You think it’s a small apartment but it is a big room divided into three smaller rooms: one for the dining table and the fridge; another for the stove and the tin tub; and the third space is the living room, the tv room, the play room, the homework room, the room where the rats dance on our bellies while we sleep, the room below the bridge outside, the bridge over the canal, the canal where the rats come from, the rats enter your little bedroom and dance on your parents’ bellies, the rats come to dance and your mother says don’t tell your teacher rats dance on our bellies but you do anyway, you tell him in Spanish even though a sign on his breast says “English,” you tell him rats dance on your belly then you tell yourself that you shouldn’t have told him, that there are bigger problems like the black widow spitting light next to the toilet outside, the toilet is outside, there is no shower the landlady says and your parents move in anyway, your parents move in the dark and the black widow plucks and plucks light, you can see the shadows of drunks walking on the bridge, it is dark inside but not outside where the bridge is bright, where you dream yourself running away with a Mickey Mouse coin bank and one doll, the blonde one with the black stripe on the crotch, but inside, where you and your brother sleep in the same bed, your brother’s belly is warm, your belly brown and soft like paws, claws of rats keep you awake