Pedro

Aliases: none Status: Supporting

Pedro is one of the three Mexican day-laborers Uncle Rob picks up at Home Depot and installs as his drinking buddies, construction crew, and all-purpose entourage. He drinks on Uncle Rob’s couch, helps build the beer-can time portal, and gets dragged along on the alien ship adventure that follows.

Description

The prose never describes Pedro individually. He is one of three men waiting near the Home Depot entrance, “silent and patient, eyes shaded by ballcaps and years of hard work,” who climb into Rob’s truck when waved at with beer cans. The trio’s only individualized moment comes during Uncle Rob’s prison story, when each orders a drink: one asks “Yo quiero una Patrón,” one answers “Yeah, me too” in rough English, and one shakes his head, already at the perfect level of buzz: “I’m good.” The text never says which man said which line.

Role in Volume 01

• Uncle Rob’s Time Portal: Sits on Uncle Rob’s other couch drinking “in quiet witness” while Rob tells his soap-on-a-rope prison story. Helps Rob and the others cobble the time portal together out of beer cans, cardboard, and duct tape. At the story’s close, it is the Mexicans who find the stray cat after the portal collapses: “Hey! The Mexicans found your cat.”
• Uncle Rob and the Aliens: Huddles with the aliens over the beer-coaster time machine in the research room. Trails Uncle Rob onto the burning bridge. Gets seized by the alien security team along with everyone else. Stands on the transporter platform for the ride home and ends the night back on Uncle Rob’s couch.

Relationships

• Uncle Rob: employer, drinking buddy, and the man whose schemes he silently witnesses.
• Miguel, Jaime: the other two; the three are never separated on the page.
• Chino, Homeboy: fellow passengers on Rob’s worst ideas.

Notes

• The name Pedro comes from the author’s master character list. The prose never names any of the three men and never distinguishes one from another; it calls them “three Mexicans” and “the Mexicans” throughout.
• Rob’s recruitment method, in his own words: “Home Depot. Where else are you supposed to get them?”