The Strangers Story

Federico Cristobal Palacios, he looked persistently interested in something, exactly what he didn't say, and no one exactly asked him what he was doing there, having nothing to do with the charge of the large chicken franchise. He sat down by the time card, near the office, in the back of the largest chicken café in Huancayo, Peru. The weather outside was damp, it had been raining, the October rains had started, and had you asked him, by the look on his face, it didn't seem to interest him anymore than the women bringing up chicken to the a certain other woman who was doing the checking of the chickens, the woman had a cigarette in her mouth. "I think," she said to the young lady with a rotting and green looking chicken, "we'll use this one for chicken soup, chop it up," she demanded.

The law was something-so it appeared-outside of her mind, not fearful of it one iota, and the look on her face told Federico, had an inspector asked her who allowed this chicken to be put into soup for public consumption, she'd decline to have anything to do with the order. She kept that cigarette in her mouth without smoking it all during Federico's deliberation of this, or perhaps it was more like contemplation.

This is the sort of thing I mean he was seeing-one person after the other came to this section, some eating chicken, then having it inspected, then putting it into the soup, or re-cooked, or used for other plates to be served to the public.

In a way it wasn't all that puzzling to him, just pay the judge or the inspector or the police officer a small sum of money, and they'd look the other way, such things happened in Huancayo everyday on a regular bases, the bribing was cheaper than fixing the problem, and heck, no one went to jail. And if anyone died because of the rotting and rat bitten meat, no one talked about it, and if they did it was forgotten the next day.