A gift that nobody wanted

“They don't give you a watch, you're the gift, they offer you for the birthday of the watch.”

JULIO CORTAZAR.

It was strange how Juanchi never had money for any of his children, but for his mother and brother, the thing was different. Juanchi's mother, an old woman, still lived in the city and, with her, the wife and children of her first child, the other Juan who ventured to Caracas and, more never, nobody knew about him.

When Juanchi planned a trip to his town, he collected all the cash he could and assembled food boxes to take him to his mother. She was very demanding with him and he, very loving and selfless with her. All the money she was carrying, she kept in a locked wooden trunk, but the grandchildren knew where she kept that key, so they simply waited for Juanchi's days in town to pass, to proceed to extract, from little by little, the old woman's money to drink rum, because everyone was addicted to alcohol. So, without knowing it, Juanchi stopped giving money to his children to go to classes or to buy a pair of shoes, to collaborate with the vice of his nephews.

Once, someone told Juanchi that his brother Juan was in Puerto la Cruz, on the sides of the market, asking for money to survive, lying on a sidewalk. To Juanchi, this affected him and he set out to look for him on the next trip he made for the town.

Therefore, it was proposed that next December he would take his mother as * Christmas gift *: the son that lost for years. Then and despite Vicenta's refusal, that December passed through the Puerto la Cruz market and, indeed, he found it after traveling several streets.

At first, Juan did not recognize Juanchi and vice versa, but the blood called and something ignited the spark of life shared from childhood to his early adult years.

Juan the great was ashamed of the state reflected by so many years of abandonment in an unknown city, (he did not even remember how he went there) and Juanchi, excited to rescue his brother, only thought about the joy he would give his mother with He, as a gift.

Then, without much thought, he mounted it in his car, despite the bad smell it emitted, the dirty and ungainly by the ravages of destitution. Along the way, Juan just slept, snoring like a tractor, so much that he almost didn't let Yolanda del Río be heard with "Nobody's Daughter," a recurring song on Juanchi's travels.

When they arrived in the city, Juanchi had small bright eyes of such emotion, imagining the mother's joy in recovering her lost son. But, nothing could be further from the truth, they all fell on him, they all fought against him for having returned that sick drunk to the house. What hurt Juanchi the most was the tone of his mother's voice when he declared: - This booty you brought is not my son Juan, my son died in Caracas, go see what you do with that thing, because nobody here wants it!

Confused, Juanchi proposed to Vicenta to take him with them to Caracas, but she refused, claiming that if his mother, wife and children refused to take refuge, how he intended to take care of him, if he worked all day. So he imposed himself and Juanchi had no choice but to return before planned and without warning so that they would not return the "gift" that nobody wanted.