An elderly man has just a month to leave his home. A young woman from his neighborhood is soon to be unhoused. Slowly but surely, the two form an unlikely yet transformational friendship in this warm and funny novel about love and community.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Kind of Aloe Vera by Tomas Moniz, which releases on September 29th 2026.
Seventy-five-year-old Rey has lived on the same block in San Francisco’s Mission District for most of his life, watching his city transform. A widower for ten years, he spends most of his time volunteering at the library, but by the end of the month, Rey must move into a senior retirement and leave his neighborhood behind. It’s at the library during one of his last shifts where he meets Q, on probation, post breakup with her girlfriend and dealing with a troubled family. As Rey tries to decide what to do with the rest of his days, literally counting them off and cutting his remaining ties, Q begins to insert herself into his world in a way that he can’t deny.
A story about Latinx identity, intergenerational friendship, and chosen family, Moniz’s novel takes us on a journey through senior dance classes, illegal bike trips over the Bay Bridge, and fair housing rallies. And as the days tick down, Rey and Q find themselves leaning on each other for answers on how to find community and purpose, make amends, and process grief.
For readers of Steven Rowley and Claire Jimenez, equally funny and tender, The King of Aloe Vera delights in how we choose to live, and live out, our lives.
EXCERPT
October 1st: Loose Ends and Final Wishes
Rey swings open the front door of his two-bedroom apartment in the Mission to begin his regular morning routine: gather the SF Chronicle before someone (and he knows exactly who) steals it from his bottom step where it is regularly deposited, despite his repeated attempts requesting the paper be delivered to the top of the steps so it has less a chance at being stolen. He’s a thirty-three-year subscriber to the printed version (yes, he even has a Local Legend Supporter trophy to prove it), so you’d think the Chronicle would comply with his wishes, but five days out of seven, there it is, eleven steps below his front door, just asking to be taken.
But on this fine morning, Rey discovers a very official Notice of Entry affixed to his front door, OCTOBER 1ST: 3RD AND FINAL WARNING printed across the top in red.
And for the third time Rey peels it off.
However, the date gives him pause: there really is only one month remaining before he has agreed to move out of his apartment and into the San Leandro Rolling Estates Retirement Community and Park.
“Excuse me, are you Reyes Calderón?”
Rey reaches behind him to grab the broom hanging just inside and then turns to see a person dressed in tan golf pants and a black puffer jacket with a clipboard in one hand and a phone in the other. He begins to ascend the stairs.
“I’m Jonathan Gusman and I’m here with Bay Investment Management Group. We’ve been trying to reach you. It’s imperative we assess the apartment per your agreement signed . . .”
Jonathan pauses long enough for Rey to point the head of the broom and prevent him from taking another step. On the sidewalk below, a person walks into view, and Rey hopes they will intervene in the impending fracas, but instead they walk on by, talking on their phone.
Jonathan says, “Wow. Did you really set up this vacate agreement ten years ago?”
Rey responds, “The only one vacating right now is you off of my property.”
“Listen we just want to assess the state of the apartment. Make necessary repairs before it goes on market.”
Jonathan takes another step up.
“I object. I’m not comfortable with that.”
Rey gives a warning jab with the broom, which causes Jonathan to stop.
“It’s not really about your comfort. It’s the law. It’s in your signed contract, which, we should remind you, came with a relocation fee that already has been deposited in escrow, per our agreement.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘we’?”
“We’ve tried repeatedly to contact you over the last few months. We can get the sheriff’s office to accompany us if need be but . . .”
Rey attempts another jab and almost loses his balance, quickly grabbing the handrail. One day these steps will be his demise, another reason for his request to have the paper left at the top of them.
“Please, Mr. Calderón. Watch yourself.” Jonathan backs down the steps. “You need to honor your agreement. I’ll be back with reinforcement if necessary.”
Rey, two steps from the top, one hand firmly gripping the rail, the other clutching the wooden handle of his handmade broom, imagines he appears stately, kingly.
“Do what you need to. But before you leave, can you toss me my paper?”
Jonathan does, in fact, toss the paper up as he departs. Rey returns to the top. Victorious. He surveys his kingdom: Shotwell Street. He can see up to the corner of Eighteenth Street. He’s witnessed the neighborhood change and shift. Morning laborers hustling to bus stops and BART stations; posses of teenagers, mostly boys, some girls, all with black backpacks, shouting and running mornings and afternoons; the women and some men of the night standing on the corners barely dressed, cars rolling slow, music blaring; then the skittery tech workers; the scooters and bikes and so much spandex; the moms pushing fancy strollers; businesses opening then shuttering: the auto shop four buildings down now a dance company called ODC (which does offer discounted classes for seniors), the liquor store on the corner of Seventeenth now the Corner Cafe, a coffee house with laptops on every table. More recently, the numerous tents on sidewalks, the pushcarts and pilfered shopping carts overstuffed with belongings. Through all of it, Rey has hung on, waiting, slowly preparing for and perhaps dreading the plan he and his beloved wife, Juliet, concocted: moving into a two-bedroom house in a retirement community in San Leandro, his childhood hometown across the bay. It would have been perfect living just outside the city, so she could still visit friends and take classes, but they could also have had space, a yard, fruit trees, a garden. It’s been eight years since Juliet passed and he hasn’t amended the plan because Juliet would have loved a yard and a garden.
