My knees went weak. “Mateo,” I said, as gently as I could, “where did you get this?” The boy shrugged. “It was in my grandpa’s wallet. He passed away in June. He used to say he got his best haircut ever on Calle Ocho, and he never finished the story.” He looked at my father’s red chair. “I thought maybe you could finish it.”

I put down my clippers. I knew that handwriting, and I remembered a day in 1975 when I was eight, sitting behind the register. A young man had come in with no money, begging my father for a haircut for a job interview, and my father had cut it and written something down. I had forgotten his face.