#420 Barefoot Dogs- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho
This is the title story of this collection. As in most of
them, it’s about a wealthy family fleeing the violence in Mexico City. They
have a newborn child and the father is up early taking care of the baby, reluctantly
and resentfully.
“I take the baby out and feel him looking at me. I avoid his
eyes. He is an exact replica of me. It gives me the creeps.”
He’s ashamed that he has fled ashamed of what has become of
him family. “What a horrible and pathetic father. How immature, how useless and
cowardly. I imagine her asking herself why she’s still with me and what’s
keeping her from leaving, from meeting someone else, a real man. Someone like
my father.”
His father has been kidnapped, and as he continues to move
his family away from danger, the kidnappers send parts of his father they have
cut off, in boxes to him. The violence that follows then is no joke.
As this collection finishes, I am left feeling a little
confused. I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel. I can’t say that
anyone in these stories deserves the violence that befell them, but they aren’t
painted in a great light either. They are wealthy, privileged, sheltered and
out of touch with reality.
I guess this story is a microcosm of it all. If you focus on
the father-son story lines, on a human level, you can sympathize. But on the
other hand, we see a man who has fled mexico, his father is being cut up into
small pieces and his thoughts are about gow embarrassing it would be to rent an apartment
already furnished; or how he could furnish it himself by buying the whole
furniture store, but he wouldn’t because it was all too cheap for his taste.
So, again, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about characters I have no
connection with.
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