Chapter 1 - THE WEIGHT OF A BUS PASS
The heavy copper scent of low-grade coffee mixed with the biting exhaust fumes of a crowded Guadalajara bus always made my stomach do a slow, sickly cartwheel. It was 8:45 PM on a Tuesday, and the weight of my backpack felt less like a collection of textbooks and notebooks, and more like a sack of wet cement strapped to my shoulder. Inside were three dog-eared paperbacks, a stained notebook filled with frantic calculations for a microeconomics class I was barely passing, and a single, crumpled 50-peso bill.
Fifty pesos. That was my entire liquid capital for the next forty-eight hours.
I stood on the crumbling concrete sidewalk outside the university gates, shifting my weight from one aching foot to the other. My sneakers—a pair of canvas knockoffs I’d bought at an open-air market two years ago—had worn completely through at the heels. Every time I stepped on a sharp pebble or a crack in the pavement, the raw edge of my heel protested with a dull, stinging pinch.
“So you’re really still cleaning that old woman’s house for free? Then you’re not kind... you’re stupid.”
The voice belonged to my cousin Iván, who was leaning against the cold metal railing of the bus stop, blowing smoke rings into the humid night air. Iván was twenty-two, wore designer-knockoff tracksuits, and spent more time figuring out how to avoid working than I spent trying to figure out how to survive. He looked at me with that half-pitying, half-contemptuous grin that always made my jaw tighten.
I forced a weak laugh, rubbing the back of my neck where the collar of my worn denim shirt was fraying.
“It’s not for free, Iván. She’s just... she’s behind on payments. She said she’ll square up soon,” I lied, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
Iván shook his head, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter. “Bro, wake up. People like that—old, alone, tucked away in those falling-down houses in downtown—they know how to play the sympathy card. She’s bleeding you dry. You’re giving her your Saturdays, your energy, and what do you get? Empty promises and a pat on the head while you’re starving yourself to buy instant noodles.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t, because deep down inside the cold, tired corners of my mind, a terrible little voice was whispering that Iván might be right.
My name is Diego. I’m twenty-one years old, a third-year finance student at the University of Guadalajara, and like thousands of young people across this city trying not to drown in an economy that swallowed dreams whole, I was surviving one day at a time.
My daily routine was a relentless, grinding treadmill.
Alarm clock at 5:00 AM.
A breakfast of black coffee and whatever leftover bread was cheapest at the corner panadería.
Morning classes from 7:00 to 11:00 AM, where I sat in the back row scribbling lecture notes while my stomach let out embarrassing, audible growls.
Then came the hustle.
I gave high school math tutoring lessons to a spoiled kid whose parents paid in installments whenever they remembered. I carried heavy crates of produce at the San Juan de Dios market whenever a vendor needed extra muscle. I delivered food orders on a rusted bicycle that had a habit of throwing its chain whenever I hit a pothole. I worked evening shifts at a dim, fluorescent-lit café downtown, wiping tables and smelling perpetually of stale milk and damp espresso grounds.
It was an exhausting, relentless cycle designed to pay for bus fare, photocopies, utility bills for the cramped, rented room I shared with two other students, and just enough food to keep my brain functioning through exams.
That was how I found the post.
It wasn't on a professional job board or an agency website. It was buried deep inside a chaotic local Facebook group called Guadalajara Classifieds & Odd Jobs, hidden between ads for used refrigerators and second-hand musical instruments.
“Young responsible man needed to help elderly woman with cleaning. Downtown area. Paid per visit.”
There was no phone number listed, only an address on a narrow, forgotten street near the historical center, and a brief message telling interested parties to knock on Thursday afternoon at precisely 3:00 PM.
The promise of money—any money—was a magnet I couldn't resist. At that point in the semester, my bank account had dipped into the negative double digits, saved only by overdraft protection that charged me punishing fees every time I bought a bottle of water. Two hundred pesos a visit, the ad had vaguely implied, or something close to it. To me, that wasn't just pocket change. That was the difference between eating real, hot meals for a week, or staring at an empty pantry while my head pounded from hunger.
