Thirty bucks a day my Papi pays me to help him paint on Saturdays and Sundays. Thirty bucks. Big deal. I hate working on the weekends. I can make ten times that much running dime bags for Edwin, but here I am, half asleep at 5 a.m., waiting for my “wake up” call to go to another job I don’t like and don’t want. Papi’s clueless to these feelings, of course. Right before he shakes me awake, I jerk rigid into a sit-up position and bug my eyes out. He jumps back, sees it’s a joke, and acts like he’s having a heart attack. Then he presses his big face close to mine.

“Stop fooling, Ernesto,” he says. “Out of bed.”

Papi stays so serious, man, he never loosens up. When I hang with my friends, he calls it “looking for trouble” and works hard to make sure I can’t. He fills every day with work and on weekends fills mine with the same. I’m in school during the week, or at least he thinks I’m in school. But mostly I’m hanging out with Edwin and my friends.

Papi can’t track me. Once he’s home from painting houses all day for the Kelly Brothers, he’s too exhausted to pay much attention to me. I operate on my own. He insists we eat and clean up together every night. But afterward he goes to bed early, and I’m left alone to make my own decisions. He won’t let me quit school. He has dreams for me, and school makes dreams come true, he says.

Monday through Friday we wake up at 5 a.m. Papi leaves for work by six. He wakes me again as he’s leaving, but I go back to bed and sleep through the morning. He never misses a day of work and never checks on me when he’s working. I deleted the messages the school leaves on his machine about my absences. But today is Saturday. It is 5 a.m. again and I am wide awake. Tomorrow is Sunday and I’ll be awake at 5 a.m. again. Seven days a week, 5 a.m. Total torture.

“Suckers get up at 5 a.m.,” Edwin tells me. “And going to school’s a waste of time unless you’re moving weed.” Edwin talks loud in front of the rest, and we all want to be like Edwin. He carries a big wad of money and wears the coolest clothes. All the girls love his ass. They think he’s a big deal.

“Tell your old Papi you got plans tomorrow,” Edwin tells me. “Tell him yo no trabajo or some shit.”

Uh, right.

“We’ll hook up later,” I tell him. “Burn it up all night long.”

Edwin rolls his eyes. We bump knuckles.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “But after you get off from work with Papi.” He folds his hands and rests his cheek on them like an angel praying, punking me. Anybody around laughs.

But right now, Papi is home, and there’s no getting around getting out of bed. I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. The cracked tiles on the floor are cold. Papi clears his throat. I look at him and he stares at me. Then he shakes his head and mumbles something I don’t understand in Spanish before he disappears into the bathroom. I listen to his stream hit the water in the toilet. My head is dizzy from smoking too much weed last night. I drop back on the edge of my bed.

“You think your pal Edwin is getting up for work?” Papi shouts.

Edwin is sleeping at five on Saturday morning like every other normal person on the face of the earth.

“What you think?” Papi yells out. He acts like working at some crummy job nobody else wants is some sort of privilege.

“How’s school?” he asks and walks past, drying his hands on a towel.

“School’s for chumps,” I say.

“Don’t say that.” He raises his hand to smack me, but he never hits me, it’s an act. “And use good English. How do you expect to get ahead when you talk like some chuco? Live the dream. You wear a tie. You sit at a desk. What you think about that?”

I walk over to the kitchen sink and run cold water over my wrists.

“Alright, alright, hurry up, hijito, let’s go.”

Just say no, I think. Do what Edwin says. Say you are sick of working on Saturdays and Sundays, sick of getting up when it’s still dark. Tell him you’re sick of trying to live his dream. But instead, I wilt.

“Back off,” I say in the lowest whisper.

“What’s that?” he says.

“Nothing.”

“C’mon then, hurry up. The day is slipping away.”

His paintbrushes are arranged on the dinette table. Their bristles are combed free of paint and hang over the plastic edge like thick mustaches. Papi picks them up one at a time and fingers the bristles. He drops the ones he likes in a bucket and sets the bucket with the tarps and tool bags by the door.

I take my time, knowing he won’t leave the apartment without me.