He recalls the way his mother took care of the landscaping when he was growing up: plots in the front yard filled with equisetum (which always died, too hot) and aloe (which took over), the garden boxes in the backyard rotating tomatoes in the summer, kale in the fall, the one loquat tree, a remnant from the Lao tian family his parents purchased the house from. His mother tried to control the aloe: encircled it with lava rocks or bendy boards to keep it at bay. She even tried to remove it at various times, but months later, along a slightly different part of the wall, the aloe always returned.
Rey closes the front door and grabs his Moleskine calendar from the living room and begins his final monthly to-do list. He titles it Loose Ends and Final Wishes.
Return the rifle
Swim in the ocean
Give broom to someone who will appreciate it
Bike for pleasure not health
Get bike to accomplish previous task
Confirm number of pills
Cancel ODC membership
Resignation letter to library
Calls to make
Gustavo at San Leandro
Mr. Peter Nguyen
He then calls Gustavo — crossing a line through his name — at the San Leandro Rolling Estates Retirement Community and Park to confirm his walk-through appointment in two days, securing personal transportation both there and back, part of the perks of being a founding investment member.
He promises himself he will call that Jonathan from Bay Investment Management Group next. He needs to be proactive, do more than just ignore their calls and rip down their notices, like he’s done the past few months. He’s known this moment was coming for years, haphazardly preparing to move a year ago. During the last big purge, he’d donated all Juliet’s clothing as well as the last piece of her furniture: the vanity. The apartment, now absent of any of her possessions, contains just the essentials Rey needs. In the living room: his favorite Amish rocker; a wooden coffee table; a set of four cork coasters; a blue velvet couch with two SF-themed throw pillows, one featuring the Bay Bridge, the other the Golden Gate; and a trio of plushy blankets for each of the now departed Oakland sports teams: the A’s, the Warriors, the Raiders. He walks to the fireplace, which has never been usable. But the mantel has housed many mementos over the years: wedding pictures, nesting Shaker baskets that Juliet and he had made one summer, various awards like SFUSD Administrator of the Year for Juliet.
Now only two items remain. The first is his etched glass trophy from the SF Chronicle acknowledging his commitment to the craft of quality journalism. In a month, he won’t need to sub scribe anymore because the San Leandro Rolling Estates Retirement Community and Park has a digital communal subscription for all residents. He walks back to his list and adds cancel newspaper subscription.
The second item on the mantel: his antique nineteenth-century US-issued Modoc-reappropriated musket, resting in its stand, that his father passed on to him.
Today, he will remit his resignation letter for his biweekly library shift, despite Alma’s insistence that it’s unnecessary. Today, he will cross out library in one slow, precise movement.
Rey loves the Mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library, on Twenty-fourth and Bartlett, and his volunteer shift in the kids’ book section. He makes a concerted effort whenever possible to point out to patrons the building’s magnificent architecture: its huge arched windows and art deco chandeliers in each of the four stories, the chevron-patterned oak floors, the various community meeting rooms lined with posters of celebrities exhorting people to read, such as Barack Obama (who, he proudly reminds everyone, was the forty-fourth president of the USA) and Taylor Swift (whom he knows nothing about).
His absolute favorite detail: the ornate brass postal drop slots.
“Welcome, welcome,” he would say to everyone who walked in when he stood at the front entranceway holding the gilded double doors ajar.
But whenever he encountered a parent and a boy or girl, he spoke carefully — the volunteer coordinator Alma, an irritatingly upbeat young woman with thick and chunky glasses, had cor rected him on multiple occasions: “Rey. Please remember our conversation and refer to patrons, especially in the kids’ area, as adult rather than mother or father and child, not boy or girl. We don’t want to assume anything, now do we?”
“Not at all,” Rey said.
He had learned to always agree.
Alma pronounced with a smile, “All family structures are valid. Thank you and I appreciate you so much.”
This morning, as he greets patrons at the entrance, he says to an adult and a couple of children: “Good day, have you ever noticed the mail slots, you two young people?”
“Did you hear the nice man, Adian and Andrew? He’s showing you how fancy the mail slots are.”
One child reaches out and begins rapidly flipping the flap up and down.
Rey says, “That’s over a hundred years old. Be gentle.”
The adult says, “Sorry about that. Don’t think he’s ever received mail. I mean who does anymore, right?”
The child’s adult proceeds to escort the two children into the library, ignoring the vaulted ceilings and art deco chandelier entirely.
Rey steps outside the building to inspect the entryway for any troublesome litter: gray stone walls, a massive ficus tree and a row of four tents lined up along the opposite sidewalk, various bikes and pilfered shopping carts from Gus’s Market parked around the perimeter like a security gate. He often recognizes a few of the residents from the numerous other encampments that line so many streets in this neighborhood, including his own. Rey doesn’t mind them, but he does mind the ficus leaves, which he has a weekly battle sweeping away.
