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.He taught his three afternoon classes, and when he finished his fingers were stained with chalk from drawing the map of the republic on the blackboard.When the session was over and the children had left, he walked among the desks and sat down at the last bench.The single light bulb hung from a long cord.He sat and looked at the areas of color indicating mountains, tropical watersheds, deserts, and the plateau.He never had been a good draftsman: Yucatán was too big, Baja California too short.The classroom smelled of sawdust and leather bookbags.Cristobal, the fifth-grade teacher, looked in the door and said: “What’s new?”Salvador walked toward the blackboard and erased the map with a damp rag.Cristobal took out a package of cigarettes and they smoked, and the floor creaked as they fitted the pieces of chalk in their box.They sat down to wait, and after a while the other teachers came in and then the director, Durán.The director sat on the lecture platform chair and the rest of them sat at the desks and the director looked at them with his black eyes and they all looked at him, the dark face and the blue shirt and maroon tie.The director said that no one was dying of hunger and that everyone was having a hard time and the teachers became angry and one said that he punched tickets on a bus after teaching two sessions and another said that he worked every night in a sandwich shop on Santa María la Redonda and another that he had set up a little shop with his savings and he had only come for reasons of solidarity.Durán told them they were going to lose their seniority, their pensions, and, if it came to that, their jobs, and asked them not to leave themselves unprotected.Everyone rose and they all left, and Salvador saw that it was already six-thirty and he ran out to the street, cut across through the traffic, and hopped on a bus.He got off in the Zócalo and walked to Olmedo’s office.Toribio told him that the car he was going to drive would be turned in at seven, and to wait awhile.Salvador closed himself in the dispatch booth and opened a map of the city.He studied it, then folded it and corrected his arithmetic notebooks.“Which is better? To cruise around the center of the city or a little farther out?” he asked Toribio.“Well, away from the center you can go faster, but you also burn more gasoline.Remember, you pay for the gas.”Salvador laughed.“Maybe I’ll pick up a gringo at one of the hotels, a big tipper.”“Here comes your car,” Toribio said to him from the booth.“Are you the new guy?” yelled the flabby driver manning the cab.He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a rag and got out of the car.“Here she is.Ease her into first or sometimes she jams.Close the doors yourself or they’ll knock the shit out of ’em.Here she is, she’s all yours.”Salvador sat facing the office and placed the notebooks in the door pocket.He passed the rag over the greasy steering wheel.The seat was still warm.He got out and ran the rag over the windshield.He got in again and arranged the mirror to his eye level.He drove off.He raised the flag.His hands were sweating.He took 20 de Noviembre Street.A man immediately stopped him and ordered him to take him to the Cosmos Theater.The man got out in front of the theater and his friend Cristobal looked into the side window and said: “What a surprise.” Salvador asked him what he was doing and Cristobal said he was going to Flores Carranza’s printing shop on Ribera de San Cosme and Salvador offered to take him; Cristobal got into the taxi but said that it wasn’t to be a free ride for a buddy: he would pay.Salvador laughed and said that’s all he needed.They talked about boxing and made a date to go to the Arena Mexico on Friday.Salvador told him about the girl he’d met that morning.Cristobal began talking about the fifth-grade students and they arrived at the printing plant, and Salvador parked and they got out.They entered through a narrow door and continued along a dark corridor.The printing office was in the rear and Señor Flores Carranza greeted them and Cristobal asked whether the broadsides were ready.The printer removed his visor and nodded and showed him the broadsides with red-and-black letters calling for a strike.The employees handed over the four packages.Salvador took two bundles and started ahead while Cristobal was paying the bill.He walked down the long, dark corridor.In the distance, he heard the noise of automobiles along Ribera de San Cosme.Halfway along the corridor he felt a hand on his shoulder and someone said: “Take it easy, take it easy.”“Sorry,” Salvador said.“It’s very dark here.”“Dark? It’s going to get black.”The man stuck a cigarette between his lips and smiled, but Salvador only said: “Excuse me.” But the hand fell again on his shoulder and the fellow said he must be the only teacher who didn’t know who he was, and Salvador began to get angry and said he was in a hurry and the fellow said: “The S.O.B., you know? That’s me!”Salvador saw that four cigarettes had been lighted at the mouth of the corridor, at the entrance to the building, and he hugged the bundles to his chest and looked behind him and another cigarette glowed before the entrance to the print shop.“King S.O.B., the biggest fucking sonofabitch of ’em all, that’s me
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