Summary

This section continues Boomba’s backstory and brings his path directly into Ma’s present. Still a teenager, Boomba rides a crowded train into the city with his bicycle, imagining that he can reinvent himself as someone harder and more self-reliant. A woman on the train helps him find work at a tiny late-night restaurant that survives on orders from wealthy customers. He sleeps in a corner with other boys and rides his bicycle through the streets delivering food, determined to earn enough to rent a room so his family can join him. Watching a teenage girl chop onions with a baby on her chest and accept tips from customers, he decides that charity disguises rejection of real connection and vows not to live on pity.

Two months later, men in police uniforms raid the restaurant at night, claiming that the staff are...