The bike was left to Cuauhtémoc Lázaro Hernández de la Cruz by his second cousin who had gone to live en el Norte at the age of ten. By fourteen the cousin had given in to gang life in New Mexico. By sixteen he was dead; found in the city dump by a vagrant. In the short life that he lived the cousin had amassed only two symbols of success: one a giant silver crucifix and a two-wheeled candy apple green low rider bicycle named Esmeralda, built to his exact specifications one chrome twisted pipe at a time.

I had to leave Miss Clarissa in her sick room. I was sent to the smokehouse to get meats for the cook. When I arrived, I gave the overseer the list and waited as he told a slave the quantities of each meat to load on the wagon. The slave then told me to follow him into the smokehouse, where there was a low fire burning on the dirt floor and meats dangling from the rafters.