Dance With Snakes

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None of the tenants could say exactly when the yellow Chevrolet had first parked in front of the building. There were too many cars that spent the night on that street, a double row that ran the length of the housing project’s four blocks. But the yellow Chevrolet attracted attention for a number of reasons. It was a heap that looked at least thirty years old, with a smashed-up body and windows boarded up with pieces of cardboard. It looked like an old wreck that a neighbour wouldn’t take to the scrapyard for sentimental reasons.

The first to notice that there was something strange about the car were the housewives and maids who went out in the mornings to go shopping or just to gossip. At that time, a ragged man with grey hair and a beard would emerge from the Chevrolet, looking like someone who’d just woken up after spending the night in his wreck.

Niña Beatriz, who ran the store, made it her business to keep tabs on this strange person and to tell the neighbours about his activities. It was through her that we learned of his daily routine. He’d leave the car at ten in the morning, wander off to some unknown part of the city and somewhere between eight and ten at night, he’d come back carrying a canvas bag full of trash and shut himself up in the car until the next day.

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