It Takes a Worried Man

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The Zamoras came to Houston from Jalisco, Mexico, in 1988 and settled first on Hickory Street by a dried-up spit of Buffalo Bayou. Julio Zamora has never applied for a green card; he works as a fast-food cook. His oldest son, Manuel, loves the comic books I bring him every week. “Who’s this?” he’ll say.

“Spiderman. Tough hombre. He can eat fourteen burritos in eight minutes while hanging, half-asleep, on the wall.”

“I can eat fifteen upside down!”

I think of him as my own little boy, sometimes.

My other family, the Thuots, fled the Annamese Cordillera in what’s now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. They live with their six children in an efficiency apartment with no running water, near Allen Parkway. I bring them food and job applications from convenience stores; they teach me their customs.

The Thuots and the Zamoras are precisely the kind of people no one — repeat, no one, zero, zip — wants to read about, Cal of Cal’s Books is telling me now, planting his hands on his dusty front counter. Next to the cash register, a chipped fishbowl is gorged with slips of paper — a promotional gimmick. Cal’s always got one going. Trips. Bonus prizes. At the end of the month he’ll hold a raffle. Four free books.

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