Can sounds (Short story)

CAN SOUNDS (Short story)

He held on to the field trip notice, crumpled in his hand so tightly that his fingers were going numb. Tomorrow was the deadline to turn in the museum permission slip—and the ten dollars—but it might as well have been two hundred. He didn’t have the money and was afraid to ask his mom. Javier was eleven and just beginning to become aware of the world around him—of his life and how it compared to others’.

His mom, who worked at the nearby grocery store, had enough on her mind with the late rent and the pile of bills stacked beside her night table. The kids at school made him even more aware of how much he lacked: the old, worn-out pants, the same shirts again and again, none with any fancy emblem stitched on the chest.

And to add salt to the wound, his grandfather—known as Don Manuel to everyone in the neighborhood—lived with them. Don Manuel was a war veteran who had been injured and sent home with little more than a few bills in his pocket and a lifetime of pain and trauma. He had once been an accountant, but when he came back, jobs were scarce, and depression set in. He neglected his family and turned to drinking and violence.

As time went by, he realized life had passed him by. Now he was an old man with no money and no family—except for his only daughter, who had taken him in out of a sense of duty. But even so, he made things difficult for their already struggling little household.

Don Manuel helped some by collecting cans and bottles from trash cans and around town in a rickety old shopping cart. That only added to Javier’s struggles, because Don Manuel walked him to school every day, and that gave the kids at school an excuse to rub Javier’s dire situation in his face. The kids had even come up with a nickname for him: T.B. for Trash Boy—even though he was old enough to walk by himself. “Not until you turn twelve,” his mother would say every time he argued about having to walk beside his grandfather.

If only Javier’s dad were here, his life would be so much better. But his dad was dead, killed in an automobile accident when Javier was only six However, all hope was not lost he was going to ask his grandfather is if he could accompany him to raise the money for the field trip. Well, his abuelo was in a good mood and had not protested having him come along on Saturday, but only for a few hours he proposed because it was going to be one of the coldest day of the year.

Javier woke up extra early on Saturday and even prepared his grandfather his coffee and a small pastry. After their meager breakfast Javier put on his coat, two pairs of gloves and some thermal underwear. Before they headed out his grandfather gave specific instructions which Javier was not paying attention to and his grandfather was full aware. To many rules grandpa’ for only collecting cans. Its not as easy as it looks his grandfather snapped back as he violently yanked the straps of his boots. Ok, I’ll make it simple one rule only then. You do not get cans or bottles from the dumpster I will do that his grandfather calmly replied. You can cut yourself and get an infection and then we will be in so much trouble with your mom, and I am not having that her said. As they headed out Javier was starting to have second thoughts hanging out with his grandfather collecting some elses’s trash could prove to be a challenge. How about if someone from his school saw him his name was truly going to hit home then.

They had only been out for an hour when Don Manuel stopped next to a park bench. From the inside pocket of his old coat, he pulled out a few pieces of bread wrapped in paper and handed them gently to a homeless woman sitting there with a worn blanket around her shoulders.

“Gracias, Don Manuel,” she said, smiling weakly. “You’re a blessing.”

Javier stood still, watching. A few blocks later, another man with a long beard and cracked shoes greeted his grandfather with a respectful nod. “The old man with the heart,” he said, tapping his own chest. Don Manuel gave him a few coins and patted his back.

People on the street knew his grandfather. They called him by name. They respected him.

Javier’s cheeks burned—not with shame, but with something else. He suddenly saw his grandfather with new eyes. He wasn’t just an old man with a cart full of cans. He was someone who gave, someone who cared, even when he had almost nothing himself.

Just as that warm feeling took root in Javier’s chest, Don Manuel clutched his own. He staggered and fell against the cold metal cart.

“Abuelo!” Javier shouted, rushing to catch him.

The street noise faded as Javier held his grandfather’s hand and screamed for help. In the chaos that followed—the sirens, the blur of the ambulance—Javier never let go.

Later, at the hospital, with the cart parked silently outside, Javier sat beside his mother holding Don Manuel’s worn gloves in his lap. He no longer felt small or ashamed. He felt proud.

Proud to be the grandson of a man who, even in broken boots and silence, carried more dignity than most.

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Guadalupe Cisneros Villa
Madrid, Spain
2025