ABSTRACT
On that cold February day, as I waited for Emilio and my keys, I passed the time peering at the street that by then should have been as familiar as my own. In the midst of fieldwork, it is seldom that one gets a chance to see the familiar with new eyes. So, my feet gradually freezing, I stood gazing at our beloved tenement from outside the bodega (grocery) across the street. Since all of the street phones had been mangled, I had gone in there to call Emilio's family, and I could now feel the bodega owners giving me the evil eye—as they usually did, whether I was inside their store or out. I didn't know the reason for their animosity, unless of course they suspected that I suspected that their commercial interests extended beyond tropical vegetales and bleeding carne.