That Thursday, I skipped my afternoon economics seminar, grabbed my battered rag and a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner I’d bought with borrowed cash, and walked forty blocks downtown to save the bus fare.
The street where Doña Carmen lived was one of those old, narrow arteries of Guadalajara where the colonial-era houses leaned toward each other like weary gossips, their stucco facades peeling in long, scabby strips from decades of damp weather and neglect. The asphalt was cracked and uneven, patched over with dark smears of fresh tar that melted under the afternoon sun.
Number 42 was squeezed between a shuttered auto-repair shop and a derelict bakery with cardboard taped over its front windows.
A heavy, weathered wooden door with a rusted iron knocker shaped like a lion’s head stared out at the street.
I walked up the single stone step, wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, and raised the heavy iron knocker. I let it drop twice.
Thud. Thud.
The sound echoed hollowly inside the tall, dark hallway beyond.
I waited. Nothing happened.
I checked my watch—3:02 PM. I assumed I had the wrong house, or that whoever posted the ad had changed their mind. I was just about to turn around and begin the long, miserable walk back to campus when I heard the distinct, dragging scrape of a wooden cane against old floor tiles from deep inside the house.
Then came the sound of multiple locks turning. A heavy iron deadbolt, a sliding chain, and a squeaking brass latch.
The door creaked open about twelve inches, restrained by a thick security chain stretched across the gap. A pair of rheumy, milky-brown eyes peered out at me through the dim light of the hallway.
“Who is it?” a voice rasped. It was a thin, fragile sound, like dry autumn leaves scraping across pavement.
“Um... hello,” I stammered, holding up my plastic bag of cleaning supplies like a shield. “I’m Diego. From Facebook? About the cleaning job?”
The old woman stared at me for what felt like an eternity. Her gaze swept down from my face, over my faded canvas shoes, and lingered for a moment on the bottle of cleanser in my hand. Her expression didn't warm up, nor did it turn hostile; it just settled into a deep, weary acceptance of reality.
“Diego,” she murmured, testing the name on her tongue.
The chain rattled, and the door swung wide open.
“Come in, boy. Don’t just stand there letting all the heat inside.”
I stepped across the threshold, and the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind me with a solid, echoing thud that cut off the chaotic noise of the downtown traffic as if someone had pulled a plug.
The interior of the house was a time capsule frozen somewhere around 1965.
The air hit me first. It wasn't foul, exactly, but it was heavy and stagnant—thick with the distinct aromas of damp masonry, old mothballs, eucalyptus ointment, and the faint, unmistakable tang of reheated chicken broth. The hallway was long and high-ceilinged, lined with dark wooden wainscoting that had lost its polish decades ago.
Along the walls hung a gallery of framed photographs under heavy, dust-caked glass. I caught glimpses of faded black-and-white portraits: stern-looking men in stiff suits, women with elaborate beehive hairdos staring blankly into the camera, and grainy color snapshots of children playing with a mangy dog in a sunlit courtyard.
“Watch your step on the rug. The corner is curled up,” the old woman said, hobbling ahead of me with the assistance of a metal-tipped cane that clicked rhythmically against the cold terra-cotta tiles.
She was tiny—barely five feet tall, with a slight, permanent hunch in her upper back that made her look like she was perpetually bracing against an invisible wind. Her hair was a startling, pure white cloud, pulled back into a messy bun held together by two plastic tortoise-shell combs. She wore a faded floral housedress with long sleeves, despite the afternoon heat, and a heavy woolen shawl draped over her narrow shoulders.
“My name is Carmen,” she said without looking back as she led me toward the back of the house. “Doña Carmen to you, until I decide otherwise.”
“Yes, Doña Carmen,” I replied quietly.
