“They brought Juan home from the hospital yesterday morning,” Mario said, as we drank coffee on the deck at the Holiday Hotel. “He’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
“That’s terrible. We need to go visit him.”
That evening I picked up Mario and drove to Juan’s house.
“How are you, Juan?” I asked him.
“I ain’t never been better. Getting hit by that car was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”
“You crazy,” Mario said. “Look at you laying in bed and can’t even move—talking about being lucky.”
Juan said. “I won! I got a lawyer, and we sued the insurance company of the man that ran me over. We went to court yesterday, and I got a check for $250,000.”
Dolores, Juan’s wife, said, “And what good is that going to do? The insurance man testified in court that he don’t think you’re paralyzed, and said he was going to keep an eye on you. Even the judge said that if you ever take so much as a single step, you will be prosecuted for perjury and fraud.”
“I know,” Juan said. “I see out the window that man sneaking around this street with a camera trying to get a picture of me moving around.”
Mario said, “Are you faking or are you really hurt?” and Juan smiled.
He said, “Mario, in about two months I’m going to have Dolores’s brother load me up in his truck, and we gonna drive to Mexico City to visit Our Lady of Guadalupe. You come with us and after I do some praying, then you gonna witness a miracle for sure!”
Share
Read more