He admires the morning light: blue skies, a tad crisp, but warmth coming. He faces the entrance, as someone jostles by and enters, oblivious to the mail slots.
Rey definitely loves library buildings more than the actual patrons.
In fact, he can proudly name all the branches, and begins to — Anza, Bayview, Bernal Heights — but is interrupted from his mental exercise by someone calling to him from across the street. He’s young and compact. He’s holding a number of bright blue IKEA plastic bags packed with clothes.
“Abuelo, I got something cheap for you.”
He drops the bags, reaches both hands in, and holds up a shirt on a wood hanger and a baseball cap.
“I don’t need anything right now.” Rey waves him off and goes back in the library, letting the door close smoothly behind him.
But he does discern the young man’s parting remark: “Everybody needs something, abuelo.”
Back inside, Rey wheels a cart full of returned books back to the kids’ room, which is carpeted with a floor that undulates, providing small hills and berms that children can climb on or roll down and lean against as adults read books out loud.
Over the past few weeks, Rey has been arranging the books by color. The joy that rushes through him when he tells a kid who ventures into the section: want a purple book? A green one? The child almost always laughs.
Of course, Alma has patiently reprimanded him a few times not only for this choice of book organization but for others he’s attempted in the past as well: shelving by size, shelving in piles, shelving randomly to encourage surprise and cultivate acceptance, all ideas soundly rejected by the library establishment.
Rey knows Alma coddles him because he’s seventy-five and the longest tenured volunteer at the branch. Generally, Rey would never lean into that coddling, but because it gives him a bit of autonomy, he acts surprised and compliant.
Despite his chagrin at the library’s complete lack of imagination, of vision, he cherishes his time here. He knows that Alma, although a bit rigid, appreciates him because no other volunteer wants to shelve kids’ books or sweep out front.
Strangers ask him questions: “Where’s the bathroom?” or “Is there a Wi-Fi code?”
He always gives them a little something else for their benefit: “To the left but make sure you look at the tile work around the porcelain urinals” and “No code, and did you know we have free printing up to ten pages?”
They never listen, but still.
Back out front, on his break, Rey notices once again a hand ful of cigarette butts lined up in a little design to the left of the entrance, clearly within the hundred-foot no-smoking zone. Every shift he sees that someone has created shapes and lines with discarded filters. He eyeballs the sidewalk tents looking for someone with a guilty presence. He wonders if it’s personal. He looks for the young man with the blue IKEA bags. He sees a few people standing around a tree, but no one is smoking and no one looks his way.
He heads back into the library to take the elevator four floors up to the staff room to get the library’s so-called broom, with its cheap white plastic handle and green synthetic bristles, to sweep up the butts. The elevator door opens and a person stands ready to exit. Rey’s unsure whether they’re a man or woman because of the SF Giants hoodie pulled up over their head.
He sees the cigarette dangling from the person’s lips. He gets into the elevator and says, “I’m sure you are aware that there is no smoking in the library.”
The person takes the cigarette from their mouth and responds, “And here I was about to ask you where the ashtrays were.”
Rey deduces it’s a young woman. She steps out, then pauses.
“Relax,” she says. “I’m going outside to smoke, but I know you. You’re Rey. I’m Q. You live on Shotwell. I do too, with my pops.”
“I know everyone who lives there. I’ve never seen you.”
She flips down the hood and looks directly at Rey. He does recognize her, no longer a sullen teenager sauntering up and down the sidewalks before and after school hours or hiding out on his stairs.
“Why are old men always so arrogant? I’ve basically lived my whole life on that street.”
“I’m not arrogant,” Rey says.
“I hope I never get old. Looks like somebody might be getting a little soft,” and she proceeds to tap the side of her head, making her eyes wide and round.
She steps away from the entrance as the doors slide shut.
“I have a perfect memory,” he responds, but it’s pointless. He’s alone in the elevator.
In the staff room, he grips the broom, remembering the multiple requests he’s filed for the library to acquire an actual broom with corn fiber bristles and a sturdy wood handle, but this has been denied each time.
Nobody appreciates the wisdom of old men.
It’s wisdom not arrogance.
And then it hits him. How could he have not immediately seen it: the line of cigarette butts in front of the library and her smoke break.
Coincidence? He thinks not.
Rey puts the broom away and goes back down to the first floor to find Alma, who’s in the administration offices, which have an amazing view of Bernal Hill. Like a concerned patron, he says, “I need to report a young woman to security. She’s repeatedly violated the no-smoking signs clearly posted outside the entrance.”
“Have you asked her to leave the area?”
“I haven’t seen her actually in the area smoking but I’ve swept up the evidence.”
“So you have not witnessed who is smoking?”
“Trust me, she looks like she’d do it.”
Immediately, Rey realizes he said the wrong thing despite knowing its veracity.
Alma says, “Rey, thank you for your concern. I will keep an eye out, and remember: I appreciate you.”
