For hours now Isidro and Giovanni have been under the concrete pillars of the highway bridge over the Jamapa River, standing in the little flat-bottomed fishermen's boats tied there like sheep grazing on the brown water of the river having already been rowed out to the pasture of the middle of the river and close to the open leaden waters of the gulf earlier in the morning and returned with a modest catch of bass, cat, or flounder.

From a little hardware store on one of the cobblestone streets of Boca del Rio, the boys bought a small roll of line, a few small hooks, and threaded nuts to use for weights, then scavenged for two short pieces of board washed up with the other debris of branches, limbs, and logs along the river's bank exposed at low tide. They have become mesmerized by the softly-lapping brackish water of the river, its pungent odor under the bridge, the thunderous rattle and quiver of the highway above as cars, buses, and trucks speed across, traveling always in a hurry, between Veracruz and Alvarado. Pelicans with their gliding wings stare down only inches above the river's surface. Gulls are circling and churning through invisible currents in the air, and the "real" fishermen are poling through the shallow water to check their traps and nets, already too late in the day to expect much more from the sorrowful river depleted and abused across the years.

They have been catching a few tiny children of the fish, throwing them back and catching them again in a slow cycle of waiting and excitement they themselves can hardly understand. They are balancing on the alternating currents of desperation and hope, like the sons and daughters of the village fishermen whose barely-tied boats they stand in for these unnoticed hours.

Changes in the shade and shadows makes them realize that morning has disappeared, so they hurry back to the big white house where afternoon sun is already gleaming across the big yellow "for sale" sign stretched by twine across the third-floor balcony.

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