Human
by Jorge Vargas
Let's not discuss his name. It hardly matters, doesn't it? After all, there are millions like him. All so inconsequential. Instead, let us simply state that his name is Human. That should suffice. That informs you that the subject is not an animal, but a person.
The boy with the Human name wakes up every morning at 4 AM, when the cold grows unbearable, when the cats starting asking to have the door open, since the cats know that 4 AM is a ripe time to hunt the delicacies that felines so love. The boy with the Human name wakes up, confirms the time by looking at the family clock in the room that simultaneously fills the purpose of his bedroom, the living room, the dining room, the game room, the den, and, once upon a time, his sister's room.
The boy with the Human name slowly gets ready for work. Knowing his bedroom to the finest detail, he does not light a candle - why waste the wax? - and goes about his business using the moonlight streaming in through the crevice between the mud-brick walls and the tin rooftop. He puts on his finest suit, a suit that would put to shame the best dressed investment banker. On this particular morning, the boy with the Human name decides that his suit should have a bit more color than usual, so instead of his plain white T-shirt, he puts on a Simpsons shirt, which combines beautifully with his worn blue jeans and his red cap. With that, he peeks his head into his parent's bedroom to look at his tuberculosis-affected sister. He can't see her in the near-darkness.
The bus will pass by soon.
The stylish boy with the Human name picks up his briefcase and leaves his house quietly, so as to not wake his father, with enough fare for his bus pass in his pocket - let us say that it costs him 50 cents - and he then runs down the dirt road toward the larger dirt road that eventually turns to a paved roadway. On the paved road he sees a bus approaching and hops on to the bus as quickly as he can, hoping that there won't be any traffic.
The bus weaves through the suburbs of the city, past the gilded glass towers that the economists point to and say 'look, progress!,' past the factories that stimulate pollution, past the drunken fathers trying to make their way home, past the despairing women of the night who fearfully see the Sun rising; the bus speeds along the city at its most honest hour when the city officials and the police can't hide away the corruption of humanity's most ancient establishment: Urbanization. After all, why hide the truth? The tourists will not leave their hotels for their ethnic experience until 7 at the earliest. The significant voters will only leave their homes at 6 AM. Who cares about hiding the disgrace at 4:30 AM?
The boy with the Human name left school at age 7 - mandatory education be damned - and does not know anything about what the bus so idly ignores, and he does not care to learn. He knows that by 5 AM, children like him will take their posts throughout the city, and he'll lose his spot if he does not make it in time.
At 4:50 AM, after a 35 minute ride, the bus pulls up at the intersection that the boy with the Human name has grown most fond of. He grabs his briefcase, runs off the bus, and runs right toward the center of the intersection so that any intruders would see him and go elsewhere. The boy with the Human name stands right near the empty traffic cop stand in the center of the intersection and he opens up his briefcase.
The briefcase has gum, chocolates, and toy cars inside of it, the last set of items being convenient because there was a school only three blocks away, meaning that the boy with the Human name usually sold at least one of those cars every 3 days or so. He sits down at that stand in the middle of the intersection, drinking from his refilled water bottle, making sure that the other children see him there. With some, he does not mind. After all, the juggling boy will not take away from his business. They're different kinds of trade.
But he does take away from the sympathy, so even with the juggler, the boy with the Human name is hesitant.
Rush hour begins and the boy manages a good day. 21 pieces of gum sold, 9 chocolate bars, and one toy car. $14.10. At 8 AM, when rush hour really picks up, some of the older boys come along and push off the boy with the Human name. He knew it would happen, but he doesn't mind. He heads toward the touristy downtown area. The tourists tend to be slightly more sympathetic, even if the risk of getting pushed away or extorted by by the cops is greater.
By 3 PM, the boy with the Human name has made a total of $21.10 - he sold 7 more chocolate bars - and he goes to eat his lunch - one chocolate bar that he buys from himself - in a park bench. A police officer approaches the boy with the Human name and asks the boy for five chocolate bars. He does not pay.
As he goes to meet his boss at 9 PM, the bus driver charges him double the fare - the driver knows that the boy made money. His boss takes three quarters of the boy with the Human name's total profit for the day, refills his briefcase, and bids him farewell. The boy with the Human name has $6 in his pocket. He gets on the bus and pays another $1.
The boy with the Human name puts half of his money in his pocket and the other half in his sneakers because he knows what's coming next. He knows that everyone who sees him will realize that he's going home and not to work, and that implies that he has money.
Sure enough, when he gets off the bus, three older men with the smell of alcohol on their breaths grab him, threaten him, and force him to hand over his money. He gives them what was in his pocket. They ask for more. He opens his briefcase and offers them candy. They knock the briefcase from his hands, making his merchandise scatter on the street. But they did not get his remaining $2.50.
On his walk home, he puts $1.50 in his pocket and keeps $1 in his sneakers. He knows what'll happen next.
His mother is crying in the corner when he walks in, and his father, belt in his right hand, bottle in his left, turns his glare toward the boy with the Human name. He insults the boy. He threatens him. Asks him where in the hell had he been all day? Asks him how much money he had made. The boy with the Human name offers him his $1.50. The father takes it and hits the 9-year-old. The father storms out of the building that only our cynical human race calls home.
The boy then gives .50 cents to his mother, so that she can hide it and use it for medicine for his sister, who is still alive. The remaining .50 cents will get him on the bus tomorrow.
The boy with the Human name goes to bed at midnight, ready to wake up in four more hours when the cats start asking to be let outside and when the cold starts to grow unbearable.
You have imagined, probably, that this child is Asian or African or South American, or possibly even Eastern European. The story has seemed trite because of that. After all, we have all heard it before. But now imagine that the boy is white, Protestant and American. Now imagine that instead of him living in Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Cairo, Mexico City, Calcutta, Baghdad, or any other city of the Global South, he is living in New York City. Imagine that the busy intersection near the school was 7th Avenue and 39th Street, and the park where he had his lunch was Bryant Park in midtown. Just imagine it.
Luckily for those of you reading this in your native language of English, that is not the case.
But his story is no less important; no less dramatic; no less troubling; no less dangerous. There are millions of children like this around the world, most of them have lives harsher than the one just described. If he had been a girl, for instance, worse things may have happened on that walk home.
That is the situation, now it is time to take a stand for those millions of children with human names, because the sad fact of the story is that the cats probably ate better than the boy, and that is not something that we should ever have to tolerate.