Outside on the street the neighborhood is waking up. Apartment lights are flicking on, and trucks are racing off to work. An old pickup passes us. Three men are bunched in the cab, and the driver beeps his horn. Papi waves. Old women on their way uptown to clean rich people’s houses crowd the bus stop. The streetlights are on. We walk behind our building where Papi parks his truck. He unlocks the doors, and we climb into the old Ford.

Papi weaves his pickup through the city until we are cruising through a much different neighborhood than ours. The streets are lush with giant trees and flower gardens line sidewalks wide enough for two to pass without bumping. The houses are huge, the lawns are perfect, and the cars are new. Edwin’s right: money makes it happen, and the more green you got, the more happening it is.

Papi hands me a crumpled piece of paper with a bunch of scribbling on it.

“Directions,” he says. “We want Maple Avenue, what’s the turn?” He pokes at the smoothed out paper I hold in my hands.

“Left at Willow, go two blocks. Right on Sycamore, go three blocks. Then left on Maple.”

Papi squints at the intersection a half block ahead. Deep creases gather in the skin at the corners of his eyes, and gray streaks through his hair. For the first time I notice the skin beneath his chin is sagging. But he still looks like that guy in the movies, you know, the handsome one, plays Zorro, just a little more used up.

“What the first turn again?” he says.

“Willow, Sycamore, then Maple.”

“Too many damn trees.”

“Yeah, broken bottles and rocks are way better,” I say. “More scenic.”

He laughs and slaps my knee with his open hand. His nostrils flare and he breathes in deeply.

“Smell that?”

“What?”

“Smells like dinero.”

Papi’s chin nods up and down, and he snaps his fingers. His face gets serious. He scans the houses and takes everything in. Every house is fresh, proud, kept. Nothing needs paint.

“You see any numbers?” he says. “You think with all this money they’d have numbers on their houses.”

I point to a house on the right side of the street with brass numbers next to the door. They run up and down as big as dinner plates and match the scribbles in my hand. The house is big, like something you see in a magazine while you’re waiting to be seen at the clinic. Two Mercedes, cotton-white with gleaming gold accents, sit side by side in the driveway.

Papi parks the truck against the curb and kills the engine. He glances in the rearview, slicks his mustache, then drops out his door to the street and saunters up the walk. At the doorbell he rings once and waits a few seconds. Peeking in the door’s sidelight, he pushes the bell again. A woman opens the door and surprises him. She is hidden from my sight by Papi’s bulk, but I can see she closes the door. Papi spins around and faces me. His hands are jammed in his pockets.

A man rounds the corner of the house in a big hurry. Papi steps off the porch, walks toward him, and extends his hand. The man raises his hand, but it’s to check his watch. He is a head shorter than Papi and wears a crisp white shirt and pressed black pants. His hands move too much when he talks, and he carries too much belly.

Papi’s hands remain behind his back while the other man yaks away. When he’s finished getting in Papi’s face, he turns away from Papi and disappears beyond the corner of the house. Papi stands still as a statue for a moment. His eyes follow the man’s back. He kicks the ground, shakes his head and stares at the ground. Finally, he turns to me and lumbers back toward the truck. He looks concerned as he leans in my open window.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Money,” he says. He runs his hand through his hair and spits to the curb.

“People with money control us. They believe they deserve better than everyone else.” He glances toward the house. “This man wants us to work for less than he agreed to pay on the phone in order to get me to drive way the hell over here.”

He reaches across my chest and flips open the cardboard toothpick box on the dash, plucks one from the rest, and sticks it in the corner of his mouth.

“So?” I ask.

“So?” He repeats what I say but his tone is sharp, not the way he speaks to me.

“Aah…” he says and pushes off my door.

He’s right about money. People that have it sure as hell live better than us. More they get, the better they live. Edwin’s just getting started.

Papi starts up the truck and drives us around the corner into the alley snaking behind the houses. When he stops, he parks so close to a vine-covered fence, I need to climb out his side.

“Never block an alley with your truck.” He’s told me that at least a hundred times. “People get pissed. Bad business getting people pissed.”

Woven vines arch over the pathway between the two garages where we park.

