, how for a Chino, he was quite handsome when he shaved. Don Chan made the arrangements with the Trucker in Los Llanos who often traveled to Ciudad Trujillo for business and was familiar with the soldiers who guarded the edge of each small village. If anyone could get Don Chan out of Los Llanos without getting arrested, it was the Trucker. Others had tried to leave Los Llanos, but the harassment by the soldiers discouraged many. Trujillo‘s soldiers flagged down all cars, documented the passengers‘ names, the villages they were from, and their destinations. If they didn‘t reach it within a certain time, they would be hunted down and arrested. No one wanted their names on any of his lists or linked to the groups that were planning to overthrow him. Especially after the Mirabal sisters, who risked their lives in the name of freedom, were clubbed to death by Trujillo‘s men months before.