They’re often confused with my addicts because both spread stench and grime from Placita Barceló to the businesses in Miramar. But no, they are a class apart, my heralds of madness. Inhabitants of a netherworld, one cackles and shouts obscenities, another sleeps alongside a prosthesis, and yet another goes out of her way to walk dogs in a shopping cart. Among them, stands out an old black man with a cane and frayed clothes, barefoot and silent, smoking cigars. Every Sunday, as soon as he sits at La Placita the regulars shower him with food and coffee. A fair reception for my most mystical Lazarus.

The Lazarene