While I can bear to lose love, I cannot bear to lose honor. - Rudy Ruiz

His father had yearned to give his family the American Dream, to make up for the Mexican Nightmare he had lived as an orphan, roaming from town to town begging for food during the Revolution, sleeping wherever he could find shelter or work. And still he toiled in the darkness of his tire shop on the south side of the river to support the family he both adored and despised on El Otro Lado. But, it was obvious to Fulgencio that his father's daily crossing of the river failed to cleanse him of his demons, failed to purify him of his tormented thoughts. There were times when his father just had to hit someone, anyone standing nearby.

But now those days seemed long gone, as distant as the feeble stars dimmed by the growing lights of the city. And although his father would assault him no further with his fists or with his belt, a lonesome wrath twisted through him like a venomous knife, like the hunger he had known as a child, eating the thrice-refried beans that tasted like the dirt that mingled with the tears on the floor beneath the kitchen table. Maybe he had been given a chance at this Sueño Americano, but he felt inexplicably robbed of something greater.

I think we're all a little bit crazy. But once we figure that out, we can start doing something about it.