Santo ordered a rum and Coke at the bar and sipped it slow, letting the alcohol penetrate his hungry stomach. He hadn‘t had dinner that night. He didn‘t care. He was feeding off the loud boom of the speakers and he stood by them and let the sounds hump his backside. He let the swelling of the singer‘s voice caress his face and throat and before he knew it, he was downing the rum and Coke. He put the glass down and grabbed one of the women he‘d entered with and pulled her onto the dance floor. He spun her around until she was dizzy and he felt the drink swish in his head. He felt her hands around his neck and he moved with her, his legs between her thighs, one, two, three, back and forth, one, two, three, turn and turn, and she stayed close, and she laughed, and he smiled, and she breathed in his ear, and he felt the clasp of her bra and her breast pressed against his chest, and the music was pounding in his heart and he was singing the words out loud, and she put her hand in his hair, and all he could do was think of Esperanza. Why wasn‘t she there with him? Why was she so stubborn? He turned the young woman with soft skin, who looked eighteen, so lovely, so young. She felt good in his hands. And for a long moment, he indulged and grabbed her close and they danced to the DJ‘s mix until the band came on. Then the horns blared, and the drumming began and she jumped, clapping in anticipation of the live music. He jumped with her and in the midst of all the excitement, she grabbed his face and kissed him. The taste of pineapples and coconut hit him with a pang of nostalgia that made him dizzy with desire. It made him want to go back home. And why did he have to go all the way downtown to feel the heart of his country? And that‘s when he decided that somehow, he had to convince Esperanza that they didn‘t belong in Nueva York. That he wanted to go home. It wasn‘t his father‘s fault. She‘d blame it on him. But he didn‘t do anything more than remind Santo of what he had forgotten about himself. That he hates the cold weather. That he had had enough. If he was going to waste away his life struggling in Nueva York, why not in Los Llanos, where at least people understood him when he spoke. And he caught his breath and wiped his mouth as if he could erase another woman‘s kiss. His cheeks were flushed from the heat and the desire to return home. I‘m going home, he said to himself. I don‘t care how much Esperanza fights me, I‘m going home.

When he exited the club and saw the crowd of young, sweaty faces, he felt old among the crowd. He got in his car and turned on the radio. —Live from the Palladium, the radio crooned. He blasted the music while he rode on the highway.