“Use the tunnel to get in,” Papi says. He unloads two stepladders, a couple of paint pots, rollers, different nap roller covers, the bucket of brushes, and some tarps at the tailgate. I ferry the stuff into the tunnel of vines that leads to the rich man’s yard. When the tunnel ends, I stop and stare at the maze of stone walks and gardens. A rectangular reflecting pool as big as Papi’s pick-up sits in the center of the yard. The black surface mirrors the morning sky. All the landscaping, and I mean all, is trimmed like a barber’s cut. There’s a shade roof covering a stone patio between the house and garage.

The man I saw out front is seated at a glass-topped table beneath the roof. A thin trail of smoke dribbles from the cigarette in his hand. He raises his head a brief second and rattles the newspaper, checks his watch, and stubs his smoke in a glass ashtray. When he stands, he pushes his chair away from the table with the backs of his legs like he’s annoyed at the interruption, then tucks the newspaper beneath his arm and leaves in a fluster. He does not look at me.

At the reflecting pool he stops and reaches into his pants pocket as if he may have forgotten something. When he pulls his hand free, a small object comes out of his pocket and falls into the lush grass beside the pool. He continues on without noticing and enters the house through a set of sliding glass doors. The lights inside the house go dark.

I walk to the reflecting pool like I’m having a look around and see a cigarette lighter shimmering in the grass. The house is dark, and I drop to one knee pretending to tie my shoe and snatch the lighter. When I stand, it slips into my pants pocket and sinks to the bottom. Edwin pays good money for this kind of bling. I duck into the vine tunnel and trot back to the alley to grab another load.

Papi gives me crap about taking too long but that’s okay, so long as he suspects nothing. We tarp the table and chairs and start scraping the wood ceiling. A couple of loose flakes fall away. Papi works off a ladder, digging the tip of his pocketknife into the wood. If it’s soft, he digs it out and fills the hole with wood filler. When he sands the patch after two coats, the hole totally disappears under primer. Papi takes pride in his work; nothing slips by him. A couple of hours later, we’re getting ready to lay on finish paint.

By then I need to pee and stick my brush in the thinner before I start toward the house.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“Bathroom.”

“Pee?”

I nod yes.

Papi jerks his thumb toward the alley.

“What, we can’t go inside?”

“That’s right. Go in the alley.”

“Neighbors’ll like that. Good for business, right?”

“Don’t be smart, just go do your business.”

I stalk off to the alley to pee.

When I return, the woman who answered the front door is talking with Papi. Her hair is pulled back tight to her head, and a thick braid streaked with gray hangs between her shoulders. She wears a long, brown dress and a string of unmatched stones around her neck. Her skin is smooth and glows like caramel. She holds a tray in both hands. A water bottle and two glasses sit on the tray and wobble slightly as she talks.

“Mister Segundo is gone for a few hours,” she says to me. “If you need to come inside for the toilet, you may.” She pronounces her words with care, like the teachers at school. Her eyes dart past me to the tunnel of vines leading to the alley.

I look down, embarrassed, but take one of the glasses from the tray and thank her. She tells me her name is Rosa, and I like how she smells. She and Papi start talking again. Their Spanish is too fast for me to follow, but I understand, when she laughs loud and touches his forearm, that she is flirting and so is he. She looks a little like the picture of my mother Papi keeps scotch-taped to his truck visor.

The sliding glass door thumps open against its jamb and the sound it makes startles the three of us. The man from earlier, Segundo, appears in the open doorway. He is talking to himself and walking slowly along the stone path, scanning the ground.

I slide my hand inside my pocket.

He stops at the spot in the grass where he dropped the lighter. Carefully he crouches and spreads a few blades of grass apart with his fingertips. He glances in my direction, and I look away. His eyes narrow to mean slits. The hairs at the back of my neck stand. My fingers fiddle with the lighter, and it surprises me by springing open with a click. I ease it closed against the cushion of my thumb.

Papi places his empty glass on Rosa’s tray. He forces a tired smile and walks to the paint bucket where we have left our brushes. The man bends down and examines the grass. After a few seconds, he turns to my father on the ladder.

“You there,” Segundo says.

Papi takes his time laying off the paint he’d just rolled on. Then he turns to the man.

“Yes, what is it?” Papi says.

“I am missing my lighter.”

“It is lost?” Papi asks.

