Bobby couldn’t hear himself breathe the first time he tried it. At the juvie detention, all day there was the blaring TV, the booming music, the laughter competing with the rattling of keys, the pounding of walls, fist up against cheeks.

—Yo yo, son, wassup?—What you in here for, son?—Why you always sitting in that corner like you praying? God don’t come around here, son. —Off-the-boat, plátano-sucking motherfucker, what the fuck is your problem?—Punk-ass crooked-dick, maricón, your mama birthed you through her ass, nigga.

Bobby listened and he didn’t listen. He listened to his breath, four times. The Buddha lady said if he could think of nothing else for twelve breaths, he would see light, he would be free.

—Remember a place you felt safe, said the white lady, who once lived in the mountains in a monastery and didn’t eat for eight days because she wanted to clean out all the toxins in her body. She hiked up the mountain for three days and stayed at the monastery for months, so she could find peace, so she would never be in anyone’s prison.

—Go back to a time when you were far from these four walls.

With each breath, Bobby went back to the Sunday afternoons when he and his father stayed home and his mother attended Mass.

—Ven acá, Bobby. Take off those uncomfortable clothes your mama make you wear, make yourself a Coca-Cola straight up, and lay down with your father so we can watch the game.

And Bobby pared down to boxers and a white T-shirt with underarm stains, just like his father. And Santo poured himself a rum on the rocks. And together, propped up on pillows, they lay back on hot summer days, the fan pushing warm air into their faces, the TV on the highest-volume setting so they could hear the game over the music playing out on the streets.

—As long as we can do this every once in a while, we’ll be fine, Santo said as he ruffled Bobby’s hair.

Bobby took in the warmth of his parents’ bed, the softness of the comforter, smelling his mother’s scent all over the sheet: lavender, comino, and corn oil.

—Get up, motherfucker. —I said that’s my chair. —Yo, Bobby, you don’t gotta move. He don’t got his name on your chair. —Yeah, Bobby, don’t got to be telling anybody anything. —If you wanna survive this place, you gotta look everyone in the eye, so they know you ain’t afraid to fight. And if you fight, you gotta make sure you hurt the asshole who fucks with you ’cause then they know not to fuck with you again.

—Breathe, Bobby. In and out of your belly. At first it will be difficult. But if you do it every day before you go to sleep, if you figure out how to get there, you will be able to do it anytime; in a crowded subway, in the middle of a riot. With your breath you can make everything stop. You have that power, Bobby.