December 30, 1997, Ciudad de Cancun, Mexico: "That’s it young lady, you’re leaving right now. I’m not kidding, get up and get moving. You’ll go to bed hungry." Quiet suddenly came over the diners in the small Mexican restaurant. The breeze floating through the open patio dining area was all that moved as the scene played.

The high school-age girl put her walkman headphones back on and rolled her eyes. Her friend, dressed in a Michigan sweatshirt, giggled. The others at the table inspected their tableware.

Several blocks away near the Plaza de la Revolucion (every Latin American city has one) a boy of 12 or 13 made his way among the touristas. "Perdon, Senorita, te gusta comprar…" He held up a small cloth chain for the Senorita. Would she like to purchase?

"I said get up. Let’s go. You’ve had an attitude all day. I’m not paying for dinner for a little bitch." The Maruichi band stopped playing La Bamba. The servers huddled by the kitchen. Those waiting for a table on the patio steps moved away or began to intently read the menu. The others at the table counted the red and white checks on the tablecloth. It’s true, they determined, there are as many red checks as there are white checks.

The high school girls looked haughty, their eyes conducting rolling exercises. Their lips pouted. They turned up the music on their walkmans. How could she embarrass them like this?

"No, gracias," replied the American tourist mechanically. "No gracias." As the boy turned away, she noticed his face. One side had been turned away from her during the exchange, but now the sight of it stopped her momentarily, like an electric shock, or the stunned feeling you get when you bump your head. Her eyes fixed on him, tried to look away quickly so as not to stare, but could not. The boy looked back with a mixture of sadness and despair. He was not surprised she had said no, nor was he surprised she was staring.

The woman moved around the table and pulled one of the girls up by her DKNY embossed shirt. "Let’s go right now."

New This Week:
A couple of Jokes, several new Photos, and a page in the Archives.

"Why did we even have to come here?" The girl was thinking. "I’m so embarrassed to be with these people – they made me come down to Cancun for Christmas. Why can’t they just leave me alone? This sucks!"

The boy’s face was horribly disfigured; grotesquely swollen and contorted on one side, perfectly normal on the other. He went and sat on the stairs of a church, his hand covering the side of his face.

The woman was alone with her thoughts. She waited several feet away for the bus to take her back to the $250 per night private resort where workers earning the minimum wage of three pesos per day (40 cents) were raking the beach. What could she do for this boy? Was he hungry? Would money help?

She knew the rules: Never give money to beggar children, it’s all part of a racket. Could it be true? Was he a Mexican Oliver Twist, taking his earnings back to Fagan? Or was he a scoundrel, like Kipling’s Kim, living well on the street, begging his way to a lucrative existence. Or, was he simply a boy, shunned because of his disfigurement, living in poverty in a poverty-struck world? If she bought him an ice-cream, would it be an unbelievable treat? What could she do? Indecision overcame her.

"I’m sorry," the woman said to the remaining party at her table – and unintentionally to the rest of the restaurant. "She’s been on the rag all day." A lack of appetite swept the restaurant. The two girls giggled out on the street. The woman left to shepherd the girls back to their resort.

Conversations started again at the tables on the small patio. The band started another rendition of La Bamba for another American tourista. The waiters swooped back into the dining area. The world moved on.

The indecision is still with the woman. Could she have done something for the boy? The bus came too soon and then she was off to the hotel.

Soon after the woman left on the bus, another woman and two girls walked by. The boy knew not to approach them; the girls had seen him, whispered something to each other, and started to giggle. He looked down.

On the way to their resort, the girls stopped at the Haagen Daz shop.