kidâs neck, and the solidly built woman arrives and starts hitting him with her shopping bag.
I remember when Uncle Lucho was strong enough to single-handedly lift a jeep out of the mud.
âYou okay?â my female cousins say, helping me up.
Iâm rubbing my face. The ice cream man gives me a chunk of ice to put on it. This street is a central artery, and the efficient Guayaquil cops show up in no time in their dark blue pants and clean white shirts, and want us all to make statements. Only I donât want to. My family explains that I just got here, and that the other woman is the real victim, and sheâs the one whoâs going to bring charges, so thatâs okay with the cops, though they do give me a closer look than Iâd like. Everyoneâs happy, except the skinny kid, who, as my vision clears while they take him away, looks to me like he hasnât eaten in days.
My aunt Yolita hurries out of the Correa family store and wraps her strong arms around me, solid countrywomanâs arms that have been lifting crates of vegetables and cases of beer since I was small enough to sleep in a cardboard box under the cash register.
âYou look great,â she says.
âYeah, getting kicked in the face does such wonders for my appearance,â I tell her. She stops my mouth with a broadside of kisses and hustles me under the iron bars and into the family business, which is an all-hours corner grocery and liquor store in an untamed slice of the
barrio
, with a full-sized floor-model commercial cooler that I would like to crawl inside of rightnow. You can keep your fax machines and wireless e-mails. Hot showers and cold beer are all I ask of civilization.
I return her compliment. Sheâs still a great beauty, but she was an absolute knockout at sixteen, before she started popping out little Correas at the rate of one model per year like a Ford factory. Most of the fleet are at work already: Lucho Correa Jr. is a dentist at the free hospital, Carmita is a secretary in the offices the Ecuadorian Navy, Manolo and his wife Patricia make clothing in a third-floor workshop, Suzie has her own store selling plastic bags of all sizes, and César is watching the family store.
Then, living on the second floor, thereâs my other set of cousins, Ronaldo, Victor and BolÃvar Mendez, who are off mixing cement at a construction site; Luis, whoâs clawing his way up to a law degree; and Fannyâs in the U.S. working for Leona Helmsley.
âWeâre going to kill the fatted calf for you,â says my uncle Lucho, winking at me. âTonight. After work.â
âSounds great. But listen, Iâve been traveling for eighteen hours and Iâd like to take a shower before I hug anybody else.â
â
Ay, que vergüenza
,â says Aunt Yolita. What a shame. âThereâs no water.â
âAre you having trouble paying the water bill?â
âNot just us, the whole city,â says Uncle Lucho. âItâs been out since last week.â
A steaming tropical port with three million people, and thereâs no water? This place just got less civilized.
I ask: âHowâ?â
âTrucks deliver drinkable water every couple of days,â says Suzie.
âIf they feel like it,â says Uncle Lucho, dipping a chewed-up Styrofoam cup into a large blue plastic storage drum and filling it with water for me to drink.
âNo thanks,â I say. Iâve been away too long, and have lost my resistance to what passes for âdrinkableâ water in these neighborhoods.
âWe boil it,â Suzie explains.
The barrel holds about twenty-five gallons. So a typical person lives for a week on the equivalent of one flush of water in an American toilet.
âDo you have any mineral water? Iâm dying of thirst.â
âOf course, of course,â says Yolita, opening up the cooler and removing a frosty bottle of Guïtig.
âJust