On the low stone and mortar wall the woman sits. She holds three paperback books in her lap and next to her a pair of tennis shoes rests heel to toe. On her right, a boy kicks his heels against the crumbling mortar. A black tattoo snakes into a loose heart on his upper arm. It looks like it was painted on with a calligraphy set and a wide-brush. For all the woman knows, it was.

When the woman looks to the right, the boy also looks to the right. They do not speak but they sit easily together, too far apart for friends, too close together for strangers. His jeans were once white but now have stains in the outline of spills and rain-mud splatters near the hems. He looks left as the woman looks left. They are both sitting with ankles crossed and legs bouncing lightly and with hands clasping the edge of the wall, leaned forward on straightened elbows, looking left.

A moto driver scoots over. Is this your mother? He grins. A band of older boys run behind him on the road, yelling. At the back of their pack comes a man in a ragged suit and hat, hobbling quickly on homemade crutches. Behind him a teenager runs with a rack of brown eggs perched on his head. It is unclear who is chasing and who is being chased.

The boy looks right and watches them. The woman looks right and watches them. The moto driver has pulled away and they are quiet together. He scratches his brown tattoo and she reaches down to pull the sleeve of his too-big jacket back up. The rain drops have splattered his brown skin, forming shapes of upside down tear drops like stretched out balloons, making the skin wet and alive within the shining circles.

Her friend arrives and the woman stands and picks up the tennis shoes and swings them over her shoulder. The boy stands up and picks up nothing. The woman walks right and the little boy walks left. They walk three paces and then they both turn and they raise their hands and wave. For a moment the boy wonders if he should return but the woman is in the taxi already. She pulls away and waves one more time through the dirty window. The boy turns to the wet sidewalk and jumps over an open hole.

Across the street the group of older boys surrounds a car. They hold their right arms at the elbow with their left hands and shake their right hands up and down at the closed windows, as if they can already feel the weight of money in their palms.