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Umo.
    â€œPhotography.” Umo pointed at the school. “Yes, with a friend.” “You have a friend?” “A teacher here. Coaches swimming. Assistant coach. He’s gonna show us calculus.”
    â€œGot a pool?” “Of course. An old one.” “How big?” “Twenty-five yards.” “A team?” “A coach, an assistant coach, a science teacher who—” (I drew a notebook from my bag and leafed to some equations) “who…—” (but found something else). “I know,” said Umo, from a weight of experience as if the situation might be someone’s fault. “Assistant,” he said. “To my father,” I said. I indicated the building. He asked what grade would he go into? Did he want to go there? (I meant enroll.) “Well, I am fourteen…(?).” Maybe they counted life credits, I didn’t know. How could he have been fourteen? I thought. “Life credits?” He was dead serious. “You speak for me, OK?” “You can speak for yourself,” I said. “What have you lived through, Umo?” “Through?”
    Did I have a dog? he wanted to know, he’s looking at my notebook, some writing of my sister’s—it said, pointed chin, maybe short life, too soon to know (a face belonging to someone she knew) and then Umo read out loud, “ Blue spots on nose, imprisonment . I heard that.” “You did? Where? My brother says the Chinese eat dog,” I said. Umo laughed. Brother, eh? Even the dogs they ate where Umo came from were family friends. “Meat makes you grow up fast,” he said, “you gotta sister?” He showed me a snapshot. It was of the upper part of him, coming down a gangplank, blurred faces at the rail. Who took this? Some friend. From the boat, I said. “No. Cheeky took it.” Snapshot on the occasion of Umo’s entry at the port of Vera Cruz. He had come here on his own when he was twelve, a “regular Boy Scout,” he joked.
    A boy with a Native American handshake and a secret in his voice I knew even if sometimes it might be me. He answered you back. You did the same. Umo made you want to speak. “You gotta sister?” “Sure.” “You say ‘Sure.’ You know Teziutlán?” “Grew up there.” Umo gave me a look. He looked down the street.
    This Umo is about me , I think. He was and wasn’t enlisting my help. You don’t have a picture in your head of exactly where Vera Cruz is, but maybe it doesn’t matter. His English. His jobs. His age. Occasional work for The Inventor—epoxied a fender, painted a wall. “You have a sister?” “Yes, I do,” I said in a certain way. A truck came down the street right at us almost. Umo waved it over. “Home is where the heart is.” “Sooner or later.” Adopting a saying like that, his mind already on the move away from where we stood on the street corner near my school, he had a purpose.
    A friend should.
    Doesn’t everyone if they only knew it?
    You knew he had a reason for happening to meet me here. “Vera Cruz,” I said. “Mexico, my Grampa,” Umo said. “Your grandfather!” “Wanted to get there but never did. Never never.” The truck pulled over, Umo stood there broad as a Chargers linebacker. “Silverwork…” he said. I didn’t understand all this but here he was, my friend maybe, or I could help him. The truck waiting, he showed me a little silver cup that had belonged to his Mukden grandfather whom he’d never known. My dad had a Mexican friend in the Reserve, I said, as if that was something, but Umo right back at me, “With wife much taller,” he laughed (like a bark, a harsh I know ), his hand on the door handle of the passenger side. “And she’s going out for pole vault,” I said, “I could really help her, but she…”