“Don’t call me a jackass, I’m mentally unstable and you have to watch out for me. I’m for San Lorenzo.”

“How about that. Me too.”

“Dad said all the men in the family were for San Lorenzo.”

“It’s true, your grandfather was too.”

There was a silence.

“You know, Dad wasn’t always mean to me, Uncle Luis. There were times when he read to me every night. Sometimes I’d read to him.”

“What did he read you?”

“Poetry. But don’t say anything because then people will call me a fag.”

“It’s not gay to read poetry.”

“I know, but I don’t need those problems. I know there’s nothing wrong with poetry or with being gay, he taught me all that. That’s what I mean, he wasn’t always bad, sometimes he was really good to me.”

“Your dad suffered a lot, and there are people who turn bitter when they have such a bad time of it.”

Gaspar leaned one elbow on the grass and his head on his hand to look directly at his uncle, who was sitting with his legs crossed and the ball on one of his knees.

“That’s true. But it’s not just that. I tell this to Isabel. I can remember a ton of things, but it’s like I’ve forgotten something important. I remember hardly anything about when we went alone to Misiones, for example, to my grandparents’ house. Mom had just died. And something happened there.”

“How did you get there?”

“By car.”

“And he drove? What a crazy son of a bitch. You both could have died. You don’t remember your grandparents?”

“Barely. But Dad didn’t want me to be with them, and he said Mom didn’t either. And they never tried to see me.”

“That’s true. But goddamn, you were alone. I’m sorry I abandoned you, son.”

“You didn’t abandon me.”

Luis tried to hug him, but Gaspar put out an arm to stop him: he wanted to talk.

“When we go back to my house, we have to go into the room where he kept his things, and you’ll see all his books. I want to keep some, I like to read. Sometimes he’d lock himself in for days at a time, and I wasn’t allowed to bother him.”

“And who fed you?”

“I know how to cook. And there was a lady who cooked for us. Otherwise, I’d go to Pablo’s or Vicky’s or the café in the park. Dad would also leave. Sometimes he’d be gone a whole week. I don’t know where he went, he never told me. I miss him a lot.”

Now Gaspar was sitting up and his eyes were filled with tears. Luis was afraid something would happen to him, a panic attack, an episode. But Gaspar only said:

“I’d like to see them again, Pablo and Vicky. But I don’t know if I can.”

“How about we wait until after New Year’s.”

“Sure. Have they ever called?”