Free Ruins by Achy Obejas

tongue, ignored him again, then screwed in a lightbulb and plugged the worn cord into the wall. After several tries, nothing happened.
    “It’s a piece of junk,” the clerk declared with unrestrained disdain, stepping away from the desk, his bloated arms across his chest as if the lamp—and Usnavy—might contaminate him with a common virus.
    “You mean the electricity …”
    “Of course the electricity!” The clerk rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. The ashes at the tip of his cigarette floated away.
    “But it’s so beautiful …” Usnavy said, reaching to touch the rainbowcolored shade. There was one tiny marine panel in particular, he’d noticed, that seemed to ripple, as if there were water inside it.
    “Beautiful?” the young man exclaimed. He slapped his free hand down on the desk in exasperation—startling Usnavy—then ground the cigarette into a dirty metal tray with the other.
    Usnavy noted that they were very big hands, like baseball mitts, with thick, meaty fingers. Clearly, this boy did not labor on lamps or in any craft that required the slightest precision. In the jungle, he would have broken wood, maybe carried prey—sumptuous deer, antelope—but never killed, never carved. His was a brute strength, a matter of bulk rather than skill. This boy could pillage, this boy could break bones without a thought to the meaning of marrow.
    “It’s irreparably damaged, and it’s not anything special—why would anybody want this lamp?” he asked scornfully.
    Usnavy couldn’t answer at first so he shrugged. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said.
    But when Usnavy went to take the lamp in his arms, the clerk didn’t move; instead his eyes scanned it with his own nervous twitching.
    “I’m … I’m sorry to have bothered you, compañero,” Usnavy added.
    The young man said nothing, just continued to stare as Usnavy reached around, winding the ragged cord about the base, embracing the lamp. In that acute spotlight, what should have been a simple chore became eternal and deliberate.
    “Listen …” the clerk said at last, his voice lowered in a conspiratorial tone. “What do you really want, huh, old man?”
    “What do I …?” It was now Usnavy’s turn to be disbelieving.
    “I mean …” The clerk glanced around the office, even though there was nobody else there; the hard, round biceps under the Polo shirt would have been enough to scare anybody. Usnavy wondered immediately if the guy didn’t have relatives in Miami sending him steroids, if his veins weren’t filled with chemicals that might, if badly administered, cause him to erupt. “Why are you so obsessed with the lamp?”
    “I’m not obsessed,” Usnavy said stiffly. He’d heard that word before, many times, but always about the lamp in his room, the magnificent one, or the Revolution. For anyone to use it now to describe whatever he felt for this lesser creature seemed an insult to him. “I resent the insinuation,” he added.
    The young man straightened up, a hint of a smile on his lips. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what … To help you out … I’ll give you five dollars for it.”
    Five dollars! What he could do with five dollars—he could buy meat at the farmer’s market, he could buy real soap! Usnavy’s heart almost popped from his chest.
    Five dollars! That was about 600 pesos!
    Or, he thought in a flash, he could save it and try to scrape up another ten or fifteen dollars and get a bicycle for Nena. Where he’d get the rest of the money was not an issue then, so enthralled was he by the mere thought of having dollars.
    This time, he promised himself and all the powers in the universe, the bike would be Nena’s—he could walk; it was okay. If he somehow got that money for a bike for her, he could easily walk!
    Desire was a new emotion for Usnavy: He had rarely coveted anything in his life. Even when he and Lidia made love, it was less a matter of yearning than an expression of gratitude, an