Segundo scowls at my father. “What do you think?”

Rosa is next to me. She takes my glass, her eyes fixed on the two men. Her lips draw together in a thin, smileless line.

Segundo rises from his crouch. He looks like a dog straining at the leash.

“You have it,” he says and points at my father.

Papi places his hands against the small of his back and presses against his spine. He looks at the grass at Segundo’s feet. After a few seconds he lifts his head and speaks.

“I do not.” He looks bewildered by such an accusation.

“Don’t pretend. My gold lighter is gone. Stolen. You have stolen it. You, or that boy.” He looks in my direction.

“You are wrong, we don’t have your lighter.”

“No. I’m not wrong.”

Papi runs his hand through his hair and strokes his mustache.

Drop it. Nobody will notice. Papi raises his eyebrows and glances at Rosa. He smiles and nods toward the house. She leaves without a word.

Segundo shifts his stance and takes two steps toward my father. His fists clench at his sides, and he settles his weight into his thick legs. He does not look as soft as I first thought.

“Mexicans,” he says and spits. “Give me my lighter. I know you have it.”

“You know nothing about me,” Papi says. “I don’t steal.”

“Liar,” Segundo says.

My fingers close around the lighter. My mouth is suddenly dry, my breath a thousand miles away.

Segundo circles to Papi’s left. In our neighborhood fights happen fast and fierce. But here, in a perfect neighborhood where trees crowd the streets, all that matters is money. Money pays lawyers, and lawyers walk all over people like Papi.

Segundo raises his hand and points his finger as if he intends to poke my father in the chest. Papi swats the rude man’s hand away.

“You’ll regret that,” Segundo says.

“Pack up, Ernesto. We are done here.” Papi doesn’t look at me when he speaks.

Segundo kicks the stepladder. It crashes on its side.

“Now, Ernesto. Pack up, I said this day is finished.” Papi’s voice is much louder than normal. He grabs the fallen ladder and sets it upright with one hand, slamming its feet on the tarp.

A sudden breeze rustles the garden plants, and ripples float across the black mirror pool.

“You are not leaving with my lighter,” Segundo says. “The police will be called.”

Papi’s cheek muscles tighten. His hands flex and a blue vein as thick as a pencil rises on his forehead.

“I don’t have your lighter.”

“Thief. Liar and thief.”

Papi steps forward. He clenches his fists.

Segundo sees he has pushed the wrong man too far and starts backing away. At a safe distance he holds his cell to his ear and talks into it. Then ducks inside the sliding glass doors.

“Goddamn the rich,” Papi whispers. “Let’s go, there is nothing more for us here.”

We pack in a hurry, without speaking, and chuck our gear into the truck’s bed. When we are done Papi grabs me by the shoulder and kneads my collarbone. He brushes the hair from my eyes.

“Forget about him,” he says. “Forget what he says. He is wrong about us. We earn our money. We own our dreams. We do not need to steal from him.”

I say nothing. Papi looks toward the tunnel of vines.

“Let’s go, it stinks around here.” He nods toward the  driver’s side of the truck for me to get in. I see in his eyes that he would never believe his son could steal. And it is clear I am his dream and that he works like a dog so I can have my own dreams.

“What?” he says. “You like it here with all these goddamn trees? Vamonos, let’s go home, where we belong.”

I walk around the back of the truck, and when I pass the tailgate, where my father can no longer see my hands, I toss the lighter into the vines.

Papi fires the truck up and clicks on the radio, loud, and swivels the dial until he lands on a mariachi station. Streams of afternoon sun burn through the Ford’s windshield. By the time we get to our neighborhood, Papi is grinning again. He slaps me lightly on the arm with the backs of his fingers and points out a young chuco not much older than me crossing the street in front of us holding a small child’s hand. The child carries an ice cream cone. A glob of melted ice cream falls from the child’s cone to the hot asphalt, and without missing a step, the chuco bends to the street and scoops the melt with two fingers. He plops the ice cream back on the child’s cone and smooths the drips away with his thumb. The child holds back tears and licks the cone.

Papi turns the radio up loud and kisses the tips of his fingers. He touches my mother’s picture and shifts the truck into gear as the light turns green.