She led me into a living room dominated by a massive, sagging velvet sofa that had long ago faded from emerald green to a sickly olive hue. A massive wooden armoire stood against one wall, its double doors slightly ajar, revealing stacks of yellowed linens and neatly folded wool sweaters. In the corner, an old wooden radio with a glowing dial sat silent and dusty on a wicker stand.
“The dust,” she said, pointing a shaking, liver-spotted finger toward the coffee table and the bookshelves overflowing with paperback novels and old magazines. “It accumulates like snow in this house. I can’t reach it anymore. My arms... they feel like lead.”
“I can take care of it,” I said, setting my cleaning bag down on the floor. “Where do you keep the rags and the broom?”
“Out in the patio, behind the kitchen. Follow the brick path, but don’t trip over the ceramic flowerpots—my daughter-in-law left them there three years ago and I haven't had the strength to move them since.”
As she said the word daughter-in-law, her voice dropped an octave, carrying a subtle, bitter weight that caught my attention. But she didn't elaborate. She simply turned and shuffled slowly toward a small rocking chair by an unlit fireplace, lowering herself into it with a series of small, pained grunts.
That was how my Thursdays began.
The first week, I swept three rooms, scrubbed the small, grease-stained kitchen counter, washed a sink full of dishes that looked like they had been sitting there since the previous weekend, and dusted every surface in the front parlor.
When I finished, two hours later, my arms were aching and my knees were stiff from kneeling on the hard tiles.
I walked into the living room to let Doña Carmen know I was done.
She was sitting in her rocking chair, eyes half-closed, listening to the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock that didn't actually work—its hands had been permanently stuck at 4:15 for who knows how long.
“I’m finished, Doña Carmen,” I said softly so as not to startle her.
Her eyes fluttered open. She looked around the room, noticing the clean shine of the wooden table, the empty sink, the swept floor. A faint, tired approval crossed her wrinkled face.
“Good,” she said, reaching slowly into the deep pocket of her floral housedress. Her trembling fingers fished around for a moment before she pulled out a small, worn leather coin purse with a metal clasp.
She unsnapped it, looked inside, and her expression froze.
The purse was completely empty. Not a single coin rattled against the leather lining.
I felt a sudden, heavy sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. My mind raced instantly to my own expenses—the bus ride home, the photocopy store bill waiting for me tomorrow morning, the two small cartons of milk I had planned to buy for my shared apartment.
Doña Carmen looked up at me, her milky-brown eyes swimming with a sudden, humiliating film of moisture.
“Oh, boy,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I... I thought I had some cash left from my pension withdrawal on Monday. But the pharmacy... the prescription for my blood pressure... it took everything.”
She looked away, her frail shoulders sinking further into the cushions of the rocking chair.
“I’m sorry, Diego. I’m an old fool. Can you... can you come back next week? I’ll give you double. I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ll pay you next week.”
I stood there in the silent, dim-lit parlor, listening to the distant hum of a car passing on the street outside. I looked at the old woman—truly looked at her—and saw the profound, crushing embarrassment etched into the lines around her mouth. She wasn't running a scam. She wasn't a master manipulator playing the sympathy card, as Iván had cynically suggested.
She was just an old human being trapped in a decaying house, running out of money, running out of health, and running out of time.
“It’s okay, Doña Carmen,” I heard myself say, the words slipping out before my brain could stop them. “Don’t worry about today. We’ll square it up next week.”
She looked up at me, surprise flickering in her tired eyes.
“Are you sure, boy?”
“Yeah,” I smiled, forcing a brightness I didn’t feel. “I’m sure. See you next Thursday.”
That walk back to my student room was the longest forty blocks of my life. My stomach felt hollow, my pockets were completely empty, and the fifty-peso bill I had started the day with was gone, spent on a cheap torta and a bottle of water before I reached her house.
I went to bed hungry that night, listening to my roommate snore in the bottom bunk, wondering if my cousin Iván was right after all.
May you like
Maybe I wasn't just kind.
Maybe I was completely, hopelessly stupid.
