Juan stood and stretched his aching back. He stopped to admire the red, white, and blue BIDEN / HARRIS bumper sticker he’d just plastered to his bumper. It was nearly six pm, but the ferocious heat of the August afternoon sun was scarcely tempered by the slow arrival of evening.
“When I was boy, we used a mariachi band to promote our politicians,” a heavy, gravelly voice called merrily from behind him. “I’m glad to see you’re finally starting to get with the program here.”
Juan wheeled around, ready with a good-natured retort, when he recognized the personage of his uncle Pablo. “Uh…” he stuttered, allowing the joke he’d prepared to wither and die before it was uttered. Regaining his composure, he politely said, “Good afternoon, sir.”
Juan’s uncle Pablo was an enormous, obese man with thinning hair and a large, bushy mustache beneath a bulbous nose streaked with innumerable tiny veins. He perpetually smoked cigars, and the acrid cloud from the one clamped between his teeth wafted over Juan now. “Good afternoon, nephew. How are you?”
Tio Pablo might have been able to speak English, but he never did. Neither did he allow those he spoke with to address him in anything less than proper Spanish, preferably in the more formal tense, as befitted his status in the community. “I’m doing very well, thank you, uncle.” Juan wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking Pablo’s. “It’s the first one I ever put on.”
Pablo looked over the bumper sticker. He gave a mischievous grin that displayed rows of uneven teeth and then took a long drag from his cigar, “Joe Biden, huh?” As he spoke, a cloud of smoke issued forth, hanging suspended in the still, sweltering air between them.
Pablo took another drag from his cigar, then returned his gaze to the bumper sticker, “Do you think he’s going to make it?”
The question briefly unbalanced Juan. He wasn’t sure where Pablo stood politically. His uncle was a man he never wanted to offend, so he responded tactfully, “Well, maybe. He hasn’t even won the primary yet. The Democratic convention is in a couple of weeks. We’ll see.”
“He’s had a lot of trouble,” Pablo noted. “You think that little sign is going to help him?”
Juan thought about this for a moment. He was an American citizen now, and even if he didn’t get all the subtleties of American-style politics, he recognized his responsibility to participate in the process. “I guess I’m just trying to do my part,” he announced confidently, straightening his posture as he said it.
Removing a handkerchief from his vest pocket to mop his moist brow, Pablo considered Juan, looking carefully at him up and down. “Hmm…”
Juan fidgeted under his uncle’s scrutiny, waiting for his next words.
“You just got your citizenship?” Pablo asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good,” Pablo nodded, exhaling another long stream of gray haze. “I’ve been watching you, Juan,’ he said. “You’re good with people, but you don’t know yet how things really work in America.”
“I don’t understand.” Juan meant that he didn’t understand what Pablo was talking about, but Pablo seemed to interpret his statement as an admission of his ignorance of politics.
“No, you don’t understand,” Pablo cast a haughty look over the neighborhood. “None of these sheep see what’s going on! But you’re smart, Juan. Not like these others. Do you really want to make a difference?”
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