—How could you be in the dark all the time? It scares me.

—Can’t a man have some peace?

—I don’t have time for peace…I’ve two hours to get ready and catch the bus to see Bobby.

—I’m going with you.

—It’s a long trip. It’s better that you stay home.

—You can’t keep me from him. Don Chan believed that Santo’s incarceration was of Esperanza’s making. How else was she able to wear all that gold around her neck? She was the one who was supposed to be in jail, not Santo. How much money did she get for turning him in?

—Fine, do as you will.

Esperanza slept on the long bus ride to Spofford. Don Chan couldn’t sleep on moving vehicles. Even when he was tired, he stayed on guard. The bus stopped and started. Stopped and started. A man, dressed in military gear, got up from his seat, leaving a large black bag behind him. He stood in the narrow aisle and pumped his arms, as if the pumping helped the bus move faster. The man returned to his bag occasionally. His jerky movements made some of the passengers laugh. He wasn’t trying to entertain. He looked inside the bag as if it were filled with some unspoken treasure. He jerked his hands up in the air when the driver talked through the intercom to warn passengers of a delay due to a car accident ahead. His hands jerked back down to cover his ears, as if the driver’s voice caused him pain.

At first, Don Chan was amused. He assumed the man was a Desert Storm veteran. He was young enough to have been part of that war. Injected, perhaps, with the serum that protected healthy young men from biological warfare but made them lose brain cells. He had met some of those soldiers when they came back from the Gulf, and saw how their hair had turned white from lack of sleep. That their puppy eyes weren’t from being in love, but from having seen too much.

Don Chan watched the veteran and felt as if a coin in his hand had flipped over and he could see the other side. Back in the invasion of ’65, he had spat at the young American boys who claimed Santo Domingo. They appeared so arrogant. Invasive. But this man caused something new to surge in Don Chan. Not anger, as he had felt for the American soldiers who took the side of the corrupt military that overthrew Juan Bosch. No, he felt a profound sadness for this soldier. What had been accomplished in his war? What had he been forced to do and now could not sleep because of it.

When the bus moved, the veteran jumped up and chugged along like a five-year-old, moving his arms like engine gears. The faster the bus moved, the faster the veteran moved, and without realizing it, Don Chan moved his own arms. He too wore fatigues and held a gun. He too felt lost and scared and wanted to say “Fuck you” to everyone and chug along like a five-year-old. He moved his arms in sharp ups and downs, as if he was lifting something. People stared at Don Chan, but he didn’t care. Maybe they should also join. Maybe if they all joined, the madman wouldn’t look so crazy. Wasn’t that how it worked? If you got lots of people to do a crazy thing, it became so normal that no one questioned it? Don Chan sneered straight at the woman holding a bag from Starbucks.