Free A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism by Peter Mountford

spotting true futility and was not ashamed to give in when it was due. So she said, "Fair enough."
    And that was that.

    Gabriel was in one of the puffy armchairs in Gloria's lobby, watching the two receptionists argue about something he couldn't hear, when Lenka arrived. The dark lobby had the whispering quality of a library, and when the guard opened the door for her, the white light outside seared itself into his eyes so he could not see her well at first. She came into focus: her ponytail yanked so tight that to his still-blotted vision it looked as if she'd shaved her head. He stood. Her face looked scrubbed. She seemed somber, with her thick black eyebrows, her no-bullshit gait. She had on a pair of skinny jeans and a black Adidas nylon jacket, zipped to her chin. Just when he was about to cower, her eyes met his and she lit up, smiling widely. The transition was so abrupt that he blurted, "Wow," and she laughed, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek. She led the way back out, explaining that she had to pick Ernesto up from school. "I hope you don't mind, but I have to drop him off at home."
    He said he didn't mind. In fact, he liked the idea of running an errand with her. He said he liked Ernesto, but she didn't react, so he added that Ernesto seemed smart.
    "He gets that from me," she said, but he didn't know her well enough yet to tell if she was joking or not.
    "Who takes care of him while you're at work?" he said, intending to find out if she had a boyfriend or a husband.
    "My ex-husband's wife."
    "You live with your ex-husband's wife?"
    "Yes. And I live with my ex-husband. And I live with my brother, my mother, my grandmother, and my son. It's like a comedy. A comedy with no jokes." He laughed and she went on. "Really, we are a big happy family, but it's not simple. My brother and my ex-husband have a company—they are electricians, and they have lived in that house for a long time. My father moved in because he cannot afford to live alone anymore. Ernesto and I used to live in Miraflores, but it became difficult when I started working for Evo, so now we are all together. This is the story."
    "That sounds—" He wanted to make a joke, but nothing came to mind.
    "It's insanity," she said. "But we are pretty poor here, you know?" She said it in a matter-of-fact way. Like a lot of other Bolivians he'd met, she had a bluntness about the country's poverty that defied him to express an opinion. Were they proud of their poverty? They certainly weren't ashamed of it. It was just there, like that statue of Neptune in Plaza Murillo. He said nothing. It wasn't clear how accommodating she was socially. People in her line of work were typically, at a minimum, hyperactively concerned with pleasing others. She did not seem to be afflicted by that problem. She was just tired. She'd wanted to go on a date with him, but now she was exhausted, and the date itself had turned into an errand. That was his guess. She pulled the keys from her pocket. "This is my car," she said.
    The paint on her busted two-door Datsun had lost its gloss and was a dull beige now. She'd put one of those bright red steering wheel locks on—which seemed strange, because no one would want to steal a car like that. The price of the car couldn't be much more than the cost of a tank of gas. They got in, and she tossed the lock onto the floor by his feet and started the engine. He reached for his seat belt, but there was none. The seat belts had already been sold.
    She had pendants dangling from the rearview mirror, including one of St. Christopher. There was a sticker of the Virgin Mary on the glove box with a message beneath it:
Nuestra Señora Del Sagrado Corazón, rogad por nosotros.
    She accelerated down the street and turned into a thicket of gridlock. In front of them a howitzer-sized pipe protruded from the grimy rear end of a Tang-colored bus, and when traffic inched forward, a heavy black cloud of exhaust barfed out onto them. Lenka's