“Kiddo, they call all the time. Your friend Victoria cussed me out once, she’s a real handful.”

Now Gaspar was smiling, and his face had changed so much that Luis didn’t recognize him.

“Tell them to wait for me, because I think I’m getting better.”

“See? What’d I tell you.”

On New Year’s Eve, Luis let Gaspar have a glass of champagne. That summer of 1988 they went with Julieta to a house in Mar del Tuyú. Gaspar went fishing with Luis and ate the cornalitos they caught; he swam with Julieta, and when he raced the other kids on the beach, he left them panting on their knees or half-dead. They didn’t need to call Isabel even once because of a crisis. Gaspar asked Julieta for a book of poetry. She was surprised, and Gaspar told her simply that his dad had a lot of books and the two of them had read a lot; he said he wanted to go back to their old house to get some books. His uncle had only gotten his albums, and he liked music a lot, sure, but he liked reading more. One afternoon, when Luis and Negro were taking a nap and the two of them were drinking mate on the beach, Gaspar told Julieta that he wanted to “know things,” that being sick had “made him dumb.” That when he was with his friends, they’d listened to music, watched movies. And that he missed them.

“You just say the word and we’ll work it out for you to see them. You want some toast?”

“I want it with dulce de leche, but this damned sand sticks to everything.”

“I brought churros. Are you sick of being around old folks, Gaspar?”

“Sick of it, no. But I think I should go to school.”

Gaspar started classes at an evening high school in La Plata; it was less demanding, and the teachers, who were used to working with adults and problem students, were less strict and more understanding. After the first day, when he went to pick him up in the car, Luis promised that now he was going to look for work. That’s going to be even harder than dealing with my insanity, I think, Gaspar told him. We’ve got to be optimistic, laughed Luis.

The school was across from a plaza, and many of Gaspar’s classmates—mostly older than him—arrived early and would sit on the grass before class and smoke pot and listen to music. On his first days everyone ignored him, but one Friday, when they were told classes would start late because the history teacher couldn’t make it, they offered him a beer. Gaspar accepted, but he only took a couple of sips and he refused the joint. Don’t even think about drinking or doing drugs, his uncle had told him recently while the two of them were trying to fix the bathroom door, which didn’t close right. You know it’s not a question of morals, I couldn’t give a damn and I’m certainly no saint, but you’re taking pills. And last year was really rough. For now, Gaspar had decided to listen to him. The others didn’t say anything, didn’t make fun of him. They wanted to know why he’d come to “night school.” Gaspar half-lied, saying he’d been recovering from an accident almost the whole previous year. The scar on his arm, which was large and hard to miss, backed up his excuse.