"May I take the cast net?"
"Of course."
There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.
"Eighty-five is a lucky number," the old man said. "How would you like to see me bring one in that dressed out over a thousand pounds?"
"I'll get the cast net and go for sardines. Will you sit in the sun in the doorway?"
"Yes. I have yesterday's paper and I will read the baseball."
The boy did not know whether yesterday's paper was a fiction too. But the old man brought it out from under the bed.
"Perico gave it to me at the bodega," he explained.
"I'll be back when I have the sardines. I'll keep yours and mine together on ice and we can share them in the morning. When I come back you can tell me about the baseball."
"The Yankees cannot lose."