My family went to go visit Blanca and her family this weekend. G�ero, her eldest son, was selling chocolates for a school fundraiser. Part of the proceeds went to aid the research to find the cure for breast cancer. I took half of the chocolates (about twenty) to sell at work and help the kid out. LavaLamp bought me a bar on Monday, and since Aaron owed (or owes still, I don't know) him a dollar from some petty bet they placed during the SuperBowl, he demanded that Aaron buy him another bar with the dollar he owed him. Aaron said he didn't have a dollar with him, but promised me he'd buy me a bar the next day. And of course, as the saying goes, tomorrow never comes. I didn't think much of it, as I seldom think much of anything Aaron does or does not do. I just sold the bars to other people, and that was that. By today I didn't have any bars left.

So when Aaron finally approached me with a five dollar bill in his hand, I told him so. He fidgeted a little and handed me the money anyway, mumbled something, and turned to leave.

"What?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"It's for donations," he repeated a bit more clearly. "I'm not a big chocolate fan, but you could use that for something."

I won't deny the fact that I could feel my face getting red, so I busied myself with the smalls and stuck my face in one of the smalls bags, pretending to sort out the boxes inside. Come to think of it, I don't even know why I felt embarrassed.

Perhaps it's because I simply detest being in someone else's debt, but more than that, I hate it when people feel as though they are in mine. And I think that this is why Aaron forked over a five dollar bill so readily to me when he hesitated before forking over a dollar to LavaLamp. See, a few months back, when Alexis was still here, Aaron was selling carne guisada plates for his family. Apparantly his father, who has cancer, was getting worse, and they needed the money for his treatment. It was five dollars a plate. I remember clearly now how he walked over slowly to Ale and me, in his mind probably his two toughest customers. I could tell he didn't want to sell us shit, but he had to try if he wanted to help save his Dad. I could see the struggle in his face as he made his way over to us. And when he did ask us to buy a plate or two, he seemed timid, almost defensively frightened, especially towards me. I guess that's natural, after all the shit that's gone on between him and I. How do you approach a person you used to get along with really bad-ass but whom you've obviously pissed off and who's pissed you off to the point where there's an unspoken hostility between you two? I knew he thought I was the last person who'd buy him anything.

Well, Alex hemmed and hawed a lot and promised to buy a plate the next day when she had money (har, har) and I could tell Aaron could see right through that. She reached out to hand the ticket he had given her back to him, and I stared at the one in my hand, thinking of Pifas. This was around the time I had been told by the liver specialist that my father was going to die. I acted without really thinking about what I was doing, and I intercepted Alex's hand before Aaron could take it back.

"I'll buy hers off," I remember saying, fishing out my wallet from my back pocket and digging out a twenty dollar bill. "I'll take three now and I'll buy some more off you tomorrow." I felt so numb, and I felt my fingers were clumsy as I handed him over the money, despite the fact I could see myself moving in crisp, decisive motions. He gave me my change, a stunned look on his face and handed me another ticket. I asked him how his father was doing, and he told me he was really sick.

"Damn," I said, "My dad's sick, too."

"Yeah, well, my dad's got cancer, but he's hanging in there." He said this as though he thought I was talking about my dad having the flu. I remember a part of me flaring up indignantly at the same time that another part of me felt a great wave of sympathy washing over me for the guy. Cancer, just like T�o Cruz and T�a Lili. Dying, just like Pifas. I could relate to that feeling, the sorrow and apprehension and overall fear of losing a parent. You feel like you're five all over again, except these strong, loving people cannot protect you and ease your fears any longer, because they're old, and fading fast. Now it's your turn to be strong for them, and you don't know how. I still don't know how.

"Yeah... my father... he's dying." I said it and looked away, lost in thought and sorrow getting the best of me. My eyes got bright with tears and the world around me threatened to get fuzzy.

I remember the expression on Aaron's face changing, softening somewhat in a way I can't place. Like he understood, and for just that moment, we connected again, and it was the same slightly goofy, serious-minded buddy (he's always been more serious than he wants people to know) I watched Connan O'Brian with at work; we were pals, members of that cool team we used to be in FDC, back when we were a team.

"Well, when you put it that way," he said quietly, "I guess mine is, too."

We smiled at each other, for old times' sake more than anything else, and then he walked away, back with Ivan and Denise. And Ale just stared at me for a while, not quite understanding what she'd just seen. She told me later that she had never quite believed me when I told her that Aaron and I used to be great coworkers back in the day because she had never seen it, and couldn't imagine us ever having been able to work together. She said it didn't hit her that we used to be a team until that one moment, which is why she was staring. She seemed as bummed as I used to feel about it when she told me. I've gotten past the bummed to the not-giving-a-shit part.

In the end, I ended up buying six plates off of Aaron, not so much because it was him, but rather because it was his father. I could relate to his pain and that of his siblings as the child of a dying parent. And more than anything, I wanted to help, since I felt I could no longer help my own father.

Now this whole gig with the chocolates makes me think that maybe he didn't catch my intentions then. Maybe he misunderstood. Perhaps he thought I was trying to place him in my debt somehow, to guilt him into thinking I was right about our disagreements all along. So I could make his work life as miserable as he's sometimes made mine. Revenge disguised as a lovely gift?

But he doesn't know me. I serve my revenge up front and cold with a side of guasabi and rubbing alcohol. I just never thought of harming him or anyone from work. That would be stooping too low for me. I'll comfort myself with fantasizing torture while polishing my collection of assorted blades.